Wikipedia talk:Why Wikipedia is not so great

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Contents 1 missing history 2 "solutions" 3 more "solutions" posed as "Problems with this page" 4 tulips 5 Lets rename the page 6 The Encyclopedia that Slashdot built 7 Why anonymous? more "solutions" 8 Valid corrections 9 attempt to confuse issues with "replies" 10 Wikipedia Boycott Campaign 11 Bullying 12 Crosses and stars as symbols for death and birth dates in the German Wikipedia 13 Why NPOV is not so great 14 What is the point of... 15 Why I hate Wikipedia 16 Wikipedia and Educational Use 17 Wikipedia Deletes Everything 18 Deleting accounts 19 (In addtion to Wikipedia Deletes Everything ) 20 What should be done with wikipediasucks.com? 21 Information overload and child issues 22 "Bias" 23 IPA

[edit] missing history

What, no talk about? re: history logs, I believe that I've got archives of edits which are no longer reflected in the history logs. How long to logs last for? ~ender 2003-04-03 02:10

[edit] "solutions"

"Why Wikipedia is not so great" has some very valid points. I am not sure if some actions have been taken to address the issues raised. Some suggestions I have are:

• 1. Implement a review system to review the contents before a page can be published. Something like if a page passed a couple of positive reviews (determined by the author or site owner), the page can be published.
• 2. Create a Credit profile for each editor or registered user like what EBay does for its sellers and buyers. Editors with the higher positive review points (credits) will have more power (less or no review needed) to contribute to Wikipedia.

Doing the above will improve the quality of Wikipedia and raise the bar for "bad" contributions. ~gchan

[edit] more "solutions" posed as "Problems with this page"

The problem with this page is that very little evidence is given, and that there is no emphasis on trying to solve the problems with wikipedia. I propose a new page, called Wikipedia:Unsolved Problems. In that page, Each problem should be listed, along with links to examples in Wikipedia. Then, suggestions for how to solve the problems could be offered. Jrincayc 14:02, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That's Wikipedia-centric. What about attitudes like "this is an experiment and its problems can't be solved" or "sue it out of existence, it's a cancer"? Not everyone sees Wikipedia as something to improve.

[edit] tulips

'Too much nonsense is added that sounds as if the author had taken LSD, peyote, or psilocybin. For example, "Mommy Tulips live in the Philippine Islands. Many baby tulips sprout from her. For more information, please e-mail us at [email here]". What's that about?'

from what article is/was this excerpt? ✈ James C. 18:05, 2004 Jul 26 (UTC)

[edit] Lets rename the page

I propose that this page is renamed to Wikipedia: Unsolved Problems, to emphasize the fact that these are problems that need to be solved, rather than unsolveable permanent problems. Jrincayc 02:31, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Great idea. I suggest you do it right away. TrollQueen 07:18, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Done. Jrincayc 14:08, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not such a great idea, I moved it back. For one thing, these are not necessarily problems that anyone is trying to solve, for another this particular title is mentioned in several print publications. I would expect an "unsolved problems" page to be more of a serious discussion of problems, not the random rants found on this page. Why not clone this page, edit out the sillier stuff, and link to it from here? Stan 15:10, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Really really bad "idea" as noted above.

I think that the thing to do with this page is to remove the links to it and allow it to molder away like the back issues of People at a public library. It is out of date, and though an important historical artifact, not especially relevant today. I can think of a number of problems and challenges that Wikipedia faces that aren't mentioned, and some of the things in the essay have turned out to be unimportant. uc 15:46, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's been updated with some Wikipedia:Criticisms noted. It's an essay now, not just a list of incoherent points, some of which were just wrong.

[edit] The Encyclopedia that Slashdot built

On the one level, I sympathize with this objection. A good parable to make this point is to compare the lengths of the articles on, say, William Shakespeare and Linux, or even Calvin and Hobbes. Of course, the specific articles I compare may change from time to time, but I've been using this parable for a year, and it's never been too hard to find articles to suit.

Yes, this is a very biased kind of research. So it goes.

No, it's editorial balance you're talking about, not editorial bias. It's a common error. Read this.

On the other hand, I'd like somebody to explain to me why the encyclopedia built by geeks has such a lousy science fiction article. As of tonight, the top-level article on this subject of supreme nerd importance is god-awful wretched. The stuff on specific SF topics can be pretty good: Foundation Series is a featured article, and I think Three Laws of Robotics is pretty close. (Futurama may get there someday, but it needs a critical eye and a metric armload of references.) Still, the article which should introduce all of these great artworks and give them an overall context is pretty, well, lacking.

In fact, I'd go a mite farther and suggest that science fiction has the same sort of problems that postmodernism has faced—the articles, at any rate. To wit: we face a subject where almost everyone connected with it has a set of unshakeable opinions. I say that Foundation is hard SF, another contributor says that it is soft SF, and neither of us have so much as a journal article to back up our contentions. The best we can do is to present the arguments which convinced us—or really, the arguments which our college buddies invented over beer and pizza. This runs right up against the no original research policy, and I'd say we don't even get that far most of the time.

A set of fans can type up a vast amount of detail about a particular work. With effort, successive rounds of editors can give the whole thing an overall form and make it "encyclopedic" in a good way, not a bad one. This is what happened with Calvin and Hobbes, and I think something like it can go on with Futurama. The problem happens when we need an overall view of a large topic—say the whole of cyberpunk, or even the whole of SF. If no one has a textbook to loot, it's hard to plan a Grand Design, and the article may well descend into mishmash. (Remember Mostly Harmless: the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash does not really exist; it is only the sum of all the ways one could look at it if it did.)

As far as the postmodernism article is concerned, it may be that no one outside the Wikipedia has written a sane and comprehensible account of the subject. If the subject is de facto indistinguishable from academic obscurantism (or from random noise), then it is up to the Wikipediphiles to create such an overview from scratch.

And what an exciting prospect that is.

Anville 01:57, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why anonymous? more "solutions"

Just an idea: In many online forums people are not allowed to post anonymousely. So why are they in Wikipedia? What about only allowing registered users to contribute to Wikipedia? It's not hard to sign up to Wiki so that wouldn't do any harm. --Maxl 21:52, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A lot of users start with a couple of anonymous minor edits before deciding it's worthy to register. On the other hand, vandals and other miscreants can easily register accounts to do their evil deeds. Your proposal would only make things harder for the legitimate users, while doing nothing to deter the ones who are up to no good. --cesarb 01:39, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your idea has been debated thoroughly and continues to be so. Since the beginning of Wikipedia, people have proposed requiring registration to contribute. For the time being it is settled, and you can bet on Wikipedia allowing anonymous contributions for a long time. ✈ James C. 16:30, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)

The only thing you can do is force people who want to remain anonymous to use various shields that obscure the fact that they are still anonymous. Or worse, force them to adopt real-looking names that will amplify the problems worse. At this point anyone who raises this non-issue is just uninformed. You can make a case to ban persistent pseudonyms but certainly not un-named anonymity or throwaway accounts.

[edit] Valid corrections

You say "The self-esteem of a bad writer with a fragile ego may be damaged by people always correcting horrible prose, tautological redundancies, bad grammar and spelling." This implies that poor contributions are acceptable if they come from people with fragile egos. Perhaps if the bad writer were to be corrected more often, he would have less reason for low self-esteem. Sbz5809 09:57, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll state this a little more crudely:

Don't pamper people who suck at the English language. Jtrainor 10:00, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd just like to say that everyone should be encouraged to add to the wikipedia no matter how good their spelling or grammer is. It will all be corrected later and don't edit in wikipedia if you are sensitve about people editing what you write. Once it's in here it belongs to everyone. --The_stuart 21:29, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

No, they shouldn't. "Someone will fix it later" is a very bad mindset to take.

An encyclopedia should at least theoretically attempt to maintain basic grammar and spelling standards. Jtrainor 22:35, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

More to the point, an ongoing problem here is that since everyone thinks "someone will fix it later", nothing usually gets done since, after all, "someone else will do it".

[edit] attempt to confuse issues with "replies"

When did this page become Wikipedia:Replies to common objections? A large number of the complaints listed here have had pro-Wikipedia replies appended to them in the last few months. (Ironically, this actually exemplifies the "Crossfire" problem which one of the complaints discusses, though the pro-Wikipedian commentator seems oblivious to the joke.) I feel this page serves better as a repository of unresolved and genuine problems with the project than it does as a debating ground. Can these replies please be moved to the Talk page or to Replies to Common Objections? -- Rbellin|Talk 00:34, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yep, it's lame. Unfortunately, as with so many other just objections, most Wikipedians just don't care. I say feel free to move them to Wikipedia:Replies to common objections.✈ James C. June 29, 2005 14:21 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Boycott Campaign

The purpose of the "Wikipedia Boycott Campaign" would be to call attention to the systemic issues plaguing Wikipedia. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. Refer to User:JuanMuslim/Wikipedia_Boycott_Campaign for details. Please address any questions, suggestions, etc you may have at talk -Wikipedia Boycott Campaign. --JuanMuslim ^1m 06:42, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I have boycotted your page, because it's on Wikipedia.

[edit] Bullying

Someone added a section on bullying by administrators, which was then reverted by, would you believe, an administrator. Without commenting on any other merit of this claim, you seem to be making his point. Fool 13:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it needs reworking, at least. It is a bit argumentative, and most of what's included is already covered under "Controlling problem users vs. allowing wide participation". In fact, is anything in the Bullying section not covered there? KillerChihuahua^?!? 13:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Nope, it looks like it's covered. I revert. Fool 14:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Better covered now without using that word. Better terms are sysop vandalism and sysop vigilantiism. At least, those are the words you will find for this in a google search with the most frequency. And both are easily operationally defined: vigilantiism is acting without process and vandalism is removing any edit that would be considered by an ordinary discerning user to be of value (without knowing or caring who wrote it). For instance, reverting spelling corrections by a hated user, which amounts to adding spelling errors maliciously.

[edit] Crosses and stars as symbols for death and birth dates in the German Wikipedia

The current practice of pushing crosses and stars as a symbol for every death and birth date, including those of Jews’ (& Muslims’, Hindus’, Sikhs’, Atheists’) reflects very badly on the German Wikipedia. Please join in on the effort to rectify this very unfortunate situation. Please see the following discussion page, and feel free to join in the discussion! [[1]] --Sei Shonagon 05:33, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why NPOV is not so great

Another point: It favors well established and widely accepted ideas over ideas held by minorities. This is the kind of thinking that helps the status quo, strenghten those who are in power and harms possibilities of social and economical change.

Example: Some centuries ago most people thought the Earth was plane. According to the idea of NPOV, in those times saying that the earth isn't plane would have been dismissed as a marginal and not notable idea, as it actually happened at the beggining. That, of course, served those in power: the church. It slowered the spread of ideas contraries to those approved by the church, ideas that later on undermined its authority.

This is just an example among thousens I could give. I'm not sure I'm allowed to post this directly in the page couse Wikipedia is not a place tu publish original thought (another problematic point BTW), and I happened to have thought this by myself. Of course, this is not wholly original, it's a pretty obvious consequence of marxist thought and neo-marxist criticism as applyed in many other fields, and it wouldn't surprise me to find a similar argument somewhere else. The marxist idea that the established way of thought (part of the superstructure) is meant, first of all, to justifie the established relations of power (and above all the production relations, the infrastracture) is widely explored in literary, media and cultural studies. Sorry for my english.--Rataube 02:39, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Very few people who have thought about the Earth in the last 2000 years have thought it was flat. The three obvious facts are the horizon at sea (distant boats disappear bottom first), the different stellar constellations as you move north and south, and the circular shadow of lunar eclipses. You would need better examples --Henrygb 00:40, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I answered to a similar obection in Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia#Guarding the Status Quo--Rataube 12:20, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Some articles relevant to the specific example raised by Rataube: Heliocentrism, Geocentrism, Flat earth, and Galileo affair. While most learned people did not believe the earth was flat after about the first century A.D., for 1500 years it seems the vast majority of Christians did believe in the literal truth of passages in the Bible that claim the earth does not move. How relevant is this to Wikipedia today? Not very, I'd say. No civilization with a worldview as factually incorrect as that of medieval Christendom would be likely to invent and build computers that work well enough to operate a complex site such as Wikipedia. The fact that Wikipedia exists at all and is running before our very eyes indicates that a large subset of prevailing wisdom must be either factually correct, or close enough to be considered so for all practical purposes.

I disagree with the fashionable post-modernist claim that all belief is arbitrary and relative. Much of it is, but wherever there is solid data from the real world, the vast majority of sane people agree on it. For example, I haven't yet met a post-modernist who believes cutting off his head is a good idea. There is no serious POV debate about the advisability of cutting off one's own head---everyone seems to agree this is a bad idea. This is equally true for other countless examples of obvious truths we all take for granted. In other words, we all behave as if there really is an objective reality, which is accessible to us, so I don't see how it matters whether what we perceive as objective reality is "really" there or not. As far as we are concerned, reality is there.

Therefore, all POV debates result either from a deficiency of relevant facts, or a rejection of some or all of the facts by one or both sides. Instead of framing the POV debate in terms of POV, I suggest it would be more productive to frame the debate in terms of facts. Do facts exist? Are at least some of the facts pretty much the same for all sane people? We all behave as if the answers are "yes" and "yes." Therefore, let's try to determine what the facts are. And wherever controversy exists, let's try to identify which facts are missing or insufficiently compelling to one or both sides. Teratornis 14:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Your cuting your head off example is a good one. I agree with you that technological achievements prove that we indeed reached an undisputable knowldage level, at leat at the "hard sciences". But hard sciences advanced so well thanks to their ability to doubt on themselves. Many times, what it was well accepted by the majority of the scientific community was later discovered to be wrong. Agreement and majority aren't equal to truth. When the thing comes to stuff related to social sciences or other fields of knowldege, it gets even more complicated. As you know, knowldege is power. Presenting the current concensus as the truth has its implications. And when we aren't talking about astrophisics you can't trust on an scientific community to check new data (or recheck old one) objectively and highly independently.--Rataube 15:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Many points about majorities bullying minorities are made in the article, but not so eloquently.

So may I put it on the article? (without the galileo example of course).--Rataube 01:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is the point of...

What is the whole point of this Wikipedia stuff if Wikipedia has ALL these problems and more? It can never be high quality encyclopedia no matter how much we editors try. It can never be NPOV (even the idea of MPOV is RRRRRRRRRREALLY POV!) or factually accurate or secure... so why should Wikipedia exist? ['frαs,ti] 03:08, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure there is an article somwhere answering that question. But if you asked me, I would say even if we can't achieve NPOV and it has dissadvantages we should be aware of (see my criticism on that above), it's still a necessary guideline. We can be a high quality encyclopedia, in some are at the same level than Encyclopedia Britannica. There are many reasons why wikipedia is indeed so great. The fact that it has open criticism on itself to begin with. Other encyclopedias have the same NPOV problem, they just manage to hide it better than us. Our concept of notability, dispite its dissavantages, it's still more open, just and updated to our times, than those of other encyclopedias as far as I'm concened. I could go on with a long, long, long list of reasons, but I don't feel like it, I'll see if I can find a link for you. If anything else, it's fun. If you ae not having fun editing WP, then there's really no reason for you to edit it.--Rataube 14:09, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Here it is: Wikipedia:Replies to common objections.--Rataube 14:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why I hate Wikipedia

Wikipedia can very easily be inaccurate, like ANYONE can change the info and such

65.12.134.148 16:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Caleb

Yes, they can - the beauty of it is that anyone can change the inaccurate info back. — Nathan ^(talk) 22:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

65.12.134.148, we know that, as Nathan said. Fixing the problem is easy, but it does take effort, so we'd appreciate you not vandalising pages to prove your point. Paddles ^T_C 14:13, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia and Educational Use

From personal experience, I know that many students use Wikipedia for essays, reports, etc. The name "Encyclopedia" in your very slogan, Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia misguides people into thinking that everything that is on this website is fact. There are thousands of obscure articles, "stubs," that can easily be incorrect without proper editting and even then the vandalism to the topic can happen again. I think its important for wikipedia to warn its users not to use it as a source for high school and collegiate projects.

As for bullying, I made a topic under my own name, as a test. The topic was quickly removed, so thumbs up on that. Racial and religious intolerance is my greatest problem with the site. There will always be a group of people who will do anything to harm or offend other races, and don't see how wikipedia is stopping it, rather it is encouraging it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MaksM8 (talk • contribs) 19:25 2 August 2006 (UTC).

Just politics as usual. Wikipedia reflects what real people are arguing over, necessarily. And better they do that than warring.

[edit] Wikipedia Deletes Everything

Wikipedia deletes everything I do and I'm not even breaking the rules. All the pages I made had valuable information and didn't need to be deleted... it wasn't a personal page or a page about my friends or anything like that. They didn't even explain to me why it was deleted. So you know what... **** YOU WIKIPEDIA!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.58.39.110 (talk • contribs) 20:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia only deletes useless, offensive and questionable content. I guarantee you have not read the rules properly, if you did at all. If you say you know the rules, or even imply it, I call you a liar, and ask you to state your comments properly, without using offensive language. I encourage you to use Wikipedia properly and realize that if Wikipedia deleted everything, they wouldn't have millions of articles in existence. --MaksM8 18:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

There is no wikipedia. People on wikipedia delete what they think is useless, offensive or questionable, often without giving reasons. I have been on both sides of a deletion, and the difference between useful and useless often depends on the point of view. If you have had something deleted, check out [2] Jrincayc 03:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Although the rules seem to address all deletion criteria, there are very many rules on WP and it's difficult for a new user (such as myself) to navigate all of them, much less try to guess which specific criterion was applied. Hence why it's easy to think one's article was unfairly deleted, especially when one of the first criteria cited for speedy deletion is "patent nonsense". Can't anyone understand why a new user might feel offended when, hours after signing up for WP, their article is labeled nonsense, or spam? If you're going to put some thought into deleting an article, put some thought into explaining why. - LeaHazel 01:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly true that non-operational terms like "patent nonsense" (a Larry-Sanger-ism) must go, to be replaced by better terms. While we're at it, ditch Internet troll in governance debates, it means nothing other than "someone unpopular with someone else".

[edit] Deleting accounts

[edit] (In addtion to Wikipedia Deletes Everything )

Wikipedia sucks! It's all bullshit. It gave only words of lies and information overload. If you don't want to have a Wikipedian account, you can delete your userpage and change your password with a password, copied and pasted from a Word or notepad document. I deleted my Wikipedian accounts and now I'm free from it all! 213.240.234.212 18:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What should be done with wikipediasucks.com?

Sollog (or one of his associates) let the wikipediasucks.com domain drop. My company currently owns it, and we are wondering what the most appropriate thing to do with it would be.

We are considering to donate it to the Wikipedia Foundation but wonder if that would be compatible with the concept of NPOV/be a conflict of interest having the Foundation own it. For the time being we have redirected it to point to this article.

Should we donate it, just keep it pointing as is, or do something else?

Interested to hear ideas from critics here, respected Wikipedia editors/administrators, and Jimmy Wales or the other Board of Trustee members if appropriate. Imgroup 17:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

At the very least, pointing it here was a fine temporary solution. Thanks for taking it on and thanks for thinking of that. - Jmabel | Talk 20:32, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

On general principles, I don't like companies or organizations owning *sucks variants of their domain name... it seems like an unfair attempt to squelch criticism. (On the other hand, the .org or .info variants would be more appropriate than .com for a noncommercial informational site criticizing Wikipedia!) *Dan T.* 20:38, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

When I checked, I saw wikipediasucks.org went to a page attacking Wikipedia for "censorship" of ideas outside the "feminist/matriarchal" mainstream, then redirecting to a forum; wikipediasucks.info seems to still be available. *Dan T.* 20:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

So, I ask again, what should we do with wikipediasucks.com longer term? My company currently owns it, and has redirected it to this article for the time being. Imgroup 16:13, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Redirecting it to one of the articles with criticisms of Wikipedia on Wikipedia itself would be a sensible thing... it shows we're willing to criticize ourselves (though we usually don't do this in loaded language like "sucks"). *Dan T.* 16:36, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Information overload and child issues

Wikipedia does causes information overload, because it gives too much info. And why there is no protecting system for children. At the moment every child can read everything about sex and drugs and so on, which is a bit worrying.

WP:NOT censored for minors. *Dan T.* 20:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Why isn't that in the essay itself? Add it please. It's important.

[edit] "Bias"

We shouldn't throw jargon at unsuspecting outsiders...

Of course, it's not that important, the explanations being under the heading...but I think it looks better. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by VKokielov (talk • contribs) .

It's not even accurate, as most users confuse editorial balance with editorial bias. Including the board.

[edit] IPA

The issue/position/argument form might be appropriate for this page, but it would tend to encourage "solutions" to be stated. Maybe better used on "replies".

Without it, it's actually impossible to keep positions cleanly stated. If people want to be able to take a very different position on any issue than anyone else, there needs to be a format for that.