Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is failing/Archive 3

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

This essay should be a candidate for Speedy Delete

There appears to be a cabal of deperessed Wikipedians who are maintining this essay beyond the standard of WP:NPOV and not in accord with the suggestions of WP:EANP. Edits which attempt to question the premise of this essay are promptly reverted, and the essay is maintained in a form that lends it undue credibility. In particular, the disingenous (i.e., dishonest) use of statistical measures which are irrelevant must be critiquable or there is no intellectual honesty in this essay. Heathhunnicutt 20:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Depressed Wikipedians? I would like to direct you to WP:CIVIL. Please read it and remember to maintain good faith here. Thank you. MetsFan76 20:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Speedy delete, no, but if it were taken to MfD (which I'm not advocating), the likely result would be "userfy." Newyorkbrad 20:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Deletion is exactly what is needed. 88.112.30.147 22:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Please read WP:EANP, which states what the appropriate actions are where you feel an essay is unbalanced. Note in particular that deletion is only one of three options it suggests, and requires you to be able to make a good argument for the deletion.
Indeed, WP:EANP makes it perfectly clear what should be done: the people who are complaining about this essay should take option 3, namely writing an opposing essay that makes their counterarguments. 81.86.133.45 22:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
It's ironic, but unconvincing, when you reference a two-week-old essay as the place to read about what to do about essays that you don't like. Since this essay is in the WP namespace, it isn't owned by anyone and all editors are free to edit it and/or propose it for deletion as they please. CMummert · talk 23:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Heathhunnicutt, I presume you're new around here. Make new talk page sections at the bottom of the talk page, please, not the top. I moved your opposition to the essay to the talk page because it's much more appropriate to discuss the points I've raised on talk, than to take it upon yourself to write an opposing essay on the end of mine. You seem to be the one trying to stifle the discussion here by demanding it all be deleted. Worldtraveller 22:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
You're disingenuous, at best. I tried to balance your essay, which has been slashdotted and is a WP:SOAPBOX, and you deleted all criticism. The statistical measures you chose aren't just wrong, they are dishonest. You probably know it, and you seem to have an agenda. If you think I'm new here, check my contributions and feel free to "Have a Nice Day." Heathhunnicutt 00:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
'Disingenuous' is saying I've deleted criticism, when I just moved it to the talk page. What is the agenda that you perceive me to have? I'd be interested to know. How are the numbers at WP:1.0/I dishonest? Worldtraveller 00:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
'Disingenuous' is actually saying that you are a liar or purveyor of false information, under the guise of pretending not to understand the fact that you are doing so. My additions to your aticle made clear that your 'statistical' methods are irrelevant and using them so support your conclusion is dishonest. Your assertion that exponential growth of articles will continue is clearly your opinion and nothing to base a conclusion on, although you are welcome to state your extrapolations for what they are. You mix and match your comparisons of featured articles with total articles. Random selection of articles is especially suited to proving your point and irrelevant. Randomly selecting articles from Britannia has been done, and in comparison with WP, those articles were found to be lacking. I.e., there is evidence from more credible sources that your conclusion is false. You ignore these defects in your analysis because you want to express your deeply-held belief that WP is failing. The problem is, WP is succeeding, but your essay has been slashdotted and reads as something authoritative and police although WP:EANP. You should just delete it as a service to the community. Heathhunnicutt 00:17, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I wrote this as a service to the community. I have no idea why you want to suppress the discussion. I don't know why it makes you so upset and angry. But you're beginning to seriously over-step the bounds here if you're accusing me of being a liar. Don't do that. Worldtraveller 00:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I can imagine that your motives here are good, but I think the effects of your actions are very destructive and not worthwhile. Perhaps it is not your fault that your essay was slashdotted, but for you to maintain it without incorporating valid criticism afterward is nothing but a disservice to the community. I still believe that you have drawn unsupportable conclusions and defended them when you shouldn't have. I'm sorry I said I think you are a liar, that was completely unfair. I do think you have put forth false conclusions, but my complaint with your intellectual honesty is that you are not inviting a critical viewpoint within your slashdotted article. Meanwhile, your conclusions are drawn from extremely sketchy "math." Heathhunnicutt 01:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
If I may interject here... This article and its subsequent move into user space shows specifically a failing of the normal WP:NPOV idea with opinion pieces. First I believe there should definitely be a place at wikipedia for opinion pieces. NPOV should mean one of two things, either the article itself is unbiased and shows all points of view equally or multiple articles should be made and linked to each other in opposition. Although I disagree with what I think is Worldtraveller's opinion on whether no one else should edit his article, if that is what he thinks, the article itself should remain true to the sentiment. An opposing article, which there is, should be made and the argument against the other point of view should be made there. It is perfectly valid to air ones opinions about wikipedia in wikipedia. People may think this turns wikipedia into some sort of forum but I think that's just what wikipedia is, a forum for knowledge. Dharh 14:18, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I've revised my opinion. This essay should be a Meta-wiki article. See What_Wikipedia_is_not for reasons why. Dharh 16:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The Semantic Wiki

How could Wikipedia face these challenges? Scrap the current monolithic article model, and begin publishing incremental edits in XML instead. Make a "Semantic Wiki". (I realize this term is already used in a different sense, which sounds more like RDF content edited in a traditional wiki.)

This way, independent third-parties could serve customized edit filters into the main Wikipedia database. For instance, one site could serve only articles composed of edits made by scholars (together with minor edits by non-scholars perhaps, to allow for things like spelling corrections). Another site could serve only articles composed of edits approved by a board of editors whose particular editorial style you like. Yet another site could serve edits based on mass moderation. And yet another site (say, wikipedia.org) could allow you to select from all the available edits to an article in order to tailor the article which meets your exact quality demands. Companies like Google could mirror the edit database and apply their own proprietary search and ranking technologies. Contributors could discuss and evaluate single edits in detail, and so on.

Wikis has opened up editing. Now let's open up viewing as well. AndersFeder 04:21, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

AndersFeder, author of the above section, has twice deleted comments which refer to existing Wikipedia features which supply an article in XML format with edit history. Perhaps he should move the above section to his own userspace as an essay rather than leaving it here to imply that Wikipedia is missing a feature which it might already have. Otherwise he should explain what is not already available which he envisions so we can better understand what his vision is. (SEWilco 20:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC))
If you (and it really is just you writing, not "we") don't understand my "vision" (you picked that term, not me), why don't you just state it, rather than tagging some nonchalant "see this-random-unrelated-article" comment at the end of mine? Quit the ad hominem bullshit, and respond to the idea I outlined if you have anything to add (which I doubt you do). --AndersFeder 22:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

moved?

Who moved the essay anyway? An admin? MetsFan76 01:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Just look in the history. CyberAnth 02:23, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Just did. Aren't admin supposed to be impartial? MetsFan76 02:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
As user:Cyde says, if no one is allowed to edit this, then it is not a projectspace essay, and does not belong in Wikipedia space. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
That wasn't my question. MetsFan76 02:55, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes it was. Heathhunnicutt 03:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Heath..do you have a problem with me? MetsFan76 03:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
No. Heathhunnicutt 03:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Good. I'm glad. MetsFan76 03:14, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I think the move was impartial. We were stuck on whether the original essay should be edited by others, with some, including myself, arguing that doing so destroyed the integrity of the discussion and others objecting to an article in WP: space being "owned." The move solved the problem, allowing a return to discussing the essay, if anyone has the energy left. --agr 03:09, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
The move was certainly impartial. It is clear that having this in WP space while some editors insisted it could not be edited was causing conflict. Moving this essay out of WP space and into userspace should eliminate or at least reduce the conflict, as it's clear now that this is a personal essay. Firsfron of Ronchester 03:14, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Personal? Several editors felt the same way so how is it personal? MetsFan76 03:22, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
This indicates it is personal. Best wishes, Firsfron of Ronchester 03:31, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
That link shows me nothing. Anyway, I agree with Agr....let's move on.MetsFan76 04:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Worldtraveller's essay that was slashdotted was his personal opinion. I believed it should be preserved as he intended and responded to separately. As far as I know there is no mechanism for a article in WP: space to be restricted to like-minded editors. Maybe one should exist. But this issue is tangential to the original questions raised, which I think are far more important. Can we move on?--agr 03:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Well said, Agr. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:22, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
To briefly comment on this, the original material at WP:WIF is now userfied, but WP:WINF is not. The latter doesn't 'belong' to anyone in the sense that this one does, but it's an awkward distinction, and not one that reflects well on us to outsiders. Opabinia regalis 05:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
WP:WINF is a collective response to an individual's critique, so arguably they belong is different namespaces. I don't think many outsiders will notice, much less have a problem, but I think we are doing the best we can here.--agr 06:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Taking this to user space is a pragmatic solution to solve WP:OWNership conerns, but I still don't understand why we can't maintain an essay like this, with a definite point of view, in Wikipedia space. We already have contradictory essay pages like Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is so great and Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is not so great. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I find it remarkable that this page generated such anxiety and outrage that a concerted effort took place to destroy it, first by people editing it to 'give balance', then by me being blocked so I couldn't stop people subverting the whole point of the essay, then while I was blocked the essay being squatted on by Alabamaboy to maintain the emasculated version, then by it being moved to my userspace (in its emasculated form), then by people editing the redirect to stop it being moved back. None of these people showed any interest in editing WP:WINF, clearly showing that their interest was a classic example of FUD rather than engendering positive discussion and honest debate.
I see no reason for this not to be in WP space. The opponents accused me of trying to own the article, which was nonsense. What I tried to prevent was the efforts to dilute, destroy and downplay the arguments presented. I am sure the opponents would understand the point if I were to alter WP:WINF to show the opposite point to what it argues, or if I changed the first sentence of WP:EVAL to redefine the scope of the article. Worldtraveller 12:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
"Concerted effort"? "Concerted" means "contrived or arranged by agreement". Worldtraveller, I think you are seeing a cabal where no cabal exists. This is an interesting essay, and it has received a lot of attention. Yet as the warning states "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it." You should have at least stuck it in your own userspace if you didn't want the message "diluted" or "destroyed". Edit summaries like "This is not acceptable" indicate that you feel you can decide what is "acceptable" and what is "unacceptable" in the essay, so moving the page seems to me to be a good compromise: now you alone can decide what the essay looks like. You were blocked for violating WP:3RR, not "so [you] couldn't stop people subverting the whole point of the essay" (though I personally disagree with the block, as there was no real warning). The sooner you give up making these claims of a cabal against your essay, the better for all involved. You claim "The opponents accused me of trying to own the article, which was nonsense," but I did not oppose this essay, and even I can see there was ownership going on here. Your essay is interesting, and it has raised awareness of several issues. Yet there is no reason for claims of a "concerted effort" to destroy your work: if it's "yours", it doesn't belong in project space, and if it's not yours, it can be edited by others. You can't have it both ways. Firsfron of Ronchester 17:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
So how's this for a concerted effort: 1. several people re-write the essay to insert 'balance' - they re-write it to display their POV, ignoring the title. 2. I get blocked for trying to stop that. 3. While I am blocked, Alabamaboy reverts it to the santised version. 4. Cyde moves the sanitised version to my user space. 5. JzG deletes the redirect put in place so that people can no longer find the essay.
I am sure you would be able to understand why this is a problem, if someone were editing evolution to make it read like an article in favour of creationism. Perhaps 'even you' would be able to see that someone making sure that evolution remained an article on evolution and not an article on creationism was not trying to own it. Worldtraveller 00:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
You have a point about people attempting to rewrite evolution to make it into creationism. I would certainly be concerned, and have been concerned when editors tried similar things. It happens all the time. Yet just because there are individuals who rewrote the article, that does not mean there was a concerted effort to ruin your essay. I think your essay is interesting, and has some merits. It is my sincere hope that you continue to feel welcome on Wikipedia despite this setback, as you are a good editor. I thought the block was hasty (you were never formally warned), but you did break 3RR, a blockable offence. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry but I think there is a cabal at work here as well. MetsFan76 18:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
WP:CABAL suggests that the only time there is a cabal is when people begin making claims of cabalism. Firsfron of Ronchester 18:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
What a cabal is and what WP defines a cabal to be are two very different things. MetsFan76 18:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Not really. Wikipedia's definition of Cabal is "A number of persons united in some close design, usually to promote their private views and interests in a church, state, or other community by intrigue". Dictionary.com's definition is "a small group of secret plotters, as against a government or person in authority; the plots and schemes of such a group; intrigue." As far as I can tell, there was no secret plot here to "destroy" Worldtraveller's essay and block him from editing so that he could do nothing to stop it, as he claims above. These are claims of cabalism without any sort of evidence (such as diffs where people are shown to be plotting against him or the essay). Firsfron of Ronchester 19:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
First off, I don't need you telling me what dictionary.com says about the word. I know exactly what the definition is. If you can't see that Worldtraveller's article has been swept under the rug, then that's unfortunate. The essay is on his page now where, fortunately, people will be able to read it as it is meant to be. Anyway, just as the case with Alabamaboy last night, I'm done with you as well. MetsFan76 19:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Please observe WP:CIVIL. If you go around telling people you're "done with" them on a regular basis (every day?), you've shut off the lines of communication, which cannot help the encyclopedia. I agree that now it's in userspace, Worldtraveller should be able to to edit the article as he sees fit, deciding what is "acceptable" and what is "not acceptable" on his own, which is why I supported this move to userspace. Firsfron of Ronchester 19:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Listen, I'm not sure where you are getting every day from but I will shut off the lines of communication with people that can't be reasoned with as I do not have any use for them. It was an outrage what was done to this essay and clearly an example of a problem with WP. Are we going to continue this banter back and forth as I do not see how this is helping the discussion either? I tried to end it with my last comment yet now you want to tangle with me. I'm not the problem here. MetsFan76 20:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
People who begin their comments with "Listen", who go on to say they "have no use" for people, and who claim they "aren't the problem here" aren't abiding by WP:CIVIL, which is a problem. I can only hope that as you grow as an editor and become experienced, you will learn to follow Wikipedia policies. Firsfron of Ronchester 20:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
As I asked you, are we going to continue this? MetsFan76 20:17, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
What is left to continue? You seem unable to abide by Wikipedia policy, even when asked politely to do so. You state you're "done with" people who you believe cannot be reasoned with, but in actuality, we both agree that moving this essay into userspace will allow Worldtraveller to edit the page as he sees fit, allowing him to decide what is "acceptable" and what is "not acceptable". You're angry about what has happened to this essay over the past couple of days, but I think your anger is in some ways clouding your judgement, causing you to be incivil and supporting Worldtraveller's claim that there was a concerted, cabalistic effort to ruin his essay and block him so that he couldn't fix it. These claims have not been supported by diffs which would verify them (and I doubt any supporting diffs can be made, frankly). My post to Worldtraveller above simply states there is no cabal against him or his essay; there was no need for your incivility. You believe there was a cabal set against Worldtraveller, but empty claims without supporting diffs are somewhat pointless, something you may come to understand as you grow as an editor. Firsfron of Ronchester 20:35, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Right. Hopefully, you will grow as well. Have a good day. MetsFan76 20:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Growing is certainly one of my goals. Best wishes, Firsfron of Ronchester 20:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
And it's definitely one of my goals for you as well. Bye bye, MetsFan76 21:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Despite your sarcastic attitude, growing is important. Editors who have only been editing for a few months, such as you, often do not understand the importance of following Wikipedia policies, such as WP:CIVIL. As they come to understand the idea of collaborative editing, the importance of civility slowly sinks in. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't being sarcastic. I was only hoping that you do achieve your goal. Now I think it's best if you drop it as this is not the forum to be discussing this. MetsFan76 21:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
You were certainly being sarcastic ("Bye bye"). Now I think it's best for you to stop being incivil, stop making your unsupported claims of Wikipedia cabals and go back to editing the encyclopedia. Firsfron of Ronchester 22:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
"Bye bye" is how I say goodbye. Don't assume anything. If I was being incivil, you would know it. I also suggest you stop and go on with your own editing. Goodbye. MetsFan76 22:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Unsupported claims that Worldtraveller's essay was ruined by a cabal which plotted to ruin his essay and block him so that he could not edit it aren't very civil, and claiming you're "done with" people you don't agree with isn't civil. Please abide by the reminder left on your talk page. Firsfron of Ronchester 22:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

This essay should be a Meta-wiki article. See What_Wikipedia_is_not for reasons why. Dharh 22:11, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

More evidence of failure - Wikipedia:Vital articles

The article mentions vital articles, and seems to suggest that nothing is wrong here. There's plenty wrong. Here is my assessment of the philosophy vital articles, as follows:

  • Philosophy – we know all about this. We just got an incorrigible troll evicted (6 month block) after two months of pleading, but only after being ticked off twice by admins for being bad editors by not being nice to the troll blah blah. It is still a complete mess.
  • Beauty – this is actually not bad
  • Ethics – no tags, and not a bad article
  • Epistemology – not so bad, but still has an unsourced claims template.
  • Belief – 'may contain original research or unverified claims'
  • Knowledge – 'Some information in this article or section has not been verified and may not be reliable. Please check for inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed'. Begins 'Knowledge is what is known'. Indeed.
  • Truth – suffered a severe bout of trolling about a year ago, and is now a shattered relic of its original self
  • Dialectic – begins 'This article may contain original research or unverified claims.' Quite so.
  • Logic – I recruited an expert to tidy this up last year, but he disappeared, and the project was never completed. It's a mess.
  • Metaphysics - this has a well-deserved cleanup tag. Starts off OK but rapidly gets worse.

Existence – I tidied this up a year ago, but was vandalised late last year. I haven't had the energy to revisit it.

  • Ontology – good God I never spotted that one on troll patrol. Complete nonsense. An abomination.
  • Reality – as the title suggests, this was going to be complete nonsense, and it was. 'This page has been temporarily protected from editing to deal with vandalism.'

Dbuckner 11:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

In fact, Reality is spectacular proof that the idea of constant monotonic improvement to articles by mass access. This is the original version of the article written in November 2002. It is not a bad philosophy article. Not brilliant, but literate, accurate, informative. Now it is complete nonsense. Nonsense on stilts. Dbuckner 11:44, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

And thus we see one of the advantages of Wikipedia's model. If an article degrades too much, you can simply go back to an earlier and better revision. --cesarb 15:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Er, the whole theory of Wiki, the basic theological proposition that it is built on, is that articles can't possibly degrade like that. Or was your comment tongue in cheek. Ah, now I see it was. Very funny, my dear sir. Dbuckner 15:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
No, it wasn't. The very reason the articles don't degrade is precisely because if they do, you can simply revert to an earlier, non-degraded revision. Without that ability, one single person could simply blank the page, and you'd have instant irrecoverable full degradation. Of course, an article can temporarily degrade, but in the long run, the degradation will be reverted and the article can only get better. --cesarb 18:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
When does "the long run" start and/or end? CyberAnth 01:28, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
You are showing a very blind optimism to believe that over the long term every article is on a path to improving. Reverting is only a temporary respite, it relies on people knowing that a better version exists in the past, which isn't always the case. An article may never reach a respectable level of quality if it is consistently degrading over time, regardless of how many times its reverted. (Caniago 02:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC))
Now, I don't agree that 'Wikipedia is failing' in any global sense, but 'the article can only get better' is the kind of unreflective assumption-making that impedes meaningful assessment of where, if anywhere, we are failing. Opabinia regalis 02:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Inaccurate conclusions

As I mentioned previously, my problem with this essay is that it seems to draw conclusions which are not supported by the facts. It cites that 20% of featured articles have been demoted. That's a fact. However, the essay then concludes that this is evidence that featured articles degrade over time. I don't believe that conclusion is accurate. I can look at the changes to an article from the time it was 'featured' until it was 'demoted' and plainly see that it did NOT get significantly worse (if anything, it improved a little)... it was demoted because the standards for featured articles went up. Ergo, citing 'ex-featured' articles as showing degradation of featured articles seems to me a false conclusion. And that's not the only example. It seems like one unsupported conclusion after another to me. There are only ~3000 'featured' and 'good' articles therefor most of Wikipedia is junk... hardly the case. Take a good look at the formerly 'featured' article linked above. If standards had not improved so much then every 'Good' article would certainly now be every bit as qualified (if not more) for 'featured' status as that page would... and tens of thousands of other articles as well. Yet we wouldn't have tens of thousands of featured articles even if the standards had stayed low... simply because the process of elevating an article to 'featured' status takes time and could not have been completed for tens of thousands of articles. But that doesn't change the fact that they exist. The essay cites statistics, but then draws conclusions which can't be supported. Assuming, as this essay does, that 'featured articles' are indicative of Wikipedia 'success' - how can Wikipedia be failing when both the number of featured articles and the standards for keeping that status are increasing? --CBD 19:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that conclusion is accurate - this exemplifies most of the criticism of this essay. It is not evidence-based (you can't draw meaningful conclusions from one article) and involves just vague sentiments. If you look way up the page you can see User:SandyGeorgia, an active FAR participant, saying that FAR candidates often have additional problems, due to the neglect of not being on anyone's watchlist. And it's hardly a ringing endorsement of Wikipedia to say that it's not that articles decline, it's just that they were never good enough in the first place.
As for whether most of Wikipedia is excellent or whether most of Wikipedia is not excellent (because I never described anything as 'junk') - see WP:1.0/I. If you can interpret those numbers as saying that there is a huge reservoir of excellent articles out there, then you've got a much more vivid imagination than I have.
And how can a project be failing when it is generating fully one excellent article per day? At that rate, we'll have 50,000 excellent articles by the middle of the 22nd century. You can do the calculations, they are very simple. Call me crazy but I do think a project is not doing terribly well if it won't be meeting its core objective for almost 150 years. Worldtraveller 19:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
And your false claim that the above was "not evidence-based" exemplifies why you have failed to understand the criticism of this essay. I provided evidence - you just aren't hearing it. Your essay claims that 340 de-featured articles are evidence of article degradation. I provided a link proving that one of those 340 was de-featured withot degrading at all. The same can be done for dozens of others. Your conclusion is not supported by the evidence you cite. Similarly, you referred to WP:1.0/I. That project is currently evaluating roughly one third of the articles on Wikipedia and has currently assessed half of that 1/3rd. Thus, it has not even looked at 83% of Wikipedia articles. Of the 17% which HAVE been looked at they have rated 9% (25,901) articles as 'B' class or better. A quick look at any of those 'B' class articles will show that they are of significantly higher quality than the former 'featured' article I linked above. Assuming that 9% figure held for the other 5/6ths of Wikipedia articles it'd equate to roughly 155,000 articles better than what used to be considered 'featured'... blowing your '50,000 excellent articles by the 22nd century' claim out of the water. We've got over 50,000 excellent articles NOW. Even taking only 'Good article' and better there are ~20,000 currently. It may take until the 22nd century to 'vote' each and every one of them to 'featured' status, but that doesn't change the fact that they exist. "How can a project be failing when it is generating fully one excellent article per day?" - again, a clearly false conclusion. One article is being 'voted' featured per day. That has NOTHING to do with how many excellent articles are being generated... as I said before, if featured article standards had stayed as low as they were originally we would NOT have 155,000 featured articles by now - because the process of promoting them takes too long. Which hasn't stopped that number of quality articles from existing... only from being recognized. --CBD 20:22, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
OK. So, your first claim is that because one article hasn't declined in quality, then none of them have. That is not a realistic conclusion.
Second, you seem to be claiming that a sample of 289,000 articles out of 1.6 million is not statistically representative. Well, quite simply, it is. You can check this page to see how that works.
Third, let's check what the definition of B-class is. has significant gaps or missing elements or references, needs substantial editing for English language usage and/or clarity, balance of content, or contains other policy problems such as copyright, Neutral Point Of View (NPOV) or No Original Research (NOR). And only 25,901 articles meet or exceed that very low standard? And somehow you extrapolate from that to saying that we've got 50,000 excellent articles now? How? In fact, taking only GA or better, there are are about 3,000, not 20,000. That is likely to be a fairly complete sample, because obviously Wikiprojects are far more likely to have assessed their best articles and not yet assessed the worst, than vice versa.
If, as you believe, there are 155,000 unrecognised but excellent articles out there (9.7% of the total), then why does WP:1.0/I only recognise 2,000 excellent articles out of 289,000 assessed (0.7%)? Worldtraveller 20:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
What you describe as my first has little basis in what I actually said, and what you describe as my second claim has none. You have claimed that 340 de-featured articles are evidence of article degradation. I have proven that one of those 340 was de-featured without degrading. Ergo, it is proven that your conclusion relies on an assumption (articles are de-featured because they have degraded) which is sometimes false. Without analyzing all 340 it is impossible to say how many were de-featured for each reason (degradation vs increased standards). My personal estimation is that the increased standards are by far the more significant cause of demotion - I could be wrong about that, but you are wrong about 340 de-featured articles being evidence of degradation - barring an analysis of those 340 you can't accurately make that claim. As to the rest... I >do< think 289,000 is a representative sample - which is why I extrapolated it out to the full set. If 9% (25,901) of the roughly 1/6th of articles evaluated are B class or better then 9% (155,000) of the full set are likely B class or better. Likewise, the ~3000 'Good or better' assessed you cite times six gets you to the ~20,000 'Good or better' Wikipedia wide I cited. Apparently YOU are the one arguing that those 289,000 articles are not a representative sample. On quality, you describe the standards for B class as being 'low'... whereas I urged comparison of those 'B class' articles with what used to be considered 'featured class'... the standards may be subjectively 'low', but they are higher than what we used to call 'featured'. Finally, for your 0.7% figure you divide the assessed featured and A class articles from 1/6th of the database by the total articles in the entire database... which is just bad math. --CBD 20:52, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
The 9% vs 0.7% comes from where you draw the line for 'excellent'. I think most of our 'B class' articles are of very good quality... superior to what we used to call 'featured'. You apparently consider only 'A class' and 'featured' (by current standards) to be 'excellent'. However, any way you slice it the number of each is going up. If they don't go up at the same rate as 'articles in general' that doesn't equal 'failure'... I think Wikipedia can succeed just fine even if the articles on every Pokemon critter are ALL below 'A class'. --CBD 21:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

We can argue the statistics back and forth, but, as someone who has regularly participated at WP:FAC, WP:FARC (as was) and WP:FAR for several years, take it from me, probably the main reason for a featured article to fails WP:FAR and be demoted right now is that it does not meet the higher standards for references added to the Featured article criteria in September 2004, and, in particular, the more recent requirement for inline citations (which, if you look at that diff, was originally included in that revision in 2004 as an alternative to a references section, then revised to "appropriate use of inline citations" as well as a references section, in February 2005). You can look in the FAR archive, but probably more than half fail for this reason.

I think the second most common reason (which often applies at the same time as the first) is that an article has not been "maintained", by the original writer or someone else. Some edits are improvements, others are not, and it is difficult to disentangle the two: simply reverting to an earlier version is often not an option. Some of the FAR team are doing a great job in getting old FAs up to the current standards, but it can be a difficult job to find references retrospectively for something someone else some years ago, or to fix up patch prose.

The fact is that featured articles often do degrade if they are not maintained: Worldtraveller knows this, having written more than anyone else, apart from Lord Emsworth and Raul654 (but all 24 of Worltraveller's are still featured).

But this does not address the underlying point: it is true to say that an article is no good if it is not a "good article" or a "featured article"? What about stubs like Wych Street or Erik Jansson, both of which I wrote today. I challenge you to find a more comprehensive, better referenced treatment, because it took me a while to put each of them together. I wish they were featured-standard - perhaps they will be one day - but, today, they are, in the famous words of info.eagle.current.status from 1987, "(a) ... by and large good enough, and (b) there are more important things to be done". Yes, it would be lovely if all of our articles were featured, or even featured-standard, but even the Encyclopedia Britannica does not meet that standard.

What we are patently failing to do is:

  • (a) produce featured articles at a pace fast enough to meet WP:100K any time soon;
  • (b) polish up all of our failing featured articles to meet current standards; and
  • (c) protect our existing featured articles from gradual deterioration. -- ALoan (Talk) 22:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
If we had 100,000 new 'featured quality' articles written right now it would still take years to hold the evaluations and discussions to officially recognize them all as 'featured'. Assuming five were nominated (and thus closed) per day, which is significantly higher than the current pace, and all succeeded it would still work out to about 55 years to run all the approval discussions. Thus, we aren't going to "meet WP:100K any time soon" without significant changes... either greatly decreasing the time and complexity of the nomination process (with the inherent danger of degrading standards) or somehow greatly increasing the number of featured article reviewers and approvers (again with a danger of decreased standards and an additional problem of taking people away from writing articles).
Personally, I don't see the point. Most of the 'featured' articles from 3+ years ago would now be considered 'B class' at best... and NONE of the currently 'featured' articles would meet the standards I expect 'featured' status will eventually require (namely, that all facts are referenced and all of those references have been checked to verify that they support the stated facts). As our standards get tougher the process of achieving featured status gets slower. Such that I don't ever see our featured article count really taking off until we get stable versions and then hit a point where the standards just can't get any more strict. However, none of that is a 'bad sign'. The fact that what used to be considered 'featured' is now viewed as sub-par seems to me conclusive proof that Wikipedia is succeeding on the 'encyclopedia quality' goal. There are now tens of thousands of articles of the quality that we called 'featured' three years ago. In another three years the standards will have grown much stricter, we'll still only have a small percentage of articles officially 'featured', but there will be tens of thousands of articles which would meet our current 'featured' standards. The 'featured' status has always meant, 'the best Wikipedia has'... which inherently argues against vast sections of the encyclopedia being included. We just raise the standards to continue recognizing only those relatively few articles which are of exceptionally high quality compared to the rest... that won't change until the standards hit a level where they can't go any higher. --CBD 00:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Putting FA articles aside, we aren't producing very many GA articles either. Given the criteria aren't that onerous (well written, factually accurate and verifiable, broad in its coverage, NPOV, stable, contains images) and it only takes 1 person to provide the certification, you have to ask why. With regards to article deterioration, I think Dbuckner has provided plenty of examples. (Caniago 02:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC))
If you check the requirements (WP:FA? and WP:GA?) you'll see that they have become almost identical. Ironically, for a while the inline citation requirements for good articles were stricter than those for featured articles. And there is ongoing effort to review older good articles to see if they meet current requirements. So it isn't too surprising that there aren't a lot of articles on the GA list. CMummert · talk 02:29, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
GA is backlogged for weeks at a time, is widely viewed as arbitrary or unimportant, and those that do use it often use it on the pathway to FAC. Number of GAs is more restricted by the availability of reviewers than by the existence of GA-quality articles, and the resulting backlog encourages GA reviewers to give superficial reviews on articles whose subjects they know little about. This also pertains to the 'what is B-class' discussion above; B-class is pretty much a dumping ground for anything that's 'okay' but not A-class, since the intermediate designation is slow and arbitrary. I don't see people, especially for wikiproject assessment, using the ratings as they're officially defined; it's more a relative rank scheme. As I mentioned way above, we still have no reliable way of assessing short articles. Opabinia regalis 02:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Concur. I find the article assessment system baffling. There are six ratings: two of them can't be assigned independently by an assessor; one of them (A) is assigned in vanishingly few cases, and people are afraid to use it; which leaves an individual article assessor with the trivial "stub" rating, plus "start" and "B". A proper article assessment system needs to be multi-dimensional and allow the assessor four or five degrees of freedom, not two and a half. It also needs to be independent of Featured Articles and related recognitions (which are done separately, for more human purposes—motivating and recognizing users). An article reviewer should have no qualms, in my hypothetical system, in assigning an article 5 out of 5 if the article justifies it. Currently, the assessment of any article at the highest three (out of six) levels is either procedurally or traditionally impeded; so how could we possibly know to what extent Wikipedia is succeeding?
(I was briefly interested in article assessment with the Biography project, until I realized that all I was doing was adding "start", "stub" or "B" over and over. I didn't know what this could possibly accomplish. Take an article that is quite comprehensive, completely unsourced, and expertly written: it will be assigned a "B". Such a rating, in the aggregate, does not tell us anything about Wikipedia's articles. Are they "B"s because they're unreferenced?—of middling comprehensiveness?—contain too much viewpoint?—are good in all categories but prose, having been translated from another wiki? Who knows.) –Outriggr § 03:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: ALoan's points - I completely agree that his excellent short articles are not at all indicative of any failure. If only every short article were as well-formed as those two. I started WP:GA to identify what I expected were thousands of excellent short articles, and to form a counterpoint to FA, where some people see 32kb as a minimum length. You can write 10 5kb articles in the time it takes to write one really excellent 32kb article, and the focus on very long articles is extremely damaging, in my opinion. FA criteria include a line about 'appropriate length', but whenever I've tried to argue that a 65kb article on a world leader whose historical significance is undisputed is fine, but 65kb on a porn star or a computer game is way too much, it's never gone down very well at all. People seem very unwilling to see 10kb articles as worth making excellent, and that is another major problem. GA now almost exclusively recognises mediocre long articles instead of excellent short ones, and most people seem to see short articles as something to be expanded later rather than any finished product. Worldtraveller 15:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

More Statistics

I came up a bit ago with some more statistics that count published sources as reliable. To get the featured and A-class article stats, I looked what pages were linked to the templates, and removed those outside of the "Main" or "Talk:" namespaces.

Enyclopedia Britannica 1911
Catholic Encyclopedia
Good Articles
Featured
A-Class
 12,600
2,500
1,638
1,222
800
Nutall Encyclopedia 800
TOTAL 18,760

I think your article is important for understanding Wikipedia, and although the title is biased, the content is not. As for the deletion and protection harassment, I wouldn't worry about a thing — including arguing with them. Let their actions and words speak for themselves. Let them show everyone who they are.—67.166.2.115 01:53, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

It has been one of the most instructive things possible that the very reactions to an article about why Wikipedia is failing so perfectly illustrate why Wikipedia is indeed failing.

Recruitment

This might not be a top-level core article, but an example of possible strategies to recruit editors. Back in March, someone sent out a message on the Regional Science Association International mailing list to point out how pitiful the Regional science article on Wikipedia was. Two editors came along and fixed it up [1], though it still has ways to go to become good or featured. And, I wonder why only two people showed up? Is there something about Wikipedia (anyone can edit, vandalism, ...) that makes it not worth one's time (for experts and graduate students in this topic). Of course, writing Wikipedia articles doesn't earn one points on one's academic C.V., like other writing activities. It may risk some of my real-life academic reputation to go back to the mailing list with my real-name and bring this up again. But, it might be beneficial if I want back on there (maybe under an anonymous e-mail) and asked why or why not people would contribute to Wikipedia. Thoughts? --Aude (talk) 02:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I would be interested in the results of your informal poll, Aude. I personally know many users who regularly use Wikipedia, but who just aren't all that interested in editing it. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

See User talk:Owl and read the section on Wikipedia accuracy &c for a good analysis of the problem. In real life Owl is a well-known and respected philosopher. He is one of the people I target and encourage occasionally, but the reasons he gives against doing this are telling. Dbuckner 13:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

PS In one of the comments on that article there is an interesting point made about why maths and science generally seem to fare a little better in Wikipedia. Reason: people who aren't good at maths know it. By contrast, the is a small minority of people who think they are good at arts subjects (and philosophy is top of the list here because, hey, everyone's a philosopher). These people are generally acting in good faith - they really believe they have something important to say. But they make life hell for the rest of us. The User:Ludvikus case was an excellent example. Dbuckner 13:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC) See User talk:Ludvikus for the reasons surrounding his current 6 month block. I believe he was in fact acting in good faith, but we had to assume bad faith as a reason for blocking him. The case is an excellent example of the problem, and has cost us 2 excellent, first class editors. Dbuckner 13:06, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
This is a fundamental problem: everyone has an equal opportunity to edit Wikipedia but editors' expertise varies hugely. Something must change; one possible solution is to prefer editors who are actual experts on the subject. For example, let only a philosopher to make substantial edits to the philosophy article, or if there is argument between a professional philosopher and a non-expert, philosopher's opinion prevails. We really can't afford to lose professionals. There are so many subjects that only a real expert can write properly.--JyriL talk 14:23, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Wow, that is a great idea for another website, but against the way Wikipedia works. If they are experts they can provide citations and will be given plenty of credence. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 14:27, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that would work, as it seems anti-wiki. However, I think it's important to be humble and give extra respect and deference to people that are more knowledgeable and expert when I see them. One example was the HIV article, where I know one of the editors, User:Grcampbell, is a recognized research scholar and expert on that topic. There is really not much, beyond copyediting and small thing, that I can add or improve upon with that article. He knows the scholarly literature pertaining to the topic and can easily find whatever references needed way better than I can. Same with the global warming article -- I do have some expertise (graduate school level) but User:William M. Connolley is a published research scholar and expert in the topic of climate change. I had read of his scholarly articles and aware of his work before I joined Wikipedia and saw him here. I do what I can with the article, but will defer to him. --Aude (talk) 14:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it is anti-wiki. The problem may lie in the idea of wiki philosophy itself, and we may have to change the idea how Wikipedia works. If the reckless editors and trolls can oust good editors, how anyone can think we can succeed?--JyriL talk 14:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, you can download a DB dump, and make your own Wikipedia, Wikipedia welcomes forking. But people have done this, and changed the rules, and those sites did less well than Wikipedia. Anyone who thinks they can do better can make their own Wikipedia, yet nobody has succeeded in building a better model. I think there is even a fork that required academic credentials before you can edit. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 14:47, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the Citizendium (geez, I hate that name). And yes, you're correct, forks tend to stagnate and I am against forking. But we must find a simple and acceptable way to retain the quality of good articles and also find a way how editors could be encouraged to improve poor articles. If the wiki philosophy can be maintained, all the better.--JyriL talk 15:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
First, domain expertise is not so important as the ability to write well. That requires reading around the subject (using books, remember those), making a judgment about which information of the 100 pages you read should be condensed into 2 paragraphs, spelling it correctly and using tolerable grammar. Also, placing those paras in the right part of the right article. And we aren't going to get world-class experts, anyway. We need to be attracting good editors of the first sort by a sort of trust model. The more good edits, the better. The problem is to measure the trust the editor has earned. Perhaps just: start with a small bunch of people who are trusted, then anyone else who they trusted is also trusted, then those new ones can pass on their trust, too. Do it simply by having a list of editors you trust on your user page. Very simple. Then if a certain minimum of trusted editors, have problem with someone, they inform an admin, and there is an immediate block. Period of block increases until the offender is out. That is roughly how it works at the moment anyway, but it could be formalised. Dbuckner 16:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

POV title and content

This essay is very POV. It is named "Wikipedia is failing", and then goes on to define what failure is then applies it to Wikipedia. Well, if I define what failure is, then anything could be a failure.

The first section says Wikipedia is failing because it's core topics are not all featured articles, well when I looked at the mandate of the foundation I don't see it saying "By 2007 we must have featured articles for the core topics".

I could call the Apollo missions a failure because they did not reach Mars, oh wait, that was not their mandate. This is written to push an opinion, and I can see why it was deleted. Every website is failing if you make up success criteria it has not passed.

I would like to suggest a name-change, "Ways Wikipedia can be better". That is really what this is about. Simply saying it is failing is not constructive, or true. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 14:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I thought the goal was to build a comprehensive encyclopedia consisting of reliable content? It is certainly failing if we aren't on track to to complete this goal within our lifetime. (Caniago 14:30, 17 February 2007 (UTC))
Actually that is the goal, but who told you it would happen in our lifetime? No, Wikipedia is supposed to outlive you, and it not supposed to be complete ever. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 14:31, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it is POV, unless you count any criticism towards Wikipedia POV. It is POV only if you assume that Wikipedia becomes gradually better inevitably. It is not true. The number of new articles is exponential, whereas the growth of articles that can be called good is sluggish. Even worse is the fact that there is no any mechanism to preserve good articles. If the overall quality decreases (well, one can argue that it was not that good in the first place), one can objectively say that Wikipedia is failing. But it doesn't have to happen.--JyriL talk 14:36, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I am saying the very criteria being chosen to measure the success of Wikipedia is POV. Criticism is fine, saying Wikipedia can be improved through such and such measures is great! But applying criteria that is not Wikipedia's criteria and calling it failure is not constructive. The things this essay points out are ways Wikipedia can improve itself, but it is not an indication of failure, as those points are not what Wikipedia has made it's goals. That is why I suggest the rename. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 14:41, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
As per Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines: An essay is any page that is not actionable or instructive, regardless of whether it's authorized by consensus. Essays tend to be opinionated. Essays need not be proposed or advertised, you can simply write them, as long as you understand that you do not generally speak for the entire community. The topic of the essay and the assumption it makes is that Wikipedia is failing. By definition it is a POV, and all essays will be opinionated. It is not your place to be deciding you don't like the confrontational assumptions and therefore changing the whole premise to suit your own POV. (Caniago 14:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC))
That being said Michael, the fact remains that an essay can be effected by consensus, and is not the possession of those seeking to keep it the way it was originally. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 14:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
It is perfectly appropriate for everyone to edit any essay in Wikipedia space, subject to community consensus.
What I see, reading the above comments on the talk page, is that there is not general consensus that "quality" articles can be identified with "featured" articles; this fact ought to appear in the essay. CMummert · talk 14:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with CMummert on that point. Of course, mentioning that would require the weakening of the section title "Criteria which indicate substantial failings", to "Criteria that may indicate failings". The way it is written seems to imply that a few statistics prove the case. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 14:56, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Your suggestion about changing the title or the assumptions to reflect consensus was argued by some when the essay was first posted. The consensus ended up being that it was better to leave the assumptions of this essay as it was and create the rebuttal article which now exists. I don't see any convincing reason why that should change. t would have nothing against an additional article being created for "Ways Wikipedia can be better", and in fact I had been thinking about doing so myself. (Caniago 15:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC))
That was not the consensus, as evidenced by the large number of edits to this page. CMummert · talk 15:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but consensus can change, and it can effect even the topic of an essay. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I would also like to point out that "Featured articles" was not created to mark articles as "up to standards", they are examples of extra wonderful articles. Failure to be a featured article is not failure to be a quality article. This essay starts with a bold claim as the title, then provides very little in the way of evidence. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

This essay is very POV - well no shit, sherlock! You do know that 'NPOV' is a policy that applies to articles, don't you? And that opinions by their very definition cannot be 'NPOV'?

As for whether non-FA means not good enough, see the discussion linked to above, where Raul654, ALoan and several other eminent names with extensive FA experience agreed that the aim is for all articles to be of FA quality. Worldtraveller 15:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Does that mean that Wikipedia has failed if it has not accomplished that? You do know that Wikipedia is not supposed to ever be complete, how is it even possible for every article to be FA quality if new articles keep being created? With those standards of course it fails.
Would you like to address my concerns that the standards being applied are not the goals of Wikipedia? HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it's anywhere in any stated aims that Wikipedia should never be complete. What is certainly the aim is to create an encyclopaedia that's Britannica quality or better. How do we currently judge what is high quality and what is not? WP:FA and article assessment as logged at WP:1.0/I. The numbers, and the rates at which they are changing, say it will be decades, centuries or even millenia before we'll achieve that stated aim. Worldtraveller 15:25, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
centuries or even millenia, ya if the editing rate stays the same. It has never stood the same so that is meaningless. Of course Wikipedia will never be finished, new topics will keep being created. New wars, celebrities, sciences, arts, websites, of course it will never be finished. I say it is already better than Britannica. Look at the article on Canada in both encyclopedias, or Victoria, BC, oh wait that is not in Britannica.
The point I am making is that the standards you are judging failure by are not relevant to Wikipedia's goals, and are based on an arbitrary interpretation. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:28, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
The number of articles has increased exponentially for a while; the number of excellent articles identified by FA has increased linearly. I remember the happy days when slightly more than 0.1% of the encyclopaedia was excellent; now it's 0.07% and steadily dropping. I'm sorry, but proportion of content that is excellent could not be more relevant to Wikipedia's goals. Worldtraveller 15:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
My original argument was that the article should be renamed to "Ways Wikipedia can be better". Your arguments seem to support the rename, as the demonstrate the need for improvement. But tell me, why are you so insistent on the name, no statement "Wikipedia is failing"? Nothing that has been presented demonstrates that it is failing. I agree with you that the exponential increase in article and a linear increase in FAs does show ways Wikipedia can be improved. But it does not demonstrate that Wikipedia is failing. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is failing because of the arguments I presented. There is not enough excellent content, the amount of it is not being increased fast enough by orders of magnitude, what there is often declines in quality, and hundreds of thousands of articles are rubbish. Our aim, apparently, is to write an encyclopaedia of Britannica quality or better, and we are not achieving that aim. Hence the essay. Hence the title. Worldtraveller 15:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Well it says to me "Wikipedia is going to go away". What do you think about the name "Ways Wikipedia can be better"? This can reduce the misunderstanding that seems to be shrouding this essay. While I can see how you can interpret "Wikipedia is failing" as "this is what is going wrong, something needs to be done", that is not what people are thinking, and that is mostly what the stink is about. Failing implies a sort of permanence that you don't seem to mean to imply. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:54, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
My greatest hope for this essay was that it might encourage some people to think that on current trends, Wikipedia will not succeed in its aims, and to do something about that. We have enough mildly censorious pages that say everything is mostly wonderful but a few things could be better; that's not what I believe. I sincerely do believe that Wikipedia is failing in its mission. Worldtraveller 16:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
If you really think it is failing, as in will cease it exist in it's intended form, the you have utterly failed to produce evidence for that. It was my hopes that your true intent was to provide examples of problems that could be addressed, but it seems more and more like you are trying say the entire philosophy of Wikipedia doomed to fail. If that is what you are trying to say then I cannot agree, perhaps I misunderstood? HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 16:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I think it's failing, as in it's not achieving what it sets out to achieve. I think I've provided a lot of evidence that backs that. All these problems can be addressed, and that was my whole hope, as I said - that people would think 'better change what is not working'. I've never said or implied that Wikipedia is doomed. Worldtraveller 16:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Ok, good. What do you think of my point about the current title mistakenly leading people to believe that the essay is showing Wikipedia to be doomed? Failed, is a rather final word, and to be failing brings an idea of finality in peoples minds. I am glad that this is a bit of miscommunication, I just don't think the very precise position of the essay(Wikipedia is not achieving what it sets out to achieve) is best summed up by it's current title. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 16:11, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
The word in the title is failing, not failed. If people misinterpret that, that's really not something I can do much about. They can read the essay rather than just make an instant guess at what it's saying from the title, surely. I don't see that there is any great issue with saying that 'not achieving what it sets out to achieve' = 'failing'. Worldtraveller 16:58, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
That is the point where we disagree, I think the name is very misleading. It reads like a newspaper headline, and the media is seeing it as that. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 17:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
How is it misleading? It reflects the thesis presented. It is clearly marked with {{essay}}. Which media is seeing it, out of interest? I'm only aware of the slashdot thing, where people took it exactly as intended - an opinion on what was happening. A lot of people there said useful things as well. Worldtraveller 17:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I think I have already explained how I find it misleading. I am not saying it is outright false, I am just saying another title could better explain what the essay is trying to put forth. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 17:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Useful exercise

I tried the useful exercise a suggested, the eigth article was the FA British House of Commons. Prior to that was Bobbie E. Brown, Cacerolazo with the worst article being Ahmet Uzun Gnangarra 14:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Full protection ?

When JzG moved this page back to WP space, he/she also added it to a list of pages protected from editing. This seems inappropriate, at least in the long term - if this page is going to sit in WP space it needs to be open to editing like all other pages. CMummert · talk 15:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

It is only semi-protected from new or unregistered users. And it was not JzG, see the protection log[2]. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:06, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Strange, the log shows it being fully protected as the last action, but it is semi-protected... HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Ahh, I see it is being effected by cascading protection. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Ok, now it should only be semi-protected. I assume we can avoid an edit war despite the disagreement. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Cascading blocks are hard to spot, so it is possible that the protection of this page was not intentional. CMummert · talk 19:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

vandalism cookie

I have an odd idea for alleviating some of the pressure of vandalism on the quality of wikipedia. Would it be possible, once an anon IP were blocked for vandalism, to put a cookie on the anon's computer which disallowed further editing from that computer without signing up for an account? Obviously the more computer literate and determined vandals would figure it out and delete the cookie, but I wonder if it wouldn't make a difference? --Bmk 15:21, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest the Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) page for such a suggestion. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:30, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Interesting idea. I see it as similar to the current approach of blocking IP addresses or addresss ranges, and therefore it may have a small benefit, but there are so many potential vandals and computers around the world (think about how many immature school children there are on the planet) that it wouldn't make a significant difference just as IP blocking hadn't been very effective. (Caniago 15:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC))
In my experience as a user and an admin, I don't think vandalism is a big problem, it is handled. Of course this is all off topic for this page hehe. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Well I think your assertion is totally wrong, and isn't based upon any available evidence. If you read up the page I and other people have provided a very strong case that vandalism is not being handled very well and it is contributing to the burn-out of valuable editors. This this sort of discussion is not off topic at all, the page is about where Wikipedia is failing. If you want to contribute effectively to this article and the discussion you should read what others have already contributed. (Caniago 16:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC))

An experiment to prove Wikipedia is Failing

I can't see the point of this section that was added to the article. It consisted of excerpts from an FA nomination of Saint Petersburg, which seemed about the same as every other FA nomination except that it tried to use this essay as an argument in favor of promotion. CMummert · talk 19:54, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the experiment or the proof from that section. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 20:06, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't tell me you want me to point each and every statement. Please reconsider putting the experiment back.

< transclusion of Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Saint_Petersburg removed>


Please pretend I am thick, because I don't see it, how is this an experiment, and what does it prove and how? HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 20:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

User:SandyGeorgia re-enforced:
“Many argue that Wikipedia is a work in progress and that, given time, all articles will reach very high standards. Unfortunately, this is not borne out by the rate at which articles are currently being judged to meet featured article criteria. About one article a day on average becomes featured; at this rate, it will take 4,380 years for all the currently existing articles to meet FA criteria. If the current approximately exponential growth rate of Wikipedia (which will see it double in size in about the next 500 days) continues, then on current trends there will never be a time when all articles have been promoted to featured article status."
So I want to use that as a reference in the essay. --Parker007 21:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
It also points out to the snowball rule & ignore all rules which is why wikipedia is failing; can someone make a paragraph regarding those rules; and how it degrades wikipedia? --Parker007 21:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

This page move has been a debacle

We finally got it to the point where it wasn't quite so stupid and some decent questions were being asked, then Worldtraveller decided that he owned the article and objected to it being editted. So then we moved it as a user subpage, but then it got moved again. However, it was the old ridiculous version. So now we are back to the way things were all along. Not a particularly outstanding move here... without meaning to give much offense to those who wanted to sort out this stupid essay. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Simple reverts

Worldtraveller, please don't revert good work. There's been enough problems with page moves, reverts, etc. without more. If you have something to say and you don't want it changed, don't put it in the Wikipedia namespace. Create a user subpage. Please be aware that Wikipedia is not your soapbox, and you do not own this article. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:55, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah yeah yeah own own own. You do not own this article; you should not unilaterally decide that a whole rewrite is needed. The version you reverted to is not the one that everyone's discussing, it has a different objective and different conclusions, and should go somewhere else, like WP:NOTFAIL. Let's have intelligent discussion about the thesis presented, rather than trying to change the goalposts as we go along. If you rewrite the whole thing, you're doing everyone a disservice. Worldtraveller 06:00, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I didn't. Those edits were done by at least 3 or 4 other editors. See the article history if you don't believe me. If you are so unhappy with this, create a user subpage. I will edit this as I feel is necessary, if others agree with my edits then they'll contribute also. I'd suggest not discounting what I say, incidently. I can't see where I'm being unreasonable! - Ta bu shi da yu 06:05, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I think there's generally agreement that trying to subvert the whole point of the essay is not productive. Try and discuss the points raised, rather than trying to erase them. It's more likely to lead to a general sense of whether we agree with the thesis presented, or not. Worldtraveller 06:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Funnily enough, I did previously. Your revert to the version actually removed all my material. That happened directly because you seem to believe that you own the article. Why do you believe that? - Ta bu shi da yu 06:30, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
WT, there is a world of difference between subverting it and contextualising. Guy (Help!) 09:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah. But Ta Bu Shi Da Yu is simply trying to whitewash it. He doesn't believe that Wikipedia is failing, he's obviously quite upset that someone thinks it is, and is desperately trying to wipe out all the arguments that suggest that it might be. He's turning this essay into something which says "well, this might be bad, but not if you look at it in this skewed way, so everything's OK after all! Woohoo!". That is utterly banal, and no help to anyone. Maybe it makes him feel better though. Worldtraveller 11:36, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Open questions removed

The questions I have removed are:

  • Is radical change required, or just small adjustments to the current set-up?
  • What is Wikipedia really, and what do we want it to be?
  • Are volunteer editors suitable to meet our future objectives?
  • Does this matter, given that Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites in the world?

Firstly, there is no wide agreement that a radical change is required to Wikipedia. Not everyone thinks we are failing. Secondly, we are a volunteer effort. That's not going to change, and it's useless to say otherwise. If you don't like that, go to another project like Citizendium. The question about whether things really matter: what point is being made here?

These questions are leading and based on the assumption that we don't have enough quality articles (due to a number of disputed reasons and conclusions). They're leading, and not particularly constructive questions. I should point out that is what the Wikipedia namespace is there for. In fact, another question is: shouldn't this be on Metawiki? Anyway, the original author is welcome to create a user subpage asking these questions, but others will and should be allowed to edit this essay. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course there isn't agreement that radical change is needed. That's why it's an open question. I am not so fussed about the volunteer question, but the others are significant, important questions that people should consider. Worldtraveller 06:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Then may I ask you to rephrase the question? You are asking a question with the assumption that radical change is needed. Many disagree with the question you are asking. I am just one of those people. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not starting with that assumption at all. "Is radical change required" doesn't assume anything. Maybe you could change it to "Is radical change required, or just small adjustments to the current set-up, or is everything working fine as it is?", though. How about that? Worldtraveller 06:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that would be true if that is actually what you wrote. However, you wrote "Is radical change required, or just small adjustments to the current set-up?". This presupposes that changes need to be made in the first place. Selectively quoting the question isn't particularly helpful here. A better question might be "If changes are required to Wikipedia, what should they be?". - Ta bu shi da yu 06:29, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I have added the question now, in the form I noted above. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:58, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

A suggestion

If wikipedia is failing is because most of our energy is wasted in dealing with controversial articles. If we can somehow release that wasted energy, we would do much better. One suggestion is to ask scholars to write controversial articles say antisemitism but then the question would be which scholar to ask and how to make sure it will become NPOV? On controversial topics, each scholar has his own view and some people like that, others don't. We still want the editors to be able to contribute (at least suggest) how the article could be improved.--Aminz 10:11, 18 February 2007 (UTC)