Wikipedia talk:Why Wikipedia is not so great

message: See User:Andrewa/what use is Wikipedia. Andrewa (talk) 11:27, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: And why it should be

message: I have been a defender of Wikipedia for years, probably because I wasn’t actively involved in anything more that small corrections.  I have long encouraged friends of mine to pitch in and add their own expertise to various articles, but they have all insisted that the endeavor is anti-academic and hostile to legitimate experts in a given field .  My recent experience only proves them right, which makes me rather sad.
The principal problem, and a well-known one at that, is that the bureaucrats at the top—who, by their own admission, know little to nothing of the disciplines they monitor—spend their time enforcing Wikipedia “norms” with no regard to the content of the articles themselves.  Most concerning in this process is that the “norms” they claim to defend are nothing more than the articles as they are already written.  It is an appalling circular argument, to say that disagreement from outside Wikipedia is not acceptable, because Wikipedia's status quo already fully demonstrates that no outside information is needed.  I have often thought I was Alice in Wonderland, when reasonable ideas were countered, not by an academic argument or even by a cogent thought, but an insistence that Wikipedia had already resolved the question.
My participation will not be missed, but the thousands of others who have walked away or who refuse to participate because of this BS are a real loss to the underlying goals that Wikipedia once espoused.  MonteGargano (talk) 02:28, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I completely agree. It's almost like a trending trickling effect; one person's negative feedback on an article  inspires others too follow.   Wiki-Scribbler 101 (talk) 19:00, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

text: Some of these Wiki administrators may be receiving $200,000 annual salaries. They may have to justify keeping their pay by a show of force which is causing good editors to run for the hills.  Wiki-Scribbler 101 (talk) 19:17, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

text: Well, Wikipedia editors are people. People are not perfect and they are not machines, they can have blind spots. Until you can come up with an alternative way to create 6 million articles, we'll have to rely on human beings, flaws & all. Plus, we are all volunteers so it's not like we have quarterly performance reviews. We all chip in to do what we can as best we can. Liz Read! Talk! 06:18, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: AI is knocking on our doors and soon human touch may be useless lol D10jxo (talk) 23:13, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Bureaucracy trumps academic research

message: Is it just me, or are there indeed some parts in the essay that qualify as ranting? Aditya(talk • contribs) 02:32, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just you.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1011:B01E:8161:6983:7189:589F:DDAD (talk) 15:41, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: No it's not just you. 2A00:23C4:41A:9601:5434:A757:6C1F:78F5 (talk) 02:03, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

text: its definitely not quite appropriate for wikipedia, but something about it feels refreshingly raw. Like a good jab into brush for once as opposed to beating around it. It's a good thing that this is classed as an essay, as otherwise it would be tossed to the AfD flames. MountainKemono (talk) 15:51, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rant? 

message: I got involved in this website in the early days, actually had extensive conversation with Larry Sanger making the point that my being one dissertation short of a Columbia University PhD should not require I get approval for my contributions.  So I used the ease of access here to take on a forensic practice that could have cost the lives of innocent suspects.  
Only fifteen years ago, matching in situ finger prints was deemed to be an impresionistic gestalt by certified forensic experts, including the F,B.I,  This was defended by those who made a good living testifying and convicting many.  I first made my case based on statistics and epidemiology, but my arguments were removed by the professionals. I located a person who was doing his doctorate on this very subject, and had him join me in our effort.  We prevailed, and while I'm sure this atavistic procedure would not have gone on for too long, I personally could have saved at least a handful of suspects from prison or worse. 
Other issues I took on were less successful, as they are embedded in our kulture Kamph, where reason takes a back seat to political identity. One example of this was in the unfolding of the killing of George Floyd. I focused on the castigation and indictment of the trainee cop.  I had watched the interview with his lawyer, which had the existing regulations overlaid. It defined his mandated action when a superior is seen as abusing a suspect. It said that he should mention it, and take verbal action.  The next day a draft of the regulation was changed to eliminate verbal. 
I had the image from the TV program, that I wanted to include in making my case that he had been following the existing law.  It was removed, and the person who did it said, "I'm removing it to protect you"  He meant that after my decades of participation, I could be banned from Wikipedia.
The comprehensive nature of edits (content) even with the cogent criticisms of this Essay, still make the diverse views worth while. One of the most contentious issues of our society, that of racial differences in IQ, are covered under multiple titles. There are extensive articles from scholars on both sides, with their arguments fully summarized along with their complete theses referenced. 
The multiple languages made possible a cogent analysis of a Film made in Germany in 1943, but it was a fictional city that had never been taken over by Hitler, even though he authorized the film to be made. I wrote this to a scholar who became a friend  "If you recall you watched and commented on the German film "Ich klage an" one of the only people who was willing to deal with the paradox of Hitler sponsoring a film promoting humane euthanasia.  Since the few months that you watched it, it's been removed from the internet, which is a loss as it forced the viewer to deal with internal contradiction." 
In the interim I want to the German Wikipedia article, had it translated, and got a much more extensive analysis of this film, that led to my connecting with eminent scientist Robert M. Sapolski. 
The defects that described in this essay should be addressed, but the universal access to this cornucopia of knowledge can be admired and also preserved  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arodb (talk • contribs) 00:28, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of Wikipedia valid-  yet when balanced with the breath of content, from the cutting edge of science to trivia it is still valuable 

message: Wikipedia has plenty of money, but hoards its money and is corrupt. Funny how this page is "protected" 
The moderators are all paid off using various tricks(see above) and Google funds a lot of this "effort." The new "Snopes"
Cocoablini (talk). 01:29, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: citation, Google which manipulates SEO and content and political preferences, also uses Wikipedia for content The entire business model is a #COIN as their moderators get secret pay offs and benefits Cocoablini (talk). 01:42, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

text: Allegedly, $200,000 annually to bully good editors. Wiki-Scribbler 101 (talk) 19:19, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Fundraisers-They have money...and they  

message: I know that essays are meant to reflect the views of only one or just a handful of editors, but I don't feel this essay serves readers as much as it once did, as a number of its complaints have been addressed, are outdated, or are outright no longer true. For instance:
I've just removed the following:
– as per WP:SLOW, this isn't a problem Wikipedians are expected to worry about; in 2022, I'd imagine bandwidth capabilities for many editors have increased to the point where this just isn't a concern anymore.
For reference, WP:SLOW came into existence in 2006; this essay was written in .
The complaint that "Wiki markup is great, but it is not accessible to most users" links here, to the creation of the visual editor in 2013; as the hatnote on that article states, "The Wikimedia Foundation's May 2015 study VisualEditor's effect on newly registered editors found that VisualEditor does not aid any additional new users to begin editing, does not improve editor productivity, and does not improve new editor retention." A lack of familiarity with wikitext markup isn't one of the reasons new editors get turned away, we've proven.
"More than one thousand pages are deleted from Wikipedia each day." – "pages" is a general term. Per Wikipedia's statistics, just 250 mainspace articles are deleted each day; which, for an encyclopedia of 6,467,456 articles, is a surprisingly low number. This statement was added in 2014 with no citation, and even if it was true then, it isn't now.
"If you have correctly internalized rules of English capitalization, spelling, punctuation or typesetting, you end up making trivial corrections rather than focusing on errors of content. Grammatical proofreading is sadly necessary, but there's simply no way to reward these valuable users in the present regime of controls." – ? This seems to pre-date WP:ENGVAR, and also, we do have the option to thank editors.
"Only the most abusive administrators – perhaps 2% total – have their statuses removed." – no citation for this; also doesn't make note that the number of active administrators on Wikipedia was, last time I checked, falling. I'd say the admin situation of the early to late 2000s isn't that of 2022.
"There's not enough grounding in Wikiquette to explain that reverts without comments are inconsiderate and almost never justified except for spam and simple vandalism, and even in those cases comments need to be made for tracking purposes." – This also seems to predate another policy, WP:3RR.
"There's no hierarchy of regular, senior, topical editors to make final rulings on extremely complex matters, e.g., by forcing two with very different views to agree." – We've got the Administrator's Noticeboard and Dispute Resolution boards now, as well as RfCs.
There's other stuff further down the essay that could maybe do with reworking. It's true that a lot of the issues described here still exist, have done since Wikipedia's inception, but I wonder that this essay doesn't have as much of a leg to stand on as it once did.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ( me!) 14:53, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Well...be bold, as mentioned on this page :). Lectonar (talk) 15:11, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  when I boldly have the time, I'll boldly use it to edit :')--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ( me!) 11:32, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Much of this essay seems outdated 

message: One flaw in Wikipedia is that most Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources are secondary sources by design.
Secondary sources always colour the raw information in some way. Even the proportionately of the coverage on any topic creates bias.
I think a section about secondary sources should be added to Wikipedia talk:Why Wikipedia is not so great as it's quite an important topic. H44dyss9900 (talk) 08:41, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Secondary sources 

message: I think this and Why Wikipedia is so great are stupid articles/essays but I will bring up that Wikipedia is ruled by a bunch of middle aged white men. This isn't saying that I'm "wOkE" because to be frank if that demographic likes editing more than say, women of color, I can't change everybody's mindset, however it is important to note that much of the English Wiki is dominated by a fairly narrow viewpoint  D10jxo (talk) 23:08, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Moderators biased perhaps??? Wiki-Scribbler 101 (talk) 19:03, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

text: I am pleased you stated my suspensions. I am pulling my monthly donations untill i see change. Not because of your statement, it is because my personal experiences as an editor on this platform.  Wiki-Scribbler 101 (talk) 19:06, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Unfairness and Discrepancy between the Rulers of Wikipedia  

message: The removal of the "Governments" section should be considered, as the current example lacks the requisite notability to warrant a dedicated section. Should the retention of this section be deemed necessary, it is important to expand its scope to encompass various nations that have engaged in interference with Wikipedia. Presently, the inclusion of a singular, limited example appears disproportionate, undue and unnecessary. 182.183.39.216 (talk) 18:55, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of a unnecessary and inessential small section. 

message: This page previously had a wildly out-of-date graph showing editor numbers.  I replaced it with a current one, which has been removed.  Here's the image, should anyone wish to restore it or use it elsewhere. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editor numbers