Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia/Archive 2

message: It is difficult for users to know what changes have been recently added to articles, or how long the article has been in its current state.  This makes the examination/discovery of subtle changes and deletions more difficult to detect.  
Some have proposed highlighting recent changes a different color to alert readers that the information is new and as such has not had much time to be reviewed/corrected by the community. On Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) (see Wikipedia talk:Provenance), Pseudo Socrates made a proposal to provide temporal provenance by placing a Temporal Provenance button on each article that would produce a dynamic page that was a version of the current article modified as follows:  Each interval of text would be colored according the following algorithm:  Text of vintage less than 24 hours would be colored red,  vintage more than 24 hours but less than one week would be colored green,  remaining text would remain black.
:18-November-2006: Coloring one-week text green sounds like a good idea, and could help find goofs after multiple quick revisions, but coloring "2-week text" might be better: for Hurricane Katrina, the landfall time had been reset/botched for 11 days before I spotted it, and I found vandalism to "Semmelweis" mothers after 10 days.  For now, we can view a wide-difference under the "history" tab, by checking the selection-dots of 2 revisions about 2-weeks (or 3) apart, and then look for issues in the wide-difference results.  It is too tedious to compare each revision to the previous, one by one.  However, two-week text in green  would be great to alert readers to "new growth" being, still green, in the article.  -Wikid77 20:14, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Difficulty of Editing 

message: It seems there are a number of refutations to criticism that are "Original Research."
One Example
"Waldman gave this interview on October 26, 2004. By March 28, 2005, without counting subarticles, the Chinese art article had become three times as large as the article on Hurricane Frances, while the article on Tony Blair was 50% larger than the article on Coronation Street. Proponents of Wikipedia point to such statistics to show that systemic bias will diminish over time. Opponents point out that these articles drew attention from the Wikipedia community because they were specifically mentioned by Hoiberg, and this increase in size was not universal."
This violates WP:NOR and needs to be deleted or sourced.  This isn't the only one.  When will this page be unlocked? --Tbeatty 06:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No Original research 

message: Needs to be added:
Siegnethaler said: "I'm glad this aspect of it is over," But he was also concerned that "every biography on Wikipedia is going to be hit by this stuff — think what they'd do to Tom DeLay and Hillary Clinton, to mention two. My fear is that we're going to get government regulation of the Internet as a result." 
--Tbeatty 06:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Unintended consequences criticism

message: Do we really have to lock the whole page over a dispute concerning a link to an external site?  Let 3RR and consensus decide the link.  Locking the whole page over a link to a super-low traffic site smells more like a desire to censor than a legitimate concern about an inappropriate link.  Please unlock the article and work out the external link issue separately.  --Tbeatty 15:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So far as I can tell, the consensus is not to include the link, and the problem with letting 3RR decide is that the WR banned users are creating sockpuppets to revert, and so page protection becomes necessary. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

text: 3RR only works when there aren't sockpuppets at play. The moment that happens, a protect is the only option, until things die down. The protection is not because of a 3RR violation, it is because an edit war was occurring. I don't think semiproect would work - they seem to be using sleeper accounts. (look at Pigfodder's contributions) --Golbez 16:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't disagree.  It just seems silly that a single external link is so "contentious" that the whole page is locked.  Wouldn't it be better to let these "sleeper accounts" surface so their IP's can be banned and the sock puppets exposed?  It seems that it would be worthwhile to expose them over an external link as opposed to false information or vandalism.  And wasn't this one sockpuppet that could easily be dealt with? Please unlock it and deal with the sockpuppets as sockpuppets are dealt with.  There are plenty of articles that are hit with sockpuppets that aren't completely locked.--Tbeatty 16:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are a number of technical problems with your suggestion, Tbeatty, which I won't elaborate on in case the socks don't know them all, but page protection was the best, if not the only, solution. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What's technical about unlocking a page and making it semi-protect? Just warn anyone who puts in the link faces permanent IP and user banning.  --Tbeatty 00:27, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Except for a handful of special cases, permanently banning IPs is about the worst thing you can do. IPs tend to be shared and easily redistributed. In most cases, it is trivial for a banned user to be re-assigned a new one; anyone unfortunate enough to get that IP afterwards would be unable to edit wikipedia. Raul654 00:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

text: It's handled for over a million other pages without needing complete lockout.  Please unlock.  Jimbo's page explains that security at the expense of "you can edit this page right now" is not an acceptable solution.  --Tbeatty 04:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please Unlock 

message: Is there a source or at least a date associated with the flatulence-related vandalism of the Larry King article? I looked through the history and didn't find anything (I imagine it was deleted). Does anyone know the date this occurred?--Ejconard 21:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of Larry King Vandalism 

message: I pulled stuff that is unsourced and appears to be Original Research.
*While it has long been one of Jimmy Wales' goals to distribute Wikipedia in the poor nations of the world, the current Wikipedia would give them a product that does an inadequate job of covering their regions. Below is a comparison between how many times Canada and Nigeria are mentioned in four encyclopedias. The second column is the ratio of mentions of Belgium to mentions of Rwanda.
Canada:Nigeria	Belgium:Rwanda	Encyclopedia
27:1          	11:1          	Wikipedia
19:1          	4:1           	Encarta
12:1          	4:1           	Columbia
5:1           	4:1           	Britannica
* Waldman gave this interview on October 26, 2004. By March 28, 2005, without counting subarticles, the Chinese art article had become three times as large as the article on Hurricane Frances, while the article on Tony Blair was 50% larger than the article on Coronation Street. Proponents of Wikipedia point to such statistics to show that systemic bias will diminish over time.  Opponents point out that these articles drew attention from the Wikipedia community because they were specifically mentioned by Hoiberg, and this increase in size was not universal.
::I think this is fair enough. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:53, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NOR 

message: The following sections are filled with weasel terms and are in need of citation:
*Anonymous editing
*Copyright issues 
*All of Criticism of the community
I suggest that they either be cited or deleted. Criticism of the community is very suspect because this is difficult to cite and is very self referential. It wouldn't stand on its own as a notable phenomenon. This should not be seen as an opening for a certian obvious troll site for disgruntled banned users because they don't meet the criteria of a reputable publication.
In general, I think this article has become bloated. It's already larger than the main article on Wikipedia. Do the sources for Criticism of Wikipedia indicate that it is such a widespread phenomenon that it warrants an article of this magnitude? --  17:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation needed for weasel word sections 

message: Is it my imagination, or did Talk:Wikipedia Review just get nuked?  While WR does not, at this time, merit an article of its own (it's still pretty non-notable, even if Daniel Brandt and Andrew Orlowski occasionally show up and post there), it's talk page wasn't hurting anything.  
--EngineerScotty 23:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you but as I was involved in the active conversation that the deleter was clearly trying to disrupt, I feel it would be inappropriate if I did the undeletion and would prefer if someone else did it. Pcb21 Pete 00:04, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's nothing of any use or interest on it, and lots of posts from at least one banned user. I can't see the point in restoring it. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Talk:Wikipedia Review 

message: Sounds like a dandy idea to me. Wikitruth.info isn't any more predominate than other critical sites, in fact, it's much less so than a lot of the national news. When we think about the prohibition on self reference it this case, the question should be "would another similar but unrelated online encyclopedia say these words?". I can certainly see another encyclopedia having an article on Wikipedia which was large enough to split the criticism out, but I just can't see Wikitruth having it's own article in such an encyclopedia, unless their bar for notability was much lower than ours. I also believe that it would be unlikely that a non-wikipedia-editing reader would care to read about wikitruth without reading about the other criticism. --Gmaxwell 15:00, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Gotta ask you, Gmaxwell, since when is it cool on Wikipedia to remove people's contributions on a talk page, even if you disagree with their procedure? — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 15:13, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Material restored and poll proceeding. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 16:13, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The poll is completely inapproiate from multiple angles. We need to discuss not poll. No decisions on wikipedia are made via pure polling. Plus, everyone the poll is voting keep.... Well, duh, it's not proposed that we delete it, we're proposing to merge it. --Gmaxwell 17:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: According to WP:DR, "Note that informal straw polls can be held at any time if there are enough participants in the discussion".  While deletion of other people's comments from the talk page except for the purposes of archiving or when severe personal attacks are present is usually considered vandalism.  -- noosphere 22:37, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: As far as I know I've never been mentioned on that site. --Gmaxwell 17:35, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You have.  Click the above link.--Nick Dillinger 17:38, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ha! Indeed. In any case, it's completely irrelevant. --Gmaxwell 17:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the fact that it's not clickable is a story in and of itself, ain't it? — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 17:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  That fact certainly kept me from following the "link". -lethe talk [ +] 22:38, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: We're not holding a vote right now. --Gmaxwell 21:20, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: We're not suggesting it be deleted right now, we're trying to discuss merging it with Criticism of Wikipedia. --Gmaxwell 21:20, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: We normally add such content into the article on the site, in this case it would be Criticism of Wikipedia because the wikipedia article has become big enough to split. How would treating this like we'd treat any other such site be a sign of bias? It seems to me that the opposite would be true. --Gmaxwell 18:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Oppose merge, per another star/RN and Gmaxwell.  Ombudsman 03:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge from [[Wikitruth.info]] 

message: (Restoration of material deleted by Gmaxwell.  Gmaxwell, please do not remove people's contributions to talk pages, even if you disagree on how procedure should be carried out.)
:We're not holding a vote right now. --Gmaxwell 21:20, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We're not suggesting it be deleted right now, we're trying to discuss merging it with Criticism of Wikipedia. --Gmaxwell 21:20, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: We normally add such content into the article on the site, in this case it would be Criticism of Wikipedia because the wikipedia article has become big enough to split. How would treating this like we'd treat any other such site be a sign of bias? It seems to me that the opposite would be true. --Gmaxwell 18:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Oppose merge, per another star/RN and Gmaxwell.  Ombudsman 03:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: April/May 2006 Straw Poll Re: Merge to 'Criticism of Wikipedia'

message: The Penny Arcade link should be Penny Arcade--BigCow 20:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As this is just fixing a disambig link, I will do so. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 21:50, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fix incorrect link when page is unlocked 

message: Is the criticism of anonymous editing limited to IPs, or to users with usernames (such as myself) that are not their own legal name?  I was curious on this point and found: "so-called 'anon' votes, as if Wikipedia usernames were less 'anon' than IP numbers" http://www.aetherometry.com/antiwikipedia/Section_III_5.html - although that is a rather odd-looking site, and a blog post: "Thus it's a little misleading to call unregistered contributors "anonymous," since registered usernames actually provide greater anonymity both for mischief and for good." http://slashdot.org/articles/05/12/05/2010247.shtml There's an article that touches upon WP and anonymity here http://www.alistapart.com/articles/identitymatters but that is in reference to IP editing. Шизомби 17:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anonymous editing 

message: Can we break off statements like "Also, to stop the continuous reverting of pages, Jimmy Wales introduced a "three revert rule", whereby those users who revert an article more than three times in a 24 hour period are blocked for 24 hours." and "Wikipedia's policy is to fairly represent all sides of a dispute by not making articles state, imply, or insinuate that only one side is correct" into a section called "Wikipedia's Reply to Criticism", or, better yet, just shift it completely to WP:RCO? Reading the article fully for the first time it sounds a lot like Wikipedia is trying to defend itself or negate negative arguments rather than show the criticism it generates. (Oh, hey, look at the irony of the quotes I picked.)--Avillia 17:36, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree.  WP:NPOV says, "Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization — for instance, refuting opposing views as one goes along makes them look a lot worse than collecting them in an opinions-of-opponents section." -- noosphere 20:22, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I also agree.  This isn't a forum for bickering pro-wikipedians versus anti-wikipedians.  This is an article about the criticisms of wikipedia's failings.  And wikipedia does has its limitations, as we've learned the hard way. -lethe talk [ +] 21:25, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Alright. Re-add what's in contest, just been getting a lot of browbeating before I even -made- the removals. --Avillia 00:38, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV slant. 

message: While this page isn't normally the place to address policy proposals; this one is relevant.  A new proposed guideline, Wikipedia:Expert editors, is in the works; and further comment and suggestions are now being sought in advance of a vote to adopt.  If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, feel free to contribute at Wikipedia talk:Expert editors.  --EngineerScotty 21:17, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed expert editors guideline 

message: I wrote this in wikipedia talk:Why Wikipedia is not so great#Why NPOV is not so great, but I think it applies here too. Tell me what you think:
"Another point [regarding to why the NPOV, and Wikipedia along with it, is no so great]: 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 09:58, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Flat Earth is a nonexample, as that article will explain.  Scholars (and the Church) have known that the Earth is spherical since early antiquity.  The idea that before modern times people believed in a flat Earth is a myth, part of a range of modern backlash against medieval thought.  There were (and are today) particular people who have held the belief in a flat Earth, but now and throughout history, the educated majority has believed in a spherical Earth.  Therefore, following mainstream thought is correct in this instance.  Your thesis that "well establish ideas" are somehow wrong and harmful is dubious.  But you'd be much better off citing belief in meteorites as an example; for a few decades, the bulk of scientific opinion refuted the existence of meteorites, even after direct evidence was observed.  Didn't last too long though. -lethe talk [ +] 10:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Change the example if you like, use the meteorites thing or whatever. The example is just an illustration of the idea. Pardoxically, I had to choose a widely accepted idea as the examplification, for the sake of simplicity. Besides, I am not saying that mainstream thought is harmful in itself, the harmful thing is to mark any thought as legitimate on the grounds it belongs to the mainstream. The automatical bias in favor of mainstream thought is indeed harmful, and that´s what the NPOV does.--Rataube 22:26, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say this criticism is a reasonable "theoretical objection". That is, if someone described Wikipedia's NPOV policy to me and I didn't know anything about the content actually on Wikipedia, I would definitely come up with that potential problem. However in practice it does not seem to be a problem at all. Pcb21 Pete 09:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guarding the Status Quo 

message: Noted author and essayist Neil Gaiman posted a lengthy criticism of Wikipedia on his blog; I would ask that an admin add it to the external link section under "dated links":
* Neil Gaiman: What Bears Do On the Lawn, May 11, 2006.
Thank you. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 16:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: done. -lethe talk [ +] 18:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 21:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Dunno that I'd call that a "lengthy" criticism. It's not much more than your average, anecdotal, blog post about a relatively trivial topic. heqs 19:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  He denotes how one of his own creations is inadequately covered on Wikipedia; I think it's worthwhile as an external link.  Maybe not main coverage in the article, but still worthwhile to have in here. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 21:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are probably hundreds of such links we could add. Not worth including imo. heqs 00:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Given Gaiman's popularity and prominence as an author, I respectfully disagree. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 02:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd also note that if indeed there are "hundreds" of authors complaining about how their own creations have entries with errors on them on Wikipedia, then we're in more trouble than we already are. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 04:17, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The unencyclopedic category of fictional characters is among the least of WP's concerns. heqs 07:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd respectfully disagree and furthermore suggest that your belief on this point is in the minority. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 12:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Clarification: your belief being in the minority on two distinct points.  First, that fictional characters are unencyclopedic.  Second, that an article being criticized publicly in a very high profile weblog is something that should be considered "the least of [Wikipedia]'s concerns."  Of course, my disagreement is entirely my own opinion, but I do believe it's a shared one. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 16:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Addition of External Link 

message: Some articles listed under Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source are critical of Wikipedia, eg. this one. Should those articles be listed under this article under its external links? Shawnc 08:29, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cheers, fixed.--Coroebus 14:07, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was uncommented in this edit . Based on the edit summary I don't think it was accidental, but no reason was given. --  14:32, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links section 

message: Are we using different standards for this article than other articles? I can't believe that we would allow talk page comments or edit summaries to be allowed as references. They certainly aren't reliable sources. -Will Beback 06:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They're primary material surely.  WP:V says "For example, the Stormfront website may be used as a source of information on itself in an article about Stormfront, so long as the information is notable, not unduly self-aggrandizing, and not contradicted by reliable, third-party published sources." although WP:RS says "Posts to bulletin boards and Usenet, wikis or messages left on blogs, are never acceptable as primary or secondary sources.", but that still wouldn't rule out edit summaries.  Certain leeway has to be given when talking about wikipedia itself, see the first three references at wikipedia for instance. -- Coroebus 08:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say that talk page comments and edit summaries are equivalent to forum posting. Wikistatistics and emails to the mailing list from Wales are very different. -Will Beback 16:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How?  The wikipedia entry relies heavily on references from within wikipedia, violating the WP:RS objection, and highlighting that articles about wikipedia need more leeway than other articles because of the problems of being self-referential, I note that we take wikipedia's statistics on trust, while we wouldn't for many other organisations --Coroebus 16:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not defending the Wikipedia article, perhaps its sourcing should be improved. But a general principle of RS is that we don't accept sources that editors can modify easily to prove their point. So we don't allow someone to post a "fact" on a blog and then cite it in an article. That's just what is being proposed here. An editor is asserting his own criticism that was contained in an edit summary is proof that such criticisms exist. It's a self-fulfilling citation. It's the equivalent of my saying that Pres. Bush is criticized for his poor choice of ties and then if you asked me who had made that criticism I were to respond "I just did." If we follow that route even for this article then anyone can add anything that comes to mind. -Will Beback 01:35, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Granted you shouldn't just take 'facts' from wikis at face value, I still think there is some validity in considering the goings on in edit histories and talk pages in the round.  For example, the edit history and talk for this page suggests a battle between a number of wikipedia admins and users over the inclusion or exclusion of a link hostile to wikipedia - that seems like it would be a relevant point (although I'm not going to add it, that would escalate it into a meta-battle). --Coroebus 07:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

text: That paragraph should clearly not be included. Saying that "Wikipedia is censored because this paragraph will be removed soon" is quite frankly, ridiculous. Talk about criticism another way, but don't make it self-referencial and point to the removal of that paragraph as a source to your claim. It's circular logic. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sourcing standards 

message: Could we have a definition of 'troll forum' and a reference to policy about such forums?  I would have thought the existence of a forum of disgruntled ex/banned users is sufficiently notable for this article, particularly given the efforts gone to to exclude it, the widespread mention of it on wikipedia itself, and the reading of/contribution to it by many wikipedians (e.g. 'snowspinner').  What is gained other than a fleeting feeling of 'victory' by excluding it?  We're starting to look very silly here, and rather nicely making people's point for them --Coroebus 07:25, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Troll Forum 

message: If I wanted to be a real arsehole I'd point out that the article User:Malber has added is not a criticism of wikipedia, or about criticism of wikipedia, but about the Phil Sandifer case, and mentions WR only in passing, and that it is sourced from a weblog.  So it doesn't really belong here.  I'd recommend you add it to Wikipedia Review if you could, it is already in Phil Sandifer. --Coroebus 16:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Boing Boing is not a blog. If weblogs are not suitable references, then a link to Wikipedia Review (a web forum) is wholly inappropriate. Can you please provide a synopsis of the valid criticism you found? I prefer not to divulge my IP address to a hate speech site where the administrators may use that information for stalking purposes. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 16:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Boing Boing...is a publishing entity...later becoming an award winning group blog" according to BoingBoing.  And you are misunderstanding the distinction between a reference to a source, and a reference to an entity.  So while Boing Boing may not be suitable as a reference for whether or not Phil Sandifer was visited by police, it would be a suitable link from the bio of Cory Doctorow.  "Blogs...and forums should generally not be linked to. Although there are exceptions, such as when the article is about, or closely related to, the website itself...".  You can read those links yourself, you have posted on that site before, and as far as I can tell they already know your IP range. --Coroebus 17:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, quick summary of those links (in order) - critiquing individual wikipedia articles for style and content, essay by Avillia on wikipedia the project versus wikipedia the community, discussion about improving dispute resolution on wikipedia, discussion of flaws in current event reporting on wikipedia, discussion of what made people question wikipedia, discussion of WP:OFFICE. --Coroebus 17:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Not enough active participants" (from User:Malber's edit summary) - what is that supposed to mean?  What new policy is this?  Looking at some recent contributions of yours (e.g. here and here) I'd say your interest in this is not entirely dispassionate. --Coroebus 07:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

text: So I guess Wikipedia Review has now been cited in a real source. Time to fire that article back up! :) heqs 17:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Agree with Coroebus. The boingboing link does not belong in the article. This is just getting silly. heqs 17:10, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: Can we stop revert warring please.  How about a discussion on the talk pages? I'm sure no one needs WP:3RR pointed out to them --Coroebus 19:11, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem solved. --Avillia (Avillia me!) 19:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ho ho, want to place bets on how long it lasts? --Coroebus 19:21, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Uh... 67 cents, a paperclip, and three melted gummybears. --Avillia (Avillia me!) 19:31, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 20mins, not even long enough to take the damn bet! --Coroebus 19:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Trying again. Sigh. --20:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The simplest solution would be to remove links to trollboards...er, ahem forums and stick to sites that post articles and essays. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 20:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert warring 

message: "Criticism in general: 
Entries for criticism are needing citations, obviously the person editing the page holds that criticism or is only a public figure allowed to hold criticisms."
I moved the above statement from the text because I wasn't sure what it was trying to say. BuildControl 08:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unclear statement 

message: I don't particluly care if the link goes in or out but if it's going to go in then .org doesn't seem to actually work whilst .com does. Why is there a revert war over this, I don't understand? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:35, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because some people really don't like it, I guess. I think it is to WP's detriment if it doesn't include the link though... RN 20:45, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The .org site is the more legitimate site run by Blu Aardvark. Most of the posters and admins defected to the .org site after some totalitarian moves by Selina. (Wikicriticdrama!) However, several other editors seem to view that the link is not necessary at all as it has since been removed by no more than three administrators. The .org site was working yesterday but appears to be experiencing DNS difficulties today. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 20:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well in that case, why not add both sites with a brief explanation of what happened so that the reader gets to decide rather than us. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:57, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think we should encourage or reward the very same trolls who have a history of harassing contributors (both on wiki and in real life). Raul654 21:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Harly a reward.They all look like twats.  Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 21:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

text: No we probably wouldn't. This is an unusual subject because we always try to make ourselfs look good by embracing all criticism. We can't have anyone saying that we are trying to censor critics. But this probably does make us swing too much in favor of linking to lower quality sites than we would not link to on another article. Does wikipedia review have any redeeming features? Why do those who are adding it think it should be linked to? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 22:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, for a Criticism article (total side note: now that I've read it reads really silly and if I was the dictator I would probably just redirect it to wikipedia until there was more real substantive stuff to put here), it seems appropriate to have a link to a "traditional" forum of some kind (other articles have them as well, for example Criticism of Microsoft). RN 22:26, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I originally changed the link to .org because Blu Aardvark had made a promise to keep his forum clean and police any harassing behavior. However, in a hissy over his pending Arbcom decision, he's  taken the site down. The question is this: how do we link to a community that is this unstable? How do we call this genuine criticism and not just a rabble of disgruntled blocked editors, crackpots, loons, and conspiracy theorists? -- Malber (talk • contribs) 13:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Malber's comments are contrary to any policy related to Wikipedia content. Raul's assetion that decisions about content may be related to encouraging the subject of content are not consistent with policy. Knott's assertion that WR contributors look like twats presumes twats are not attractive, inviting or conducive to survival of a species. "Crackpots, loons..." is a personal attack against critics. Malber is not an arbiter of legitimacy. His original research about the reasons one site was taken down is original research, and perhaps not at all accurate -- he offers no source other than his claims. His assertion that most members went to the new site is not based in evidence. Malber's assertion that he included the link based on his views of what he claims is a personal promise to him from one site owner is an attempt to edit based on his point of view. His assertion that "we link to a community that is unstable" is poor analysis. The link is to a Web site that includes content by members who come and go, not to a community where legitimacy is defined by stability. Stability? The site in question was created to review Wikipedia. When does Wikipedia plan to release a stable version? Waldon 18:57, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This wikilawyering is the first and only contribution by , and is a fairly good representation of the type of contribution you'll see at WR.com. Where is the authority "Wikipedia Review" site, Igor Alexander's proboards version, Zordrac and Selina's private site, or Blu Aardvark's? Might as well just delete the link as none are really that relevant. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 19:16, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is comparing Wikipedia's content to Wikipedia's editorial guidelines nothing more than "wikilawywering"? Why is Wikipedia operated as an open wiki if talk-page comments are discouraged? What is Malber's reason or justification for disclosing alleged personal information of someone who operated a critical forum in 2005? Waldon 19:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  wikipedia review 3rd 

message: I have moved Advocron's threads to Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Moved_from_Talk:Criticism_of_Wikipedia. Just zis Guy you know? 10:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:Advocron|Advocron]] 

message: I've been going through the article and replacing all the old cites with <ref> tags which makes the citations clearer.  I wonder though, would people here consider MediaShift a reputable source?  I think this blog entry would fit as an example of someone denying the attainability of NPOV. Last, is there something special about the dated links section of external links or is that just to separate the links?  Otherwise, I'll try to take evidence from those links and add them into the article. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:20, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV argument 

message: The term "community" appears in the article nine times as of now. Few critics refer to Wikipedia as a community. In one case, a critic that refers to it as a cult is characterized as criticizing dynamics of the "community." Whether or not some or all Wikipedia editors are a community is debatable. But it is original synthesis to conclude that all Wikipedia editors are members of a community and that all criticisms of any process in Wikipedia is a criticism of "the community." The article reads as if someone is attempting to reinforce a sense of community and not as if it is intended to accurately represent perceptions of critics and their criticisms. 01:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whatever it is, I just took it out. Ken Arromdee 13:53, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  original synthesis 

message: Obviously The Onion's article (recently linked at the bottom, but I saw it on the cover of the paper yesterday) is a parody, but at the same time it's definitely one of the more public criticisms of the website.  Despite it's aim at humor, the article is clearly a statement on the problem of vandalism and other shenanigans.  Any of the more experienced caretakers of this article want to try and integrate mention of the piece into the main body of the article? --Bobak 15:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Integrate The Onion parody into a reference? 

message: In the section Usefulness as a reference: "Wikipedia should not be used as a primary source for serious research according to Wikipedia Founder, Jimmy Wales." What exactly did Wales say? Did he perhaps say "principal source"? Wikipedia could really only be a primary source for research about Wikipedia, which doesn't seem to be the topic of this section. On most topics, Wikipedia is inherently a tertiary source. - Jmabel | Talk 20:17, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very confusing sentence 

message: Please see What should be done with wikipediasucks.com?. Imgroup 12:54, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What should be done with wikipediasucks.com? 

message: Why there is no statement of information overload in this article. Wikipedia is cool, but some people experience information overload after reading it too much. And another thing - who or what protects children from reading explicit content on Wikipedia?! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.240.234.212 (talk • contribs) 20 August 2006.
: Got something citable on either point? If so, please, feel free to edit. - Jmabel | Talk 01:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no citation, yet StantonBG added it anyway. I am removing it. Captainktainer * Talk 18:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Information overload? 

message: The section Systemic bias in perspective fails to differentiate between neutrality of coverage (a very broad issues) and neutral point of view; the latter is a technical issue about what is said in the narrative voice. For example, if I were to write "According to Rush Limbaugh, Iran is merely trying to buy time until Bush is out of office," there is nothing non-neutral about the point of view of the sentence, nor should there be any doubt that the sentence is true. It is an entirely separate question—a question of neutrality, but not a question of neutral point of view—whether Rush Limbaugh's opinion belongs in an encyclopedia. 
Colloquially, among those of us writing Wikipedia, we lump these both as "NPOV", but this article is not in Wikipedia space, it is in encyclopedia space, and it should follow normal usage of words, not our internal jargon. - Jmabel | Talk 18:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  On NPOV and neutrality more generally 

message: See also Wikipedia:Expert Retention and Wikipedia:Expert rebellion. Olin 19:55, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  See also 

message: Wikipedia has too many rules. People don't want to sit down and read all day all Wikipedia's rules on every different page. My advice to you is let all the rules be put into a big list on one page so maybe we're spending an hour or less on it. I think some of the rules allow for editors to make foolish little corrections like this NPOV thing and then throwing in all these spoilers. Another thing is no disputes ever get resolved on wikipedia. damn! TareTone 09:32, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia 

message: This section is basically a summarization (though lengthy) of the Roy Rosenzweig essay. There aren't any other writers mentioned in this section. I think in the interests of editing down the length of this article, we should incorporate the material in the rest and remove this section. It really only relates to one person's opinion, not a general topic of criticism. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 16:32, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I could not disagree more. This is a summary of the criticisms raised in what is probably the single most thoughtful, insightful, evenhanded essay that has been written about Wikipedia. - Jmabel | Talk 15:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But it's by one guy. Are we going to include a section for everyone who writes an essay critical of WP if well written? The article is already overlong. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 16:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not a matter of it being "well written". It's a matter of it being good academic work about Wikipedia. It is an even-handed essay about Wikipedia, nearly 40 pages in length, written by a prominent academic historian and published in a major journal. It is one of the few works cited in this article that clearly meets Wikipedia's standards for reliable sources. - Jmabel | Talk 01:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Waffling" prose and "antiquarianism" 

message: Just a note that I'm having some trouble with people who don't want Angela Beesley to contain references to her article deletion controversy. Sbwoodside 22:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Angela Beesley 

message: Another criticism could be that some discussion pages do specify that they are meant to be discussions of the article as it appears in Wikipedia, not for discussing the topic in general, but some Wikiepdians (and I shall plead guilty here) may still have used discussion pages to discuss a topic rather than the article. ACEO 19:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Again: this is an article about notable, citable criticisms. This is not a substitute for internal discussions in Wikipedia-space or on our mailing list. Your comment is a perfect illustration of the issue you are raising! - Jmabel | Talk 06:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Purpose of discussion pages 

message: "The use of Wikipedia is not accepted in many schools and universities in writing a formal paper. Some educational institutions have blocked Wikipedia in the past while others have limited its use to only a pointer to external sources." No citation. No school or university named. No indication of what is meant by "use". Are we just saying it is not citable as a source of facts in a student paper? Of course it is not. And neither is Britannica, as a rule. Encyclopedias are not generally considered citable sources in academia: they are considered reality checks, good introductory overviews, etc. and often a good starting point on research, but never more than that. Is there any evidence that Wikipedia has a different status in this respect than a typical mid-range encyclopedia, say World Book? If not, this is more a criticism of encyclopedias than of Wikipedia. It should not necessarily be removed, but it should be qualified, clarified, and cited. - Jmabel | Talk 15:50, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Provided a cite which actually quotes a teacher on the use of Wikipedia in schools. As for the general use of encyclopedias in schools and universities, that sounds more like a discussion point for the Encyclopedia article, rather than this specific article on criticisms of Wikipedia. I don't see the need to comment on school use of World Book, Britannica, or any other encyclopedia in this article. Casey Abell 16:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incredibly vague statement about universities 

message: I find it ironic that there is inconsistency in this article in two obvious ways:
1. "Wikipedia" being spelled variably with a capital and a lowercase 'w'
2. Inconsistent use of the emdash and, also, with spacing before and after or not spaced.
Apollyon48 13:04, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like you have a pretty low irony threshold. If you wish to make this consistent, I can't imagine anyone will object. - Jmabel | Talk 02:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irony in the article re: style 

message: Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute, the intelligent design creationism publicity machine says of Wikipedia:
:I know of numerous people who have tried to suggest changes to Wikipedia to lessen the current bias of the ID entries -- including staff of Discovery Institute. They were rebuffed. The moderators of Wikipedia's ID-pages have repeatedly rejected and censored changes that would provide some semblance of balance or objectivity to the discussion. Basic accuracy on dates and names have suffered, never mind the downright falsehoods about the science.
Putting Wikipedia On Notice About Their Biased Anti-ID Intelligent Design Entries
# Should this be put in?
# Where should this be put in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul A. Newman (talk • contribs) 
:This is little more than a "letter to the editor" and isn't significant enough for inclusion. Gamaliel 14:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All the right enemies. - Jmabel | Talk 02:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Unencyclopedic topic. I would imagine that if it ever existed it has been (appropriately) deleted or moved somewhere other than Wikipedia. - Jmabel | Talk 05:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's in the Wikipedia namespace, under "Lamest Edit Wars Ever" or something. It's kept around as an example of what not to do on Wikipedia; I've found it helpful. Captainktainer * Talk 06:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia [[Intelligent design]] articles are "biased", says ID activist... 

message: Can anyone help me, im looking for the article about the most famous wikipedia flame wars. I cant find it anymore. Thanks for help...
: Unencyclopedic topic. I would imagine that if it ever existed it has been (appropriately) deleted or moved somewhere other than Wikipedia. - Jmabel | Talk 05:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's in the Wikipedia namespace, under "Lamest Edit Wars Ever" or something. It's kept around as an example of what not to do on Wikipedia; I've found it helpful. Captainktainer * Talk 06:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: need help

message: Despite the best intentions of Wikipedia's ideals and guidance provided, people don't want their articles changed, period.  Given the high qualify of work submitted and the enormous amount of free time people devote to their efforts, this is understandable.  And normal human nature.
But at some point people need to let go and accept that more data in an article is good.  Data that are on topic and otherwise acceptable for inclusion should be included.  Stuff that I see flagged for "quality" doesn't really seem bad at all and so long as it is not egregiously wrong, I would err on the side of leaving it in.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.177.183.188 (talk) 19:38, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Editing a Little Too Gung-Ho 

message: Do we want that? See the last ref in the list... It may be against the law, and is certainly against the spirit. - crz crztalk 04:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The signpost as a reference 

message: For a site allegedly being NPOV there certainly is a bias to this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.153.96.166 (talk • contribs).
: In what direction? - Jmabel | Talk
::I would say negative. The whole article is a WP:POVFORK. —Malber (talk • contribs) 20:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Overly negative about what? Wikipedia or its critics? Also, of what article are you saying it is a POV fork? - Jmabel | Talk 06:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: Someone add a criticism about how some people have access to revert changes and others don't. And that people are reverting changes without knowing if the information is right or not and not even citing them. And the fact that someone they don't know who isn't registered is making the edit.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.89.165.90 (talk • contribs).
: This isn't intended as a general complaints department. This is intended as an encyclopedia article about criticism of Wikipedia published in sources that meet our usual criteria for reliable sources. - Jmabel | Talk 09:53, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a criticism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.89.165.90 (talk) 22:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverting Changes 

message: The The Shiny Diamonds controversy arose when the Wikipedia entry for the Shiny Diamonds was deleted by administrators. The band was labeled Non-notable, and thus the page was protected to prevent re-creation. Ironically, the incident has brought much public attention to the band, thus making them more "notable" 
Washington Post news article . The controversy arises from the argument and critical examination into the true nature of wikipedia being the "sum of all human knowledge" Quote of Jimbo Wales . For some wikis "all" literally means "every single bit of human information"; this idea conflicts with the more practical goal of having all "notable" human knowledge recorded on the pages of Wikipedia. 
In addition, press coverage on the event, such as the Amber MacArthur CityNews International newsclipCitynews International Newsclip  has brought more people into the debate between what are known as inclusionists and deletionists.
The "Articles for deletion" page for The Shiny Diamonds has the following quotes:
:Stipulating for the moment that it's notable as a criticism of Wikipedia, which I still doubt: several external links have now been added to the article, but not in a way that gives anyone a clue why they are there.  - Jmabel | Talk 06:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slap This In Later Somehow 

message: *EMAC: Emerging Media at UTD
*The Shiny Diamonds Myspace page
*CityNews International Video 
===News articles===
* 
Just H 23:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: * 
Just H 23:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: News articles

message: I copyedited the section Criticism of Wikipedia#U.S. copyright law dictatorship#U.S. copyright law dictatorship. Imaginably a legitimate topic, but the content seems only loosely related to the title and the content looks to me like it is entirely legitimate research. All of the citation links (which I have moved to references, they were linked directly from the text itself) are simply links to the images under discussion. It seems to me that this content is just someone's complaint that should be handled in a fair-use-related project, not something that belongs in an encyclopedia article. 
Conversely, I could imagine a useful section on how U.S. copyright law, which is what Wikipedia generally follows, is among the stricter copyright laws in the world, limiting content that would be perfectly legitimate in some other country. - Jmabel | Talk 18:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. I also made an attempt at copyediting and gave up. As you say, somebody with knowledge of the issue could possibly work the material about Wikipedia's Soviet-era images into a reasonable part of the article. But the current comments are almost unintelligible and should be deleted. Casey Abell 22:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

text: What original research is in fact that Stputnik image has NASA lisence ? Are you crazy american that knows that all things were made in America ? What original research is in fact that great number of images were deleted as probably copyvio ?(That are just strings in logs)  What original research is in fact that official foto of  Gagarin has stupid promo lisence ? --Evgen2 12:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research 

message: THere are political editing gangs on wikipedia pushing pOVs, tag teams which block any form of opposition to their agenda.--HalaTruth(ሀላካሕ) 20:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing Gangs 

message: *Metz, Cade Wikipedia black helicopters circle Utah's Traverse Mountain The Reigster
Hope this helps.  Ra2007 (talk) 21:15, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh, we don't come off looking so good in that one, do we? So, has this got a place in this article? -GTBacchus(talk) 22:23, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that should matter.  Whether or not it is verifiable via a reliable source is more important, don't you think?  Ra2007 (talk) 22:42, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course. I wasn't trying to suggest that it matters whether or not Wikipedia looks good in the article. What matters is whether the source is reliable. -GTBacchus(talk) 14:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Worthless source, though.  It is completely unreliable, repeats Bagley's lunatic ravings as fact, and the only things that come anywhere close to sane are actually two editors stating their side of a bilateral dispute without benefit of any balancing facts from the other side. Guy (Help!) 23:09, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What's your reliable source for Bagley's claims being "lunatic ravings"? In fact that's a potentially libelous suggestion about a living person and should probably be expunged, even from a talk page, per BLP - at least per the way BLP is applied when it comes to any criticism of Gary Weiss or others who seem to enjoy highest-level protection. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 14:46, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  There are plenty of sources for Bagley's claims being specious, including Gary Weiss' columns in various publications, the Motley Fool and others - and (more importantly) none supporting his claims, particularly in respect to his claim of Weiss being one or more Wikipedia editors. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and Bagley has yet to provide any evidence at all, extraordinary or otherwise. Guy (Help!) 22:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Has The Register deemed unreliable?  Ra2007 (talk) 22:20, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  For this subject, yes.  No fact-checking, clear agenda, polemical tone, it's essentially a blog or personal opinion piece. Guy (Help!) 11:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is so awesome.  Guy, you're absolutely right, the article in the Register is crap.  The quote from the Encyclopedia Britannica is also totally biased and self-serving, and should be removed.  It fails to AGF, and that invalidates it right there, really.  This page could use to be a lot smaller.  Don't you think? 207.112.75.38 (talk) 04:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We should remove everything, and just have a blank page!  All criticism of Wikipedia is, by definition, polemical, with a clear agenda, and just plain wrong, since we all know that Wikipedia is and has always been perfect in every way! *Dan T.* (talk) 04:31, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  So, lots of hyperbole in the hopes of obscuring the fact that The Register is clearly polemical, not a reliable source, sources its data from two named editors both of whom - amazingly! - are active here in agitating for its inclusion, and in sundry other ways makes a great case for excluding itself.  Does a web-based tech tabloid compare in reliability for asessment of an encyclopaedia with the world's most famous encyclopaedia?  Well, funnily enough, not it doesn't, and it would be absurd to even suggest it did. Guy (Help!) 14:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

text: That's a bit over-dramatic. Why not just use the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard? That's what it's there for.   ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 00:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I think that's an excellent idea. Cla68 (talk) 00:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  More source material 

message: I wonder what your opinion is about the following story:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/12/video_prof03.html 
Apparently, Wikipedia has surrendered without argument the info about some registered Wikipedia user(s) in response to a subpoena from the Video Professor. Other websites being sued have successfuly fought back on the free speech and the first amendments grounds, and even Comcast is demonstrating some backbone on the privacy protection grounds. But apparently not Wikipedia. Should this info perhaps be added (maybe even as a separate section) to the WP Criticism page?
Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 15:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, but what do you mean "were required to release the information" and "had no choice"? It was a subpoena from a private party, not a court order, so there was plenty of choice. The other websites in question contested the subpoenas in the VP lawsuit and were successfull. If you read the consumeraffairs article carefully, you will see that the subpoenas against RipoffReport.com and Infomercialscams.com have been dropped because the companies in question fought back. Why didn't Wikipedia do the same? To say that there was a substantial cost involved is not a sufficient excuse. What happens if other companies start going after WP posters who posted negative informatition about them (say perfectly correct and verifyiable)? Will WP also play possum in face of such subpoenas? Won't this substantially affect the objectivity of the information provided by Wikipedia? I should think that other WP users will think twice or trice before adding any negative information on big companies, even if it is perfectly balanced according to the WP standards, fully sourced and verifyable. Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 15:46, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you are not happy with consumeraffairs.com as a source, here is a more direct source at the website of Public Citizen, a nonprofit public advocacy group that was involved in the lawsuit on behalf of the websites and the individuals being sued: http://www.citizen.org/litigation/forms/cases/CaseDetails.cfm?cID=432 The page has pdf files of some of the court filings for the case, including a Dec 12, 2007 motion by Video Professor to withdraw the subpoenas against  RipoffReport.com and Infomercialscams.com:  http://www.citizen.org/documents/videoprofwithdrawal.pdf This motion also talks about the Wikipedia case and Wikipedia's actions. Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 16:06, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  A subpoena as part of a court proceeding would have been passed to our general counsel, Mike Godwin.  I don't imagine he'd have handed anything over unless he thought it was necessary.  I have no opinion on consumeraffairs.com as a source, which is why I asked if anyone else here does.  My experience of the VP article is that most of the criticisms were not "perfectly correct and verifiable", the sourcing of such criticisms has generally been very poor.  I don't think the world at large is much interested.  Guy (Help!) 16:11, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hmm, that's an interesting line of argument: "trust us becuase we are the good guys and therefore we will do the right thing". Kind of reminds me of the arguments of the Bush administration in favor of secrecy and against congressional and judicial oversight. I did not claim that all the criticisms in the VP article history were "perfectly correct and verifyable". Certainly there was enough poor sourcing there, especially given the fact that the subject of the article is not that prominent. And it is probably true that, as you say, the world at large is much interested in the VP story at the moment. However, I was talking about the larger implications of the Wikipedia's actions in this case for future articles on other subjects. In my opinion, there will definitely be a chilling affect, especially if the news about the VP lawsuit story gets around. As a matter of policy, I, as a WP user, would like to see stronger protections of privacy and identities of WP users. Also, we should not just be talking about the validity of a particular Wikipedia criticism (which is what most of the discussion has been about thus far), but about suitability of mentioning this in the main Criticism of Wikipedia page. Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 16:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

text: That said, having read the first article, I think this definitely should be included in the Video Professor article.--Filll (talk) 18:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not so fast. Here is a copy of my response to Wales' post at his talk page. Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 00:13, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Curious. I have read the VP court motion where the Wikipedia issue is being discussed: http://www.citizen.org/documents/videoprofwithdrawal.pdf Here is what it says: "1. VPI issued subpoenas in early September 2007 to infomercialscams.com, ripoffreport.com, and Wikipedia for identifying information regarding the persons having posted anonymous defamatory remarks about VPI on these Web sites. 2. VPI is withdrawing its subpoenas to infomercialscams.com and ripoffreport.com. 3. Wikipedia failed to respond to its subpoena served out of the Middle District of Florida. In this case, VPI moved the Florida. Court on September 26, 2007 for an order requiring Wikipedia to show cause why it should not be held in contempt . A hearing on the show cause was scheduled for December 20, 2007. 4. On November 29, 2007, Wikipedia produced the subpoenaed information and, thereafter, the show cause hearing was vacated. 5. The information produced by Wikipedia consisted of IP addresses requiring additional subpoenas to be issued to the Internet service providers (ISP) of the owners of these IP addresses to provide the names and physical addresses of the these owners." It does say "Wikipedia produced the subpoenaed information", and there is no mention of any opposing action by Wikipedia. As I understand, in most cases Wikipedia does not have the actual names of the registered WP users, but only their IP addresses. That is what you had and that is what you surrendered. Moreover, the above document makes clear that Wikipedia surrendered the IP addresses of multiple users and not just a single poster. Frankly, I find this action astonishing! If this news spreads around, what kind of an effect do you think it will have on future posters who contemplate including some negative material, even if it is properly sources, about some big company, organization or country? And what about those companies/organizations themselves? How long would it take them to figure out that they can prevent posting of negative information about themselves in Wikipedia by itimidating its users? I would have expected more of a backbone from the supposed beacon of free dissemination of knowledge and information. The other websites in the lawsuit did not have the protection of the Cable Act either, but they chose to fight back and succeeded. Also, the post at Public Citizen, http://www.citizen.org/documents/videoprofsamplenotice.pdf, indicates that informercialscams.com actually notified its users whose identifying information was being sought by the VP subpoena. I don't suppose you did the same, did you? Regards, Nsk92 (talk)  21:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is not a discussion forum, but a discussion page designed to improve this article. if you have issues with the actions by the Wikimedia Foundation, you can write to them. You are wasting your time here. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text: If these issues were reported in  secondary, published sources, we can describe what these sources say about the subject. If not, we would be violating WP:NOR. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:41, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia surrendering users' info without a fight 

message: Could someone correct the name Encyclopedia Dramatica to Encyclopædia Dramatica. Proper spelling is with the æ. Thanks Maxdamage (talk) 09:57, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Uncyclopedia is a parody encyclopaedia, and funny.  ED is just a bunch of juvenile nonsense, not a parody of anything. Parody in my book implies something more than just calling yourself "encyclopedia blah". Parody is an art form, toilet humour is an art form too, but a different one. Guy (Help!) 21:04, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Guy, there's no need to present your subjective opinion as fact. I don't find Uncyclopedia remotely funny, but I still acknowledge that it is a parody, even though it's pure dreck to me. Encyclopedia Dramatica is also a parody, for people who prefer their humor in a different vein. I find parts of it (not generally the parts about Wikipedians) to be hilariously funny, and very effective as parody. I'm aware of parts of it that are quite different from "juvenile nonsense", and that are indisputably parodies of very specific targets (including your Uncyclopedia). You don't find ED to be effective as parody, and you find Uncyclopedia funny. Tastes differ.  More to the point, our subjective opinions about whether or not certain websites are funny are utterly irrelevant. They constitute original research, and have no place here. Wikipedia is for reflecting what sources say, not what we think. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:08, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *By the way, Guy, your declaring them to be "juvenile nonsense" here brings them more attention than if you were to refrain from commenting about your personal thoughts on the site. If you wish to discourage traffic there, stop vilifying them aloud. That makes people curious. If you wish to remove mention of it from the article, make source-based arguments that won't be mistaken for IDONTLIKEIT, which is precisely how you come across now. Every time you mention that you think it's a bad site, your argument gets weaker, and ED gets stronger.  The argument not to call them a "parody" goes like this: "The NYT calls ED a 'snarky Wikipedia anti-fansite', not a parody encyclopedia." That is a source-based argument, and makes no reference to our personal tastes. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:21, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Give this man a medal. ViridaeTalk 10:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  GTBacchus: I don't actually care much about ED as a site, my opinion of them is largely based on removing mass spamming a long time ago before they were blacklisted, it's a problem that no longer needs fixing obviously.  I don't think anybody in their right mind would take a word ED says seriously, but I did see the article they put up on Phaedirel, and it was grossly offensive - and not in the way smutty humour is offensive to the Mary Whitehouse brigade, I mean offensive as in nobody in the 21st century has any excuse for publicly describing another human in such a base and callous way.  They also published (inaccurately) my work telephone number.  That does rather argue for use of the ten foot pole in respect of that site. And please, don't give me the "oxygen of publicity" argument. I am not prepared to accept that the only alternatives are to allow puerile nonsense to stand or somehow to be part of giving it higher prominence. I'm fully aware that WR fans will use any opposition to any attack site as a hook on which to hang their Holy Crusade to allow them to be considered legitimate criticism, but I'm afraid I don't buy that; ED is worthless in every sense of the word. It's worthless as a source of criticism, and as a parody it is actually only a parody of Uncyclopedia, reversing Uncyclopedia's policy and setting out instead to be "stupid and just not funny". But here, all that matters is that they are not actually a parody encyclopaedia, they are a very amateurish and juvenile site with a small amount of anti-Wikipedia nonsense and a large amount of advertising. Guy (Help!) 11:37, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your ignorance of ED's purpose and content is not anything on which to base our decisions. Your opinion that ED "sets out" to be "stupid and just not funny" (dead wrong - they aim for funny, and in the eyes of many, they achieve it), and your opinion that it is "worthless in every sense of the word", are irrelevant, and those opinions are certainly not obvious, nor shared by all reasonable readers. Personally, I don't care whether or not we mention ED in this article - they got one mention in an NYT article, which we can take or leave. I've never added them to this article, and if you delete the mention, I won't reinsert it. I will, however, never accept IDONTLIKEIT as an argument. If you wish to argue that ED is not a parody encyclopedia, then do so by using sources (hint: no source has ever referred to them as a "parody encyclopedia").  Every time you make a non-source-based argument, you weaken Wikipedia; please stop. As for the "oxygen of publicity argument", I don't claim that the only alternatives are to let it stand or else publicize it. I claim that the correct approach is to stick to source-based arguments, never to talk about "offensiveness", and thus avoid both kinds of publicity - positive and negative.  It is vitally important that we learn the proper way to deal with trolls - by being too boring for them to have any fun at our expense. You're not being boring in this thread. -GTBacchus(talk) 17:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  How exactly is referring to them as a parody encyclopedia "taking them seriously"?  And I believe ED actually predates Uncyclopedia in existence (at least, it has an earlier creation date in the domain WHOIS records, though one can't be sure if either site may have pre-existed under different URLs). *Dan T.* (talk) 14:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  By placing them on a par with Uncyclopedia, which is a parody encyclopedia, with parodies of Wikipedia's rules and content policies, and wcich is hilariously funny as a result. Looking above, there was consensus for not including ED, so it;s not clear to me why it was ever in there.  The occasional namecheck is not sufficient notability for most websites, especially ones that include egregious privacy violations and are laden with ads. Guy (Help!) 15:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Guy, what makes you so sure that ED hasn't got parodies of Wikipedia's rules and content policies? They certainly do have parodies of many elements of Wikipedia practice and culture, which I'll happily point out to you if you contact me by email (I won't link to them here). Once again, your opinion that Uncyclopedia is funny is just that - an opinion - and therefore irrelevant. As far as I'm concerned it's not funny at all, and my opinion is also irrelevant. Get it?  I don't see a consensus for not naming an example of humorous criticism that was cited by the New York Times; please point it out. I fully agree that the occasional namecheck is not sufficient notability, and that's why we haven't got an article on them. (I helped argue to get that article deleted and keep it that way - remember?) A trivial namecheck in NYT, however, can buy a similarly trivial namecheck here, depending on our sound editorial judgment. That means: not based on how much we like or dislike the site. Make encyclopedic arguments, not emotional ones.  Next, I don't know what you think you know about privacy violations, but ED has got strictly enforced policies about not publishing people's real names, etc., unless that information is already publicly available. They delete private info from page histories. No version in the history of your article there contains any telephone number, accurate or otherwise (I just checked). Maybe it's on some other page; I don't know. Please feel free to email me any relevant links. -GTBacchus(talk) 17:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  Your opinions regarding the hilariousness, tastelessness, number of ads, and other things about various websites are not relevant criteria to their inclusion or exclusion. *Dan T.* (talk) 16:03, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  My apologies, I'll just call up a tabloid journalist and then they'll be in a reliable source and should be included.  That's how it works, isn't it? Guy (Help!) 21:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, WP:NOR does say that "If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person". *Dan T.* (talk) 18:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

text: * What, by commenting in passing that it seems to have no merit?  Thanks a bunch.  You know, I'm getting just a little bit tired of this idea that the only two alternatives are to leave crap be or have it escalated by people like Dan.  Why is there no third option?  Guy (Help!) 21:17, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Guy, I've never claimed, and do not believe that those are the only two options. I've consistently supported a third option, which is to remove crap in a professional, de-escalatory manner. Comments in passing as to your personal opinion of the website are destructive, because they feed the idea that we make decisions here based on personal opinions. I suggest that you remove crap for source-based reasons, and leave your personal feelings out of it.  Our job, as experienced Wikipedians, is to set an example of what kind of arguments should be made here. I request that you keep this in mind, and stick to encyclopedic arguments.  Again: I have never claimed that there are "two alternatives", as you present. I continue to claim that calling anything "garbage" or "worthless" or anything to that effect is a bad idea, because it encourages IDONTLIKEIT-style arguments from others. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Would you explain what you mean by "escalated by people like Dan"? Cla68 (talk) 21:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a meme he's trying to push lately, in which everything wrong with the culture here is the fault of people like me, never people like himself; his opinions on what is "crap" are perfectly objective and obviously true, and anybody questioning them is merely trolling to stir up drama. *Dan T.* (talk) 23:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dan, this isn't helpful either. If you wish to show that you're acting in good faith, then go race Guy to open the content RFC, and bring more eyes to the situation. Comments like this one don't do you much credit, you know. Don't sling mud back; rise above it. -GTBacchus(talk) 04:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correction 

message: Another criticism of wikipedia is the lack of due process. When a user is accused of being a sock pocket because he happens at one point to have an ip that a vandal had. The user has almost no ability to fight this. The Isiah (talk) 08:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This one does look like patent nonsense to me so before going any further with it I suggest Isiah or others bring some reliable sources to back up his or her claim, then we can discuss it but why we should have an editprotected template without even offering sources is beyond me but also opposed by me. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I think it's important to keep the discussion focused. This talk page is not for discussing whether or not Wikipedia should have something like "due process". This page is for discussing which criticisms of Wikipedia can be sourced, and which ones are notable, with no reference to which criticisms are valid or invalid. Thank you for providing those links - now what do people think of those sources? -GTBacchus(talk) 17:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Before talking about how to structure "criticism of the process" into the article, are we sure that such criticisms can be verified as actual criticisms coming from reliable sources? There's a difference between notable criticisms of Wikipedia and common misunderstandings of Wikipedia's rules, as observed by Wikipedians. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:19, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The "verification" of criticism is as trivial as the verification of the existence of a blog. A quote from WR or wikipedia talk pages verifies the existence of the criticism. The issue is level of notability. So let's use precise terminology so we don't argue in circles to no good end. Criticism of how we treat BLPs resulted in the creation of that policy, so that is certainly notable. More examples can certainly be given. Further, just cuz we fixed something, does not mean it should not be in the article. This is an encyclopedia article and not a to-do list. WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:28, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry if I was imprecise. Of course it would have to be notable criticism to make the article, which is why I said "verifiable in reliable sources", but you're right, the correct word is "notable". I'll repeat the question, with better words - have we got evidence of notable criticisms of process, e.g., misunderstanding IAR or misunderstanding "free"? -GTBacchus(talk) 23:40, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is plenty of notable criticism about our conflict of interest policy; and our notability policy; and there was that recent semi-notable piece that reflected on the tension between COI and anonymity policy. There is a lot out there. For example I looked to find one clear cut example of policy criticism and I found "To some critics, protection policies make a mockery of the "anyone can edit" notion. WAS 4.250 (talk) 00:25, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Ok, so why is the article protected? -GTBacchus(talk) 22:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of due process 

message: 
The statement:
:If obscure articles tend to be of a lesser quality (not simply in their scope, but also in their factuality, rigor, encyclopedic style, etc.,) then as more minor articles emerge, the average quality of the encyclopedia's articles lessens (especially measured by article-count, unweighted by hits). Moreover, the collective resources of the encyclopedia may be diluted into maintaining less notable articles faster than they are increased by encompassing wider interests.
seems to be unsourced OR and should be removed. Dhaluza (talk) 04:22, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. It is the Deletionist's Tautology. "Minor article" = "obscure article of a lesser quality" therefor fewer minor articles equals greater average quality; therefor Wikipedia should consist solely of non-minor articles and would be perfect if all non-perfect articles were deleted; and since there are no perfect articles, the perfect wikipedia is the nonexistent wikipedia. WAS 4.250 (talk) 06:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Who cares whether or not it's a valid criticism? All we're interested in is whether it's a sourced criticism. -GTBacchus(talk) 18:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The criteria is not is it sourced. The criteria is is it capable of being sourced to a reliable published source. Not being sourced is one piece of evidence. Being invalid is a second piece of evidence. Together they make it valid to delete. We should not delete things we believe can eventually be adequately sourced just because they are currently unsourced. Hence the value of evaluating validity. WAS 4.250 (talk) 02:10, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess. I could see how invalid criticisms could yet be sourced, if they're talked about enough to be notable. As for whether it can be sourced, any material that has been challenged as to verifiability may be removed until a source is provided. Otherwise we would keep anything that someone claims they think they can source. -GTBacchus(talk) 12:06, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but we don't remove things that likely belong in an article, just because we can remove anything that is not sourced. For example,we don't gut the many articles that were written before this was a requirement on the English Wikipedia (and it's not even enforced on the German Wikipedia, for example). But something that is an obviously controversial POV statement like this should be removed. Dhaluza (talk) 17:14, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Precisely - any material that has been challenged. Why would we challenge something that can likely be sourced? If it can likely be sourced, then someone will come up with one and replace it. As long as we're all acting in good faith, which we are, it works out fine.  The point is that we focus on whether something can be sourced, not on whether or not it's an intelligent criticism. It's validity as a criticism of Wikipedia has little bearing on whether or not it can be sourced. "Is sourced" versus "can be sourced" is an uninteresting distinction, because there's no deadline. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:39, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced OR? 

message: It's been protected for weeks now, and we really ought to resolve the issue and move on. The protection seems to be over the article "Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia" in The Register. Some say it's a reliable source and that it should be included; others say it isn't a reliable source, and should be removed. So what are we going to do? I think the solution is to file a content RfC and get more community input, so I'll just set one up now. -GTBacchus(talk) 18:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I completely agree. The idea of Criticism of Wikipedia being protected, while a number of Wikipedia admins themselves have apparently continued editing the page doesn't seem fair. Zenwhat (talk) 08:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  It seems like the discussion about the Register has ended.... and almost all the votes are that the Register is a Reliable Source for the purposes of this article. What's left to discuss? Wellspring (talk) 20:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we might be all set on that point. The article is no longer protected, anyway. It is still semi-protected. Shall we lift that, too? -GTBacchus(talk) 20:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oooops, didn't notice the change. Thanks, and yeah I think semi-protection on a page this controversial is just fine. Wellspring (talk) 13:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Let's get this article unprotected 

message: Is there really no entry on this page about the delete-happy nature of many editors, and the criticism which the notability system often receives? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.230.72.86  (talk • contribs) 
* I will delete the article if that will help? Guy (Help!) 14:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Something seems lacking, unless I'm missing it 

message: Well, I can't say I've seen an article criticizing itself ;) Must be why its protected. SudoKing (talk) 01:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article 

message: We should possibly have a  section about Wikipedians inventing terms and concepts, or splicing them and nuancing them to make as many useless articles as possible. This happens especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences. This irks me, 'cause they get reproduced in places like Answers.com. Examples: Commonwealth realm, federal monarchy, federal republic, List of Canadian monarchs, etc. Topics that are not found in the finest paper encyclopedias! And almighty edit wars erupt over these articles! Btw, it's so refreshing to find a Wikipedia page that is so self-critical and so not up itself!--Gazzster (talk) 06:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you know of any documentation of this particular criticism. If so, then there might be a place for it in the article, otherwise it would be original research. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Invention 

message: In the third paragraph in the section Criticism of Wikipedia#Exposure to vandals, there is a link to Wikipedia:Administrators.  According to WP:WAWI, we should make this an external link IF at all, but I don't think we should even have the link.  Thoughts? -- Renesis (talk) 02:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Administrators|Administrators]] link 

message: What we have here is a deliberate attempt to create a wikipedia bureaucracy.
(example: all these unbelievable rules, (endless pages of them), 
that no one knows who's making them)
Of course wikipedia is not a free cyclopedia as it claims.
It has owners.
And I don't thing that these things are happening under the owner's nose.
Therefore I think that the blame is on them.
(and please Mr Ass Hole Administrator, 
don't delete these comments,
or my account, I beg of you ;)
It won't make you less of an Ass Hole.
Thank you!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nikos papadopoulos (talk • contribs) 19:59, January 17, 2008
#Calling people "Ass hole" doesn't help solve problems, however personally satisfying it may be.
#It's false that "no one knows who's making the rules." It's actually quite well-documented.
#The rules don't make Wikipedia into a bureaucracy, per WP:IAR. Wikipedia is not a system of formal rules, and from what I've seen, those who treat it as such come to grief. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:08, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia bureaucracy 

message: In the second sub-section after the summary titled "Usefulness as a reference", the first sentence sounds a bit defensive. A) It starts off with the implied tone that it's usefulness is under question, but preempts this questioning with an admission. I propose that, "Wikipedia acknowledges that it should not be used as a primary source for serious research," should be edited to read: "Many call into question the usefulness of Wikipedia as a reference, in fact Wikipedia acknowledges that it should not be used as a primary source of serious research." Or something along those lines, with proper links and citations, of course. (E.g. Citations of such criticisms and a pointer to the page on Wikipedia which makes the acknowledgment.) —Memotype::T 23:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This sort of change needs to be made after the current dispute is solved and the protection lifted. Editprotected requests should be limited to immediate requests for uncontentious changes, such as adding interwiki links. — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Defensiveness in second sub-section 

message: "Jimmy Wales admits that wide variations in quality between different articles and topics is not insignificant"
Double negatives are generally considered bad grammar.
So, can somebody make "not insignificant" simply "significant"? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:05, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made the edit, because it's unrelated to the dispute for which the page is protected, and it seems entirely reasonable. If this edit is controversial, please revert me, or ask me to revert myself. -GTBacchus(talk) 09:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copy-edit, please. 

message: I'm surprised there's no section on criticism of Wikipedia based upon criticism of the GFDL. 82.36.26.70 (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 20:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  GFDL 

message: I added a link to Wikipedia Review, which, per the talk page, and the oddly protected redirect to its now defunct page, demonstrate that this might be bad.  I only added it because it is somewhat well known that Wikipedia Review is responsible for the Essjay controversy.  I don't think that that is really disputed by anyone. Anyway, if thats not allowed, then feel free to delete it.  I note that their role in the John Seigenthaler Sr. controversy has also been purged. Dyinghappy (talk) 21:27, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Err....actually that isn't so, it was DB (the man who had speedy named after him) and not WR. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:29, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean Daniel Brandt who posted it on Wikipedia Review on the link? Dyinghappy (talk) 21:46, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I see it was deleted.  It looks like there are some things you are not allowed to do here. Dyinghappy (talk) 18:04, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It being deleted doesn't show that; it shows that someone disagreed with your edit. In particular, the person deleting the reference said "blogs aren't reliable sources". If you'd like to reply to that assertion, I think that would be entirely appropriate. Do you think that blogs should be used as reliable sources? In this case? Why or why not? What we absolutely are allowed to do here is discuss. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  oops 

message: I count 38 external links.  That's a lot of external links.  Odds are, readers aren't going to find the links that are truly useful within the hodge-podge of obscure articles there.  Any objection to clearing out many of the links that aren't used as references, particularly those that are relatively insignificant (for example, the boingboing link about Phil Sandifer, which has little to do with 'Criticism of Wikipedia', the articles from a relatively obscure Communist bi-weekly newspaper, the TheTranscript.com article that brings up a blank page for me, etc.)  Some are clearly worth keeping -- Seigenthaler, The Onion, etc. -- they might be better as references only, but I wouldn't quibble over them for now.
I'd archive them on this talk page, for future use in references, but as far as I'm concerned, very few of those links are useful outside specific references on specific issues.  Any thoughts?  Ral315 (talk) 10:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links, redux 

message: To the editor claiming The Register is not a reliable source, on what grounds. it clearly is. On the other hand it isn't acceptable to mention this Maharashi case and so that has not been re-added, but mentioning COI and using The Register is fine. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:09, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You might want to look at the RfC a little further up this talkpage. Relata refero (talk) 18:38, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: . Thanks, SqueakBox 18:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  COI 

message: Perhaps some examples should be listed? Look at this article, it has been messed up for more than half a year and it is about something much more important than a Lightsaber. 
This coincides with more than two of the criticisms. I am sure there are other examples that would help explain the criticisms of wikipedia.
Contralya (talk) 02:30, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  An example 

message: I've noticed that some of the sections detailing specific criticisms contain rebuttals to that criticism. While not all of these defenses of Wikipedia are unsourced and just represent the view of an editor, most are. But I'm not sure that matters, seeing as this page is "Criticism of Wikipedia", not "Criticism and Defense of Wikipedia". In my opinion, if editors want to respond to these criticisms, they should make a new page. People come to Criticism of Wikipedia to see criticisms, not to see "The Whole Story" - as told by Wikipedians. I would say move them to a new page (link from sections if you want to plug your ideas, I guess) or toss them out. Support of Wikipedia does not belong on a page titled "Criticism of Wikipedia". Hope to hear your thoughts on the matter.
67.167.120.36 (talk) 07:23, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Please consult a dictionary for the broader meaning of the term "criticism," and consider that several Wikipedia guideline pages call for an NPOV approach and a variety of views on a subject, as long as they can be properly sourced.--Cberlet (talk) 12:53, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say that 98% of the time, the word criticism carries with it a negative connotation. If people perceived the word criticism as you would have them, it would carry the exact same meaning as "analysis". But they do not, and true as it may be that criticism does not mean analysis in an exclusively negative light, most people see the opposite of criticism as praise. I would just tell editors of this page to play it safe when addressing the criticisms which obviously concern them, it's not exactly a fair fight for the critics.Beepboop77 (talk) 03:47, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Responding to criticism in the criticism article? 

message: I see that with this edit, the sentence on satire in the "Humorous criticism" section of the article, which mentioned both Uncyclopedia and Encyclopedia Dramatica has been removed with the edit summary "Sentence does not really seem to make much sense". Given that the reference to Encyclopedia Dramatica (the only remaining reference in mainspace) survived for 5.5 months after this edit, and in light of the recent DRV of ED, could this be discussed here? Carcharoth (talk) 08:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The edit has now been reverted. Carcharoth (talk) 13:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Satire sentence removed 

message: I would like to invite you to consider taking part in the AGF Challenge which has been proposed for use in the RfA process  by User: Kim Bruning. You can answer in multiple choice format, or using essay answers, or anonymously. You can of course skip any parts of the Challenge you find objectionable or inadvisable.--Filll (talk) 14:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please consider taking the [[User:Filll/AGF Challenge|AGF Challenge]] 

message: I am a bit surprised and disappointed to see that one of the most common (and in my opinion, important) criticisms of Wikipedia is not even mentioned on this discussion page, namely that the writing is often of extremely poor quality. I notice that "waffling prose and antiquarianism" (an oddly Victorian turn of phrase which might invite the criticism of . . . well, waffling prose and antiquarianism) is included, but that isn't really the point. One advantage that traditional encyclopaedias have over Wikipedia is the relatively uniform and generally conscientious application of certain minimal standards in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. While many Wikipedia articles are very well written and literate, an alarmingly high number are not. Am I alone in thinking this? Am I wrong? If I am, I won't mention it again and you can delete this comment as irrelevant. Just a small thought by way of constructive criticism. Mardiste 00:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't support deleting comments because they're irrelevant or wrong, and I think consensus is with me on this. We need to have sources in order to add more criticism to the article. It must be published somewhere, as in a magazine or newspaper, because Wikipedia doesn't provide unverifiable content. A.Z. 00:21, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I found an applicable quote from, guess who, Andrew Orlowski on the general problem of poor writing in Wikipedia. I added it to the "waffling prose and antiquarianism" section as a generalization of what Rosenzweig said about WP's history articles. By the way, I personally think the overall quality of WP writing is much better than Rosenzweig and Orlowski concede. Casey Abell 01:17, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  quality of writing on Wikipedia 

message: Is there a particular reason why story is not referenced in the article? Itsmejudith (talk) 11:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 404 - Page Not Found? WODUP 18:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Link worked OK on the day I pasted it. "Wiki boss 'edited for donation'" BBC News online (www.bbc.co.uk) Last Updated: Wednesday, 12 March 2008, 10:27 GMT. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I should have seen this earlier. The link is http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7291382.stm. WODUP 23:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Any answers yet? Thanks.Itsmejudith (talk) 14:29, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is mentioned and linked to here Jimmy Wales#Wikimedia_Foundation, probably the most appropriate place for it as it more relates to Jimmy Wales than wikipedia as a whole. Though you could be bold and add in a bit here. GameKeeper (talk) 23:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current scandal 

message: It isn't, and just because some guy from New York Times called it that does not make it so. It's a website that catalogs and satirizes internet culture and drama, and Wikipedia is certainly targetted often in that regard, but there's so much more to the site. Shouldn't this line be rephrased?
Perhaps it should just say... Satire also exists in the form of parody encyclopedias such as Uncyclopedia and Encyclopedia Dramatica.
Thoughts? Caleb462 18:58, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree entirely. Actually the NYT calls it a "Wikipedia anti-fansite" which might or might not be subtly different from what we've got. I think calling it a satirical or parody wiki is probably a safe description that's true to the source and to reality. -GTBacchus(talk) 19:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

text: When I added it, I chose that wording just to conform to the source as much as possible. Given the amount of ED-phobia around here I was trying to give the least possible grounds for a hater trying to remove it. --arkalochori |talk| 02:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I have removed it. The article for the site was deleted ,  and later salted. It's an attack site, and it does not deserve attention.  Greswik (talk) 21:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is your opinion it does not deserve mention in this article. It is referenced per WP:RS and WP:V policies.  Mr.Guru  talk  21:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

text: According to what policy we can't mention ED in the article. This is a case of I don't like it.  Mr.Guru  talk  21:47, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Our not having an article on them has nothing to do with "I don't like it". I happen to like ED, and I'm against it having an article here, because there is no coverage in multiple independent sources on which to base such an article. It fails WP:WEB, pure and simple. Just as "I don't like it" is invalid, so is "you don't like it and that's why you're against it". None of this has anything to do with what anyone likes, nor with where anyone edits, nor with what anyone's motivations are. It has purely to do with the fact that our mission is to build a neutral, verifiable encyclopedia, based on reliable sources.  All of that said, it's false that "according to policy we can't mention ED in this article." The mention in this article was cited to the New York Times. It's not anything on which to base an entire article, but mentioning it in this article could make sense. The question would be whether we're doing original research by including what the NYT called a "Wikipedia anti-fansite" under "Humorous criticism". -GTBacchus(talk) 03:27, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

text: When I tried disussing this on your talk-page, you just reverted it away- just like you have reverted anyone ever trying to talk to you, except for the welcome-message. When it comes to why I removed it: I certainly gave other reasons than " I don't like it". I gave the reason it has been deleted after a massive debate,( despite what seemed like massive sock-puppetry and COI-editing from it's followers), as a non-notable and as an attack-site. As long as that decision stands, I don't have to explain why is it a non-notable attack-site. And this is very far above "I don't like it". Greswik (talk) 14:00, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

text: If you ever has seen this ED, you may have noticed it seems to be used by people to piss on girls they have been with and who has left them- this was at least the impression I got. That kind of things. It is a disgusting attack-site. It is not a parody in any good sense, allthough a troll-mirror also is a parody in one meaning of the word.Greswik (talk) 14:11, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This talk page is for discussion of improvements to the article Criticism of Wikipedia. If you'd like to talk about your feelings about unrelated websites, there's a whole Internet out there. Thanks for understanding. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually I thought some of the wiki related articles were rather funny. It seesm rather immature or insecure not to have an article on ED. Greglocock (talk) 01:09, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's neither immature nor insecure; it's policy-based. If they were the subject of non-trivial coverage in multiple independent sources, we would have an article on them. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

text: There are some males on the Internet who seem to think that taking out their dicks and whacking them on their keyboard proves that they are real men. I call it TMS...Testosterone Madness Syndrome. It is sad in a vestigal sense, but not really funny. --Cberlet (talk) 03:01, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How does this comment contribute to the discussion? If you're just stepping in to be vulgar, please leave. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

text: It contributes to the discussion because aggressive bullies, shameless gossips, and crackpot conspiracy theorists are impeding the ability of 99% of Wikipedia editors, across the political spectrum, to edit entries.  I have been able to edit articles with editors diametrically opposed to my political views. II have even edited pages along with neonazis, and we worked to creat a better entry. But it is an utter waste of time to deal with rumor-mongerers and self-impressed critics who spew nothing but venom. Feel free to find another website that values whining cranks and thugs. --Cberlet (talk) 03:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Excuse me? I'm not arguing for "valuing cranks and thugs". I'm arguing against making moral arguments over encyclopedic issues. It's irrelevant, it muddies the waters, and it undermines our credibility when we claim to be committed to neutrality above all. You can't show that name-calling is wrong by calling name-callers names; you do it by setting an example of refraining from name calling. Don't stoop to; rise above. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:59, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that "it is an utter waste of time to deal with rumor-mongerers, etc". That's why I'm arguing against stirring up shit by making it look as if we're dealing with it somehow personally. That's a bad idea. -GTBacchus(talk) 04:00, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sure.  So we take a dispasisonate view: does ED contain authoritative, respectable, well-reasoned critique?  Answer: not hardly.  It contains sophomoric trolling.  If we had an article on sophomoric trolling it might be a source, but as a source for crioticism of Wikipedia it abjectly fails WP:RS, and that's how it should be judged.  Guy (Help!) 11:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  And Uncyclopedia does? Im personally in favor of having a page for ED because its just as funny and note worthy as the aforementioned satire and it actually goes a bit farther most times (where actually Uncyclopedia is rather tame), some may find it offensive but usually people digg things that take it to the next level, make it funnier...id est the Brasseye 2001 pædophile special, that was crazy but the only people that complained were repressed middle class types, old people and politicians that even admited they hadnt eveen seen it but heard about and ergo were totally against it. ED is just as noteworthy as Uncyclopedia, imo, it maybe isnt as popular...not being part of the wiki foundation and all... ΤΕΡΡΑΣΙΔΙΩΣ(Ταλκ) 01:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Since when is Encyclopedia Dramatica an "anti-wikipedia fansite"? 

message: What about criticism not of the concept, nor of the contributors, but simply of the implementation, which the policies are descriptive of? Feel free to rename that new section. 129.174.91.115 (talk) 18:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of the implementation, or criticism of policies 

message: These sources were previously removed from Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions  but could be useful in this article.  Cirt (talk) 08:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia/porn controversy 

message: I edited the intro to read Wikipedia acknowledges that it should not be used as a primary source for serious research. I certainly hope I read the reference correctly. Asav (talk) 04:05, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia may acknowledge the fact it shouldn't be used for "serious" research. Yet Wikipedia has been compared equal to Encyclopedia Britannica. If serious research can use Britannica, why not Wikipedia? And if that, whats the whole point of criticizing Wikipedia if is basically the same as Encyclopedia Britannica? Just putting that out there. --SpartaGeek23 (talk) 21:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It "has been compared" to Britannica only in a few unscientific "studies", whose flaws are easily shown. People have been fooled because one such appeared in Nature, the only case of a serious magazine making this absurd claim, yet it was basically an editorial and not peer-reviewed like the rest of the magazine. Other similar studies have only appeared in popular magazines like Stern (famous for its Hitler diaries), which don't have the necessary intellectual standing to begin with. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 22:39, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Well, this wasn't my original point. I was merely wondering if I had read the reference right, not making any statement as to WP's usefulness or reliability. Still, to (partly) answer your question, the difference between WP and EB for (academic) research ought to be obvious: The EB contains signed articles by academically verifiable authors, i.e. you can judge an individual article by the standing its author has. You can do no such thing with any contribution to WP. Asav (talk) 09:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usefulness as a reference 

message: The largest section of this article is "criticism of the wiki model" as a means of organizing information. This is an excellent and encyclopedic topic. I think it would be fine to give that its own article, summarize it here, and let the criticism of Wikipedia's implementation and culture expand accordingly. Shii (tock) 23:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article too long: let's split it 

message: How much coverage of crticisms of Wikipedia is appropriate in articles about the critics? A "Racialist"/"White separatist" mostly-online magazine, American Renaissance (magazine), has critiqued its coverage in Wikipedia. Is this notable and to what extent? Is it excessively self-referential?  ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 09:06, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A short mention should be OK in most cases. The long text at American_Renaissance (magazine) may be too much for such a short article. What is missing from that article are viewpoints other than the magazine itself. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

text: In most cases, it shouldn't be mentioned, per WP:WAWI (ask if "Wikipedia played a major role in the subject of the article") and WP:UNDUE ("An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject"). A magazine or a writer has probably treated hundreds or thousand of different topics during its history/his life; it is quite likely that the decision of a Wikipedian to single out Wikipedia among those subjects to be mentioned in the article has more to do with his perspective as a Wikipedian than with its notability with respect the actual subject. A good test is whether other, independent publications have reported on such criticism, John Seigenthaler, Sr. passes this test. Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms in articles about critics 

message: One thing I've noted is that in several sections, criticism is not allowed to stand on its own, but instead has either a refutation or 'last word' from "The Wikipedia Perspective". Whilst balance demands that criticism can be discussed and refuted, it seems to be more of a 'last word' than a response on its own merits. Particularly awkward to my reading was that of the debate between Jimmy Wales and a Britannica editor where, not content with merely a response, goes on to give more credence to the WP POV. This is a hard one to judge. It's hard to put fingers on it, but it seems like every section is compelled to show "but that's not really true", and comes off defensive. Thoughts? Achromatic (talk) 02:31, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: no, elitism is a better description for it. Thats when you have moderators refusing anything by shouting "WP:NPOV!", "WP:CRYSTAL BALL!", and every other obscure rule they have for every obscure thing. I`ve been looking at the discussions on wikipedia for almost 2 years and I still find rules that I have never seen before. Its their way of boosting their ego online, which sadly, doesn`t matter at all except here. Good friend100 (talk) 11:17, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree that there is an element that comes off as defensiveness in some of the sections, although in general I don't mind the criticism/response format. As the article title is about criticism the lead in any section should be the criticism, but comprehensive coverage requires a response from Wikipedia as well. Without turning to analysis at the end of the section, which would be original research, I'm not clear what the alternative might be. For the most part the facts should speak for themselves and readers can draw their own conclusions, but certainly there's plenty of room for a good old-fashioned copyedit. Debate 木 01:44, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Defensiveness? 

message: A frequently cited criticism of Wikipedia and one that is sometimes blamed for the decline in traffic is the manner in which an admin determines that certain topics aren't significant enough to merit an article and deletes the article written about the topic. As a result of this policy, several articles about popular webcomics and blogs that recieve tens of thousands of viewers according to Alexa, many of which won critical praise had articles about them deleted by wikipedia. <references/http://www.webcomicker.com/?p=33> <references/http://comixtalk.com/terrence_markswikipedia_and_y>  It was viewed as not acceptable my many webcomic authors and readers that articles about websites and webcomics that have tens of thousands of regular viewers are deemed as candidates for deletion as a result of an admin who is personally unfamiliar with the comic. Others found it counter intuitive that because of Wikipedia's deletion policy, users who come to wikipedia looking for information about a popular blog or webcomic or site were unable to find it. This seemed to go against what was traditionally considered one of Wikipedia's greatest assests, it's ability to provide information on topics that professional encyclopedias like Encyclopedia brittanica were too limited in scope to cover. Others view as a sign that Wikipedia has become too hierarchical, closed, and overrun with "admins" and "editors" and Wikipedia itself is becoming burdened by the bureacracy of of it's editing staff.
*I'm not sure on this one. I personally think a lot of admins/editors tend to delete stuff for "non-notability" just because they haven't heard of it, or aren't familiar with it. But then again, the policies of wikipedia pretty much say you gotta cite stuff, and if you don't/can't, then the assumption is that it's not notable enough. I could be wrong though, and like I said, this is just my opinion. However, I do think it's a bit unfair sometimes; different people have different definitions of what "notability" is. I saw an AfD (is that the correct term?) for an article on a Dallas-area radio show host one time. The guy has been, and continues to be, number one in the ratings and is pretty well known in the area. But an editor nominated the article for deletion because essentially he was of the opinion (paraphrasing), "Well, I haven't heard of him, so he can't be all that well known". This was despite the fact that the editor wasn't a Dallas-area resident...then again, of course, I think all of this just goes back to one of the core debates within Wikipedia: do we include everything or just some things? Do we strive to "provide information on topics that professional encyclopedias like Encyclopedia brittanica [are] too limited in scope to cover", or do we try and be just as "professional" as said encyclopedias? Perhaps these points could be expanded upon or added to the "Notability" section. Shnakepup (talk) 15:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversy with the Authors and Readers of Webcomics 

message: There are several sections where the text dangerously sways into WP:SYNTH problem of original research. The smaller sections which deal with criticism of particular wikipedia rules and traditions are OK. However the larger sections, such as about meddling of politicians and "humorous criticism" are not good. While they look referenced, but many of them are basically primary sources from which implicitely drawn conclusion is that they constitute criticism. This is not right. This article must have references which explicitely say that, e.g., "the Onion's" article  'Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence' is humorous criticism of wikipedia". Otherwise it is a personal opinion of a wikipedian and it is unproven why it is criticism and not simply a joke: "A lawyer and a priest meet in a bar" is not necessarily about criticism of a priest. I may continue the list of this kind of nitpicking, but I invite everyone to reread the text carefully and get rid of "coatrackish" pieces. Mukadderat (talk) 18:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  OR 

message: I think this is criticism of wikipedia (see last paragraph). Should we include such material here? I asked at another talk page, but the answer from Mukadderat was not particularly convincing. Thank you. Biophys (talk) 03:36, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No reply. Fine, let's forget about this material.Biophys (talk) 23:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should we include this material? 

message: There doesn't appear to be any mention of the treatment of neophyte contributors (or their contributions) by the established editorial community. It has been my repeated experience that articles I contribute are arbitrarily merged into broader topics without consideration of the worth of the distinction. Is it the active policy of wikipedia to constrain the number of articles in this fashion, or is this a minority experience? Is there any documented criticism of this behaviour, or should I start complaining elsewhere so I can cite it? Daveph (talk) 23:25, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of editors 

message: (acho que errei o lugar da discussão , desculpem)
A wikipédia (com acento porque é) lusofana e suas dependencias, tomaram um rumo muito parecido com o efeito previsto nas teorias do escritor de ficção cientifica Eric Von Daniken, Eram os Deuses Astronautas? , no caso , o Walles seria mais ainda seria o criador do mundo dessas pessoas o que na verdade é ou esta sendo, só que eles pensam que a Wikipedia é algo que caiu do céu.  
Mas o causador desse efeito, mais pronunciado no meio ambiente wipediano, se deve  não aos editores e sim a um bando de pseudo-s/intelectuais que nada fazem a não ser abelhar. Esses divinos emissários, organizaram um esquema de vigilância tão apertado, que até Criador do céu deles o Jimmy Wales, caso um dia resolvesse editar em águas lusófonas, seria imediatamente expulso (chamado de vândalo, bloqueado e seu IP cassado ) sem clemência , um fato que não seria bem visto por tratar-se um sacrilégio contra o criador. 
Nesse sentido, tudo indica que a Wikipédia chegou ao seu clímax da informação, o que vier agora será no sentido de compactar a informação o que fatalmente incorrerá na equiparação de um enciclopédia convencional e uma enciclopédia assim existem inúmeros  no comercio. 
Portanto é preciso agora, é o Jimmy Wales mandar congelar todas as wikis, antes que o mal se alastre e tome conta até delo o criador ou seja torne-o um vendedor de Softs (exatamente igual ao da Enciclopédias britânicas) correndo o risco de ser preso como pirataria. 
Portanto, seria interessante, financeiramente ao Jimmy Wales, que ele vendesse, imediatamente, todos os domínios para alguma organização internacional (algo como 2.000.000.000 de euros +_acho que vale) e depois (com alguns cruzados amassados),  pagasse a policia local daqui, no sentido de ocupar esse bando de patrulheiros “que já sentem os imortais brasileiros"  encaminhando- para higienização das privadas nos presídios e também para não ficarem a sua cola, atazanando os seus passos  (procurando saber com que mulher assim assim anda saindo ou coisas parecidas).
Na esperança se ser compreendido, afinal a criação é dele,  desde já agradeço atenção e aproveito para apresentar minhas cordiais saudações.  
atenciosamente, 
Wilson Simão. 
Nota; Posso agenciar a venda, conheço alguns interessados.
Se permitirem? meu email é  simaowilson@bol.com.br
HO249 (talk) 16:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Efeito Eric Von Daniken 

message: Someone sent to OTRS this photo :Image:Wikipedia doesn't have all the answers.jpg which he saw at a church in Western Australia. I thought it might fit in this article, but wasn't exactly sure the best place for it. Anyone else thinks this works? howcheng  {chat} 16:56, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that adding this picture it's appropriate in the context of the article. The same criticism can be leveled (from the church perspective) against any scientific endeavor; they've only named Wikipedia due it's popularity. VasileGaburici (talk) 10:56, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photo 

message: This makes it quite hard to follow. I will try to group related criticism together. Please join in this effort. VasileGaburici (talk) 10:04, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, this article itself is an argument for the issues raised under "quality concerns"! VasileGaburici (talk) 10:29, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article has too many sections and some of them are overlapping 

message: The concept/implementation dichotomy reminds me of the discussion whether communism could work in theory. You cannot really distinguish the "theory" of Wikipedia from its implementation. VasileGaburici (talk) 12:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changing the top-level structure 

message: It uses the Wikipedia definitions of "anonymity" and "vandal" instead of the English dictionary ones. This page should be written for a wide audience, not just for wikicrats.
* wiki-anonymous == unregistered user; anonymous == not using his/her real name.
* wiki-vandal == anyone trying to subvert the project, including subtle subversion; vandal == someone who willfully destroys or defaces
wiki-anonymous is narrower than anonymous. vandal is (far) narrower than wiki-vandal.
I will address both issues. VasileGaburici (talk) 10:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not the problem. Non-Wikipedians can easily figure out the jargon "anonymity" and "vandal". "Verifiability" and "original research" differs more from the usual meaning. --RekishiEJ (talk) 11:44, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not when the same section of paragraph uses one of the terms with both meanings, and provides no disambiguation or explanation. Some straw man arguments played exactly on this ambiguity! VasileGaburici (talk) 15:41, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  P.S.: My comment was with respect to "anonymous" and "vandal". I did not find "verifiability" and "original research" to be confusing as they are used in this article, but if you do, I'm certainly not opposed to a more precise explanation of the terminology. VasileGaburici (talk) 15:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article abuses Wikispeak 

message: * Removing redundant coverage of some stories
** I've removed what The Register had to say about the Nature study because it was simply repeating Britannica's position, albeit with more aplomb. VasileGaburici (talk) 21:43, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other measures for reducing the length of this article