Wikipedia talk:Replies to common objections

message: ===Early topics===
WRT the "why not just go to google or dmoz.org" question, when doing a bunch of articles on the various sports of the world (some of which I was only casually familiar), I went searching using those very tools to see if I could find some introductory information about them.  Very often, there just wasn't any - the web pages I found were aimed at people who already participated or watched those sports and would be virtually useless to somebody who'd never seen them before.  I had to piece the information together from my own knowledge, careful reading of FAQ's, rulebooks, and a whole bunch of other material to get a feel for the sport, all of which took a good deal of time and effort (and every sport I wrote about I had at least seen on TV once or twice).  If you know *nothing* about a particular sport, Wikipedia is IMHO already a far better source of introductory information in many cases than anything else easily locatable on the web. --Robert Merkel
:Cool!  Although, I'd guess something like encyclopedia.com might be a better bet, generally...  ;-)  (At least, for now...)
:-[ ???? 02:05, 4 October 2001 ]
----
Not really on topic but:
:George Gershwin (who was arguably the single biggest influence on 20th century music)
What?  (Of course, we don't have Louis Armstrong or Miles Davis either, who one can far more reasonably make these claim about)
:-[ ???? 02:05, 4 October 2001 ]
===Removed no-preventing===
I've removed this text, which was added by an anonymous user to the main article.  Perhaps we could reincorporate it into the article with an appropriate response to the criticism. Enchanter
: "However, there is no preventing people from inserting insidious half-truths and deceptive statements into text. For instance, lies sandwiched between some plausible content may not get corrected until a discerning or better informed person sees it and points it out and this may take a while. This seems to be a problem that has no solution in a anarchist Wiki system -- and it diminishes the value of an entry. Wikipedia is extremely useful for obtaining  rough ideas about a certain topic, but the information has to be taken with a grain of salt (i.e. its reliability is often more questionable compared to other academic sources, even books, which are already pretty low on the reliability scale already [to an academic, that is])."
-Enchanter 16:01, 23 June 2002
===Other comments===
:The largest concerns have been in the mathematical section of the site. It is presently limited by HTML itself, which was never meant to display mathematical formulas. People are invited to work actively on the problems; for an update, join Wikipedia-L and post a question.
We have texvc. Could someone please update that ? Taw 21:59 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
===Date issues===
I've been reading this page and making minor corrections/changes and noticed that there are several references to "last three months" or "last nine months." This is problematic in a wiki as such statements aren't vaild for very long...
Someone should figure out the date range that goes with such statements and change it to say something like "from June to August 2002" rather than "three months"...
:-64.81.234.64 18:59, 19 January 2003
* 14-Feb-2009: I finally just removed those date references: people were reading them as if still meaning "3 months ago" rather than actually 7 years ago. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the ala version best but both make sense. Angela. 15:58, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)
===Needs updating in tone?===
I've just sent a new user to this page, and was reading it over to see what exactly I'd be telling him.  I don't think I'm qualified to do it, but overall I think this page could use some updating in tone (and occasionally in facts) -- much of the "apologetic" stance necessary when Wikipedia was very small is no longer justified.  We still have many shortcomings and much room for growth, and this should definitely be acknowledged head-on, but some of these sections are far more defensive than our current work deserves.  Could I please invite some of those who authored this page to take another look? Catherine 19:41, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: The facts speak for themselves, e.g. Wikipedia:Protection_log, Wikipedia:Missing_Wikipedians.
Yeah, I removed this. It duplicates other stuff on the page elsewhere. I'll readd something about "protection" to misc concerns.  -[ MartinHarper 16:53, 27 March 2004]
===A So-so bit of text===
"Some communists, anarchists and others on the Left would say this sort of democracy is central to their politics. Some on the right wing would gladly give these folks a backhander. Most centrists and moderates find the whole subject too foolish for comment."
I'm not sure this text is connected to the point of the page.  It seems like a bit of undigested (reasonably friendly) exchange of political name calling.  While I find it amusing; it doesn't really seem right for the topic.  What do people think? JesseW 06:02, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

text: It's a sensible request.  See Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check for other people who are working on this. JesseW 22:53, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: But that would make it simply a list of references to other sources, something which Google does far better. Wikipedia cannot possibly be a quality source because it prohibits original material yet at the same time permits un-moderated editing. A contribution which I know to be accurate is regarded as less valuable than a widely-repeated error. What's the point? Particularly, what's the point when anything I read here may be totally untrue, and anything I add can be subverted by anyone else. Sbz5809 11:27, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion of the article as text (changes, improvements, etc.)

message: I've been reading this page and making minor corrections/changes and noticed that there are several references to "last three months" or "last nine months." This is problematic in a wiki as such statements aren't vaild for very long...
Someone should figure out the date range that goes with such statements and change it to say something like "from June to August 2002" rather than "three months"...
:-64.81.234.64 18:59, 19 January 2003
* 14-Feb-2009: I finally just removed those date references: people were reading them as if still meaning "3 months ago" rather than actually 7 years ago. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Date issues

message: I added a "short name" because I can never remember what this page is called... Replies to our Critics? or Replies to Our Critics? I think this might be a good idea for pages where we want a long title, but want to link to it a fair amount too. What do you think? Martin 23:58, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Short name 

message: I've just sent a new user to this page, and was reading it over to see what exactly I'd be telling him.  I don't think I'm qualified to do it, but overall I think this page could use some updating in tone (and occasionally in facts) -- much of the "apologetic" stance necessary when Wikipedia was very small is no longer justified.  We still have many shortcomings and much room for growth, and this should definitely be acknowledged head-on, but some of these sections are far more defensive than our current work deserves.  Could I please invite some of those who authored this page to take another look? Catherine 19:41, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Needs updating in tone?

message: "Some communists, anarchists and others on the Left would say this sort of democracy is central to their politics. Some on the right wing would gladly give these folks a backhander. Most centrists and moderates find the whole subject too foolish for comment."
I'm not sure this text is connected to the point of the page.  It seems like a bit of undigested (reasonably friendly) exchange of political name calling.  While I find it amusing; it doesn't really seem right for the topic.  What do people think? JesseW 06:02, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: A So-so bit of text

message: I'm unsure where to put this, but Wikipedia should demand its writers to write their sources. That way one can look up the facts in other texts, and also make Wikipedia (more) usefull since it would recive a higher status seen from an academic point of view. What system to be supported should be left to the contributers.
Example text:
Text (Authors last name, year:page)
Page references
Author (year). title. edition. Town of publisher: Publisher
This is also to give credit to the persone who wrote the original work on which the Wikientry is based. There are proboarbly litterature "out there" that describe this in fuller detail than I have here however. But this is a problem that seems to plague most of Wikipedia.
:It's a sensible request.  See Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check for other people who are working on this. JesseW 22:53, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: But that would make it simply a list of references to other sources, something which Google does far better. Wikipedia cannot possibly be a quality source because it prohibits original material yet at the same time permits un-moderated editing. A contribution which I know to be accurate is regarded as less valuable than a widely-repeated error. What's the point? Particularly, what's the point when anything I read here may be totally untrue, and anything I add can be subverted by anyone else. Sbz5809 11:27, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: I'm not sure where to post this, but could someone write an RSS Feed for this site? 07:00 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I agree. It would be best if you could get RSS feeds for your watchlist and individual pages, as well as RecentChanges. -- Björn Lindström 12:22, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  RSS Feed 

message: Encourage Mr. I-Can't-Take-It-Seriously to make edits. The thought that I kept having when reading the FAQ is that the person making the complaints about Wikipedia not being academically sound is "well if you recognize that an article contains errors, why don't YOU edit it?".
After all, one of the points in the rebuttals is that experts happen across the dubious content sooner or later, and fix it up themselves. Part of the peer review process is that authorities in a field are making (or at least suggesting) edits. If you are confident that an article is flawed, you are probably qualified to suggest corrections. The way Wikipedia works, "suggestions" are immediately published, but it is likely that people who consider themselves an authority on a subject are monitoring the entry in question, so within a few days anything contentious will be addressed and the article will more closely reflect consensus.
In a less heavily edited document, I would just go ahead and make this change, but I'm wondering if maybe there's a reason the critic isn't being encouraged to become an editor. I'm not about to trawl through the edit history to find out.mjb 17:44, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: I think if someone criticises my garden and says "it needs a lot of care" then "so take care of it!" isn't a valid response: if the critic believes my garden takes a lot of care, then sie won't want to invest any time in caring for it. Rather, I should convince hir that the garden looks after itself most of the time. Not everyone wants to get involved in "vandal defence", so we shouldn't give the (wrong) impression that Wikipedia only works because everyone is continuously engaged in vandal defence. Martin 12:13, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  sugggestion 

message: Does anyone still read all of Recent Changes?  It seems like now most of the more substantial vandalism catching (at least of small time vandals) occurs due to watchlists.  Unfortunately there is no way of finding non-watchlist changes, so vandalism slips through the cracks, like this May 2 edit that was not corrected until June 3.  I think the fact that this was not found for a month is pretty good evidence that vandalism is staying in Wikipedia embarissingly long.  Jrincayc 01:58, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: One argument is that the pages that nobody watches are the pages readers are less likely to care about. This doesn't mean that they shouldn't be fixed, but that a delay in fixing them is relatively acceptable. Moreover, a savvy reader can always view legitimate versions in the page history, although making this more user-friendly would be helpful. As for the question of who reads all of Recent Changes, the answer is that no one ever did; the important thing is that we collectively give it a fairly good scouring, and many people are busy making other important contributions. Deco 04:27, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that people did read all of Recent Changes back when this article was first written circa Jun 2001 (after the k5 article).  Back then, there were at most 1000 changes in a month (compared to now when it is 300,000).  It was possible to do at that point in time.  I am asking for comment on improved pages at Wikipedia:Village Pump#Recent Changes no longer enough and User:Pcb21 is asking for brainstorming at User:Pcb21/Checked edits.  Jrincayc 16:28, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does anyone still read all of Recent Changes? 

message: Am I right in thinking that I could charge people to view a copy of a Wikipedia page (if I told them that it is under the GNU Public Liscence and it is available for free here) if I wanted to. Trying to get my head round the legal text of the liscence has confused me, so please could you clarify. (P.S. If this is in the wrong place please move it.) --βjweþþ (talk) 15:54, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Copying Wikipedia Pages

message: I noticed that pretty much the entire article is listed twice, though in an oddly staggered way:
Contents 
1 Letting arbitrary Internet users edit any article at will is absurd
2 Letting arbitrary Internet users edit any article at will is absurd
3 Wikipedia can never be high quality
4 Scalability
5 Miscellaneous concerns
6 See also
7 Wikipedia can never be high quality
8 Scalability
9 Miscellaneous concerns
10 See Also
Notice that Scalability, et cetera...every single entry...is duplicated.
I would cut it up myself, but there's a slight chance this isn't a weird mistake, but has a purpose, so I'm asking first...
Kaz 23:10, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplication? 

message: From the project page:
:I am afraid you have some similarities with Communism or the Left.
Now this will start a flamewar and make everybody hate me, but where does it say that Communism must be hated by everyone everywhere? Where can I find an official, universal, non-disputed standard on which political system is better than which?
I am not advocating Communism myself, but seeing Communism as inherently evil rather than personally disliking it sounds wrong.  — JIP | Talk 10:25, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Communism 

message: "To some extent, that's a good thing. Academics are adept at writing for other academics, but an encyclopedia needs to be accessible to everyone. We're breaking the hold of academia upon reference works! Huzzah!"
I'm not an academic, but I still think this claim is ridiculous and makes this page look rather amateurish. Academic can write for the general public clearly and comprehensibly, in books, newspapers, speaking on news programs, and for encyclopaedias for that matter. To bundle all academics into one stereotyped, untrue category is just silly. What is this section should emphasise is that many wikipedians are skilled in both writing skills and knowledge, not the absurd claim it makes at the moment. Deus Ex 23:23, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To some extent you're right — many academics are excellent at explaining things well (that's how they get to be teachers after all). On the other hand, there are people who possess great knowledge but write poorly (not just academics), and the ability of that person to contribute and have their writing cleaned up by good writers is one of the benefits of Wikipedia. Overall I agree with this change though. Deco 23:27, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "Shortage of intellectuals" section

message: I've moved some comments made by 69.157.227.194, from the article to here.
*At the bottom of the "Partisans" section the anon wrote:
:Wikipedia has a "fairly, decent, balanced" articles about capitalism? That's your idea of a joke, right?
*At the bottom of the "Departures" section the anon wrote:
:This explanation expresses alot of insensitivity to a real problem. When so many wikipedians are lost to the project because their views are marginalized, it means there is a systemic bias of a particular narrow range of views that is becoming solidified over time. When those dominant views do not reflect the diversity in the public at large it has very serious implications for the encyclopedia's claims of "balance.".
*At the bottom of the "Communism" section the anon wrote:
:Wikipedia is not "like a free market": the frameworks set for entries and the content included is often not a product of a free competition where the the best value wins rather what gets included is a result of "gang dominance" as like-minded editors collude with one other in the waging of edit and revert wars.
These edits represent objections to the replies, and as such were obviously inappropriately added. However I think they do constitute the germ of a serious objection, which probably deserves a better formulation and reply.  Paul August ☎ 17:35, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
:I rewrote the Communism reply. -- Beland 04:48, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments by 69.157.227.194 (moved here from article) 

message: In Mixing ignorance and knowledge, the example beginning "Second, there is a problem with the concept of peer review in general" seems inappropriate. It discusses how Peer Review is flawed (new stuff gets refused) but this comparison is not relavent because wikipedia shares that 'flaw' TomCerul 16:05, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ouch.  It's terrible that this criticism has sat for two years.  I agree entirely, and can't bring myself to feel good about wikipedia again after the heartwrenching and pointless murder of history its editors seemed to gleefully participate in.  Watching poignant topics slashed and deleted for no apparent reason (or worse : poor reasons) while the yardage of Battlestar Galactica piles up minutely - hard to stomach.  As long as the hubris of wikifolks rides free, wikipedia will remain a toy for TV geeks.   Inappropriately territorial will to ignore criticism, vilify critics, and insist on preferential treatment of non-information over actual information (IE disapproving stance toward "trivia" shamelessly parading alongside six zillion words about television drama) seems only to worsen with time.  The "encyclopedia's" contents are destroyed by needlessly strict interpretation of standards that aren't possible to meet in all cases (events / history not covered in mainstream media nor eulogized on TV, for instance) while the wiki-TV guide is treated as sacrosanct.  In that this is inarguable, I can't help but find the self-satisfaction of wikipedia's editors not only confusing in its baselessness, but irritating in its hypocrisy.  Editors: make it worthwhile - *then* put on airs. Freign (talk) 17:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mixing ignorance and knowledge - new research? 

message: I love Wikipedia and have made quite a few edit contributions that have stuck, so I like to think I am a positive asset to Wikipedia.  But I am spending too much time reverting vandalism.
Why is it that Wikipedia allows anonymous (from mere IP addresses) editing of the articles?  This is just dumb and we're literally begging for vandals to come and mess it up.  I want to assume good faith of other contributors but if there is no discrimination at all at the gate, the barbarians just walk in.  That makes it harder to do business inside the city walls (which we don't have time for) and, eventually, we will not be able to do business at all.  This is what John C. Dvorak is predicting at Wikipedia:Criticisms#John_C._Dvorak.  The standard Replies to common objections is not dealing with this modest restriction at all.  It is just not cutting it and too many person-hours have been spent editing Wiklipedia to allow this valuable web resource to be destroyed or become meaningless because of some zealous adherence to some notion of egalitarianism that is more than necessary to be egalitarian.  Egalitarianism is not anarchy nor is it dependent on anonymity.
You should require every editor to Login and when they first create an identity, they should have to verify by responding to an email generated from Wikipedia (so we know their email address is real, and some domains can be nixed).  They should have to identify themselves, at least to the administrators.  And whenever they login, there should be a record of IP addresses that the logged in user comes from so that if vandalism is done from the same IP (but a different login name), we might have an idea of who to contact.
You guys have to fix this!  It will not be long that sophisticated vandals will automate what they do and use multiple IP addresses to do it.  And then Wikipedia will become useless. What a waste! r b-j 23:08, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's possible that someone who would otherwise have added something good to an article wouldn't if they had to log in. I don't think restricting anonymous edits would make a huge difference in the outcome of anything though.--Ssj4android 03:55, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I strongly agree with your proposal.  It would also help tremendously in curbing the abuse that afflicts many users who attempt to constructively author and edit articles for the Wikipedia.  However, for historical reasons it will be very difficult for the adminstrators of the Wikipedia to make this reform.--Pseudo Socrates 06:17, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I also strongly agree with the thesis. While there are situations, venues, and circumstances were pure anonymity is desireable, and sometimes necessary, I'm hard pressed at the moment to name such that may obtain in editing wikipedia. In my brief tenure here, all patently obvious vandalism has been committed 'by' IP addresses, totally anonymously. It makes little sense. For example, i recently reported repeat vandalism by [these folks]. There's a long and ignominious history of vandalism from that location; clearly, it's a sport for the kids there. If each editor were required to identify and verify themselves, there'd be a *tiny* bit of accountability. certainly, bogus information could always be submitted. but it adds at least a small buffer to the process, which may help. At worst - it has no effect. Anastrophe 05:59, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  But this still does not justify allowing editing from any anonymous source 

message: Someone added this to the bots section:
:Wikipedia's external links are programmed to use a specific format to tell search engines not to use them for the purpose of increasing the popularity of the target. This makes Wikipedia an unattractive target for external link spam as links here will not contribute to page ranking of target sites.
Is this true? And if so, could someone please include a reference link in the article? I couldn't find anything about it after a quick search on WP and Google (only the "index,follow" robots bit in the html source). If not, I'll remove it in a little while. --Codemonkey 16:24, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed it for now. Couldn't find any reference for it. If you can, please include it and feel free to add this back. --Codemonkey 17:07, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is true for the non-English wikis, but has been turned off here, see Wikipedia:Nofollow.  — Catherine\talk 09:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  external links aren't used by search engines? 

message: The following paragraph was removed by me from the article
# Note that encyclopedias articles are not a good example of peer reviewed material Scientific Journals are; they focus on one area of expertise, and are governed by the top minds in that area. In order to be published, one's work must pass a rigorous screening that usually precludes the need for constant error fixing that plagues Wikipedia. Additionally, these journals do post corrections when merited. One would not use a bridge built by Wikipedia specifications, but specifications given in an Engineering Journal can be trustworthy.
It was in a silly place, and I'm not sure it belongs at all. If you feel it is worthwhile, copyedit it and add it someplace appropriate. Thanks MosheZadka 16:51, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed from article 

message: This section is highly POV and has a highly positive POV of capitalism and a highly negative POV of Communism. If Communism is referred to something like "Soviet-style Communism" that would be better. But the parts that praise capitalism have got to go. It would be best to not respond to this "criticism" anyway; as there is no "economy" of Wikipedia, it is disastrous to try and bring up any comparisons to real-life economic systems. --Revolución (talk) 18:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, as long as you keep it there... Just remember, there are several answers in different POVs because the question in itself can have a wide range of POVs. Selecting one of the answers would probably bring up an edit war. And they're all true in some way, though I agree some clarification would be helpful. Why don't you bring up that "Soviet-style Communism" problem somewhere there? (But please, no more than two lines. There's an article that (ideally) clarifies that better than it should here.) - Ekevu (talk) 19:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Communism

message: == Bit rot ==
From the article as of 14:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Additionally, it's important to note that both personal and organizational pages on the Web become out of date (so-called 'bit rot').
Hm... The bit rot article only talks about software malfunction and nothing about published content. Is the bit rot article incomplete or has a wrong term been used? Ekevu 14:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps link rot was meant? _R_ 22:52, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: link rot seems more likely. --Siva1979Talk to me 20:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Agreed. The strong sense of POV here is an example of systemic bias which should be strongly discouraged. Remember, encyclopedias such as Brittanica and Encarta play an important role in educating humanity as well. Moreover, these encyclopedias contain less factual errors than Wikipedia presently. --Siva1979Talk to me 20:48, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is better then other encyclopedias!  But still, NPOV would be good here.  Mathiastck 16:29, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The better articles have a one page paragraph at the top, that provides a neat little summary.  For awhile I was only reading those, before moving on to to the next article.  Most of the articles I read I read so as to help understand a different article.  The first paragraph should serve that purpose.  Mathiastck 16:31, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: <span style="font-size:medium;">Topics from 2006-2008</span>

message: From the article as of 14:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Additionally, it's important to note that both personal and organizational pages on the Web become out of date (so-called 'bit rot').
Hm... The bit rot article only talks about software malfunction and nothing about published content. Is the bit rot article incomplete or has a wrong term been used? Ekevu 14:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps link rot was meant? _R_ 22:52, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: link rot seems more likely. --Siva1979Talk to me 20:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bit rot 

message: This page seems to have a strong POV against other encyclopaedias like Brittanica and Encarta. I think we are undermining ourselves by trying to downsize our competitors, an example of systemic bias? Loom91 14:14, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. The strong sense of POV here is an example of systemic bias which should be strongly discouraged. Remember, encyclopedias such as Brittanica and Encarta play an important role in educating humanity as well. Moreover, these encyclopedias contain less factual errors than Wikipedia presently. --Siva1979Talk to me 20:48, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is better then other encyclopedias!  But still, NPOV would be good here.  Mathiastck 16:29, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strong POV against other encyclopaedias 

message: Yes, Wikipedia does causes it. It gives way too much info, compared to other encyclopedias. And not all people are knowledge-freaks, that need every little detail. Wikipedian articles are full of too much details.
As of 2006, I decided to stop reading Wikipedia, because it caused me a real Information overload. I didn't need to know all this info for my favorite cars, for example. The Ford Fiesta article gives too much info to me. Yes, I prefer being ignorant towards cars, media, music and art. Should I know the biography of Britney Spears to live a good life? No! Because, years ago, when I didn't even knew the name of the president of my country, I was happier. Too much info is not for me, I'll be ignorant again. Stanton BG 12:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The better articles have a one page paragraph at the top, that provides a neat little summary.  For awhile I was only reading those, before moving on to to the next article.  Most of the articles I read I read so as to help understand a different article.  The first paragraph should serve that purpose.  Mathiastck 16:31, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Information overload 

message: I agree that articles get better, UP TO A POINT.  Then they seem to dwindle down in quality as things become unsourced, and the editors move on to different places?  This is why I stopped contributing to wikipedia.  There's never a finished product.  Wikipedia is infotainment, and an interesting experiment in democracy.  But no matter what amazing product it creates, that product will deteriorate.  The more editors there are, the faster wikipedia articles will improve UP TO A POINT.  Then they'll deteriorate faster than before with more users to make retarded edits on subjects they know very little about.  Does anyone have any serious response to this problem of deterioration?--74.128.175.60 20:44, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deterioration not mentioned 

message: Why does this page offer only responses to criticisms? It seems to serve as a type of telemarketer's script to help the salesmen know what to say when valid objections are offered. KillerAsteroids 05:34, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Isn't this page NPOV? 

message: Although the content is self-explanatory, I feel like there should be something here that explains its purpose.  Croctotheface 00:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shouldn't this page have something that indicates what it is 

message: It describes Wikipedia as it ideally should exist, not as it actually does exist. It's so divorced from my day-to-day experience that I have trouble taking it seriously.  Raymond Arritt 13:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What's the purpose of this article?

message: >No article on Wikipedia has been written by a single contributor
Not one?  Really?
Also, we're getting way out of the scope of this article with the two POVs (one was just added today) that try to explain what communism is or isn't.  People have strong, and sometimes irrational, feelings about politics (and sex, and religion, etc), and all you accomplish by gratuitously inserting those into the conversation is to lose the people who are offended, without enlightening the others, IMO.  - Dan Dank55 (talk) 05:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  No article?  Not one? Also: communism 

message: Dcoetzee just deleted the word "altruism".  He/she referred to Schroer & Hertel (without a cite ... not sure which work was meant, but it was probably something in the nature of http://publications.andreas.schmidt.name/braun_schmidt_WikisForKnowledgeMaturing_IKNOW07.pdf).  I just want to point out that "altruism" means something different to evolutionary psychologists and economists than it does to the typical reader, and according to their understanding, altruism may very well play a central role in Wikipedia.  I'm pretty tied up with article reviewing and work on style guidelines, but I will be happy to help if anyone wants to explore this. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Altruism 

message: ==Retrofit talk-page year headers/subpages==
13-Feb-2009: I have added subheaders above as "Topics from 2003" (etc.) to emphasize the dates of topics in the talk-page. Older topics might still apply, but using the year headers helps to focus on more current issues as well. Afterward, I dated/named unsigned comments and moved 4 entries (including "Early topics" & "Removed no-preventing" & "A So-so bit of text") into date order for 2001-2004. What a nightmare.
Then I added the "Talk-page subpages" box beside the TOC.
NOTE: Early talk-page revisions seem date-linked incorrectly in the WP databases. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:48, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's permissible under Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid within the Wikipedia: namespace.  The "we" are the accounts in the edit history.  It might be better tagged as an essay.  "Completely daft" isn't the nicest way to put it, but how strong each of these replies to objections are is debatable. Шизомби (talk) 13:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

text: I'd agree that this page is a bit silly in parts since it does construct quite a few straw men, but I think "completely daft" is an overstatement. There is a link in the lead to a page devoted to the criticisms of Wikipedia, so the other side of the argument is presented, just not here. It seems to me like it's tolerably clear from the presentation in this page that this page is only really meant to show one side of the debate (the other side is only shown as weakly phrased points to respond to). I would agree though that that fact should be made even clearer, and I think that it would be a very good idea to tag this as an essay (since, from my understanding, it is expected that essays might not be from a NPOV whereas this page could be mistaken by some as policy or as officially accepted due to not being tagged as an essay). Also, the self-reference is practically unavoidable in a page like this and is tolerable since it's in the Wikipedia: namespace, as Schizombie said. BreakfastJr (talk) 09:03, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

text: Well, as long as you keep it there... Just remember, there are several answers in different POVs because the question in itself can have a wide range of POVs. Selecting one of the answers would probably bring up an edit war. And they're all true in some way, though I agree some clarification would be helpful. Why don't you bring up that "Soviet-style Communism" problem somewhere there? (But please, no more than two lines. There's an article that (ideally) clarifies that better than it should here.) - Ekevu (talk) 19:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The above was copy-pasted  from a previous section of this talk page by Ijon Tichy x2  (talk) 19:58, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  POV 3 claims that "Wikipedia is not like communism because it's voluntary",  and "Under communism people are forced to contribute to the common good whether they want to or not" and "Communism is coercive". These are probably correct statements under e.g. the Soviet Union. But they are not correct under e.g. anarchist communism as advocated by Peter Kropotkin.     Regards, Ijon Tichy x2  (talk) 19:58, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've gone through and made various clarifications and qualifications in the Communism section (along with a few general and unimportant copyedits). I think it comes out as more clear about which systems of communism are being discussed and things like that now, although this section of the essay/article is probably still the one most likely to benefit from some work on giving it a neutral tone. Since it's got so many POV's, though, I think it comes out as neutral enough for now, and isn't overly negative or generalising with regards to communism anymore. BreakfastJr (talk) 08:46, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

text: When I first read that sentence I was also confused, but when I read the rest of the paragraph I came to understand that it meant that by "should not be creating the work", it meant "should not be putting into Wikipedia their original research" rather than "should not be editing or creating pages". However, I do think that it is a somewhat unclear sentence; without the context provided by the rest of the paragraph it could easily be interpreted as meaning something very contradictory to a core aspect of Wikipedia. As such, I've amended it to "Perhaps most importantly, amateurs or experts should not be themselves conceiving or discovering the information that appears in Wikipedia, though they are encouraged to create and edit pages with information from other sources"; I hope that that clears up the issue. BreakfastJr (talk) 05:47, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: <span style="font-size:medium;">Topics from 2009-2013</span>

message: 13-Feb-2009: I have added subheaders above as "Topics from 2003" (etc.) to emphasize the dates of topics in the talk-page. Older topics might still apply, but using the year headers helps to focus on more current issues as well. Afterward, I dated/named unsigned comments and moved 4 entries (including "Early topics" & "Removed no-preventing" & "A So-so bit of text") into date order for 2001-2004. What a nightmare.
Then I added the "Talk-page subpages" box beside the TOC.
NOTE: Early talk-page revisions seem date-linked incorrectly in the WP databases. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:48, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Retrofit talk-page year headers/subpages

message: 13-Feb-2009: That essay still has the tone of "marketing-speak" with glowing terms (WP:PEACOCK).  I think the present-day facts about Wikipedia could speak for themselves, since Wikipedia has improved over the past 8 years. So, adding too much fluff could frustrate readers or alert them that perhaps the facts are not solid enough to refute complaints. The glowing phrases are probably left-over text from years when Wikipedia did not have the current level of improvemets (many articles still retain wording of phrases from 2003). For example, the phrase "the rich get richer" seems over the top, just too rosy for a serious reply. Also, I plan to replace section title "Success breeds failure" with "Handling increased attacks" because that section concerns malicious attacks on articles. In general, most of the glowing phrases were probably just left-over text from the years before Wikipedia had improved. The tone was mentioned in 2004, under: #Needs updating in tone? (above). -Wikid77 (talk) 12:48, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Reducing marketing tone

message: Is the "Incorrect titles" section really needed? The problem has long since been fixed... 90.195.179.46 (talk) 14:44, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect titles 

message: Wikipedians answer criticisms of wikipedia?!  Erm, spot the self-reference?  Who criticises the replies to the criticisms and so on? Just who is the "we" that are responding?  People who invest their lives and prejudices and beliefs in the project? Jimmy Whales's sock puppets?  The Management?  People who can revert faster than I can?  People friends with a Moderator?  The whole concept of this project page is so ridiculous and POVish it should be deleted immediately. 86.143.73.37 (talk) 12:58, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's permissible under Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid within the Wikipedia: namespace.  The "we" are the accounts in the edit history.  It might be better tagged as an essay.  "Completely daft" isn't the nicest way to put it, but how strong each of these replies to objections are is debatable. Шизомби (talk) 13:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

text: I'd agree that this page is a bit silly in parts since it does construct quite a few straw men, but I think "completely daft" is an overstatement. There is a link in the lead to a page devoted to the criticisms of Wikipedia, so the other side of the argument is presented, just not here. It seems to me like it's tolerably clear from the presentation in this page that this page is only really meant to show one side of the debate (the other side is only shown as weakly phrased points to respond to). I would agree though that that fact should be made even clearer, and I think that it would be a very good idea to tag this as an essay (since, from my understanding, it is expected that essays might not be from a NPOV whereas this page could be mistaken by some as policy or as officially accepted due to not being tagged as an essay). Also, the self-reference is practically unavoidable in a page like this and is tolerable since it's in the Wikipedia: namespace, as Schizombie said. BreakfastJr (talk) 09:03, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  This page is completely daft? 

message: This section is highly POV and has a highly positive POV of capitalism and a highly negative POV of Communism. If Communism is referred to something like "Soviet-style Communism" that would be better. But the parts that praise capitalism have got to go. It would be best to not respond to this "criticism" anyway; as there is no "economy" of Wikipedia, it is disastrous to try and bring up any comparisons to real-life economic systems. --Revolución (talk) 18:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, as long as you keep it there... Just remember, there are several answers in different POVs because the question in itself can have a wide range of POVs. Selecting one of the answers would probably bring up an edit war. And they're all true in some way, though I agree some clarification would be helpful. Why don't you bring up that "Soviet-style Communism" problem somewhere there? (But please, no more than two lines. There's an article that (ideally) clarifies that better than it should here.) - Ekevu (talk) 19:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The above was copy-pasted  from a previous section of this talk page by Ijon Tichy x2  (talk) 19:58, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  POV 3 claims that "Wikipedia is not like communism because it's voluntary",  and "Under communism people are forced to contribute to the common good whether they want to or not" and "Communism is coercive". These are probably correct statements under e.g. the Soviet Union. But they are not correct under e.g. anarchist communism as advocated by Peter Kropotkin.     Regards, Ijon Tichy x2  (talk) 19:58, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've gone through and made various clarifications and qualifications in the Communism section (along with a few general and unimportant copyedits). I think it comes out as more clear about which systems of communism are being discussed and things like that now, although this section of the essay/article is probably still the one most likely to benefit from some work on giving it a neutral tone. Since it's got so many POV's, though, I think it comes out as neutral enough for now, and isn't overly negative or generalising with regards to communism anymore. BreakfastJr (talk) 08:46, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Communism

message: "Perhaps most importantly, amateurs or experts should not be creating the work that appears in Wikipedia."
This assertion is directly contradicted by the rest of the page where the authors go out of their way to say both amateurs and professionals are welcome to create and edit Pages. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 16:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: When I first read that sentence I was also confused, but when I read the rest of the paragraph I came to understand that it meant that by "should not be creating the work", it meant "should not be putting into Wikipedia their original research" rather than "should not be editing or creating pages". However, I do think that it is a somewhat unclear sentence; without the context provided by the rest of the paragraph it could easily be interpreted as meaning something very contradictory to a core aspect of Wikipedia. As such, I've amended it to "Perhaps most importantly, amateurs or experts should not be themselves conceiving or discovering the information that appears in Wikipedia, though they are encouraged to create and edit pages with information from other sources"; I hope that that clears up the issue. BreakfastJr (talk) 05:47, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Really? 

message: Why is there no reply to the criticism of excessive rule making as
that is one of the most common criticism of wikipedia  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jub2676 (talk • contribs) 13:17, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Omission of reply to excessive rule making 

message: Why does the link to Tim Ryan (Journalist) link to the Honolulu Star? Straw Cat (talk) 03:32, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tim Ryan 

message: ==Apathy==
How telling is it that Wikipedia has gotten so bad no one even bothers to hate it anymore?  Years have past, and yet so many issues raised here are far worse, not better.  In deciding on the worst of the worst, I don’t know if it’s the circular-reasoning embedded into the endless bureaucracy, or if it′s the fundamentally anti-academic structure of the whole project.  My own vote is the hostile attitude toward people who actually know something, who find themselves fighting a losing battle against people who are clearly unqualified to be in the conversation.  Just because everyone has a right to speak does not mean they are equally qualified to offer an opinion—but Wikipedia says otherwise.  Of course, the unqualified masses would never, ever believe in their own insufficiency.  Dealing with them is like discussing a painting with a color-blind gallery manager who has no idea he′s color blind.  Because there is a significant piece of missing information, he will block any effort to describe the painting correctly, and any qualified person he hires will quickly find another job.  Welcome to the reality of Wikipedia!! MonteGargano (talk) 06:54, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The bureaucracy is the main reason. A group of people who create little but have plenty of time on their hands (due to their social skills) promote themselves into admins... And strangle new growth with obscure and constantly changing rules.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.255.234.106 (talk) 19:38, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: <span style="font-size:medium;">Topics from 2018-2020</span>

message: How telling is it that Wikipedia has gotten so bad no one even bothers to hate it anymore?  Years have past, and yet so many issues raised here are far worse, not better.  In deciding on the worst of the worst, I don’t know if it’s the circular-reasoning embedded into the endless bureaucracy, or if it′s the fundamentally anti-academic structure of the whole project.  My own vote is the hostile attitude toward people who actually know something, who find themselves fighting a losing battle against people who are clearly unqualified to be in the conversation.  Just because everyone has a right to speak does not mean they are equally qualified to offer an opinion—but Wikipedia says otherwise.  Of course, the unqualified masses would never, ever believe in their own insufficiency.  Dealing with them is like discussing a painting with a color-blind gallery manager who has no idea he′s color blind.  Because there is a significant piece of missing information, he will block any effort to describe the painting correctly, and any qualified person he hires will quickly find another job.  Welcome to the reality of Wikipedia!! MonteGargano (talk) 06:54, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The bureaucracy is the main reason. A group of people who create little but have plenty of time on their hands (due to their social skills) promote themselves into admins... And strangle new growth with obscure and constantly changing rules.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.255.234.106 (talk) 19:38, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Apathy

message: == Caricature ==
thumb|350px|Anyone can edit an article.
I suggest adding the caricature :File:ORTOGRAFIA eng.jpg to the section "Letting any Internet user edit any article at will is absurd". In my opinion, it will humorously illustrate the text. – Gebu (talk) 17:11, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: <span style="font-size:medium;">Topics from 2021</span>

message: thumb|350px|Anyone can edit an article.
I suggest adding the caricature :File:ORTOGRAFIA eng.jpg to the section "Letting any Internet user edit any article at will is absurd". In my opinion, it will humorously illustrate the text. – Gebu (talk) 17:11, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Caricature