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1) Wikipedia is not dying. It is the sixth most popular website on the internet. Traffic to Wikipedia continues to grow at above-average rates. 2) Wikipedia do

1) Wikipedia is not dying. It is the sixth most popular website on the internet. Traffic to Wikipedia continues to grow at above-average rates. 2) Wikipedia does not have a shortage of editors. It is in fact overwhelmed with editors who have a net-negative impact on Wikipedia's stated mission. By failing to read the rules and failing to accept the rules when informed of them, you have made yourself a net-negative contributor. These rules are not inscrutable, but are publicly available and explained in depth. The admin who removed your content provided a link to the relevant rule. 3) Wikipedia's primary challenge today is quality, not quantity. The overwhelming number of abusive users create an enormous burden of editing. The pedants, petty tyrants and robots of Wikipedia may be a deterrent to new contributors, but they also form the immune system that protects Wikipedia against abuse. 4) In the space of 15 years, Wikipedia has become the largest and highest-quality encyclopedia available. The community has developed a complex set of processes to ensure continued quality. Those processes may be imperfect, but they are demonstrably effective. Your criticism comes from a position of complete ignorance as to the necessity and efficacy of those processes.

andrewjho 10y ago
I'll charitably assume that you're arguing from a position of ignorance, not malice. Read before writing: https://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism https://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism (1) The metric that matters, active user growth, has been declining since 2007. (2) Right, the 1 MB of bandwidth I took up and 5 KB of storage space I consumed with userspace pages outweighs the hundreds of minor corrections I've submitted over the course of a decade. By the way, Wikipedia does have a shortage of editors relative to its popularity and potential. (3) Deletionism destroys more information than it protects. This is easy to establish. Educate yourself. (4) You are circularly using the status quo to justify itself without having explored alternatives and without having performed any research into the historical evolution of Wikipedia and Wikipedian culture. Again, educate yourself before posting.
- flukus 10y ago
  > The metric that matters, active user growth, has been declining since 2007. How do you expect it to continue growing? There aren't enough people to continue active user growth. It's like your expecting it to be a pyramid scheme that makes money as long as you sign up more people than exist on the planet.
  - andrewjho 10y ago
    You're strawmanning my argument. I did not say, as you imply, that active user growth should continue indefinitely. Take a look at this graph: https://www.gwern.net/images/2012-henkvd-activewikipedians.png https://www.gwern.net/images/2012-henkvd-activewikipedians.p... First, one would typically expect the number of active users to keep increasing but for the rate of increase to gradually decline, not for the number of active users to actually start decreasing gradually after multiple years of very rapid increase. Second, if you don't see something wrong with that graph, get your eyes checked out.
    - flukus 10y ago
      There comes a point where everything that should be in wikipedia is.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- jdietrich 10y ago
  Active user growth is categorically not a relevant metric. Spammers and trolls count as active users. A superb editor who spends 30 hours a week on Wikipedia counts the same as someone who makes two bad edits a month. There is no clear evidence that the overall quality and quantity of editing is in decline. There are many legitimate concerns about deletionism. There is a legitimate debate about what the word "encyclopaedia" means and should mean. There are legitimate concerns about how Wikipedia manages human resources. Your complaints vis-a-vis your personal recipes are emblematic of nothing other than your sense of entitlement to use someone else's server space. You can choose to present yourself as an innocent newbie who was ambushed by a nasty editor. You can choose to present yourself as a time-served Wikipedian with deep insights into their editorial process. You can't choose both.

andrewjho 10y ago

I'll charitably assume that you're arguing from a position of ignorance, not malice. Read before writing: https://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism https://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism (1) The metric that matters, active user growth, has been declining since 2007. (2) Right, the 1 MB of bandwidth I took up and 5 KB of storage space I consumed with userspace pages outweighs the hundreds of minor corrections I've submitted over the course of a decade. By the way, Wikipedia does have a shortage of editors relative to its popularity and potential. (3) Deletionism destroys more information than it protects. This is easy to establish. Educate yourself. (4) You are circularly using the status quo to justify itself without having explored alternatives and without having performed any research into the historical evolution of Wikipedia and Wikipedian culture. Again, educate yourself before posting.

flukus 10y ago
> The metric that matters, active user growth, has been declining since 2007. How do you expect it to continue growing? There aren't enough people to continue active user growth. It's like your expecting it to be a pyramid scheme that makes money as long as you sign up more people than exist on the planet.
- andrewjho 10y ago
  You're strawmanning my argument. I did not say, as you imply, that active user growth should continue indefinitely. Take a look at this graph: https://www.gwern.net/images/2012-henkvd-activewikipedians.png https://www.gwern.net/images/2012-henkvd-activewikipedians.p... First, one would typically expect the number of active users to keep increasing but for the rate of increase to gradually decline, not for the number of active users to actually start decreasing gradually after multiple years of very rapid increase. Second, if you don't see something wrong with that graph, get your eyes checked out.
  - flukus 10y ago
    There comes a point where everything that should be in wikipedia is.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
jdietrich 10y ago
Active user growth is categorically not a relevant metric. Spammers and trolls count as active users. A superb editor who spends 30 hours a week on Wikipedia counts the same as someone who makes two bad edits a month. There is no clear evidence that the overall quality and quantity of editing is in decline. There are many legitimate concerns about deletionism. There is a legitimate debate about what the word "encyclopaedia" means and should mean. There are legitimate concerns about how Wikipedia manages human resources. Your complaints vis-a-vis your personal recipes are emblematic of nothing other than your sense of entitlement to use someone else's server space. You can choose to present yourself as an innocent newbie who was ambushed by a nasty editor. You can choose to present yourself as a time-served Wikipedian with deep insights into their editorial process. You can't choose both.