8 ms·

People come to Wikipedia to get an answer. Many users of Wikipedia are kids, or non-native English speakers for whom contributing is a challenge. Or laymen that

by flexie 8y ago

People come to Wikipedia to get an answer. Many users of Wikipedia are kids, or non-native English speakers for whom contributing is a challenge. Or laymen that don't know about the subject and naturally don't feel like they could contribute anything. Or people who simply don't know how to contribute. Or people visiting via mobiles where it's really difficult to research and contribute. If you adjust for all those users that could not reasonably contribute, the percentage of contributors is much higher. There are other factors at play at Wikipedia too. In my native language, Danish, Wikipedia is all but dead. Years ago, I tried contributing within my own field. I researched and spent hours adding relevant information to different topics, only to find out a few days after that all my contributions had been deleted by the administrators. Here is the Danish site for one of the most beloved Danes: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Laudrup https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Laudrup Here is the English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Laudrup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Laudrup It's just one example, but it is true for culture, history and many other areas. If you want to know anything on Danish matters, the English Wikipedia is usually a much better option than the Danish.

pjc50 8y ago
Deletionism is the thing that will kill Wikipedia, by deleting itself and gradually narrowing the circle of permitted contributors. There are some situations where the non-English Wikipedias have far more information than the English ones though, because of how "notability" works.
- jf- 8y ago
  I agree. While I don’t know how big the problem is, my limited experience is that notability is applied unevenly, and tends to be levelled against articles that particular editors find boring/annoying, mostly as an excuse to remove them.
- commoner 8y ago
  The number of Wikipedia articles is steadily increasing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia Deleting articles doesn't prevent anyone from participating, since anyone can write/edit articles on any notable subject. The deletion process protects Wikipedia from search engine marketers who try to promote their clients with biased low-quality content. They can go to Quora for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Reasons_for_deletion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Reas...
  - pjc50 8y ago
    There are a number of people in this thread explaining how the policy prevented them from participating, and usually caused them to quit participating entirely.
    - commoner 8y ago
      My comment was unclear. Yes, people who are solely interested in writing about one topic are prevented from participating if that topic doesn't meet the notability criteria. When I said that it "doesn't prevent anyone from participating", I was only considering the editors who are interested in writing about a wider variety of topics. For better or worse, Wikipedia frowns on editors who are only interested in editing articles on one topic. There's a page for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Single-purpose_account https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Single-purpose_accou... This is because these editors usually have a conflict of interest, and must make an extra effort to keep their writing free of bias. Policies aimed at improving the quality of articles also tend to reduce participation. It's a trade-off, and I don't know that the optimal balance would be.
      - commoner 8y ago
        Typo correction: It's a trade-off, and I don't know what the optimal balance would be.
  - greendestiny_re 8y ago
    At one point I was playing Serious Sam, an FPS. I finished the game and let the credits roll by, noticing a quirky name "Derek Smart". I searched for it on Wikipedia and arrived at the eponymous article, describing the life and creative work of a rash and stubborn but obviously ambitious and talented video game designer. A bit later on, there was Croteam, the maker of Serious Sam, AMA on Reddit so I asked them if the reference to Derek Smart was an inside joke or what. The reply was along the lines of "he's a dear friend of ours and our inspiration". I went back to the Derek Smart Wikipedia article, pointed out the screenshot of the credits with Derek's name, the AMA reply and asked a very innocuous question: "Can we put this in the article?" I got a reply that what I did is termed "original research" and the only acceptable way to include the reference would be if some noteworthy third party, such as Washington Times, mentions and explains the connection, meaning all the work I did up to that point was in vain. That's when I completely gave up on editing Wikipedia as it seemed to me, and still does, absolutely Sisyphean. Editors of that article then went on to argue how to phrase the incident where Derek Smart assaulted a vending machine to best fit the article. The implication of "no original research" and "noteworthy sources of information" means a large mass of regional events and persons can't be included in the English Wikipedia unless they clear this arbitrary bar of noteworthiness that can still be gamed with ease: a) be an employee of a mainstream news source, b) publish a biased article on any given topic, c) create an anonymous Wikipedia account, d) create an article on the topic or edit an exiting one to embed the information you published and e) marvel as Wikipedia editors revert the changes under the guise of preventing vandalism. Automated edit-correction tools are another grave issue for Wikipedia, as they instantly revert an article to its sanctioned version set by a reputable Wikipedia editor. How is Wikipedia "an encyclopedia anyone can edit" again?
ndnxhs 8y ago
Wikipedia does a lot to prevent new users participating. The mediawiki software is very confusing and has a lot of different functionality crammed in to the same page edit tool that doesn't even make sense. I attemped to create a page about a slightly obscure file format with all the information I had found while developing with it. I linked to all the sources I found that helped me understand it and my submission was rejected because my sources were not academic enough so I removed those sources and added the only official source in existence which is a zip file containing code examples and example files. My second edit was rejected for not sourcing all of my info. Literally the only info available is the zip and forum posts. I mainly used the forum posts while learning and verified it against the data I was seeing in the file. How am I meant to share this info for others to benefit from? If I make it in to a blog post it's not an acceptable source but if I post it as a PDF and pretend its some wanky research paper then it probably would get accepted.
- jononor 8y ago
  I would put it on Github. Check Stack Overflow and google for has questions about the format, answer there and point to your repo.
- rerx 8y ago
  > I attemped to create a page about a slightly obscure file format with all the information I had found while developing with it. One of the core principles of Wikipedia is "No original research". Your proposed article sounds like it was just that. The Wikipedia editors would rather have you share that research in a blog post or similar.
  - ndnxhs 8y ago
    Well all the info I have about it comes from a single source published by the developers of the format but apparently just one reference isn't good enough.
    - bonoboTP 8y ago
      That source (published by the developers) is a primary source. Encyclopedias, including Wikipedia, are tetriary sources that are based on secondary sources and not directly on primary sources. In other words, unless there are reliable secondary sources to base the article on, it is considered original research and is not a good fit for Wikipedia. I guess part of the reason that new contributors feel bad is confusion about the goals and nature of Wikipedia itself.
retSava 8y ago
I'd say that many times, that's true of Swedish topics too. I wonder how well that fits with eg Wikipedia in other languages where English may not be so fluent though, eg German?
- rerx 8y ago
  The German Wikipedia is large and sees a lot of activity. Articles about topics relating mostly to Germany, Austria or Switzerland are usually better than the English ones. Other articles are often somewhat biased towards a readership from those country, which is actually helpful if you live there. Lower English language fluency in the general population, compared to the Netherlands or Scandinavia, supports this of course. But also the fact that German remains a scholarly language to this day (in the humanities but also in some branches of engineering).
- anc84 8y ago
  German wikipedia is plagued by the same
emilsedgh 8y ago
You Danes generally speak real good English right? I think that may be a problem for Wikipedia in such countries. People can read/write English good enough that they just go directly to English. It's pure speculation on my end though. But I'm a non-native English speaker but I never go do my native language's Wikipedia.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
I went through an almost identical process with English Wikipedia many years ago. Added to a sorely incomplete entry with carefully written and sourced info, to find it gone a few days later. Tried a few tiny updates in case new users were restricted somehow (this was never made obvious), so simply corrected some obvious grammar and spelling mistakes. Nearly all of those were backed out too. At which point there's only one option, give up. I've encountered torrent sites that make more effort to make newcomers feel welcome. Never tried again, and won't, despite running across much that's inaccurate, plain wrong or has poor language over the years.
- teddyh 8y ago
  Nobody with stories such as yours seem to actually give a link to the article in question.
  - IggleSniggle 8y ago
    I have a story like this, but I did the work (that was backed out) over a decade ago. The domain was not especially political (something related to history of music notation). It sticks with you because when you are already an expert in an area, and spend days contributing high quality content with good references only to have it vaporized without comment/reason, it is deeply demoralizing and creates long standing resentment. I vaguely remember the subject matter, yet remember distinctly the feeling of having all that work purged. I’m sure Wikipedia politics have changed since then, but my desire to contribute has been pretty well quashed.
    - cableshaft 8y ago
      Yep. I made an attempt to get into it over a decade ago, and it didn't help that I was heavy in the Flash game/animation scene and felt that was the best way to contribute. I say it didn't help, because so few of those pass the ridiculously restrictive 'Notability Test' of Wikipedia. The animation could have 50 million views and be known across the internet, but because no 'reputable news organization' wrote about it, i.e. no CNN or BBC article or whatever, they would routinely be brought up for deletion and quickly killed. Which always seemed strange to me, that this new fangled technology that took advantage of the power of the Internet wouldn't find anything on the Internet itself worthy of gracing its virtual pages. Especially since, as Wikipedia itself states, "Wikipedia is not Paper", and doesn't have a physical limit to what it can talk about or include. It always annoyed me that these things wouldn't get passed the notability filter, but the most obscure Star Trek episode would have a dedicated page with a full synopsis and details and Easter Eggs, despite the fact that there couldn't have been a news article about that specific episode anywhere out there and the author had to be drawing from the episode... I mean, primary source, itself in order to get that information, which is something that gets squashed elsewhere (No primary sources!) The hypocrisy just got to me big time. And then when I'd fix spelling or grammar issues on other random pages and see every single one of those get reverted without comment, it was clear that doing anything on Wikipedia was just a big waste of my fucking time. While I still read it to get a really rough handle on topics sometimes, I will never 'contribute' to it again, including every time that giant "We Desperately Need Your Financial Support" message from Jimmy Wales comes up on the site once a year. I'd love for there to be an alternative where the admins aren't such deletionist zealots, but alternatives just don't exist. I should also state that I had such a negative experience trying to contribute to Wikipedia that it still riles me up thinking about it to this day. And there's not a whole lot out there that riles me up.
naveen99 8y ago
Just post on your own repository on github instead. It’s the new wikipedia minus worrying about deletionists and notability. Just a matter of time until non-developers become comfortable with it.

by flexie 8y ago

pjc50 8y ago

Deletionism is the thing that will kill Wikipedia, by deleting itself and gradually narrowing the circle of permitted contributors. There are some situations where the non-English Wikipedias have far more information than the English ones though, because of how "notability" works.

jf- 8y ago
I agree. While I don’t know how big the problem is, my limited experience is that notability is applied unevenly, and tends to be levelled against articles that particular editors find boring/annoying, mostly as an excuse to remove them.
commoner 8y ago
The number of Wikipedia articles is steadily increasing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia Deleting articles doesn't prevent anyone from participating, since anyone can write/edit articles on any notable subject. The deletion process protects Wikipedia from search engine marketers who try to promote their clients with biased low-quality content. They can go to Quora for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Reasons_for_deletion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Reas...
- pjc50 8y ago
  There are a number of people in this thread explaining how the policy prevented them from participating, and usually caused them to quit participating entirely.
  - commoner 8y ago
    My comment was unclear. Yes, people who are solely interested in writing about one topic are prevented from participating if that topic doesn't meet the notability criteria. When I said that it "doesn't prevent anyone from participating", I was only considering the editors who are interested in writing about a wider variety of topics. For better or worse, Wikipedia frowns on editors who are only interested in editing articles on one topic. There's a page for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Single-purpose_account https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Single-purpose_accou... This is because these editors usually have a conflict of interest, and must make an extra effort to keep their writing free of bias. Policies aimed at improving the quality of articles also tend to reduce participation. It's a trade-off, and I don't know that the optimal balance would be.
    - commoner 8y ago
      Typo correction: It's a trade-off, and I don't know what the optimal balance would be.
- greendestiny_re 8y ago
  At one point I was playing Serious Sam, an FPS. I finished the game and let the credits roll by, noticing a quirky name "Derek Smart". I searched for it on Wikipedia and arrived at the eponymous article, describing the life and creative work of a rash and stubborn but obviously ambitious and talented video game designer. A bit later on, there was Croteam, the maker of Serious Sam, AMA on Reddit so I asked them if the reference to Derek Smart was an inside joke or what. The reply was along the lines of "he's a dear friend of ours and our inspiration". I went back to the Derek Smart Wikipedia article, pointed out the screenshot of the credits with Derek's name, the AMA reply and asked a very innocuous question: "Can we put this in the article?" I got a reply that what I did is termed "original research" and the only acceptable way to include the reference would be if some noteworthy third party, such as Washington Times, mentions and explains the connection, meaning all the work I did up to that point was in vain. That's when I completely gave up on editing Wikipedia as it seemed to me, and still does, absolutely Sisyphean. Editors of that article then went on to argue how to phrase the incident where Derek Smart assaulted a vending machine to best fit the article. The implication of "no original research" and "noteworthy sources of information" means a large mass of regional events and persons can't be included in the English Wikipedia unless they clear this arbitrary bar of noteworthiness that can still be gamed with ease: a) be an employee of a mainstream news source, b) publish a biased article on any given topic, c) create an anonymous Wikipedia account, d) create an article on the topic or edit an exiting one to embed the information you published and e) marvel as Wikipedia editors revert the changes under the guise of preventing vandalism. Automated edit-correction tools are another grave issue for Wikipedia, as they instantly revert an article to its sanctioned version set by a reputable Wikipedia editor. How is Wikipedia "an encyclopedia anyone can edit" again?

ndnxhs 8y ago

Wikipedia does a lot to prevent new users participating. The mediawiki software is very confusing and has a lot of different functionality crammed in to the same page edit tool that doesn't even make sense. I attemped to create a page about a slightly obscure file format with all the information I had found while developing with it. I linked to all the sources I found that helped me understand it and my submission was rejected because my sources were not academic enough so I removed those sources and added the only official source in existence which is a zip file containing code examples and example files. My second edit was rejected for not sourcing all of my info. Literally the only info available is the zip and forum posts. I mainly used the forum posts while learning and verified it against the data I was seeing in the file. How am I meant to share this info for others to benefit from? If I make it in to a blog post it's not an acceptable source but if I post it as a PDF and pretend its some wanky research paper then it probably would get accepted.

jononor 8y ago
I would put it on Github. Check Stack Overflow and google for has questions about the format, answer there and point to your repo.
rerx 8y ago
> I attemped to create a page about a slightly obscure file format with all the information I had found while developing with it. One of the core principles of Wikipedia is "No original research". Your proposed article sounds like it was just that. The Wikipedia editors would rather have you share that research in a blog post or similar.
- ndnxhs 8y ago
  Well all the info I have about it comes from a single source published by the developers of the format but apparently just one reference isn't good enough.
  - bonoboTP 8y ago
    That source (published by the developers) is a primary source. Encyclopedias, including Wikipedia, are tetriary sources that are based on secondary sources and not directly on primary sources. In other words, unless there are reliable secondary sources to base the article on, it is considered original research and is not a good fit for Wikipedia. I guess part of the reason that new contributors feel bad is confusion about the goals and nature of Wikipedia itself.

retSava 8y ago

I'd say that many times, that's true of Swedish topics too. I wonder how well that fits with eg Wikipedia in other languages where English may not be so fluent though, eg German?

rerx 8y ago
The German Wikipedia is large and sees a lot of activity. Articles about topics relating mostly to Germany, Austria or Switzerland are usually better than the English ones. Other articles are often somewhat biased towards a readership from those country, which is actually helpful if you live there. Lower English language fluency in the general population, compared to the Netherlands or Scandinavia, supports this of course. But also the fact that German remains a scholarly language to this day (in the humanities but also in some branches of engineering).
anc84 8y ago
German wikipedia is plagued by the same

emilsedgh 8y ago

You Danes generally speak real good English right? I think that may be a problem for Wikipedia in such countries. People can read/write English good enough that they just go directly to English. It's pure speculation on my end though. But I'm a non-native English speaker but I never go do my native language's Wikipedia.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

I went through an almost identical process with English Wikipedia many years ago. Added to a sorely incomplete entry with carefully written and sourced info, to find it gone a few days later. Tried a few tiny updates in case new users were restricted somehow (this was never made obvious), so simply corrected some obvious grammar and spelling mistakes. Nearly all of those were backed out too. At which point there's only one option, give up. I've encountered torrent sites that make more effort to make newcomers feel welcome. Never tried again, and won't, despite running across much that's inaccurate, plain wrong or has poor language over the years.

teddyh 8y ago
Nobody with stories such as yours seem to actually give a link to the article in question.
- IggleSniggle 8y ago
  I have a story like this, but I did the work (that was backed out) over a decade ago. The domain was not especially political (something related to history of music notation). It sticks with you because when you are already an expert in an area, and spend days contributing high quality content with good references only to have it vaporized without comment/reason, it is deeply demoralizing and creates long standing resentment. I vaguely remember the subject matter, yet remember distinctly the feeling of having all that work purged. I’m sure Wikipedia politics have changed since then, but my desire to contribute has been pretty well quashed.
  - cableshaft 8y ago
    Yep. I made an attempt to get into it over a decade ago, and it didn't help that I was heavy in the Flash game/animation scene and felt that was the best way to contribute. I say it didn't help, because so few of those pass the ridiculously restrictive 'Notability Test' of Wikipedia. The animation could have 50 million views and be known across the internet, but because no 'reputable news organization' wrote about it, i.e. no CNN or BBC article or whatever, they would routinely be brought up for deletion and quickly killed. Which always seemed strange to me, that this new fangled technology that took advantage of the power of the Internet wouldn't find anything on the Internet itself worthy of gracing its virtual pages. Especially since, as Wikipedia itself states, "Wikipedia is not Paper", and doesn't have a physical limit to what it can talk about or include. It always annoyed me that these things wouldn't get passed the notability filter, but the most obscure Star Trek episode would have a dedicated page with a full synopsis and details and Easter Eggs, despite the fact that there couldn't have been a news article about that specific episode anywhere out there and the author had to be drawing from the episode... I mean, primary source, itself in order to get that information, which is something that gets squashed elsewhere (No primary sources!) The hypocrisy just got to me big time. And then when I'd fix spelling or grammar issues on other random pages and see every single one of those get reverted without comment, it was clear that doing anything on Wikipedia was just a big waste of my fucking time. While I still read it to get a really rough handle on topics sometimes, I will never 'contribute' to it again, including every time that giant "We Desperately Need Your Financial Support" message from Jimmy Wales comes up on the site once a year. I'd love for there to be an alternative where the admins aren't such deletionist zealots, but alternatives just don't exist. I should also state that I had such a negative experience trying to contribute to Wikipedia that it still riles me up thinking about it to this day. And there's not a whole lot out there that riles me up.

naveen99 8y ago

Just post on your own repository on github instead. It’s the new wikipedia minus worrying about deletionists and notability. Just a matter of time until non-developers become comfortable with it.