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The interesting aspect is that it is evidently easier to put something on a personal blog than get it into Wikipedia. Every time I have attempting to make a ba

The interesting aspect is that it is evidently easier to put something on a personal blog than get it into Wikipedia. Every time I have attempting to make a basic edit, a handful of times over many years, I have been shot down by whatever editor sees themselves as king of that little hill. I doubt any new entry by a new contributor would last 48h. The days of freewheeling openness at wikipedia are long behind us. The "professional volunteers" are in control there.

emodendroket 5y ago
I grew vexed at one point from correcting amateur translations from Japanese that were flat out wrong and seeing them reverted.
- mbustamanter 5y ago
  There was also the drama of a teenager that wrote almost most of the articles of Scots wikipedia [0], with almost no knowledge of Scots. Some of the articles have been corrected, but the structure these few articles have is essentially the same as the version the teenager wrote. You might have run into a similar freak. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/ig9jia/ive_discovered_that_almost_every_single_article/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/ig9jia/ive_discov...
  - Tao331 5y ago
    That was heartbreaking. I really wanted to believe in Scots Wikipedia.
- teddyh 5y ago
  Links? Or, should I say, citation needed?
user3939382 5y ago
Even worse, many of these self-appointed Article Sheriffs are part of little vigilante cliques that include members of varying rank and influence which they call on for reinforcements if they're formally challenged on anything. It's gotten to the point where, to get the full picture of any topic that might be controversial, I immediately skip to the Talk page.
- postingposts 5y ago
  Wikipedia has gone from being an encyclopedia to “here is generally what the media has said about this and if you say otherwise fuck you” Most espouse the claim that they appreciate science, but I think really people appreciate James Bond gadgets and call that science.
  - calvinmorrison 5y ago
    Which I think initially was, okay with me, since seeing through the political spin is easy on articles about politics. But it's invasive, on medical pages, on celebrity pages, on every page you can think of.
    - postingposts 5y ago
      The real stinker of a rule is that they prefer media sources to first-hand accounts or direct sources. For example: an article about Linux CANNOT link to posts Linus himself has made on forums, but CAN link to media articles that get his posts incorrect. Then, because the editors enforce this real crap rule, you can have an article that lists the media opinion about some Linux component but you CAN’T even INCLUDE what Linus wrote! It is unchecked madness.
      - chris_wot 5y ago
        That’s a carefully considered rule. In general, primary sources are frowned upon, instead they have editors use secondary or tertiary sources.
        CamperBob2 5y ago
        You've simply restated the rule in a context where justification was expected.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
psyc 5y ago
The magic of Wikipedia is that anyone can... oh no, no we didn't mean you.
mistrial9 5y ago
most recent experience of the "wall of NO EDIT" for me was two months ago.. I found documents pertaining to a living US Federal Judge who was involved in collusion with a local attorney and law enforcement. Formal review did find misconduct, and it was published. The subject area was something I care about. I went to the chat channel of admins and said "I am about to edit this Federal Judge's wikipedia page" .. and showed the evidence. No, no, no was what I got back.. even with the documents plainly visible, in hand, with references. Obviously this is serious since it is a living man, but so are the topics. The Judge has three "fluff" paragraphs about his excellent qualifications, degrees and the names of the courts he has run. Isn't real world evidence enough? yes, they did want media substantiation of the formal reprimands, btw.. I have not made the edits.
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  This story would be a lot more useful/believable if you included the judge's name. And maybe what "chat channel of admins" you're talking about, because I have 170,000 across wikipedia sites and have no idea what that is supposed to be.
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_B._Shubb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_B._Shubb edit sorry, not at all the topic (I did not make that edit linked below; did not know about it). As stated above, I have documented reprimand in print, and now I also have a media reference too.. here you go https://www.amazon.com/Scorched-Worth-Destruction-Government-Corruption/dp/159403981X https://www.amazon.com/Scorched-Worth-Destruction-Government...
    - KarlKemp 5y ago
      Well, I guess https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_B._Shubb&diff=527922741&oldid=527912173&diffmode=source https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_B._Shubb&... is the issue? It shouldn't be surprising that accusing someone of being a homophobe would require a reference.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cdrini 5y ago
> it is evidently easier to put something on a personal blog than get it into Wikipedia. I mean, that seems reasonable right? You have complete control and authority over a personal blog. Personally I haven't had trouble making edits, but I often make edits on articles with not a lot of information. But I've also had success eg. adding new graphics to eg. the page on Lithium. I wonder if maybe it's specific types of pages that are less accepting of edits? I've definitely also had issues with other editors disagreeing and not understanding what I've added (usually on Wikidata, where I've made more edits), but generally for a small minority of my edits.
KarlKemp 5y ago
> The interesting aspect is that it is evidently easier to put something on a personal blog than get it into Wikipedia. Yes, of course it is. > I doubt any new entry by a new contributor would last 48h. I've done a fair bit of editing on Wikipedia and can only assert with just as much evidence that this is untrue. in discussions on deletions, the author barely ever comes up and, if it does, it's because the author is obviously the article's subject or someone close. Just looking at this thread, three out of four people are complaining about their edits being rejected on articles about their company, their grandfather, and similar. And yet only the person with the company does as much as hint at the fact that it's a massive conflict of interest.
mhh__ 5y ago
As someone who occasionally edits wikipedia I can't relate all that much. I added a fairly a new chunk of info to an article that has a lot of head butting between bored nerds, and it's still there.
- input_sh 5y ago
  I agree with you. Though I'll usually only bother with low-traffic articles related to my local community, I've never spotted one of my contributions being reverted.
teddyh 5y ago
People keep saying that, but, as a rule, never actually give links to any examples of it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
bencollier49 5y ago
I wish the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy site could step up and fill this void, but from looking at it, it's covered in ads and not very functional. Shame the BBC ditched it. I really think there's room for a wiki site which encourages heavy editorialisation and allows dubious information to stay, provided that it isn't outright libellous.
- akvadrako 5y ago
  I would like to make something like that, in the sense of allowing anyone to make their own forks of articles. https://doubly.so https://doubly.so, coming soon.
glaucon 5y ago
Fwiw this is not my experience. To put that in context I probably average one edit a year and have never had pushback. I wouldn't suggest my changes have been substantial but for others, who've never made a change and might be put off doing so, I think it's important to understand this is not a universal experience.
ghaff 5y ago
Of course it's easier. And it should be. That said, for all the randomness associated with notability, no original research, and neutral points of view it mostly sort of works out for many topics. Which is not to say that the depth of a given article can't be very uneven relative to its importance or, somewhat ironically, based on its degree of coverage in traditional media.
swayvil 5y ago
Ditto. Speaking as a past member of the Generative Art community. Good luck getting anything anything modern into the Wikipedia article tho. They've got it locked down.
david_allison 5y ago
> I doubt any new entry by a new contributor would last 48h The last time I tried (maybe a year and a half ago), they'd made it impossible to create a new article as a new user via their UX flows. I wanted to create a redirect and gave up after maybe 15 minutes of trying.
jccalhoun 5y ago
I think it depends a lot on the topic. I've made a few edits on minor pages over the years and none of them have been reverted as far as I can tell.
nanidin 5y ago
Counterpoint: I fact checked and corrected an article - the original article author misread the cited source and claimed statistics that were plausible but incorrect. In the process I improved the readability of the paragraph I touched up. My change was never reverted, and it was within the last year on a page related to slavery and human trafficking, so it’s not like no one was watching it.

emodendroket 5y ago

I grew vexed at one point from correcting amateur translations from Japanese that were flat out wrong and seeing them reverted.

mbustamanter 5y ago
There was also the drama of a teenager that wrote almost most of the articles of Scots wikipedia [0], with almost no knowledge of Scots. Some of the articles have been corrected, but the structure these few articles have is essentially the same as the version the teenager wrote. You might have run into a similar freak. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/ig9jia/ive_discovered_that_almost_every_single_article/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/comments/ig9jia/ive_discov...
- Tao331 5y ago
  That was heartbreaking. I really wanted to believe in Scots Wikipedia.
teddyh 5y ago
Links? Or, should I say, citation needed?

user3939382 5y ago

Even worse, many of these self-appointed Article Sheriffs are part of little vigilante cliques that include members of varying rank and influence which they call on for reinforcements if they're formally challenged on anything. It's gotten to the point where, to get the full picture of any topic that might be controversial, I immediately skip to the Talk page.

postingposts 5y ago
Wikipedia has gone from being an encyclopedia to “here is generally what the media has said about this and if you say otherwise fuck you” Most espouse the claim that they appreciate science, but I think really people appreciate James Bond gadgets and call that science.
- calvinmorrison 5y ago
  Which I think initially was, okay with me, since seeing through the political spin is easy on articles about politics. But it's invasive, on medical pages, on celebrity pages, on every page you can think of.
  - postingposts 5y ago
    The real stinker of a rule is that they prefer media sources to first-hand accounts or direct sources. For example: an article about Linux CANNOT link to posts Linus himself has made on forums, but CAN link to media articles that get his posts incorrect. Then, because the editors enforce this real crap rule, you can have an article that lists the media opinion about some Linux component but you CAN’T even INCLUDE what Linus wrote! It is unchecked madness.
    - chris_wot 5y ago
      That’s a carefully considered rule. In general, primary sources are frowned upon, instead they have editors use secondary or tertiary sources.
      - CamperBob2 5y ago
        You've simply restated the rule in a context where justification was expected.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]

psyc 5y ago

The magic of Wikipedia is that anyone can... oh no, no we didn't mean you.

mistrial9 5y ago

most recent experience of the "wall of NO EDIT" for me was two months ago.. I found documents pertaining to a living US Federal Judge who was involved in collusion with a local attorney and law enforcement. Formal review did find misconduct, and it was published. The subject area was something I care about. I went to the chat channel of admins and said "I am about to edit this Federal Judge's wikipedia page" .. and showed the evidence. No, no, no was what I got back.. even with the documents plainly visible, in hand, with references. Obviously this is serious since it is a living man, but so are the topics. The Judge has three "fluff" paragraphs about his excellent qualifications, degrees and the names of the courts he has run. Isn't real world evidence enough? yes, they did want media substantiation of the formal reprimands, btw.. I have not made the edits.

KarlKemp 5y ago
This story would be a lot more useful/believable if you included the judge's name. And maybe what "chat channel of admins" you're talking about, because I have 170,000 across wikipedia sites and have no idea what that is supposed to be.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_B._Shubb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_B._Shubb edit sorry, not at all the topic (I did not make that edit linked below; did not know about it). As stated above, I have documented reprimand in print, and now I also have a media reference too.. here you go https://www.amazon.com/Scorched-Worth-Destruction-Government-Corruption/dp/159403981X https://www.amazon.com/Scorched-Worth-Destruction-Government...
  - KarlKemp 5y ago
    Well, I guess https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_B._Shubb&diff=527922741&oldid=527912173&diffmode=source https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_B._Shubb&... is the issue? It shouldn't be surprising that accusing someone of being a homophobe would require a reference.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

cdrini 5y ago

> it is evidently easier to put something on a personal blog than get it into Wikipedia. I mean, that seems reasonable right? You have complete control and authority over a personal blog. Personally I haven't had trouble making edits, but I often make edits on articles with not a lot of information. But I've also had success eg. adding new graphics to eg. the page on Lithium. I wonder if maybe it's specific types of pages that are less accepting of edits? I've definitely also had issues with other editors disagreeing and not understanding what I've added (usually on Wikidata, where I've made more edits), but generally for a small minority of my edits.

KarlKemp 5y ago

> The interesting aspect is that it is evidently easier to put something on a personal blog than get it into Wikipedia. Yes, of course it is. > I doubt any new entry by a new contributor would last 48h. I've done a fair bit of editing on Wikipedia and can only assert with just as much evidence that this is untrue. in discussions on deletions, the author barely ever comes up and, if it does, it's because the author is obviously the article's subject or someone close. Just looking at this thread, three out of four people are complaining about their edits being rejected on articles about their company, their grandfather, and similar. And yet only the person with the company does as much as hint at the fact that it's a massive conflict of interest.

mhh__ 5y ago

As someone who occasionally edits wikipedia I can't relate all that much. I added a fairly a new chunk of info to an article that has a lot of head butting between bored nerds, and it's still there.

input_sh 5y ago
I agree with you. Though I'll usually only bother with low-traffic articles related to my local community, I've never spotted one of my contributions being reverted.

teddyh 5y ago

People keep saying that, but, as a rule, never actually give links to any examples of it.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

bencollier49 5y ago

I wish the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy site could step up and fill this void, but from looking at it, it's covered in ads and not very functional. Shame the BBC ditched it. I really think there's room for a wiki site which encourages heavy editorialisation and allows dubious information to stay, provided that it isn't outright libellous.

akvadrako 5y ago
I would like to make something like that, in the sense of allowing anyone to make their own forks of articles. https://doubly.so https://doubly.so, coming soon.

glaucon 5y ago

Fwiw this is not my experience. To put that in context I probably average one edit a year and have never had pushback. I wouldn't suggest my changes have been substantial but for others, who've never made a change and might be put off doing so, I think it's important to understand this is not a universal experience.

ghaff 5y ago

Of course it's easier. And it should be. That said, for all the randomness associated with notability, no original research, and neutral points of view it mostly sort of works out for many topics. Which is not to say that the depth of a given article can't be very uneven relative to its importance or, somewhat ironically, based on its degree of coverage in traditional media.

swayvil 5y ago

Ditto. Speaking as a past member of the Generative Art community. Good luck getting anything anything modern into the Wikipedia article tho. They've got it locked down.

david_allison 5y ago

> I doubt any new entry by a new contributor would last 48h The last time I tried (maybe a year and a half ago), they'd made it impossible to create a new article as a new user via their UX flows. I wanted to create a redirect and gave up after maybe 15 minutes of trying.

jccalhoun 5y ago

I think it depends a lot on the topic. I've made a few edits on minor pages over the years and none of them have been reverted as far as I can tell.

nanidin 5y ago

Counterpoint: I fact checked and corrected an article - the original article author misread the cited source and claimed statistics that were plausible but incorrect. In the process I improved the readability of the paragraph I touched up. My change was never reverted, and it was within the last year on a page related to slavery and human trafficking, so it’s not like no one was watching it.