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Even the most cursory venture into a Wikipedia talk page usually reveals a Pandora's Box of vitriol, turf wars, ideological zealotry, personal attacks, bad-fait
by chilmers 3y ago
Even the most cursory venture into a Wikipedia talk page usually reveals a Pandora's Box of vitriol, turf wars, ideological zealotry, personal attacks, bad-faith debate, and a pervasive, misanthropic anger, typically coming from long-standing contributors with a huge editing history. They said you don't want to see how the sausage is made, well in the case of Wikipedia the factory seems to double as a toxic waste processing plant. Ever since I realised this was the culture behind the curtain at Wikipedia, I've become far more skeptical about any topic that is remotely controversial.
- tivert 3y agoExactly. Wikipedia is mainly an ideological turf war, and the combatants are usually pretty toxic and seem to have pretty major personality problems (which are frequently overlooked and forgiven if they have a long tenure and/or align more or less with the Wikipedia zeitgeist. Even seemingly uncontroversial history/culture articles can be affected [1], though those tend to be fixable after some time, because they get far less attention from the main combatants. [1] e.g. some nationalist trying to push their agenda by claiming important cultural artifacts/practices of their neighbor actually come from the nationalist's country, using dubious sourcing and interpretation.