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Similar here. I corrected some statistics on a page for a vehicle. I had multiple different years of the owner and service manuals in had to verify these fact
by Washuu 3y ago
Similar here. I corrected some statistics on a page for a vehicle. I had multiple different years of the owner and service manuals in had to verify these facts and able to source them. Nope, some overlord of the page just kept reverting it with no recourse. I never bother to try editing again. It is not worth my time to deal with that.
- Tomte 3y agoSimilar. I use Wikipedia a lot, but will under no circumstances whatsoever contribute anything, after a bad experience with my first edit.
- zozbot234 3y agoThe trick with any sort of halfway controversial edits is to discuss at length your planned contribution on the talk page, wait until nobody complains, then make the actual edit. If you do get reverted, you can point out that you had announced the edit in the talk page and no objections had been raised. It helps to post on the message boards for relevant WikiProjects too. Yes, Wikipedia policy pages say to be "bold" with editing, but that only really works for things like fixing typos. If you know that someone might object, you should focus on in-depth discussion and let concerns be addressed that way.
- vasco 3y agoThe trick with any sort of halfway controversial edits is to not do them, if you want to remain sane.
- Avamander 3y agoYou can also revert the revert a few times, that requires arbitration usually.
- Analemma_ 3y agoSeems like Wikipedia should change their policy to say "be bold for trivial edits only" then. In fact, if they would just say "you're only allowed to make serious changes if you're part of the elite cabal of senior editors who have devoted their lives to memorizing our volumes of policy" instead of continuing to call itself "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit", we wouldn't be having this discussion; people would at least know what the situation is.
- JohnMakin 3y agobut if "free encyclopedia anyone could edit" was literally true, wikipedia would make itself almost worthless in very little time.
- jeremyjh 3y agoExactly, these people are doing the valuable work of screening the crackpots, for no pay - and the only cost is that they'll also build an impregnable fortress to prevent almost anyone from ever changing anything unless they feel very strong with it and can traverse challenge social and organizational obstacle courses. This keeps the rate of change at a nice, steady, manageable trickle.
- mongol 3y agoI did that once. Got banned, with no recourse. It was a country-specific Wikipedia though, not the English one. But I did not even edit the page, just made the case for it on the Talk page, someone else edited it and I got banned with a bunch of others. Never again.
- zlg_codes 3y agoWhy should someone sacrifice MORE of their valuable time and effort to get their contribution accepted, and follow a script or process? This is volunteer work. They can take it or leave it, but they don't get to complain that people stop being interested in contributing when their Truth By Committee design blows up in their face.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago>they don't get to complain that people stop being interested in contributing when their Truth By Committee design blows up in their face. Enough people remain that I doubt they are really hurting for more contributors. But yeah, that's a good part of why more technical or niche topics can be spurious. But at the same time, less people visit those pages so it hurts the site less.
- falserum 3y agoAll contributions in the world follow some kind of process, even if informal. (E.g. you politely wait in line to drop off your generous donation)
- zlg_codes 3y agoAnd you think that validates it? Not all processes are created equally, and if the process is too much trouble, you won't get contributions. If Goodwill didn't have a dock where I could drop things off and an employee to put it where it needs to be, I wouldn't donate. You incentivize contribution by lowering the barriers to it.
- falserum 3y agoYou are correct, I agree. Lowering barrier affects contribution positively. But I would argue, that it affects quantity and quality in significantly different ways. Meaning that quantity is increased vastly more of the two. Average quality most probably decreases. I.e. given high barrier only the most dedicated are donating, which affects quality positively. Wikipedia wants to strike some balance between quality and quantity. (At this moment probably push towards quality) Edit: Where wikipedia clearly fails, is effectively communicating which contributions are desired, ahead of time. People spending time with good intentions only to finally get rejected, is definitely suboptimal outcome for both sides. (Negative emotions, wasted time, decreased chance of further contributions, bad publicity)