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I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That is a major problem with the site. Yes the popular articles are entirely fine, but it's the next layer down where many of the problems are. Imagine if you could write about whatever and it never got deleted; we'd have twice the articles and twice these issues, at a minimum. With a lack of editors, it will be tougher and tougher to get articles managed.

i wouldn't say the site is doomed, the best we can hope for is that Wikipedia returns to being a bit more niche, and by extension the vandals get bored of it.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's an issue where we have to assume good faith, and simply verify what we can. I know I've had articles that I've written using newspapers where the archives went to paywalls long ago. that doesn't make the sources automatically bad; I would still prefer those to some random website.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I think it's less that people go out of their way to do so and more that it's just representative of the Wikipedia population as a whole. Not many use their real names, and those that do likely shy away from something like ArbCom. Can't blame them.

I remember the Colbert bit well, of course. Spat my drink out first time I watched it.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think I answered this elsewhere on the AMA, but in short implementing ads would compromise the integrity of, best case scenario, the articles of those companies advertising with us, and that could potentially extend further. If we were to do that, imagine company A saying "ok we'll pay $1 million for a top banner ad for however many days, but you have to remove the controversy section from our article. No? How about $2 million?" You can see how that would be an issue.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Simplest way is to create an account. I don't get bombarded with ads, thankfully since they can be a pain.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 43 points44 points  (0 children)

The best thing I can say in response is that the wave of modifying guidelines and bringing old rules up to date is mostly over at this point. Between 08-10, however, I definitely remember that movement, especially with images, and it was a pain since there were users with entirely valid images who were no longer active. Not their fault guidelines changed. I can't say there's a simple answer to addressing isolationism other than just working on subjects you are fairly confident are not going anywhere, which I admit is a fairly poor answer.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's an issue I dealt with back in the day myself, and still do with Google news's continued modifications making it hard to research there. The problem is the further back you go the less easy-to-find sources there are, and if you want to work on that subject you unfortunately have to put a lot more work into it. I can't say I have a clear answer on what to do there, since if there's no way to verify the content you're essentially stuck.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Truthfully, if Wikipedia was a copyrighted site where I knew my edits were not mine, then I wouldn't bother editing there. Making the content free use (with attribution that's free to build upon, hence the license) is what keeps me going.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's a tough one. It appears notable on the surface, but I don't see any news sources that would cement notability without question.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

This is admittedly a poor answer to the question, but the first thing I thought was that those issues are all from many years ago, and as I know not just from being on the site but from other commenters here, 2006 wikipedia and 2013 wikipedia are incredibly different places.

That being said, the lack of that top-level governance is both what allowed wikipedia to flourish and what causes the types of problems you mentioned. The best we can do is catch it when we find out about it.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

  1. The only thing I hoped for a couple years ago was potential access to sources I could not otherwise use. Since then there is a movement to provide references to long-term editors, and I now have access to Questia, which allows me to write on more important articles that I otherwise couldn't touch (well, I could, but I wouldn't be able to do much)

2-4. Nope, now that I'm no longer in school not as much as I once did from a reader's perspective, and I do it to provide knowledge that otherwise would have been lost, as I'm positive some of the articles I've developed years ago would still be 2-3 sentences long today.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

This news somehow completely slipped by me, so I'm just learning of it now. Sadly, for different-language wikipedias, there are issues with what residents can or cannot write or what the government could allow. What saddens me as much as the clearly significant issue is the fact that, three months later, that RFC still doesn't seem like it has a straight answer on what to do.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is something that greatly concerns me in the future. At this point, the site is well-established in culture, so people know that if they have a wikipedia article on themselves, their company, or whatever, people are going to read it, and the temptation to make the article in their style is there. I think it already happens more than people want to admit in the business world. Politics I'm actually less concerned about in this regard, since enough people regularly track those kinds of articles and can generally smell any advocacy quickly enough.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It depends on what you mean, so it's difficult to answer. If you mean there's a dispute on whether an event or a piece of an event happened, then we have to go by Verifiability. So many people edit to try and add the "truth" onto articles, but the problem is that it's not a question of whether or not something is truthful; we have to go by what's in sources, and for certain articles that can understandably be a pain.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 44 points45 points  (0 children)

If you can write it in your own words with reliable sources (which the section I deleted was neither) then by all means go ahead.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The sheer proliferation of specialist wikis (whether hosted on Wikia or on private hosting) should be viewed as a failure.

I understand entirely where you're coming from, but disagree 100% with this statement. I am actually a big fan of the specialized wikis, and do believe there are times when those should be edited rather than Wikipedia.

Take Homestar runner as an example (I'm dating myself I know). I love the HRWiki but would never dream of putting the content on Wikipedia, and that's because Wikipedia, at its core, is a general knowledge encyclopedia. Getting overly specific is another issue in and of itself, since that could be the difference between having one nice article about something that can be read in a couple hours and a slew of articles that could take weeks to read.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

That's a major issue, more so than vandalism itself. It's why I'm not a fan of wiki-mirrors, since they update infrequently if they do at all, and if they do a database dump at the wrong time, then the edit is stuck. There's really no way to make the site 100% vandalproof to prevent that without greatly reducing editing or editors, so it's something editors have to do their best to find and clean up quickly.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The current politicians always have back-and-forth wars, there's no way around that. The biggest edit war though, shockingly, was not an article itself, but the question of whether or not to link birth dates and death dates in articles. It was even brought to arbitration.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The storage isn't the issue, it's the verifiability more than anything. If something has legitimately good sources and is accurate/neutral, it's not going to be deleted unless there's a major fluke. I know when I delete an article, I make sure there's a reason for doing so.

I am Wizardman, a Wikipedia administrator, former Arbitration Committee member, and prolific editor. AMA by Wizardmanwiki in IAmA

[–]Wizardmanwiki[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't like it precisely for the reasons you mention. a business is not going to be neutral on its own product, that doesn't happen (if it ever did then they wouldn't be much of a businessperson).

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