User talk:Renamed user 5417514488/problems with the English-language Wikipedia

Agree with all of these points at least 100%. I would add something about the remoteness of the developers and project sponsors from the editing community, and indeed the lack of established channels of communication and knowledge-sharing between different language Wikipedias (which are after all trying to produce the exact same product that we are).--Kotniski (talk) 08:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

These are all good points, but enforcing them too rigidly would drive many away. However, I disagree with point five "people with low knowledge of a subject are viewed as equally competent to people with high knowledge" being a problem. How do you really know who has high or low knowledge of a subject, and competent or not, if they can built a good article what does it matter? Secondly, I think all users, including trolls, should be tolerated to a small extent because there is always the remote chance they might become a constructive editor. Finally, you want to "enforce" productivity? How exactly are you planning to do that? "You haven't edited an article in three weeks so your going to be blocked?" D0762 (talk) 09:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I took it to mean that what we do should be productive as opposed to counter-productive.--Kotniski (talk) 10:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't feel trolls should be tolerated to any extent. There are plenty of reasonable people in the world, so why tolerate disruptive people? It's better to deal harshly with trolls who just might become constructive editors than scare away scores of already-constructive editors who are doing fantastic work.

Kotniski clarified on my usage of "productive" exactly: we should have an environment in which editors can contribute productively, not one where editors have to fight a horde of ignorant POV-pushers.

I don't know how to verify "competence", but the principle holds as more of a theoretical value: if you know someone is more competent than you in a subject, you should probably defer or refer to them (with some obvious exceptions, of course). – Thomas H. Larsen 23:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I certainly agree with you on the third point. We need to have more of a zero-tolerance policy on vandalism. It is a waste of people's time to sometimes have to go through a progression of warning templates before being able to block an obvious vandal, and it is a waste of time to repeatedly give short blocks rather than longer ones. We should make it so mild vandalism gets a single warning before being blocked and disruptive vandalism is blocked on sight, and these blocks last a minimum of a week, not the silly 24-hour stuff we have. I'm not so active in vandalism reverting anymore so perhaps I don't see the whole picture; if so, tell me why we shouldn't be more strict.--Michael White^T·C 13:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Irony?

Does anyone see any irony in this essay comparing fellow editors to the tribes in Lord of the Flies, while at the same time complaining that "the values of respectfulness, pleasantness, constructiveness, and productivity are not effectively enforced"? --GRuban (talk) 14:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

There are two "tribes" on the English-language Wikipedia in this context: one "tribe" (so to speak) that is at least trying to build a reliable free encyclopedia and work well with others, and another "tribe" that has little interest in making the encyclopedia more reliable and simply gets in the way. Unfortunately, the latter tribe tends to be the most predominant one on the English-language Wikipedia. I regretfully have to say that I'm standing aside, trying to get the latter tribe to abandon its elitism, arrogance, and loud shouting. I have to say that I have no interest in contributing actual content while chaos reigns. – Thomas H. Larsen 23:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It's a volunteer project with thousands of participants, a certain amount of individuality is inevitable, while the chaos is surprisingly controlled. Best of luck to you in your break, and I hope you can come back when you feel more able to exemplify the values of respectfulness, pleasantness, constructiveness, and productivity. --GRuban (talk) 14:14, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Last point

The last point (values of respectfulness) is the one that should be remedied first and foremost. The amount of hostility that occurs in just about every debate. This is one of the few things Citizendium got right. 129.120.86.21 (talk) 16:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Point by Point

1. I agree with this point, but the problem lies mainly in those editors who engage in silly edit wars and try to push their point of view over an NPOV. Those who peruse other websites such as Digg may notice that topics involving Israel (for example) often lead to heated arguments, and there have been allegations that pro-Israel groups have contracted individuals to censor anything anti-Israel on the Internets. While not to suggest that Wikipedia is controlled by a Jewish cabal, I have noticed that these topics (as well as others) tend to create edit wars based on one's on personal convictions, as opposed to a NPOV.
2. I don't think I quite understand this point, if someone could elaborate that would be helpful.
3. I agree completely: Disruptive trolls should be banned immediately. As an occasional editor (and voracious reader) of Encyclopedia Dramatica I have noticed that their pages on Wikipedia have made many suggestions of "Ways to troll Wikipedia." I wonder if that is not a large part of the problem.
4. Again, I agree. I think a Wikipedia constitution would be an excellent idea, and should be required reading for any new editor (if created). I am a little confused to the supposed lack of power on the part of the editors, if that could be clarified.
5. On the Internet, you can say you are anyone. I could say that I am Stephen Hawking, and nobody would be able to argue that I am not (unless they had inside information). While I feel that anybody has the ability to contribute equally to a particular subject, as long as there are Internet tough guys and supposed geniuses, it will always be hard for those with substantial knowledge to assert a higher level of competence.
6. What guidelines do you propose for more effective enforcement of these values?
Spartacusprime (talk) 17:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense

Utter nonsense. Who needs a complaining essay with no constructive criticism. Not one person in this entire project would say that they are unwilling to change for the better. They just disagree about what constitutes "better". To say that the point of view of some that no change is needed is invalid is simply ignorant. Some people just happen to be too busy writing an encyclopedia to meander about writing trite essays about what is wrong or right. Get over it, and get back to work. Or don't. But don't waste our time with community notices comprised of complaining drivel. VanTucky 18:13, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

There are many ways to contribute to the building of the encyclopedia. One of them is surely trying to find ways in which that building process can be done better (since you seem to admit yourself, if I understand you correctly, that everyone knows it could be done better). If there are serious faults in the way it's being done, as many people see that there are, then it's far from being a waste of time to try to address those faults.--Kotniski (talk) 10:52, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

VanTucky, your comments are not respectful of either myself or my work, are not pleasant, and unconstructive since they do not even suggest ways to correct the problems that I have recognised, and unproductive since they do not assist in making Wikipedia a more productive environment in which to work. – Thomas H. Larsen 01:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Point by point: Cryptic C62

1. Disagree: Editors are unwilling to change unless they are certain it will be for the better. As mentioned earlier, the problem is that people disagree on what "better" is.

   Something is "better" if it makes the encyclopedia more reliable and it is the only possible option; the community should (usually) not be taken into account when making decisions that improve the reliability of encyclopedic content, or should at least gain a second priority. – Thomas H. Larsen 01:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

2. Unclear: What is the difference between openness and freedom? Does "quantity over quality" refer to the fact that articles are being created faster than articles are becoming featured?

   Openness is the ability of everybody to edit, including trolls, vandals, spammers, and so on. Freedom is the ability of our content to be used and distributed freely by everybody. (I wasn't really comparing the two values here, so my apologies for making it unclear.) It's better to write an extremely-high-quality accurate, neutral article with many references than write hundreds of small poorly-researched poorly-written biased articles. – Thomas H. Larsen 01:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

3. Disagree: As annoying as trolls are, we must always AGF and accept the possibility that trolls may evolve into valuable contributors. The current 4-level vandalism warning system works better than immediate ejection

   My point is this: there are thousands of contributors who are already contributing valuable content and good opinions; why tolerate at all anybody who does not seem to have the intention of doing so? Blocks and bans should, of course, be easily appealable. However, I feel that it would be better to block disruptive "participants" immediately and permanently, regardless of their position, allowing them to appeal, instead of tolerating them and thus making a less productive environment for already-valuable participants. – Thomas H. Larsen 01:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

   Do you have any evidence for these assertions? Are there significant numbers of ex-trolls contributing valuably to WP? And has immediate ejection been tried and found to be less effective than the current system? Vandalism and other disruption are certainly major problems for WP in terms of both impact on quality and editors' time being wasted, it seems to me.--Kotniski (talk) 16:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

   It's important to keep in mind that there is a massive gray area between useful contributors and trolls, and that's largely why the 4-level warning system is in place. If we were to switch to a 1-level banning system, how would we know, based on a single offense, whether someone is a troll or whether they're a good editor who made a mistake? The issue becomes even more complicated when you take shared computers into account. Should an entire library full of intelligent unregistered users be prevented from editing on the library's computers simply because one person made one mistake? I think not. Also, the "editors' time is being wasted" argument is nonsense. The vast majority of vandalism is handled by bots. The rest is taken care of by editors who watch their favorite pages. We would have to watch pages and revert edits whether there were vandals or not - good faith edits that add factual inaccuracies facilitate the need for the watchlist system in either case. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:17, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

   Well yes, there is a gray area, and bots do some of the work, but there is plenty of obvious unquestionable vandalism going on which is certainly harming the encyclopedia and is wasting hours of editors' time (I don't understand why you think this is nonsense - having a page on your watchlist doesn't in itself take up time, but the more edits that appear there requiring reverting, the more time you waste - this seems totally obvious to me).--Kotniski (talk) 08:06, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

   It appears you are making two arguments: The first is that there is obvious unquestionable vandalism, which is true. The second is that user-reverted vandalism wastes time, which is understandable. There is, however, a major flaw in your arguments: The obvious unquestionable vandalism is handled by bots. It's the gray area that needs to be dealt with by actual users. These acts of obvious vandalism which, by your logic should be a 1-strike-you're-out offense, are not wasting time because they're not being dealt with by humans. Are you saying bots should report every instance of vandalism they find to an administrator, rather than simply revert and give a warning on the off chance that the vandal really does fall within the gray area? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 12:40, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

   I don't really believe your premise here (but feel free to enlighten me). Bots might be able to spot and revert things like page blanking, but I don't think they're clever enough to catch insertions of vulgarities or nonsense.--Kotniski (talk) 12:53, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

   Then you've clearly never seen Cluebot at work. It does exactly that. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:07, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

   Well I have noticed ClueBot doing some great work, but my experience is that it is a long way from picking up everything that a human can, even in the "obvious vandalism" category.--Kotniski (talk) 20:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

4. Unclear: As appropriate as the Lord of the Flies metaphor may be, what are some examples of Wikipedia tribes?

   To avoid citing names: the first tribe so aptly believes that this essay is "utter nonsense" and "complains ... [and offers] ... no contructive criticism"; it generally acts in a manner that thinks Wikipedia has no problems, is perfect (perfect for free speech, not for building a reliable and high-quality encyclopedic reference work), and that anybody who disagrees with them should simply shut up. I am beginning to understand Larry Sanger's point of view. The other tribe is simply trying to build an encyclopedia, to increase the reliability of this encyclopedia, and to increase the ability of its community to constructively and productively build a decent free content base.

5. Strongly disagree: The ability to find and cite good sources can be equally important or more important than expertise in the subject. I, for example, don't know anything about chemistry, yet I brought Francium to featured article status.

   Perhaps I was unclear on this point, and I've now clarified in the essay: "professional experts are seen as knowledge equals with amateurs and often rejected by the latter people, not respected and given an opportunity to work alongside (as opposed to under) amateurs".

6. Agree: Too often do good debates and logical arguments devolve into shouting matches and name-calling.

In response to the essay as a whole: {{Sofixit}} :) --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:29, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Expansion of essay?

I believe we should make each of the "theses" (could we call them that?) into a full section, with each section providing better description of the problem. I believe this will make each of the points more convincing. Should we do that? Arbiteroftruth (talk) 03:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy with this. I'll try and do some work on it, but I'm a little short of time, so any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the barnstar, by the way :-). – Thomas H. Larsen 23:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Criticism

Regarding: Wikipedia:Wikipendium

it's missing the crucial point, that all these projects are RELIANT upon a critical mass of people. and if you have a critical mass, then you should all stay and fix the original! (thats why citizendium isnt likely to work: no critical masses at all, just a few dozen malcontents.)

solution: stop trying to control things. go work on some articles concerning a subject you enjoy, and let whatever miracle has carried wikipedia intact for the last 7 years, continue to work its magic.

Sorry, but, honestly this brings to mind a few things-

the speeches people make when they move to a foreign country, or advocate secession, instead of staying and helping to fix the problems.

someone "complaining about the state of our society"

something created by a teenage individual who is searching for/discovering his self-identity: Poetic statements of intent, mixed with searching for a voice.

lastly: "lack of cultural diversity" ?? everyone is at their own local language project, and there's barely enough volunteers for that.

We need more people, not to divide the ones we have. Read the last sentence of User:ONUnicorn/The problem with Wikipedia... AND the solution again.24.68.146.206 (talk) 05:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Specifics?

What 99% of severe criticisms of Wikipedia that I have read, have in common is that they fail to cite enough specific evidence to make their case to anyone, let alone to make their case in a court of law. This essay is no exception.—greenrd (talk) 09:36, 2 July 2008 (UTC)