User:Indrian

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[edit] Why Wikipedia Will Ultimately Fail

I first came to wikipedia in 2004 and was instantly taken with the concept of an encyclopedia to which all can contribute and which had no space constraints so that sundry topics could be given the treatment they deserve. Still today it remains one of the towering achievements of the internet, yet at the same time one of its most abject failures. There are so many good things going on here every day, but in the end, they do not really matter. This project will not become the excellent source of knowledge it should be unless major changes are made.

Wikipedia has been systematcally subverted by a few individuals that use the project to further their own agendas and by a large number of individuals that have no idea what they are doing. In my time here, I have grown slowly more and more disgusted with those that think a lack of space constraints leads to a lack of all standards. I have seen the equivalent of dozens of print pages written on tangents that are not now and never will be important. I have seen articles on important topics rendered virtually unreadable by an over-abundance of trivial information. I have seen poorly-written articles on trivial topics that do nothing to explain their subject matter and reflect poorly on the entire project. I have seen many groups push agendas across the entire namespace that have rendered wikipedia useless as a recorder of certain seminal events and issues. I have seen too many users that confuse newspaper headlines with encyclopedic topics. These problems are just the tip of the iceberg at wikipedia; I could go on and on about how many of the current articles do more harm than good.

This is compounded by the fact that wikipedia is practically in anarchy. Wikipedia has many procedures and policies, but they are disregarded at the whim of both general users and admins. I have seen users vote to keep articles on VfD that unambiguously violate WP:NOT (I am not talking about the notability debate here). I have seen admins blatantly disregard the "consensus" reached by VfD (I am not talking about the debate over whether 66% or 80% should be the metric for deleting articles). I have seen users and admins alike completely disregard a VfD and repost information because they disagreed with the results. I have seen admins apply wildly different standards on how to close a VfD or perform other basic admin tasks. There are no specific guidelines for most tasks on wikipedia, and virtually no oversight of admins, of which there are too many of to do any good if they are not constrained by some common guidelines. For this reason, Wikipedia's procedures and policies are generally useless.

Without definatively enforced standards and guidelines, wikipedia is and will remain a chaotic place. What this means is that it will never be taken seriously as a resource (sure some journalists and amateurs may use it, but they are not always the most rigorous authenticators of sources). Even if wikipedia becomes the most accurate reference source ever created, I do not think public perception would change. There is no professional review of the material, no way to keep quality control over the project, no way to completely eliminate rampant POV in some areas (sure everyone throughout history has pushed some agenda even if subconciously, but there is a difference between subtle POV and blatant bias), and very little authentication of facts (there are projects out there trying to do this, but at one million plus articles and growing, it will be impossible to ever fact-check every article). What this adds up to is a useless source for serious academic research (though I am sure it will always be a fun place for average people to go to look up random facts).

Wikipedia's final major problem is inertia and the inevitable drive to include more and more information. While wikipedia is easy to add information too, it is almost impossible to remove information. VfD is fatally flawed in this regard due to keep-happy admins and no real "consensus" reached on any issue (since even a large VfD gets only 40 or so votes out of thousands of users and most get far less). For long articles, attempts to trim down useless information is met with resistance, reverts, and assurances that wikipedia has enough space for all the information. Wikipedia is not the internet, it is not even the only wikimedia project, yet sometimes it tries to be. So many long articles are so bloated by facts that it is impossible to get a true picture of the subject. Without the expert analysis that sifts through the facts and presents the important points and explains why they are important, wikipedia will never be more than a collection of indiscriminate facts, which is ironically something that wikipedia is not supposed to be according to policy. Eventually, nearly every article will be subject to this extended treatment. Many users will pride themselves on how much data they were able to collect on a subject; the wiser users will just wonder what the point is of the article or its subject.

I came to wikipedia eager to contribute and try to make the best encyclopedia that has ever existed. Over the last few years, I have come to the bitter realization that very few users are actually working towards a quality product. Instead, quanity is valued over quality and inclusion is valued over selectivity. At one point, I left the project over these concerns; I could not stay away because it is a fun way to pass the time. I continue to work on subjects that interest me and on keeping the cruft under control, but the frustration never goes away. I will always do my best to help make wikipedia a truly reputable source, though it will probably never become one, and continue to hope that changes will be made to allow the project to reach its full potential.