The all-conquering Wikipedia?
the-tls.co.uk
the-tls.co.uk
But it's better than the old web. It has revision history, proper licensing, suffers less from link rot, uses consistent and readable styling and, of course, it is collaboratively edited.
Shame about the centralisation, though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...
"Yet another piece of niche software without any evidence of notability."
Upon looking up profile of the editor who proposed this deletion we discover:
"I am an environmentalist, scientist and naturalist retired from a career spent working for the UK Government. By training I am an aquatic biologist"
Absolutely no mention of any knowledge or expertise about the Microsoft development ecosystem, so how would they know anything about the notability of Chocolatey or whether the references are reliable or notable.
I created the original NuGet article and got the go ahead to publish it from an experienced wikipedian. A few months later, despite being reasonably well fleshed out, a different editor trots by and sticks a "I'll delete this page because I don't think its notable enough" at the top. My problem is that I don't have the time or energy to jump through their bizarre argumentative hoops to challenge these kinds of things. It happens all the time. I've had two or three wikipedia articles bookmarked only to return some months later to discover they're gone because in the limited opinion of one or two editors the subject matter is not notable.
I have since given up contributing time and money to wikipedia. Fuck them.
Wikipedia is not a wiki specialised in software, so it seems reasonable enough that notability is considered in general terms.
I also don't want to spend time arguing with the bureaucratic caste what belongs there and what not, I'm happy to find more content in the English version.
About notability, Wikipedia's concept of notability [2] is quite different from what the average person might think it to be. Notability has nothing to do with popularity or usefulness, but rather significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. This way, you know you can write a verifiable [3] and comprehensive article on something without resorting to original research. [4] (To put it another way: pulling things out of your ass) While to you as a programmer, Chocately might seem to be one of the most essential things on the planet, to nearly every other person and publisher, it's nothing special. Have books been written on it? Has it received widespread coverage in the news? Would you expect to see it in a real encyclopedia? What is its actual impact and userbase? That is what notability is about, not because you personally find something important. Lastly, you often hear people complaining about other articles of the same type or more esoteric existing,[5] like Homebrew having an article [6] while Chocolatey doesn't. That doesn't mean those articles won't be deleted either, Wikipedia is entirely run by volunteers and the process focuses on an individual article's merits at a time.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_credentia...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:SCUM
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Other_stuff_exists
[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebrew_(package_management_s...
I don't know what motivates people to repeat this trope, when it is simply untrue. I think it stems from the fact that many people expect editing Wikipedia to be easier than it is. It is in fact quite hard. Some of the difficulty is essential (writing good, well-sourced expository prose is challenging) and some of it is inessential, the result of technical and social debt.
But most worthwhile things are difficult, and on balance, the rewards of editing Wikipedia are quite large in comparison to the effort required. You can go from a complete novice to a lasting (small) contribution to the project of civilization in an afternoon. You can't same the same for playing an instrument! And it can be hugely satisfying, really. Try it!
I have experienced first-hand how my edit (purely factual corrections, with sources) were reverted by an editor who has edited most of the lemma for most of the time, just because it is "his" lemma.
By asking people to defend their edits on the talk page you're just saying that Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anybody with enough time can edit.
Lastly, what makes a "good edit". I've seen someone write paragraphs for a film on their personal interpretations of the protagonist's feelings. No doubt they thought this was essential information for someone to understand the film, but this went completely against Wikipedia's rule prohibiting original research. [3]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discus... [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Competence_is_requir... [2]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
Edit: I said nothing about time in my comment, but addressed conflict resolution and the parent's comment about good edits. If taking the time and effort to discuss something is too much for you, maybe it's better that you don't try to work on a collaborative encyclopedia project.
Admins now largely make their decisions without much consideration for the issue that is in dispute. It's actually often worse than this: often they claim you are violating even core policies, but they have completely not understood the policy on which they base their claim, and sometimes they even show little evidence they have read the policy at all!
The great irony of all if this is that the policy and guidelines are solid. If they were actually followed then I don't think there would be much of a problem. But if you can be blocked indefinitely for not violating a policy but for being accused of violating a core policy alone, regardless of the basis of the accusation - well, then it's hardly worthwhile making the necessary effort to contribute quality material that conforms to Wikipedia norms and requirements!
Strange thing is that I'd expect Wikipedia to be one of the exceptions. HN and Reddit are: the quality goes down a bit with more low quality contributions, downvote-disagree etc. as the community expands. But overall pretty stable. I always thought this was due to size: at some point there are enough people "in power" that a reasonable number will see the bigger picture. Haven't had enough bad Wikipedia experiences to comment, but find it surprising.
Simple conflict of interest and the feeling of "owning" an article.
Can you?
But I won't. First, it's none of your business. Second, you're simply combative, not genuinely interested in the case.
There are many many people in these discussions who post links to their specific case (contrary to your statement), that should be enough to see the problem. My specific problem doesn'tr add anything.
It's not seldom that changes are reverted, because it's "only an IP".
Wikipedia should just require people to register instead of luring them into that very unpleasant situation.
I've mostly given up on editing wikipedia because it's just too annoying to deal with.
Your numbers area meaningless because most articles are ignored, tiny, and full of spam, it's the higher profile articles that are patrolled.
The problem in a nutshell is this:
The less qualified someone is to edit wikipedia the more time they tend to have to edit on it.
The people who actually know the subject, have little time on their hands to edit things, and no desire to waste it.
To fix it:
They should make a rule: It's forbidden to simply remove things, instead if you want something removed or changed you have to actively research the subject first, and attempt to help make the edit good. Or show that it's incorrect.
Right now all the timewasters simply remove edits, instead they should fix them.
[citation needed] was a terrible creation. It made it much easier for people to just tag the bits of articles that they disagree with. Instead they should spend some time trying to find citations.
I'd encourage those who add the tag and who find that even after discussion (or if discussion is totally ignored!) none is provided that they remove the material. They just need to use commonsense to work out a reasonable timeframes.
As it turns out, you can remove material: just claim it is a BLP violation. Give the most spurious reasoning you can find, but it will be enforced no matter how absurd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden
Alternatively, another tactic is to remove the entire section, not just the bit that is disputed. After the editor reverts 3 times, no matter if they object in the talk page they will be blocked.
The ultimate way to keep material removed, however, is to claim that it violates BLP. Due to the paranoia around this area (which is admittedly somewhat justified) no admin will look into it further and the default position is that the material is forbidden no matter how absurd or invalid the claim.
After you've been reverted, incidentally, it appears that the end run around discussion and consensus is to switch the archival boy tag to about 7 days and add a collapse template on the discussion thread, which prevents it from being seen by default and effectively silences the one who was blocked - which means appeals and review of the discussion become largely meaningless.
It's funny how many journalists have contacted me about this and commented that the situation is ridiculous. They can see it, but it appears admins cannot.
The paper goes on to suggest that the reason for the active editors leaving is exactly what zyxley proposed. The amount of work needed to make an edit stick has grown to be an impossibly large burden for all but the most dedicated of volunteers. Even the terminology used by Wikipedians is opaque. Wikipedia has evolved its own legalese-like jargon to describe the actions that new editors can or cannot take. While that may be a fine shorthand for administrators to discuss policies amongst themselves, it is a problem when a new contributor is told that their edit doesn't meet "WP:V" or their new article was rejected because it didn't meet "WP:N".
I used to have a teacher who used to say: "A single source is no source at all". I often wish I had a second encyclopedic source (in addition to the original sources cited in the encyclopedia). What I often do is read the article in another language, but this is just a workaround.
Is there any alternative to Wikipedia?
Bah ageist humbug. The 2010 survey had 51% over 30 and at Wikimania in London last year the biggest group were retired over 50s. I think because it involves tech people just assume it's youth.
(I note the featured article today is The House of Plantagenet (1154–1485) and you have to scroll down half the page before you hit Justin Bieber.)
The funny thing is, even when you know the policies and follow them, it's irrelevant. For example, I was told by several people that primary sources are entirely verboten. I did a search to verify the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) company ownership of a number of companies, which is entirely non-controversial, I was told this was violating WP:OR, or more specifically [[WP:PRIMARY]] as this disallows primary sources. This, however, is a shortcut to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research...
This reads:
Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.
When I pointed this out, there was silence and my work was removed.
The project is now completely impossible to contribute to in any meaningful way. There are literally users who do nothing but watch the incoming edit stream and revert or tweak edits as soon as they get made. Often they make mistakes or make it impossible for an editor to do any sort of extensive contributions. One editor I interacted with did this to me, and when I reviewed what happened after I found I couldn't go on further I realised they have made over 98,000 edits since 2009, yet there is literally no article they contributed to in any significant way whatsoever! It's all reverts, page moves, typo fixes, wiki link changed or the creation of small article stubs (they claimed to have created 500 articles, but when I checked they created over 500 pages, but about 450 are redirects or pages moves, and nothing else. Of the rest, about 25 article are 1 sentence stubs, albeit with a reference, and the rest are still very basic and not deeply researched articles - not really much better than stubs.
It's really a lost cause now. I certainly know the quality is degrading very rapidly. Unless practices are drastically changed, it will degrade to the point where traditional sources will come back into fashion.
Jimmy Wales once stated the grand vision of Wikipedia was summed up by asking people to "imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." [1]
That was the goal, and for years that was what I and many others worked towards. For whatever reason, the project has now stagnated and that is no longer occurring consistently. This grand vision has been lost, and I don't see that there are any moves to bring it back.
Secondly, administrators should be refreshing their understanding of policy. Any editor who tries to be a wikilawyer and force their viewpoint even when it is contrary to the very policy they say another editor is violating should be warned and told to carefully read the policy.
Editors who deliberately hide discussions via tricks like adding collapse tags should be warned then sanctioned. That's deliberately being disruptive and preventing consensus based contributions.
BLP accusations should be more carefully analysed - a lot of what I was being accused off had nothing to do with a violation of BLP and huge swathes of non-controversial material was removed under the BLP policy, even though Much of it was no a violation at all.
Admins should not accuse editors of not discussing things on talk pages when in fact that's what they have done.
And lastly, editors who are page patrollers only should not be given more weight than new editors who make substantial contributions to Wikipedia. Those new editors should be encouraged and a polite message should be given detailing what the issues are when material is contributed. If they ask questions in the talk page and the page patroller refuses to discuss things further, then the page patroller should entirely disengage from the article - especially those who have not shown any skills in research or even the slightest attempt at getting any article to good article start us, let alone an attempt at making the article a featured article!