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Comment by zyxley | Hacker News Reader

Wikis in general will be a part of human culture until, more or less, the end of time... but Wikipedia specifically feels like it's already begun a slow decline of bikeshedding, endless reverts, and territory claims by predatory editors.

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This claim is nearly as old as Wikipedia itself, and it is mostly false. There are over five million articles on English Wikipedia, and approximately 10,000 highly active editors (editors who make 25 or more edits a month). There is too much territory and too few claimants for your description to be true.

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!

What makes people repeat it? Personal experience.

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.

If you disagree with the editor, you can revert their reversions with justifications and bring it to attention on the talk page, though.

But that's the point. Here we're talking about a good edit. If someone makes a good edit they shouldn't need to defend it - other editors should see it's good and defend it themselves.

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.

I think its a naive view to expect two or more people to work on something without conflicts. How do these get solved in real life? Do people just keep pushing and pulling until one side cedes? Perhaps, but the more effective and optimal solution is to actually discuss it instead of creating a tug-of-war. [0] This way the results reflect a consensus, even if its a compromise, and this way Wikipedia can be host to multiple opinions. There's a really good reason every article is paired with a talk page. Just because it's called "The Encyclopedia Anyone Can Edit", it doesn't mean that its obligated to take anyones edits or that all that hard work won't be entirely rewritten in the future. [1][2]

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.

Not just that, but you will often be summarily blocked from editing by a determined and experienced editor, no matter how good your edit.

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!

I've seen this in almost every online community I've been part of. Online moderation seems to attract a certain kind of person: very picky but with some logical flaws, lack of common sense, relatively poor social skills. Eventually the bad money drives out the good. Usually they act in a way that isn't technically wrong (or borderline) but still cause damage.

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.

I did.what difference does it make? The editor claims "vandalism", reverts it and noone else ever sees it or cares.

Simple conflict of interest and the feeling of "owning" an article.

Or if not vandalism, you are accused of violating some other policy the accuser doesn't understand. Or uses the catch all violation that can get you blocked indefinitely: you violated WP:BLP, even when you have not.

The policy seems to discourage that kind of abuse[1][2]. Unfortunately, the actual moderation system often fails to comply with stated policy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Crying_"BLP!"

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_zealot

Ha, I didn't know these existed. They don't seem to be followed if my experience is any guide.

Few people back up these assertions with links to their reverted changes.

Can you?

I've certainly seen edit-war victims post links to their dispute, and most of the time they are just bitter that their poor quality contribution got called out.

Yes, I can.

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.

Any another very telling pattern on Wikipedia's talk pages: Despite all the rhetoric about being open to everyone, they have actually re-defined the term "IP" to mean "not registered user" and they are constantly using that term pejoratively.

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.

As a victim of such things, it is mostly true, not false.

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.

> 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.

[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.

That was never the point of [citation needed]. I created that because it was impossible to remove info without a massive revert war. It was meant to encourage sourcing reliable material that backs up the text, it was certainly never intended to allow text to remain without a citation forever.

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.

You still end up in a revert war. Usually with a 14 year old using automated tools who makes thousands of stupid pointless edits per week, without adding anything (such as citations) of value.

Yeah, but that's not the fault of the [citation needed] tag.

Then you have the opposite problem: anyone can add spam and hoaxes with impunity because it takes more effort to remove than add. Then in response you add the same rule for adding information. Voila, you just recreated Wikipedia except you now made citations mandatory and now everyone has to do tons of research to ever fix or modify anything. So much for a wiki. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wikiwiki#Hawaiian

I tried to counter that years ago with [citation needed], but eventually I expected unreferenced material would be removed.

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.

Yes, the burden to provide citations to add it back rests on the person who wants to reinstate challenged information. This helps to tend towards an article that has more cited content over time as anything questionable only gets reinserted with sourcing. I think this is the best balance between allowing anyone to add information and to have verifiable articles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden

Except that's not what is happening. If you state that the source is not verifiable or reliable (even if it is) then it will likely get removed. Often the admin will block the editor who readds the material without even checking the source. If that doesn't work then the next tactic is to accuse the editor of violating [[WP:UNDUE]] and create an unbalanced article. An admin will then come along and see that because the editor used a citation template via a named <ref> tag that the number of characters rapidly increases, and just assume that the material added is causing the article to become unbalanced.

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.

I don't know if you know this, but every article has a history of changes. Admins look at the diffs of these changes and can see exactly what was added or removed. And about edit-warring and BLP violations, again, the best way to resolve those are using the talk page. For the former the alternative is a game of attritions, and for the latter the possible harm is too great to not arrive at a consensus for the change first. You sure do seem to have something personal against Wikipedia admins, but they don't even get involved unless you've been vandalizing or editing very disruptively. Even then, they are not arbitrators of content, but behavior.

I not only know it, but it's what I used to do on a regular basis. But please, have a look at the [[Salim Mehajer]] article's talk page, and tell me if it's reasonable that extensive discussions have been collapsed. Or perhaps maybe the edit comment that the character limit increased from about 15,000 to 30,000 characters, but that 8,500 or so characters were references to verifiable or reliable sources. Or that an entire section was constantly removed, even though I asked what the specific issue was repeatedly.

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 claim may be as old as Wikipedia itself, but it is true nonetheless. A study [1] performed using Wikipedia's own numbers showed that the Wikipedia community is in serious trouble. To quote the paper, "However, recent research has shown that the number of active contributors in Wikipedia has been declining steadily for years and suggests that a sharp decline in the retention of newcomers is the cause." To wit, there may be 10,000 active editors now, but there were 56,000 active editors in 2007. That's a nearly 80% decline in the number of active editors. That's not exactly what I would call a sign of a healthy community.

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".

[1] http://abs.sagepub.com/content/57/5/664

Perhaps it indicates a decline in the availability of low hanging fruit. Because the easiest and most common edits have been done, fewer new edits are needed, leading to an overall decline in the number of editors without necessarily indicating a decline in general.

The paper examines that hypothesis and rejects it, noting that while Wikipedia's coverage of certain topics is very good, especially when it comes to math and the sciences, Wikipedia's articles on subjects in the humanities tend to be both quite a bit shorter and have fewer edits than those in the "hard" sciences. There is still plenty of low-hanging fruit left, as shown by Emily Temple-Wood's cataloging of women scientists [1].

[1]: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-35787730

What I find frustrating are that things like this are permitted to happen by editors who've clearly no clue about the subject matter of the article:

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.

Was the editor wrong? The page on Chocolatey seems fine as a section on NuGet.

Wikipedia is not a wiki specialised in software, so it seems reasonable enough that notability is considered in general terms.

That discussion (exclusionism vs inclusionism, i.e. making more decisions to exclude stuff that is below a threshold (as in space-limited traditional encyclopedias) vs letting as much in as people care about) is probably also as old as Wikipedia. The German Wikipedia tends to be relatively exclusionist, while I always found the English one more inclusionist. I almost completely abandoned using the German one for this reason and usually go straight to the English version of articles.

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.

So? The article you created lives on, it simply had a note about "dubious notability" for a year. That is a prompt to you - or anyone else that cares - to add references to reliable sources that demonstrate that it is notable.

Wikipedia is written by amateurs and enthusiasts, credentials don't hold any weight compared to published sources. [0] You can't verify what's in someone's head, but you can do that for published information. Every now and then you'll hear about how "experts are scum" [1] on Wikipedia, but that comes from a lack of understanding of how it functions. Experts are more than welcome to contribute, as long as they back up their statements with sources. (One would expect academics to embrace this the most)

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...

If it is so one should move to a git/fork/pull request model instead?

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