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>Why haven't you tried to address those inaccuracies?

Trying to edit wikipedia is a hellish experience. The vast majority of articles have one or more de facto owners who will do everything they can to preserve control over their turf. They tend to be experts in rules laywering which is how they got their power in the first place. So "addressing inaccuracies" typically involves 5 minutes of editing and a month-long war afterwards.

And that doesn't even begin to address that wikipedia's rules are insane to begin with. Just the rules covering acceptable usernames are almost 4000 words long (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy).

> Trying to edit wikipedia is a hellish experience. The vast majority of articles have one or more de facto owners

I'm so tired of this meme. No one owns an article. [0] You say "de facto", but just because someone disagrees with you on something, it doesn't mean they disagree with every edit or do it only for that article. The vast majority of articles barely have anyone watching them.

> who will do everything they can to preserve control over their turf.

The fact that you describe it as "turf" only further proves that you have this mentality of the article being a battleground.

> They tend to be experts in rules laywering which is how they got their power in the first place.

What power? Even admins on Wikipedia can't overrule consensus and discussion. What's this about rule lawyering too? They just understand the community norms better. I don't walk into a fancy restaurant and complain about "rules lawyering" after I get kicked out for breaking the dress code. Once someone tells you about a rule, you should read up on it, not boisterously claim that you should be above the community rules.

> Just the rules covering acceptable usernames are almost 4000 words long

Seems simple enough to me:

> This page in a nutshell: When choosing an account name, do not choose names which may be offensive, misleading, disruptive, or promotional. In general, one username should represent one person.

Those 4000 words should only matter if you don't find the above to be sufficient explanation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content

> [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content

Are you seriously trying to persuade someone who has doubts about the accuracy of Wikipedia content with a link to a Wikipedia page?

This is a page on internal Wikipedia policy, so there is no question about the accuracy here. The parent comment was pointing out that, in principle, Wikipedia policy is that contributors do not "own" content on Wikipedia in the sense of having a right to refuse edits to content that they contributed.

On the contrary: Wikipedia users are just as much (if not more) subject to their own wishful thinking and dirty politics when writing internal policy pages as they are when writing regular articles. Especially that there is no requirement to cite sources for the former. The policies as written may fail to reflect how editing actually looks like; hell, they might even not be actual policies at all. A single person could slip a passage in a policy page that supports their own opinion without anyone else noticing, and later cite that passage as if it were authoritative. (Or imply authoritativeness by simply placing a mere 'essay' in the Wikipedia namespace.)

Nobody cares what should happen 'in principle' unless the principles are enforced — which they are often not. See for example how the enforcement of the verifiability policy looks like.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_lacking_sour...

> I'm so tired of this meme. No one owns an article

Over 1000 hits for "ownership" on ANI: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&pr...

> What's this about rule lawyering too?

Nearly 1000 hits for "wikilawyerng" on ANI: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&pr...

As Tycho Brahe[0] once said: 'because I don’t have time to babysit the Internet'.

Maybe because the moment he would try to actually go and even, say, enforce the verifiability policies that already exist, an angry crowd of self-important ignoramuses would stop him in his tracks shouting 'Stop right there, you filthy deletionist! The article is notable!' and drag him to the dramaboards to have him blocked. And I should know, I have had the same thing happen to me on Commons.

> A Nature study (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm) found it to be comparable in accuracy to Brittanica.

Are you seriously referring to that one over-ten-year-old study which used a non-representative sample of articles?

[0] As in, the writer of Penny Arcade, of course.

>> someone complaining that their local beach is full of trash when they themselves never bothered to help clean it

Here you're shouting others down by trying to shame them. Please don't do that. Being unwilling or incapable of cleaning up the messes others make does not disqualify one from criticizing the mess makers.

My point with the example was to show that Wikipedia is a public resource. It's not "that other guy's" responsibility to fix it. Every editor is a volunteer. If you have the energy to complain about a public resource that you benefit from for free, that is maintained by volunteers, you absolutely should be shamed for not chipping in yourself and instead writing about it elsewhere. As the famous line goes: "patches welcome".

Except that WP has its own arcane laws and policies used to great effect by regulars to ensure no outside voice is given a say in truly contentious articles. e.g. If you try to get involved, you are a "single purpose account". If you contest the veracity of a source, it turns into a meta debate where you are expected to provide an alternative view that is nevertheless considered a reliable source by everyone there who thinks otherwise.

It's a trap, because it ensures the only people who direct it are the ones who also have time to get fill the site with unimportant trivia and camp out. Unsurprisingly, anything to do with the current culture war is a lost cause.

>> "patches welcome"

Here we are in a topic that actually documents the hostility people encounter when participating in Wikipedia, a topic that provides overwhelming anecdotal evidence among the comments that people are being actively discouraged from contributing to Wikipedia by hostile admins and topic campers (something I have personally experienced) and you pretend the actual problem is lazyness.

You deserved your downmod.