Wikipedia Sucks: Here are 10 Reasons Why

Jimmy Wales holding a globe in front of frightened man

There are many reasons why Wikipedia represents a flawed model for publishing accurate information. These 10 reasons critique Wikipedia and will hopefully provide some impetus for improvement.

  1. The theory that everyone’s contributions to a topic are equally valuable sounds good, but is clearly nonsense.
  2. Wikipedia has no way of recognizing expert knowledge over inexpert knowledge. The members with most authority are the ones who have spent the most time working on Wikipedia – their “knowledge” is often just a combination of Google results and prejudice.
  3. Wikipedia gives people’s opinions undeserved authority by virtue of its search engine rankings and authoritative presentation and identity.
  4. Too many people (especially students) who use Wikipedia believe the articles will be reliable – and Wikipedia’s stance as an encyclopedia encourages this misguided belief.
  5. At the core of Wikipedia is the idea that bad articles will eventually be edited by the community until they become good (i.e. factual and well-written). In fact, they are likely to be edited until all but one member loses interest or gives up trying.
  6. “If you don’t like an entry, you can fix it yourself”(1). But I came here for information, not to provide it.
  7. “Wikipedia pages have become increasingly complex and Wikipedia doesn’t support a WYSIWYG editor.”(3) This and other technical aspects of Wikipedia effectively prevent many people with valuable knowledge from participating.
  8. The lack of any required standard of writing, error-checking and fact-checking means that many Wikipedia entries are poorly-written and contain factual inconsistencies.(1)(2)(4)
  9. Wikipedia articles only ever skim the surface. Which is fine – but they don’t ever indicate what might be below the surface either, leading people to believe that everything is as simple and uncontroversial as Wikipedia says it is. (2)
  10. Wikipedia entries are meant to be “notable” – but only Wikipedia’s (self-appointed) editors have to think so. Is Stroyent really important?

 

References

1. Wikipedia founder admits to serious quality problems • The Register
2. The Faith-Based Encyclopedia, Robert McHenry
3. Wikipedia’s Technological Obscurification: Three ways Wikipedia keeps 99% of the population from participating, Jason Calacanis
4. The Amorality of Web 2.0, Nicholas Carr

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92 Responses

  1. My favorite is the Canadian editor who got upset with me over adding unsourced (but true) material to short articles that were mostly composed of unsourced material (which he decided to leave in). And this person, living in Canada, has no expertise or knowledge of the subject area where I making contributions. This jerk threatened to have me banned for vandalism, then denied he accused me of vandalism.

    Wikipedia is just one long pissing contest among people’s different biases and hangups.

    1. You are completely right, DC. However, a “pissing contest” implies two equals squirting up the same wall. At Wikipedia, it’s “Tyrannical Moderator / Editor” pissing **on** knowledgeable, well-intentioned but lowly contributors.

      My favorite: The self-appointed maintainer of a list of computer games, who wouldn’t allow me to add a game to the list because the game wasn’t “well known”. The game was excellent and, unlike many games, finishable.

      I quickly concluded that “not well known” meant **HE** didn’t know it.

    2. What does this have anything to do with Canada? If US people were in a better state of awareness, they wouldn’t have elected the orange clown.

    3. True that, I’ve been dealing with the same issue regarding an uppity half-decade old crust of bread who likes rap battles, about a BBC kids TV show from the 90’s that needed expanding on… This is why there needs to be a peoples’ encyclopedia, Wikipedia is just a joke, a bunch of bearucratic snobs who gain pleasure in thinking they’re right when the people beneath them know more than they think.

  2. Completely agree. The power trips, bias, and inaccuracies are truly astounding. If it wasn’t so successful at massaging people’s egos by allowing them to feel important for contributing to a website, it probably would never have become as large as it is today. Given the sheer amount of profit Wikipedia generates, there is no motivation to clean it up and make it what it was intended to be – a good source of accurate information.

    1. The egomassage is there but that’s not why Wikipedia got big.

      People are in fact looking for a good source of information, that’s obvious by the pleuthora of complaints about Wikipedia’s failings, this blog containing but a small fraction of them.

      People are often also the sources of information.

      Wikipedia got big by pretending to be THE place to both input and acquire that information and by denying and refuting any and all claims to the contrary.

      The fact is that Wikipedia is NOT the place to enter in accurate unbiased and in depth information for oneself and others NOR is it the place to obtain accurate unbiased and in depth information.

      Do a search for alternatives and try to avoid more cons and rip off artists like Wikipedia.

      PS: feel free to send me a note of interest in iinteractive technologies that are designed to suit the bill. I’m slow compared to the rest but I will get around to publishing something at iintera.org some time soon. Maybe this year (2012).

      PPS: thanks for the blog, I needed the plug space :)

  3. 11. Wikipedia is killing small dedicated websites, by stealing their information and stoling their place in the search engines…

    1. Errm no, dumb***. There’s this little thing called “copyright”. You have to voluntarily give up your automatic rights as author before that becomes legal.

    1. @bryan

      Actually it’s not a good site, they constantly change and delete information all the time. Most of their info in their articles can’t be trust anyways.

  4. I think wikipedia started out great; when I used the content was reliable and accurate however ironically as the site became more popular the site’s content became worst. It serves as a great conduit for information but it’s 100 percent open design is it’s biggest weakness and today as we see wikipedia is useless. The sad thing is that millions of people believe otherwise and it’s only another influence(although I place the blame mostly on them) that is making my generation even dumber.

  5. These are excellent points. I have found Wikipedia little more than a repository of rumour and misinformation, though some of the scientific pages tend to be more accurate.

    I agree with John: in the early days, Wikipedia started off great, but, it was only known to a small group of idealists. Bit like email. Email once was great, too, before it was ruined by spammers. Twitter was great before the bots got in.

    I had a similar experience to DC, but, interestingly, not on Wikipedia itself. I blogged about Wikipedia and posted a link about a senior editor. Next thing was that editor sending me email abuse. She couldn’t see that I had nothing to do with that link. Then she began citing the law at me. Next time, lady, try doing that to someone who doesn’t have a law degree.

    If someone like that is a senior editor, then what are the rest of them like?

    Well, another experience suggests that many are out to do good but rely far too much on search engines to determine whether an addition or a subject is ‘notable’. Offline resources, forget it. And that’s yet another weakness there on Wikipedia: the fact that mere search engine results can legitimize content—regardless of those results’ own legitimacy.

    DC, you are right: the site is basically a pissing match, and the editor who contacted me proved it. It was clear from that experience that you don’t need brains to get up there—it’s clear that you can scam the system or be obsessive enough and get up to the top. Which seemed to confirm the link that I posted.

  6. So true. Whenever I hear my fellow college students complain that Wikipedia should be allowed, I like to say that “Wikipedia is for general knowledge only”. I only go there when I want to see if a celeb is alive or dead, when it happened or if a tv show is on air or when it went off air.

    Even Youtube is slightly more reliable (and even then I use that lightly since you can edit videos).

  7. Wikipedia editors seem to have a chip on their shoulder. I’ve had numerous pages taken down due to the fact that they look like advertising. Where do they draw the line? It’s a bit absurd. F Wiki.

  8. I believe the fundamental problem about Wikipedia is the concept itself, i .e. trying to build an alphabetically organized encyclopedia by means of haphazard contributions and equally haphazard revisions without any serious and reliable quality control both with respect to language as well as with respect to contents.

    Certainly there is a lot of information there, which is presumnably ok, but the problem is, that you can never be absolutely sure, what is correct and what isn’t, so if you cite anything from wikipedia you run the risk of spreading false “facts” like rings in the water, and in that case, there is nobody to blame, because no one is really responsible, as anybody can write, what they like and even maliciously place bits and pieces of misguiding information here and there, what may in fact never be discovered.

    I have myself had the following thoughts: How about instead creating an alternative system based on the mind-mapping model, i .e. a multidimensional knowledge system, where you as a contributor can expand the total sum of knowledge by going in depth into infinitely many levels of expertise within the subject range, where you have expertise.

    If you think that sounds interesting, please send me an email, and I will explain the idea in further detail.

    I also have an idea about, how a fairly good quality control might work, without the necessity of some strict, laborious and bureaucratic censorship procedures. Basically the idea is to allow alternative explanations, and then let the users decide, which versions they prefer and show this by rating the entries (and leave comments about possible improvements).

  9. 11. Wikipedia is controlled by the corporations and governments who can afford to hire the most editors.

  10. I find a lot more ignorance and off hand (unsourced?) comments on blogs and elsewhere than on Wikipedia. At least on Wikipedia, with all its flaws, inaccuracies *can* be corrected. Sources *can* be requested or else the material can be deleted. On blogs, there is no such check – any idiot can write a post without having a clue about the topic and make it sound authoritative.

    Also I think many of the comments above come from disgruntled users who tried to create an article about their boring company or product to eventually have it deleted. On one hand, they complain that Wikipedia is biased; on the other hand, they also complain when Wikipedia delete their biased information. Pick one!

  11. Just because something is sourced doesn’t mean it gets to the truth. Wikipedia editors have their own agendas and biases and they will tend to include sources that validate their point of view. They will leave out sources as well, sometimes the best ones, in my opinion.

    Blog comment streams are conversations that are open to correction by the public. Could this dialogue occur on Wikipedia on a page that’s ranked in Google that someone might actually find and read?

  12. Laurent, bloggers are allowed to be stupid and ignorant; they’re not passing themselves off as scholarly, undisputed sources of information– Wikipedia is.

    That’s why I’m personally more tolerant of the “idiot bloggers” than “idiot Wikipedia contributors” and “editors”. If a blogger writes that the American Civil War started in 1868, so what? No one’s turning to blogs, anyway, for their information. It’s a different story if Wikipedia writes that.

    BTW, the argument that *anything* can be corrected in Wikipedia is one of the weakest defenses I have ever heard, because it doesn’t take into account the fact that by the time the error is corrected, hundreds if not thousands of web sites will have passed on that error without giving a second thought about looking back at the corrected Wiki entry. So yes, Wiki’s “entries” get corrected, but not the countless sites that sourced it.

    Nowhere was this more evident than when I came across the “any idiot blogger” you were talking about. An “idiot blogger” wrote an entry stating that the 1964 NYC World’s Fair ended in 1970– which defies common sense since it’s the… wait, for it… *1964* World’s Fair and not the 1970 World’s Fair.

    Dozens of commenters had to correct her about the error, because guess what– she had gotten the error from Wikipedia, used it in her post, and never thought to check back the original entry for an update. So were it not for those commenters, her error–straight from Wikipedia itself– would still be there. Because after all, who’s going to recheck an encyclopedia for “errors”? It’s supposed to be right the first time, no?

    So much for that lame “it’ll be corrected eventually” defense!

    1. Agreed! The site is unreliable and very bias once you begin to look into the details. It may have been a little more “open” in the beginning but the premise still leads to what you have today. On the whole the site is actually a disservice and crutch for people searching for real information.

  13. wikipedia represents (for the most part) elite interests by spreading dogma under the cloak of “neutrality.” Peer review is just a filter to eliminate dissenting views, no matter how accurate and factual, that are not in line with free market capital accumulation and commoditized science. Many contributers are from State entities like CDC, NIH, FDA and medical journals that represent the big pharma and medical technology industries. But they get a lot of help from armchhair egoists who believe the crap they are fed in school and by the media. I have read subjects that were completely flawed and written by self interested parties and the only requests posted for revision or elimination are esoteric, insignificant and petty and almost snobbish.

  14. There’s a better design for a free online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. First, it would have a database of articles edited by professional editors and researchers. In addition, there would be a holding section which contains articles emailed in from amateur contributors. These are still readable to the general public but will be marked as unchecked. On a regular basis, the site’s team of editors and researchers will take an article from the holding section, clean it up and check its facts, maybe even requesting sources from the originator by email, and then transfer the finished product to the main body. There must be no pretense of “neutrality” either. Every contribution should be accepted, but of course cleaned up, regardless of how “notable” or not it is.

  15. I use wikipedia for information on fictional things (TV series, movies, etc). Anything even slightly controversial- forget it. Most read like propaganda leaflets handed out by activists.

  16. wikipedia is a mmorpg. the only way to ‘beat’ it when you have ‘copy editors’ nipping at your heals is to beat them at their own game. use their ridiculous vocabulary and rules against them.

    i too only use wikipedia for information on tv shows or movies.

    one thing i dont like is that with a LOT of tv shows or movies, they allow editors to type in the entire plot. that’s acceptable to them. it seems like a huge spoiler for me and i think it may detract from some people seeing the movies or television shows

  17. In the last 2 days I’ve looked up 8 things on wikipedia and 7 of them had completely incorrect information within the pages.

    Regarding “plot summaries” the person responsible typed in a description of the movie that was prosetry and completely incorrect.

    Also, looking up a few factoids, I noticed that the references that were pointed to were other sources that **USE WIKIPEDIA AS THE SOURCE**. This makes absolutely no sense, and is detailed in this comic:

    The citation method is ridiculous, and this “collective truth” bickerfest is even worse. All it takes is one editor with self-proclaimed authority or obsession with a page and that page will never change from what their vision is.

    And the “free business model” is driving out any other reputable, singularly edited source from being sustainable.

    Wikipedia should really evolve into being a source for officiated wikis, where various areas of knowledge are moderated by knowledgable experts.

    While I understand the value of demonetizing and decentralizing the knowledge base, I’d prefer it to be monetized and centralized over allowing tin crown wearing zealot editors to monopolize the content via relentless obsession.

    1. You have it down. It becomes an endless loop of nonsense and bureaucratic bickering. It leads to a very toxic environment for editors worthy of contributions.

  18. I’ve been looking at Wikipedia (and editing certain sections occasionally) for years.

    This website, despite not being updated since mid-2006, does a good job demonstrating various issues Wikipedia faces: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wikiwoo.htm

    One big issue which discourages people with an actual, sustained interest in a subject (actually acquiring many books, articles, etc. if they themselves aren’t actual academics) from editing to make articles fundamentally better is that your edits could be reverted by someone who knows very little about the subject and who is reliant on Google for answers and sources.

    The problem comes when that person insists he or she is totally right about a subject.

    Now in the best of cases you’d need to endure some days (or weeks) of bureaucracy. If all is well and the stars align then you use all the sources at your disposal to demonstrate the correctness of your edits. If, however, the bowels of hell break loose then said googlemeister proceeds to move the heavens and the earth; he or she calls up friends, delays the reintroduction of your edits into the article, and introduces you into needless e-politics lasting for months. You might probably win so long as you keep your cool and continue beating opposing arguments to death with credible (preferably academic) sources not gleaned from a Google search, but by then you will have probably regretted involving yourself in Wikipedia anyway.

    Then some other googlemeister comes along and reverts your edits weeks or months later. It looks as if the battle is to begin anew.

    Then you stop.

    And these aren’t even “big” articles, like Hitler or Stalin or the USA or China or something. Pretty much any article could have a googlemeister appear and edit in lameness or revert information you know to be verifiable.

    Two quotes from the aforementioned link sum things up quite nicely in this regard:

    “I do sometimes contribute to Wikipedia, but my first rule in such matters is never tackle a subject in Wikipedia that I can do better on my own web site. After all, why should I knock myself out writing a brilliantly crafted article that some flat-earther will butcher two hours later? No, I limit my participation to tweaking topics like shipwrecks and Egyptology, things I have a passing, limited interest in, but not subjects I’m willing to sign my name to.”

    On a particularly controversial article: “Obviously, the article will never, ever be allowed to rest in peace. Whatever you write, no matter how accurate or fluent, will be changed by the end of the week. The best solution would be to get a couple of knowledgeable historians (or at least history majors) to write it from scratch, and then lock it against further edits. Unfortunately that’s what a real encyclopedia would do, and it would admit the failure of the whole Wikipedia concept.”

  19. I Googled “Wikipedia sucks” and this page was one of the immediate results.
    Deservingly so. Great Top 10 list, and all of it totally true.

    The self-appointed smug attitude of the regular “Wikipedians” on that site is laughably awful. I’m blown away at how often perfectly good info can be reverted by one guy, who obviously spends all his time on only certain pages he thinks he holds all the knowledge about, simply because he didn’t think of the other guy’s edit first.

    They also hold a bias against anyone “unregistered”, who just edits from an IP and not some Xbox gamertag-like “user name”, like an elitist douche at a night club or something.

    Likewise, I’ve seen total nonsense and wrong info survive on the site, by the bias of a Wikipedian, or sly troll skills of someone who simply worded things or faked citation well enough to impress the idiots there.

    Wikipedians are an example of genuine human pettiness. They literally think they *own* knowledge.

    You could offer good sources and they’ll still try and fight you on it, then in the end, bust out some trivial rule book to peg you with once things have escalated (like you’ve reverted 3 times, it’s no good, etc); nonsense policies that don’t protect anything but their own pride.

    Guys who really have no other way to contribute to life, let alone the internet, appoint themselves as monitors of a website called Wikipedia. It’s painfully clear.

    I wish Wikipedia would be proven fallible and invalidated once and for all because it’s completely overrated and ridiculous. Stop using it! You want info, there’s plenty of press sites and first-party places to get it.

  20. In fairness to Wikipedia, the model is great, assuming that every member in the community cares so much about upholding credibility. I think Wikipedia still is a valuable resource but the flawed information that the community puts in just gives us a clue of how distorted our values system have become. Even other sites, supposedly giving information, cannot be relied upon also. Just my take on the matter…

    Alexi of SpurPress

  21. Drew is right. The users are biased and unreasonably stubborn. (They flipped out when I changed 1 word on an article. I tried to defend my change, but in the end, it just wasn’t worth it. They also refused to answer my questions about the article.) They clearly miss the point that no one is going to care about the small details. It’s unreasonable and unnecessary to fight tooth and nail over a minor change.

    Such arrogance. The *ss hats think the general public is going to care just as much as them when, really, they won’t.

  22. Encyclopedia Britannica for the win.

    I guess no ones knows what a library is anymore. Thank you internet, for dumbing down the planet and allowing legions of idiots to reign supreme on it.

    Screw LOLopedia. It’s the reason your kids are stupid.

    Also, anything that might jeopardize the known history of the holocaust is deleted, like actual facts that the jews don’t want you to know. The same goes for what’s really going on with Israel and Iran or Israel and Palestine.

  23. Hi, well this sucks alright! I didn’t realize that Wikipedia is so unreliable. So where does one go for reliable information as other websites tend to use their information on their sites. Oh Boy, what a mess!

  24. I have been a Wikipedia editor for years, but every day the site has grown worse. Nowadays Wikipedia is just a place for people to fight their point of views, a glorified public board.

    Too much bias, trolling, and paid editors. I’ve had similar experiences to other users here. Here is a recent example:

    On an article about a movie I posted some info on critical reception and airdates. I sourced the movie’s official site and IMDb. (The movie had moderate to bad reception).

    Immediately another editor erased the information and accused me of vandalism, saying I wanted to defame the movie using invalid sources. Also he called some friends to get in my personal Editor page and start threatening me. The movie article ironically had these words “This film has received positive reviews from fans of the series [citation needed]. (facepalm goes here).

    So having such a vague unsourced claim is correct, but writting actual well sourced evidence is considered vandalism? Long story short, I took it to the admin board. My information got restored, the weak claim was removed and the editors warned. But a few weeks later another moron erased it again and accused me and the mod of vandalism. It is an uphill battle not worth the effort. Wikipedia has become corrupted.

    Oh and that’s just a non critical movie article, it is worst when this happens on articles about medicine, politics and religion.

  25. I TOTALLY agree- their external resources are often redundant and linking to the same information that is already presented. Today I tried to add 2 external resources which were much more valuable and non-redundant and they refused my resource suggestions… this post is awesome- should start a website called wikipediasucks.com!

  26. You have guys on Wikipedia who actually double their presence on the site with multiple accounts in order to simulate numbers on their side of arguments. There’s a high school-like buddy system between some of them where numbers mean validity, not facts. The devil is in the details. I’m with many of the people here: Wikipedia is extremely overrated. Acquire first hand sources at all costs, not Wikipedia, when learning on new topics.

  27. Wikipedia editorship and adminship is easy to abuse from a lot of bully rotten apples who behave in a cult-like manner, hiding behind a false pretense of policing.

    Wikipedia has virtually become an on-line game.

    Censorship is secretely and easily hidden, editors ban users they dislike and reclassified as cleaning up vandalism.

  28. Wikipedia is what, 11 years old? To me, that’s 11 years of tainted information–in everything. You just know either directly or indirectly that it’s been a source of information this whole time in nearly anything. Like a bad gene in a family turning up over the generations…. There are so many [citation needed] or [who?] in entries that it’s laughable. And because they are in wikipedia and finadable by others, they are taken as truth.

  29. Wikipedia is pretty damn unreliable when it comes to movie reviews. Most of the time, I see that a movie has “mixed reviews.” under it’s reception. After a while, it feels like a lazy, cut-and-pasted response, especially when I’ve seen a few of those movies and can say that they’re better or worse than what Wikipedia implies. Honestly, the whole reception section is for tools who can’t have their own opinions. It takes the risk out of discovering if a movie is bad or good.

    Moral of this post; Don’t listen to Wikipedia’s take on a movie you want to see, go and see it yourself and judge it yourself

  30. Just stumbled onto this site. Your top ten reasons are spot on. !! I’ve been in a “edit til you’re blocked war” with the “genius” who edits a particular page. Vandalism, what a joke!! A God complex if ever there was one. And no earthly idea of the birth name of who he writes about.

    So to all you people who support Wikipedia, keep sending Jimbo your money, then it will be a race to see who is the bigger of the fools!!!

  31. While Wikipedia has its share of flaws, the claim that it refuses to improve itself is false. You only need to visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_failing to see that its editors have been critical of it. I’m afraid some of the comments here are misguided in other respects as well, but I will be brief:

    1) The fact that vandalism is rejected refutes this claim.
    2) If something is more widely praised by academic communities, then it’s far more likely to be used as a source than a random blog.
    3) This is definitely one of Wikipedia’s biggest weaknesses, and it’s what inspired me to join the site, as I felt a moral obligation to ensure that people clicking on (one of) the first Google search result(s) will obtain accurate information.
    4) This is a pleonasm.
    5) What’s wrong with that? The opposite belief would eventually cause all/most articles to look like
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton%C3%ADn_Dvo%C5%99%C3%A1k.
    6) I don’t hear this that much. However, it makes sense. If I see a problem somewhere, I fix it. It won’t fix itself.
    7) There is controversy on this matter within Wikipedia.
    8) “Error-checking” and “fact-checking” amounts to a pleonasm. Your claim is not true, as a look at
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability and
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style confirms.
    9) This is not true. Some material on Wikipedia is indeed superficial, but some is also detailed, such as that which is found at
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavier-Übung_III and
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klavierstücke_(Stockhausen).
    Wikipedia does acknowledge the existence of controversies (see for example the article
    .
    10) This is a logical fallacy, since you are painting Wikipedia’s editors as a homogeneous entity.

    1. You’ve mistaken this for a site that thinks Wikipedia is liked. Instead of hyper-linking,over and over and over to of all places…… maybe next time read the title.

      Let me help you as you blatantly ignored it: Wikipedia Sucks

      1. You see, this fellow has been “Wiki-fied” by his self-imposed “moral obligation”. Their language deteriorates into the minutia of hyperlinking and citing, and they start speaking Wiki-Bureaucrese to be included into the Wiki-Cliques they become apart of. It becomes a pyramid of who can quote more Wiki-stuff and more Wiki-Policy. In the end it becomes a big joke.

  32. Wikipedia is just like a Mr Frog who has got 100 of editors who own the websites of the same categories and wouldn’t allow any other websites or reviews to joggle in.

    I have been trying to put our Website gameforumer.com in live status but the damn editors just put the site into deletion log WTF ?

    I have given all the facts figures to the true sense yet they kick it out? How can I forget the ones who edit themselves have their own sites and nevertheless will not allow newer websites pertaining to thier own added categories. Its just like the damned DMOZ filled with Mr. Frogs…

  33. wiki sucks i think a lot of old people ‘re the ones deleting a lot of good stuff,i was putting an article about a band of course wasnt complete cause i just started writing this thing and i log off and then when came back and sign in ,the article wasnt there any more.I’m not going and try again cause they’re gonna do the same ,feel sorry for the EDITORS ,they want this wiki shit for themselves…shame on you

  34. I myself, feel angered by the wikipedia english homepage. This important portal to wikipedia used to contain a wide smattering of interesting (yet trivial) links. In the last year or so it has become hijacked (behind the scenes of course) by various specially interested parties, who have decided that the general public must be made to know of their various special, special interests. That was the final straw for me. I haven’t been to wikipedia for a week now. Not going back either.

    No matter how many times wikipedia advocacy groups try to ram crushingly boring and fantastically irrelevant paralympic, or indonesian film factoids down my throat, will I ever decide such topics are worthy of continual, planned front page placement.

    Even though I know, in the specific sense its’ not true, I get the feeling wikipedia special intrest groups are attempting to condition my worldview. That displeases me immensely.

  35. As an addendum to my story, I went back to that article and tried to change it again, but the admin still held a grudge against me and changed it back. It’s pathetic that 5 months later, that admin still takes that one word crap from before seriously. It pisses me off that someone can be so anal about something, they just can’t let it go, but then again that’s why I’m here; to express my disgust about an ugly case of misconduct. Anyway, I highly doubt one word is dextrimental to the article maybe unless it’s glaringly obvious that it doesn’t belong there.

    I called him out on being condescending towards IP users and he pulled out this “constructive criticism” crap. It’s not constructive criticism if it’s merely a word on a page, it’s unneccessary criticism.

    Their community needs to get their heads out of their own asses and needs to stop smelling their own arrogant farts. It’s like they have an inferiority complex and being a hyper-sensitive moron on Wikipedia is going to fix that. Gah!

  36. I’m sure special interest groups pay a lot of money to ensure Wikipedia is good for business. I’ve seen instances of corporations *making* sources to manipulate Wikipedia articles in their favor, companies have literally got the same people who write their PR spreading propaganda on Wikipedia 24/7. Nothing ever gets done about it, and if you bring it up you get punished for being an evil conspiracy theorist.

    1. Just trying to find something so I look up under the actor’s name.
      OK I go there… Wikipedia to try to find the show I was trying to look for.
      OK, wow. That was the most biased things I’ve ever read on there…
      I didn’t even understand a sentence that was written on that page.
      Sorry for the rant, honestly Wikipedia is the most retarded site I’ve ever seen…

  37. Totally Agree, I put a lot of time in this one think (About a German tank concept)
    and they keep changing back to the crappy version with no information i got mad and emailed them tons of times then also i keep changing it back to my version then they just banned me from editing no warning im pissed but i got my info and just printed it so i will still have the correct version. Fuck you wikipedia you suck dick

  38. Wikipedia can be halfway decent (but always superficial) on subjects 100% devoid of controversy. Like if you want to look up something about squirrels or bubble gum. No controversy there and you’re likely to find an O.K. article.

    But if it is something even slightly controversial forget about it, Wikipedia is garbage. Way worse than useless and it is in fact disinformation and propaganda. Wikipedia will take the official government line on any matter at all even when it defies common sense. If N.A.S.A. tomorrow announced that the moon is made of green cheese rest assured Wikipedia would quickly edit its article on the moon to “correct” it by putting it in line with the official stance of N.A.S.A. rather than even having the guts to raise a question about it. Their articles about the J.F.K. assassination, the R.F.K. assassination and 9/11 are excellent examples of how Wikipedia will toe the official line on matters even when doing so puts them at odds with certain irrefutable little things like the laws of physics. If the U.S. government says something then according to Wikipedia it is automatically true even when a child can easily prove it false. More than anything else (in these controversial matters) Wikipedia is guilty of trying to create its own fake universe in which things its members or editors want to be true become true and uncomfortable truths can be declared to be someone’s biased point-of-view, unworthy of the great Wikipedia. It’s basically a circle jerk for brainwashed flag humpers.

  39. How about the fact that you can’t use yourself as a source I find it silly that if someone was a real expert on a subject theres no way for them to prove there credentials so they have to use someone Else’s work of which may or may not even be findable on the internet. Possibly ground breaking information is being left out while outdated and incorrect information is being used which only aids in spreading the outdated information.

  40. Thank you! Someone finally said it! Wikipedia sucks so bad I googled it just to make myself feel a little better! Thank you I feel better now. Your ten reason are accurate! Wikipedia doesn’t hold any value and can’t because of the flawed way it is made. I tried putting Info on there about “New Testament Churches” I give up! Two minutes after I put it up they change it back. Who are these people? They must have no life.

  41. And let’s not forget the east coast bias there as well! Ughhhhh….way worse than those trolls who dared try to compare Galaxy Rangers to South Park over on my friend’s “Pretty, Fizzy Paradise” blogspot runned by the great Melissa “kalinara” Krause.

    But the South Park lovers aren’t far behind.

  42. Wikipedia will continue to suck as long as its self righteous a-hole editors refuse to allow anyone except their own little band of no life troglodytes control the content.

    I tried to add a 3 sentence addition to an article, backed up by two legit sources (The AP and JAMA) and within 5 minutes, some self appointed “guardian” of that page decided it was wrong. Not only did he remove it, he threatened me in the edit’s comments and on my talk page. He said that I am not allowed to add something to the page until it has been approved by “consensus” and he was in charge of it.

    I didn’t care what would happen and told him to go “F” himself which of course got the account banned. That’s okay, I have about 25 more I can use at anytime.

    1. Yes, Wiki is infested with many self promoting “editors” and “contributors” trolling from page to page “monitoring” contributions adding nothing but roll back changes if they don’t comply to strict Wiki posting rules WP:XXXXX (Such as formating, bold face sections title, …etc bullshit) – worst they override contributions from domain experts on pages/domain where they know nothing about, in name of protecting Wiki.
      Such self promoting editors are evident by numerous but extremely shallow edits across many different domains/subject matters. And very often they will profess their love for this “Open” (But Highly censored) on their own userpage.

    2. Sounds exactly like my experience with Wikipedia. Make a valid contribution and some self-professed “editor” who is either unemployed and/or has no purpose in life other than to stake out his chosen pages will quickly edit out any changes or additions. These “editors” typically live on Wikipedia, proudly display their silly Wiki awards, and obviously have no life whatsoever. Wikipedia gives these egotistical morons a platform to compensate for their lack of ability and power in the real world.

  43. this is as biased a blog as any bad Wiki article. it’s nothing more than “me too” and groupthink. nothing constructive and a lot of people seem to be keen on letting strangers know that they stopped using Wiki. what a great achievement, I bow to you, sirs.
    it’s basically like writing an article on the fact that the combustion engine is far from perfect and concluding that it deserves to be loathed and banned.

    1. No, not really. Wikipedia would be the equivalent of some new, crappier, less efficient, prone-to-breakdown, designed-and-built-by-non-engineers internal combustion engine. Those who insist the one designed and built by engineers is superior are shouted down. “I don’t have a piece of paper that says I’m an engineer, but hey, my contributions to this project are as valid as the next unqualified man’s!”

  44. yeah i tried to type there and back again on wikipedia for the movie but it take me back to the film hobbit series instad whats up with that its april 9 for crying out loud.

  45. I’ve never been so frustrated with a website as with the most user-unfriendly Wikipedia site. Instead of a simple question/answer tutorial to help the novice, one gets threats about violations based on the dumbest rules ever encountered, receives messages from strangers that can’t be answered via a simple tweet or e-mail, or is referred to hundreds of Wiki pages, one more confusing than the other. What a waste of time! I’ve been problem-solving/fixing/installing computers and software, and building websites for 25 years, but the Wikipedia site is a software monstrosity. To make matters worse, Wiki-ans rather let some ignorant bum edit an article with incorrect information than allowing experts or topic insiders to add accurate facts to enhance an entry. According to Wikipedia that’s a violation called COI or Conflict of Interest!! Hellooo??!! Stupid, arrogant Wiki-Freaks.

  46. The only thing more spot-on than this article are the comments I’m finding under it that are also critical of Wikipedia. Never ever remove this from the internet. This is gold.

    There needs to be wider spread denouncing of Wikipedia, because it’s arguably harmful, not just annoying. I don’t need to parrot the reasons plenty have already offered here as I wouldn’t say them any better anyway.

  47. Omy eff..bejus…this here lays it out so well.

    the people with the knowledge or the knowledge of /ability to research and or find the right info to add and back up their claims are ALWAYS SIDE LINED by some idiot whose main goal is to rack up wiki credits to their name.

    Most of the info from wpedia is lifted from the first few lines of a Google search, or from someone who is clueless and without knowledge that writes a web article which is then lifted and then taken out of context to mean a whole genre or a time period etc

    The info in Wikipedia is taken as from god himself from a 12 year old to doctors and lawyers because its in Wikipedia therefore it must be totally right because supposedly so many people are adding and editing…THIS IS SO FAR FROM THE TRUTH

  48. I made a dinky little edit in the form of adding “piano” to W. Axl Rose’s list of Instruments. This edit was reversed. When I inquired about it, I was told it was because Rose is “not widely known” for playing the piano. Yet, “guitar” is listed for Michael Stipe’s instruments. I’m fairly sure Stipe is not widely known for being a guitarist, or at least less known as such than Rose is for being a pianist.

    Bizarre.

  49. I LOVE this. Look, plain and simple, I HATE Wikipedia, for all the reasons posted here, and then some!

  50. There is an article you could write about the phases of crowdsourced sites in general.

    Wikipedia only needed you to get started. Now they want you out.
    Kickstarter, Udemy, Makezine all made money on your free help.
    The only exception is Youtube which pays.

    I should know, I run wikispeedia.org which pays.
    It’s the new breed of crowdsourcing. Pay it back.

  51. I also believe that Wikipedia is not too good. It’s my theory that users are more concerned with speaking to one another in talk pages rather than improving the encyclopedia. I have made some good edits on wikipedia but those edits should have been there in the first place. Frankly, I feel that my efforts to improve Wikipedia are futile because Wikipedia is so large and I’m just one editor. But, I don’t know what others are talking about when they say that Wikipedia does not allow them to edit. If it’s an informative edit it stays,

  52. Great blog post!

    I know a fraudster online with a Wikipedia page. She created the page and the dummies at Wikipedia approved it. There is nothing proving this woman is legitimate. She is the daughter of some African politician. Her sources are blogs and a couple of news articles that were written by some writer in some rag newspaper in Canada. That reporter was writing everything she told him. Wikipedia put a conflict of interest notice at the top of the page. They won’t take it down despite there being lots of proof that this woman’s credentials are bs.

    Somebody posted a link that this woman was wanted for a few felonies in the U.S. with links proving it and Wikipedia deleted it. She fled to Nigeria instead of going to trial. That should put huge holes in her credibility???

  53. It should also be said that many articles, specifically scientific ones, doesn’t have a structure. Many articles dig deep into specialized subtopics without knowing what aspects they’re trying to present and what conclusions they are going to draw, thus simply leaving the reader in mere confusion. Assumptions regarding the background knowledge of the reader are very arbitrary and vary by large degrees, ranging from very basic introductions to highly narrowed down technical discussions, while, as an encyclopedia, information is expected to be provided rigorously at the introductory level. Also referencing, other than to other wikipedia articles, is very poor, a clear evidence of the non-scholar background of the authors.

  54. I enjoy (in theory) editing WP, and find many of your complaints invalid on the grounds that they fault WP for being what it says it is. (I.e., no in-depth information. WP specifically claims a superficial, encyclopedic role. It’s one-stop, quick-overview information. You want more, that’s what the refs are for.)

    That said, I’m afraid the bit about entrysteading, which you hinted at in the post and others have banged on the head here in the comments, is completely, tragically accurate, and it is indeed harming WP deeply.

    First off, the “notability” rule is ridiculous in and of itself. Who cares if a topic is “notable” (notable to whom?) as long as you’ve got a reference? If your friend’s garage band got a write-up in the local paper, and that article is available online, you’re in. Or you should be. One or two paragraphs under the topic are more than reasonable.

    But what’s even worse is how even the existng standards of notability are applied. These days I rarely attempt to add any information to a WP article; it’s almost certain the work will be blanked. (Usually within hours, often within _the_ hour, which is a clear indication of entrysteading.)

    To cite just one example, recently I allowed myself to try adding a particularly juicy bit of info that clearly belonged in an article. (Told myself not to waste my time, but the data point was just too useful to readers.) It turns out a major American writer published a whole book about the article’s arcane topic in his early years. The book isn’t well-known today, and doesn’t have its own WP entry, but it’s covered in the author’s own entry.

    So I added exactly 2 lines about this. And within hours it was gone. My colleague wrote that “if the book had its own entry, this would be notable.” Riiiiight. If a random curmudgeon can declare a book published by major writer, from a major publisher, “unnotable”, and blank the information without discussion, you don’t have a serious publication.

    And that’s what’s killing WP: obsessive aspies who blank others’ work. That’s why well-meaning, good-faith contributors like me, with a great deal of experience editing on- and off-site, stop participating. It’s just too exhausting.

    These days I mostly edit tiny points of grammar on WP, and you wouldn’t believe the firefights I can get into just over something as meaningless as that. (My favourite: the trog who squats the European Parliament entry has repeatedly blanked _invisible housekeeping code_ that WARN OTHER EDITORS NOT TO FIX BAD GRAMMAR that appears in a quotation there. (You don’t change quotations, of course. This code, which is entirely invisible to readers, says, in effect: “Heads up, grammar gnomes: this is a quote; don’t fix it.”)

    But this arrogant troll insists the entry is “his”, so he and his band of two or three other nutjobs gaily reverts any attempt to insert this code, with the admonition “Please do not tamper with quotes.” Allow me to repeat: THIS INVISIBLE CODE EXISTS FOR THE SOLE REASON OF ACCOMPLISHING THAT.

    A reliable site would have banned that lunatic years ago. As it is, he’s sadly exemplary of a great many encounters I’ve had on WP.

    And that’s a shame. Because WP really is pretty awesome. More awesome than people give it credit for. It just has these little ideological hang-ups that it seriously needs to adjust, in light of reality.

  55. Not only are wiki pages very poorly written, with mostly just opinions and hardly any facts until what they deem is a reliable source, but a lot of users are such pathetic little nitpicks who have zero humility. Meaning that they will not tolerate anyone editing there edits in the slightest, as if what they typed out or the whole page belongs to them and no one else. They will only back off if there are too many people editing the page. Not only will some of these users “undo” your work, but they will undo other edits you did, even if they were correct… they just want to prove a point and will harass you.

    Wikipedia is simple an unreliable source for accurate information on anything.

  56. I agree with you very much. Now, I clearly know the reason why Fandom has more article about video games. On my experience there are an airplane cargo load of sh**heads that tries to get awards on wikipedia.

  57. The one thing that’s also worse about Wikipedia, are the admins, they never help out users whenever they need it, they only protect themselves. One user named FlightTime is by far, one of the worst users out there. All he does is reverts various users edits and threatens them with block messenges on their talk pages, he will threaten to have you ban if you fix/change and edit without “quote” on “quote” explaining it to him, over why you changed it. Mostly users fix them according to the sources it says next to it, but he doesn’t care, he will constantly revert your edits and leave you threatening messages to have you block if you did it again… I mean really??? Threatening to have someone ban over a little edit fixing… All I can say is that FlightTime has problems.

  58. I hope Wikipedia goes down. Every time I try to edit anything on here it is instantly retracted. What do these people sit on their phone/ computer?
    I hate myself for ever donating to them. I NEVER will again. And you are absolutely right, it is not truths, they are EXTREMELY biased. We need to boycott them. There are definitely a bunch of weirdos on there.

    1. Most of their information in the articles can’t be trusted sometimes too, that’s how inaccurate their articles are. Even if you try to correct some info, some of those admins will threaten you with block messages and have you ban for life. A user named Sro23 still think’s in editing on there, which I’m not, I stopped editing Wikipedia like a year and a half ago, when ever he checks various IP Address users editing, he thinks it’s me. But he still doesn’t event know “WHO’S” using the address, I could be someone else, It’s not always the same person. Just like I said, I stopped editing on their a year and a half ago and he still thinks it’s me. Shows you have strict they can be with users.

  59. Some of there articles info can’t be trusted anyways, some of it is wrong and they never take there time to fix them. Some of the admins are just lazy.

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