
Wikipedia Sucks: Here are 10 Reasons Why

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?

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References

1. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/18/wikipedia_quality_problem/page2.html
2. http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html
3.http://www.calacanis.com/2007/02/20/technological-obscurification…
4.http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php

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75 comments

  1. 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.

    • 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. 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.

  3. Yes Wikipedia Sucks and the so called righteous administrator is d*mn rude, refers to the idiotic WP-BLA BLA rules which in return a lot of article were not touched just because they like it or as they say notable article bull. Here’s another one why Wikipedia Sucks. http://bestwikiever.wikidot.com/wikipedia-sucks

  4. Sorry but I am jus bloody mad with Wikipedia

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. 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

  9. If you thing Wiki sucks, go check quora.com. What a bunch of self-infatuated successful losers.

  10. Interesting article

    There’s also this interesting article detailing the administrator abuse side of wikipedia. as in what administrators do to users to make wikipedia a complete hole of crap.

    http://g-liu.com/blog/2009/09/why-other-people-really-hate-wikipedia-administrators-as-well/

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