# I Edit Wikipedia **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 2, 2014, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688 "2014-03-02T18:43:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/21 "2014-03-02T23:18:04Z")
I only have [one article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyCube) to my name. Some deletionist tagged it for speedy deletion within 10 minutes of me posting it–obviously not enough to even see if it violated one of the constraints. Fortunately, it did not, and another contributor removed it from the speedy deletion list. Since then, a few others have been helpful in cleaning up minor issues. The “no original research” thing is definitely a problem. I’m one of about three people that can actually speak authoritatively on the subject. I realize that they want to prevent people from just making things up, but if I wanted to do that I could just write up a separate web page and cite it. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![compositejoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/compositejoe/32/7232_2.png) [@compositejoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/compositejoe)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2014, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/22 "2014-03-02T23:58:46Z")
Wikipedia should be renamed Why Fucking Bother if you ask me. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/23 "2014-03-03T00:03:32Z")
I used to edit Wikipedia, and did for years. But it’s become so angry and confrontational, I don’t bother any more, which saddens me. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/24 "2014-03-03T15:24:12Z")
I once had an experience in which I added several paragraphs of relevant and referenced historical and geographical data to an entry on a town, and the self-proclaimed “owner” of the article deleted it. I knew it was not an editor because if an editor deletes, one gets a message to that effect. So I re-entered my section, and it got deleted again, after a couple of days. I persevered, and after about four times, the owner got tired of deleting my section, and left it in. It was like a grudge match. When an article has a baby-sitter, it is impossible to amend it. I edit using my log-in name, and I have only once had an uber-editor reject anything I offered. It it became so preposterous arguing with him, I just gave up. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/25 "2014-03-03T16:08:11Z")
> [@compositejoe](#): > > Wikipedia should be renamed Why Fucking Bother if you ask me. :mad: I hope you never, ever use Wikipedia for a cite or as a source for information of any kind. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/26 "2014-03-03T17:49:09Z")
I used to do it a lot more, but like many others got tired of having my hard work deleted by possessive editors. Now I only fix things that can be done in five minutes or less: spelling, grammar, providing an updated URL, or something like that. If I feel something more substantive needs to be done, I can post something in the “talk” section and let the squatters fight over whether anything should be done. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/27 "2014-03-03T20:59:03Z")
I mostly fix up images and make small copyedits or fix markup errors. I find that, while I may know some useful information, I don’t know where I learned it, and sourcing is always a pain. And I don’t see the point in adding unsourced information as it inevitably gets deleted in any article that is actually read. I did just add to image cleanup section in the help, though–as I realized I’ve come up with some techniques in all the images I’ve fixed up. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/28 "2014-03-03T21:03:02Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Yeah. Goes hand in hand with their “[No original research](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research)” policy. Kinda makes sense, sort of, given that most Wikipedia editors wouldn’t be able to peer-review original content. But then again they don’t do a very good job of validating external citations either, so… it’s all for appearances’ sake, I guess. They do have a thing setup to try and get subject experts involved, but no one seems to be taking them up on it, so it seems to be failing. I guess too many got burned out to try something new. You’ll still occasionally see articles marked as needing review by an expert, but there’s no advertising that fact so that experts will actually know about it. Think about it–why would an expert look up the subject on Wikipedia? That’s always been a flaw of a do-it-yourself encyclopedia–most of the people who see a page that needs work specifically came to Wikipedia because they DIDN’T know enough to write an article themselves. That limitation is why I am surprised it’s worked as well as it has. > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > One flaw I’ve noticed with Wikipedia articles is that because they are written by mulitple people, they can seem like a disjointed collection of facts, often repeated. If a single person were writing or editing an article, it might flow better. That’s something I will also try to fix, if it’s really bad. I’m having to rewrite it in my head anyways, so I figure, why not? Though it has been a while, since I don’t do a lot of Wikisurfing anymore. Most of my time on Wikipedia is spent in the image cleanup categories, as I find fixing images kinda cathartic at times. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/29 "2014-03-03T21:55:50Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I once had an experience in which I added several paragraphs of relevant and referenced historical and geographical data to an entry on a town, and the self-proclaimed “owner” of the article deleted it. I knew it was not an editor because if an editor deletes, one gets a message to that effect. So I re-entered my section, and it got deleted again, after a couple of days. I persevered, and after about four times, the owner got tired of deleting my section, and left it in. It was like a grudge match. When an article has a baby-sitter, it is impossible to amend it. As you describe it, it was just a battle of wills - the stubbornest is the one left standing at the end. A better approach is to go to the talk page for the article and discuss the change. You can usually get support for a change if it’s a genuine improvement that follows policy and guidelines (which make it clear that no one can claim any kind of ownership over articles). You can also look at the history and see who is reverting your changes to see if they included a reason. A lot of the complaints I read/hear about Wikipedia stem from ignorance of how it works. ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/30 "2014-03-03T22:08:47Z")
I’ve written one original article and added to/improved several others, and I add (my own original) photos from time to time. While I haven’t had any major issues with anything, I have seen it can be a real mosh pit, which is a shame because that atmosphere limits the number of people who want to contribute and the quality of information there. I’m in the minority of women who participate, and the culture that’s sprung up there contributes to our limited numbers, I think. Wikipedia [has tried to attract more female contributors](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/08/19/women-contributors-still-face-hurdles-at-wikipedia/), but so far nothing’s really worked. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/31 "2014-03-03T22:52:41Z")
A few years ago, I edited this article on mythological city of [Ys](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ys) because it was so awkwardly worded it made little sense. Originally there had been a perfectly sufficient entry on Ys but, for some reason, it was replaced by one that had apparently been written in French and then clumsily translated into English using Google Translate. I also added some content from a book on Celtic myths by James MacKillop which I cited in the “Further Reading” section. I also supplemented a list of jazz clubs to add a few for Seattle. A couple of them were removed in subsequent edits though. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/32 "2014-03-03T23:12:08Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > I used to do it a lot more, but like many others got tired of having my hard work deleted by possessive editors. Now I only fix things that can be done in five minutes or less: spelling, grammar, providing an updated URL, or something like that. If I feel something more substantive needs to be done, I can post something in the “talk” section and let the squatters fight over whether anything should be done. Pretty much the way I feel. I used to feel I was making contributions. Nowadays, it feels like less than ten percent of the effort you put in is actual contribution and the other ninety plus percent is arguing. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/33 "2014-03-03T23:53:09Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > I hope you never, ever use Wikipedia for a cite or as a source for information of any kind. Why? ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/34 "2014-03-05T02:43:27Z")
Yeah, I edit Wikipedia. I’ve had an account since 2006 and I recently passed the 80,000 edit mark. I spend most of my time on [WikiGnome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiGnome) activities, like fixing typos, style elements, and ambiguous links. Anybody can make these kinds of uncontroversial edits with little fear of the reversions or arguments that people are emphasizing here. I’ve found that in most cases it’s not difficult to add more detailed content if you take a little time to read the relevant guidelines, particularly pertaining to [notability](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability), [original research](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research), and [reliable sources](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources). If disagreements do develop, there are dispute resolution procedures, and it’s not the case that the loudest voices always win. For as much as people enjoy hating on Wikipedia, it is a tremendous resource. At its best it shows the good that humanity is capable of through cooperation. At its worst, well, sometimes vandalism is at least a little bit amusing. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/35 "2014-03-05T05:32:59Z")
I corrected something on a page about a WW2 bomber that went missing. They had the mission objective wrong. The crew\* still \*died! ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/36 "2014-03-05T05:58:54Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > I have no “babies”. I typically fix spelling and punctuation, only occasionally adding something or changing the page if the omission/inclusion is egregious. This is what I do. Almost all of my edits are for spelling, grammar, or punctuation fixes. The rest are things like changing “will release” to “was released” after the mentioned release has occurred. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/37 "2014-03-05T06:40:00Z")
I have more than 100 pages on my watchlist, and most of them sit quietly. I dropped a few because of too much contentiousness - I would never work on anything as popular as an X-Men character. The only contentious article I monitor is the one on [Wendy Carlos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Carlos) (who is plenty contentious all on her own). Rarely does a month go by when some jerk doesn’t come by to change the female pronouns to male ones. I’ve created a bunch from scratch, and always make sure that the very first version has at least three references. Mostly I add references and have gotten quite good at them, including relevant quotes from the reference. I don’t think I’ve ever had a reference reverted. Also, I take photos at concerts, adding them to the article and giving them to the public domain. On one occasion, I had an aging woman songwriter delete the picture as it wasn’t flattering, but one of the other people monitoring the article reverted the deletion, as it wasn’t as if there was a better picture. There was a long discussion about how the artist could make a more flattering (i.e. extensively retouched) picture available for the article, but they never bothered. Since then, I’ve mostly stuck with photographing male subjects. I’ve had articles reach reviewed “Good Article” status and felt quite good about that. I have bought half a dozen books researching [Juan Pujol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Pujol_Garcia), and I intend to get to “Good” or possibly “Featured Article” status. It’s mostly the work of myself and several other editors, and the prose is fairly decent. There is inevitable rot caused by people adding to the article without _reading_ the rest of the article. After I do an edit session, I always read what I’ve written out loud. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/38 "2014-03-05T12:02:00Z")
> [@Number](#): > > I’ve found that in most cases it’s not difficult to add more detailed content if you take a little time to read the relevant guidelines, particularly pertaining to [notability](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability), [original research](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research), and [reliable sources](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources). If disagreements do develop, there are dispute resolution procedures, and it’s not the case that the loudest voices always win. Ehhh… if I’m an expert in some field who wants to do some good for mankind, I might spend an hour explaining some topic. No way in hell I’d spend an hour researching all the Wikipedia policies, an hour writing the article, and then another three defending it from people who worry Wikipedia is running out of pages. Why is notability even a criterion to begin with? The Wikimedia foundation has always said “space is not an issue”, but there is an elite class of conservative editors with a lot of time and a lot of opinion – the self-appointed lawyers of Wikipedia – who believe that rules matter more than contributions. Whatever happened to [Policy: Ignore all rules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules)? It’s complete bullshit anyway when there’s a detailed article for every minor Pokemon character and every random Intel CPU model, not because they’re necessarily notable, but because there are equally obsessed folks defending them from trigger-happy deletionists. Most topics, especially the nuanced ones, don’t have the luxury of someone who’s able to both write capably and mount a solid defense against a 10-year, overzealous Wikipedia janitor. Yes, you can solve disagreements through tedious participation – if you’re immortal and your time is worthless. Contributions shouldn’t have to become wars of attrition. If an article isn’t up to par, offended editors should seek out their own citations, flag the article as needing more attention, or say something on the talk page. Not just REVERT, UNDO, DELETE as default actions. What the contributors and self-appointed bureaucrats want are often different, and until Wikipedia is willing to face that reality, they will continue to lose editors as they have over the past decade. They sure do end up with a lot of bureaucrats, though, who spend eons revising and improving the rules pages – whoop-de-doo. Grr. Wikipedia is absolutely useful – indispensable – but it would be an even better resource if not for the politics. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/39 "2014-03-05T19:47:46Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Ehhh… if I’m an expert in some field who wants to do some good for mankind, I might spend an hour explaining some topic. No way in hell I’d spend an hour researching all the Wikipedia policies, an hour writing the article, and then another three defending it from people who worry Wikipedia is running out of pages. That drives me nuts, but as I said - if you create an article defensively, with references from the start - it is rarely deleted. > [@](#): > > Why is notability even a criterion to begin with? The Wikimedia foundation has always said “space is not an issue”, but there is an elite class of conservative editors with a lot of time and a lot of opinion – the self-appointed lawyers of Wikipedia – who believe that rules matter more than contributions. Whatever happened to [Policy: Ignore all rules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules)? I’ve created articles for people I personally know, but both have been profiled in newspapers, magazines and websites and have published extensively. Again, I had those books and references in the very first version. If I had not, just getting something up there quickly intending to expand it over the next few days, it would have been deleted by the griefers who prowl the New Articles listings. > [@](#): > > It’s complete bullshit anyway when there’s a detailed article for every minor Pokemon character and every random Intel CPU model, not because they’re necessarily notable, but because there are equally obsessed folks defending them from trigger-happy deletionists. In those two examples you gave, they split off from huge articles that had become too unwieldy. My last run-in with the delitionists was the one who deleted all the album covers from an article on a band I had made, citing some obscure rule about too many images. So what I’ll have to do, so I can include the album covers (a definitively useful thing in an article) is to split each of their albums off to their own page. So this goober, by trying to prevent “bloat” caused more, and makes the original article less comprehensive. > [@](#): > > Most topics, especially the nuanced ones, don’t have the luxury of someone who’s able to both write capably and mount a solid defense against a 10-year, overzealous Wikipedia janitor. > > Yes, you can solve disagreements through tedious participation – if you’re immortal and your time is worthless. Contributions shouldn’t have to become wars of attrition. If an article isn’t up to par, offended editors should seek out their own citations, flag the article as needing more attention, or say something on the talk page. Not just REVERT, UNDO, DELETE as default actions. > > What the contributors and self-appointed bureaucrats want are often different, and until Wikipedia is willing to face that reality, they will continue to lose editors as they have over the past decade. They sure do end up with a lot of bureaucrats, though, who spend eons revising and improving the rules pages – whoop-de-doo. I remind anyone wanting to contribute that Wikipedia is staffed by the most horrifying creatures that walk the earth - _volunteer bureaucrats_. If that phrase doesn’t chill you to the bone, you have no imagination. > [@](#): > > Grr. Wikipedia is absolutely useful – indispensable – but it would be an even better resource if not for the politics. Maybe I’ve learned to play the game, or my interests seem to be in areas that don’t generally attract the deletionists, but I’ve been able to continue contributing. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688/40 "2014-03-05T19:56:45Z")
Yes, it’s doable. It’s just no longer pleasant. Thanks, volunteer bureaucrats. There’s a special place in open source hell for you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-edit-wikipedia/682688.md?page=3)