Absolutely agree with Jimbo's views on this, which are further strengthened by the fact that some of the most, if not the most active articles on Wikipedia tend to be entertainment or pop culture related, in contrast to the first few years when the reverse was true. With recent developments in relation to surveillance and privacy, we may begin to see a gradual spike in more editors, both veteran and new, taking on important and socially relevant articles. Laval (talk) 18:31, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that many of the "most active articles on Wikipedia tend to be entertainment or pop culture related" (professional wrestling comes to mind ...), but this rather undermines Wales' point. AndreasJN46615:36, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think this idea is worth discussing. COI disclosure: I write for the Signpost but work in different areas. --Pine✉06:47, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia began as a complementary project for Nupedia, a free online English-language encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts and reviewed under a formal process. On January 10, 2001, Sanger proposed on the Nupedia mailing list to create a wiki as a "feeder" project for Nupedia.... Now, the 'opposite' is happening. Wikinews was created from the beginning as a project where anybody can write news, and Wales proposes to begin a complementary project for Wikinews - a complementary project where articles will be written by experts and reviewed under a formal process..... Does anybody else see the irony of that? By the way, Laval, I am not interested in reading or editing entertainment-related articles on Wikipedia, but if I was not so lazy, I would have taken on science-related articles - too frequently, I have to read the paper books to find an answer.Wikiwide (talk) 22:41, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Part of the problem is that when one tries to work on an article with a serious but controversial topic, one gets into edit wars and incivility which are very discouraging. JRSpriggs (talk) 02:06, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's because Wikipedia primarily attracts people wishing to promote a cause or spin information, rather than people wishing to educate. I consider this the Foundation's dirty secret, because it would be hard to design a system (top Google ranking, instant visibility of changes, possibility of anonymous contribution) that would be more adept at attracting such contributors than Wikipedia.
It appears to me that the Foundation by and large measures its success by (1) its Alexa ranking, (2) the number of editors, (3) the number of edits, (4) the number of articles and (5) income from donations. It does not generally measure success by the quality of the information provided, or usefulness to the professed target group (the economically underprivileged who lack access to conventional education). Instead, the Foundation's initiatives are generally aimed at maximising measurables (1) to (5), of which (2), (3) and (4) are in some ways actually opposed to the supply of stable and reliable information. As articles flip-flop from one bias to the next, from puff piece to hatchet job, it strikes me that the only party who is a consistent winner in such fights is the Wikimedia Foundation.
Who are the losers? Editors invest years of unpaid labour, much of it spent in acrimonious discussions. Propagandists may make short-term gains through Wikipedia – even long-term gains in articles that attract little attention from editors – but over the long term, many experience significant stress levels trying to defend the territory gained against pseudonymous adversaries, becoming "long-standing Wikipedia volunteers" in the process. Readers never know who was the last person to edit an article, and whose bias it reflects (examples: [1], [2]; [3], [4]; [5]). As for subjects written about here, Wikipedia's Google ranking ensures that no one portrayed in unflattering terms (or actually defamed) in Wikipedia can ignore it, thus driving further involuntary "volunteer participation". It seems to me that biased, inaccurate or unstable articles are actually good for the Foundation, because they bring in new editors and up the edit count – both key measurables to the Foundation.
Meanwhile, the Wikimedia Foundation disclaims any responsibility for the quality of its content, arguing that this is a matter for the "Wikimedia community" (which after all, anyone can join as yet another unpaid volunteer!). It conveniently restricts itself to providing the venue where these battles are fought, taking care to reiterate time and again that it does so for purely humanitarian reasons, while in practice creating a monopoly, generating an annual income now running at $50 million, and putting information sources managed to professional standards out of business (even as it cannibalises them).
As Jimbo said recently ("Wikipedia wants you: 'We're a startup in stealth mode', says Jimmy Wales as he plans to open data to all"), he would like people to see Wikipedia as "the platform of choice for the entire world". Again, I would argue that the party profiting most from all of this is the Wikimedia Foundation and Wales himself; it's far less clear to me that the rest of the world (subjects, editors, readers) would profit in the long run, too, from giving Wikimedia in its current state an even greater amount of control over public information than it already enjoys.
I see Wales' attacks on journalism – which neglect to mention that it was the press who broke the NSA story in the first place, and neglect to acknowledge the huge number of professionally researched press articles on the issue, without which Wikipedia would not even have any coverage of the issues, as it is entirely based on aggregating and summarising "reliable sources" – very much in this light.
I would rather see the Foundation take steps to promote article quality and stability, to devise measures discouraging participation by activists (even if that means that edit counts go down), and to research, measure, track and prominently publicise the incidence of problems such as bias, defamation, inaccuracies, hoaxes, and abuses of anonymity (including sockpuppeteering). I would like it to foster a culture that promotes rather than discourages participation by disinterested, identifiable, real-world experts. I would like it to acknowledge that maximising the number of articles is not a good thing if many of these articles are beyond the community's ability to curate responsibly. I am not holding my breath. AndreasJN46613:14, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reading through your post I see many valid points. Your comments about Wales' (and the author's) attack on journalism are especially true. It's also ironic that this editorial criticizing the press for their coverage of a topic (while failing to credit them for breaking the story in the first place) was published the day after the Washington Post gave details on how the NSA violated its privacy protocols. Is that not something Mr. Wales and the author consider important? 198.228.200.49 (talk) 14:54, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reading through his post, it occurs to me that propagandists being subjected to "significant stress levels" is not something that causes me to lose a great deal of sleep. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:32, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, 198, I think some in the mainstream media are doing fine work, and I recognize that the popularity of human interest stories can be both vital to a general narrative and lucrative to an often cash-strapped business. You do get credit for subtlety insinuating that I am in Wales' pocket.
As for Wales' claims about the media, I think this piece makes it quite clear that Wales is disturbed by two trends—a perceived surge to human interest stories, and an inability or lack of desire to break down complex technical topics for general readers. As far as I'm aware, he's not alleging that everyone from every media organization is failing at their jobs.
"Investigative journalism" says Mr Wales? In many articles on Wikipedia involving issues/topics that can affect the profit of large corporations, blogs are used as "reliable sources". The pages are defended by a small clique of editors and administrators, who block any attempt at proper correction (In accordance with Wikipedia's stated rules and regulations.)
Is that situation part of the "[Jimmy Wales is] out of touch" comment IntoThatDarkness made earlier? Wikipedia is FAR from the open welcoming place it advertises itself to be. To me it clearly has a corporate-supporting agenda instead of practiced ideals and posted articles bent toward truth or reliability or verifiability.100.4.57.172 (talk) 15:24, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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