Like a lot of people here, I have sporadically read Wikipedia for years. I came on board as a Wikipedia editor in May 2010 after meeting the project's co-founder and his family in person the year before. I've since seen some of those immediate family members on another lengthy occasion. My children regularly interact with that family in an online education community. Through a web of mutual friendships, I thought I had some sense of what the community norms would be like on Wikipedia before I started. Moreover, I began editing only after reading the several published books about Wikipedia available at that time (as disclosed on my Wikipedia user page), and came on board as someone who has actually had both academic journal editing positions and paid journalism editing positions before Wikipedia even existed.
Even at that, I get a lot of well sourced edits reverted by ideologically motivated drive-by I.P. editors as part of an ongoing process of edit-warring on articles that I happen to know sources for.
For some controversial topics, no amount of good-faith editing by editors who actually know how to look up reliable sources and how to have civil discussions of controversial issues can overcome the flood of point-of-view pushers (both I.P. editors and registered editors who are sock puppets or meat puppets of previously banned editors) who want to drag down the project to below the level of a partisan blog. There simply isn't any incentive in today's atmosphere on Wikipedia for readers who actually know what encyclopedias look like and who have actually engaged in careful research on controversial topics to devote any of their time and effort to Wikipedia.
My number of edits per month has plummeted, and mostly I wikignome to clean up copyediting mistakes on miscellaneous articles written by young people or foreign nationals who didn't write grammatical English in the last revision of the article. The way to increase participation by productive, knowledgeable, literate editors is to drive away the ideologues and enforce some reasonable behavioral norms on article talk pages and user talk pages. I see no sign of that happening over at Wikipedia, and until I do, I will heartily support anyone's effort to build a competing resource, either limited to a specialized topic or a direct attempt to build a better quality general online encyclopedia.
I think the "Lamest Edit Wars" page in project space sums up much of what is amiss about Wikipedia.
Even at that, I get a lot of well sourced edits reverted by ideologically motivated drive-by I.P. editors as part of an ongoing process of edit-warring on articles that I happen to know sources for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/...
For some controversial topics, no amount of good-faith editing by editors who actually know how to look up reliable sources and how to have civil discussions of controversial issues can overcome the flood of point-of-view pushers (both I.P. editors and registered editors who are sock puppets or meat puppets of previously banned editors) who want to drag down the project to below the level of a partisan blog. There simply isn't any incentive in today's atmosphere on Wikipedia for readers who actually know what encyclopedias look like and who have actually engaged in careful research on controversial topics to devote any of their time and effort to Wikipedia.
My number of edits per month has plummeted, and mostly I wikignome to clean up copyediting mistakes on miscellaneous articles written by young people or foreign nationals who didn't write grammatical English in the last revision of the article. The way to increase participation by productive, knowledgeable, literate editors is to drive away the ideologues and enforce some reasonable behavioral norms on article talk pages and user talk pages. I see no sign of that happening over at Wikipedia, and until I do, I will heartily support anyone's effort to build a competing resource, either limited to a specialized topic or a direct attempt to build a better quality general online encyclopedia.
I think the "Lamest Edit Wars" page in project space sums up much of what is amiss about Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars
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