Wiki dwindling

[mahnmut]

Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages

Wikimedia says: "The purpose of the project is not participation."

One factor is that many topics already have been written about.

Another is the plethora of rules Wikipedia has adopted to bring order to its unruly universe -- particularly to reduce infighting among contributors about write-ups of controversial subjects and polarizing figures.


I'd add a third one...

Wiki is great if you want to know if the world is flat or round, or any other information on which there is a 100 per cent consensus.

But issues that are contentious are heavily censored and those who disagree with the official version are labeled with the usual tags: "Conspiracy Theorist", "Denier", "Dissident", "Anti-Semite", etc.

There is also widespread use of phrases "Respected Historians/Scientists". These are of course those who agree with the "Official version".

It is, more or less, a propaganda site.

Comments

[acesspadesdice.livejournal.com]

Fair call in certain cases. Do you have any particular examples that spring straight to mind?

[alphistia.livejournal.com]

Agreed! I look at geographical entries and sometimes biographical ones..which often read like publicity releases copied and pasted in. Quality control is abysmal but it's an anarchist enterprise, and then there's all the constant bickering... But it's the world in microcosm - a mess run by self-appointed "elites" exercising arbitrary power over others...the interesting thing is that nobody's making any money off it either and people still behave like pigs.