The new Deletionpedia[1] (kindly linked in another comment in this thread) doesn't operate the same way as the old (now non-functional) Deletionpedia,[2] which showed just how much cruft has been inserted into Wikipedia over the years. A better glimpse of current practice in inserting advertising spam cruft into user-edited wikis is offered by browsing random pages on the speedy deletion wiki of Wikia,[3] which will show how much sheer unpaid advertising goes on when people think they can get away with it.
The weekly list of the 5,000 most viewed pages on Wikipedia[4] (which includes one page that I improved from a frequently edit-warred stub to a stable good article by adding dozens of references to reliable sources to it) shows what users are often looking for on Wikipedia. Some topics are seasonal, and others are perennial. Many Wikipedians could best help the world by fixing one of the perennial highly viewed articles until it is a good article or a featured article.
Basis of knowledge: I have been a Wikipedian since 2010. I have seen a lot of readers get burned by articles edited on the principle of "Wikipedia is the encyclopedia where anyone can make stuff up.™" Articles become better and edit wars are reduced when people come to the project with reliable sources[5] to build an encyclopedia.[6]
Well, yes a group that whines continually about what Wikipedia doesn't host without putting up its own online encyclopedia showing what could be hosted under different editorial policies is indeed the worst enemy of its own arguments for having different editorial policies in an online encyclopedia. Show, don't tell.
By the way, a search engine search on the Clay Shirky quotation you shared without attribution[1] suggests by its top search result that the problem of spam in online communities is ongoing. Jeff Atwood recommends Shirky's article "Communities, Audiences, and Scale" from 6 April 2002 as a follow-up to the article where Shirky introduced the phrase you quoted. As Shirky notes, "Though it is tempting to think that we can somehow do away with the effects of mass media with new technology, the difficulty of reaching millions or even tens of thousands of people one community at a time is as much about human wiring as it is about network wiring. No matter how community minded a media outlet is, needing to reach a large group of people creates asymmetry and disconnection among that group -- turns them into an audience, in other words -- and there is no easy technological fix for that problem."
Comments
The new Deletionpedia[1] (kindly linked in another comment in this thread) doesn't operate the same way as the old (now non-functional) Deletionpedia,[2] which showed just how much cruft has been inserted into Wikipedia over the years. A better glimpse of current practice in inserting advertising spam cruft into user-edited wikis is offered by browsing random pages on the speedy deletion wiki of Wikia,[3] which will show how much sheer unpaid advertising goes on when people think they can get away with it.
The weekly list of the 5,000 most viewed pages on Wikipedia[4] (which includes one page that I improved from a frequently edit-warred stub to a stable good article by adding dozens of references to reliable sources to it) shows what users are often looking for on Wikipedia. Some topics are seasonal, and others are perennial. Many Wikipedians could best help the world by fixing one of the perennial highly viewed articles until it is a good article or a featured article.
Basis of knowledge: I have been a Wikipedian since 2010. I have seen a lot of readers get burned by articles edited on the principle of "Wikipedia is the encyclopedia where anyone can make stuff up.™" Articles become better and edit wars are reduced when people come to the project with reliable sources[5] to build an encyclopedia.[6]
[1] http://deletionpedia.org/en/Main_Page
[2] http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php
[3] http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/Speedy_deletion_Wiki
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:West.andrew.g/Popular_pag...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable...
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Here_to_build_an_enc...
'a group is its own worst enemy'. If you only started in 2010, then the disaster is just the status quo to you.
'a group is its own worst enemy'.
Well, yes a group that whines continually about what Wikipedia doesn't host without putting up its own online encyclopedia showing what could be hosted under different editorial policies is indeed the worst enemy of its own arguments for having different editorial policies in an online encyclopedia. Show, don't tell.
By the way, a search engine search on the Clay Shirky quotation you shared without attribution[1] suggests by its top search result that the problem of spam in online communities is ongoing. Jeff Atwood recommends Shirky's article "Communities, Audiences, and Scale" from 6 April 2002 as a follow-up to the article where Shirky introduced the phrase you quoted. As Shirky notes, "Though it is tempting to think that we can somehow do away with the effects of mass media with new technology, the difficulty of reaching millions or even tens of thousands of people one community at a time is as much about human wiring as it is about network wiring. No matter how community minded a media outlet is, needing to reach a large group of people creates asymmetry and disconnection among that group -- turns them into an audience, in other words -- and there is no easy technological fix for that problem."
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q="a+group+is+its+own+worst+en...
[2] http://shirky.com/writings/community_scale.html
I'm not sure how your long comment about whining addresses either point I made.