User:James Arboghast/Why I won't edit wikipedia
I have ceased editing Wikipedia for an indefinite period in protest of: disorganization, chaos, unworkable politics and unsolvable disputes caused by complete freedom of anyone to edit; crap contributions by armchair experts and well-meaning-but-misguided amateurs who are convinced they're "experts" (anti-elitism); the rudeness, cynicism, arrogance and obvious insecure behavior of some contributors; the colossal amount of talk and petty quarreling; the abysmal standard of writing that permeates the encyclopedia.
All of that stuff makes editing WP unrewarding and way too time-consuming. It's hard to justify sacrificing the time required to contribute. If in future the system is reformed, the major impracticalities of the user community largely solved and higher standards of word-smithing imposed, I might consider contributing once again.
Note to other editors: this is not a "personal attack" on WP itself or its editors; it is common sense criticism. Larry Sanger had enough common sense to leave the project; Wikipedians possessing common sense should be able to admit these criticisms too, along with Larry Sanger's, and more importantly do something about the problems. Stop playing politics and messing about with petty personal agendas and fix the system. Those who perpetuate their faith in what amounts to a guileless outlook & overwhelmingly impractical system are one or more of the following: (a) In denial, (b) Vanity publishing their own original views in the guise of objective encyclopedia articles, (c) Deluded, (d) Wikiholics, (e) Have prodigious quantities of spare time to burn, (f) Not realistic.
Most of the science, history and some of the bona-fide arts articles have evolved to a reasonable standard. The bulk of the rest of WP has serious content quality problems. Those who think the standard of writing is acceptable for a general purpose encyclopedia are perhaps decieved by the hack-work found all over the internet, widely assumed to be "writing", as a standard worth emulating.
Note to Jimbo Wales: If "the system has worked remarkably well so far," why are there so many disputes, so much chaos and disunity "among" editors, mediation and dispute resolution systems backed up for months, on-going disruption by cranks and trolls, policies and guidelines that contradict one another, a mind-boggling lack of common sense by editors (even tho ignore all the rules and use common sense are the first and most practical guidelines), a staggering number of unsourced articles, incompetent administrators...if the system works remarkably well why is Wikipedia's user community in such disarray?
"We make the internet not suck." That's a classical standard non sequitur in the original sense of the Latin phrase in that "It does not follow", recognizable from the widespread use of similar golden nuggets of baloney familiar in the advertising industry. On the basis of subject matter WP makes the internet suck slightly less. On the basis of writing and writing standards Wikipedia makes the internet suck even more, encouraging further degradation of written language everywhere. The internet gave a powerful and pervasive voice to bad writing—Wikipedia has made that voice incalculably more powerful. The degrading force of WP's bad writing on the future of western culture may turn out to be unstoppable. That, at the very least, is my greatest fear for the project.
Please, please, please—look ahead and anticipate what might come of all this. The faith of Wikipedia's founder and long-term editors is too blind, too naive, too powerful to take this issue lightly.
A publicly-edited encyclopedia is a nice idea, but the system that creates it is so far from practical it beggars belief. The "remarkably well" statement is outdated and misleading. It does not reflect the truth about Wikipedia, and if Jimbo is realistic he should change it to reflect the truth about Wikipedia.