Vanity of Article Writers, ...a time to cast away stones Options

[GlassBeadGame]

I have been struck lately by the growing smugness of "article writers." Those who avoid wonkery and administraton for the creaton or "improvement" of articles on Wikpedia. To hear them say you would thing they were creating some great works of literature. I got to tell you I don't see it. Even among our FA artistes. They use this activity much in the same way "vandal patrols" or policy wonks use the stuff they do for playing the game that is Wikipedia.

At best I'd say is "Well pretty good for a sand painting made in a sandbox surrounded by pre-schoolers flinging rocks and spraying down the place with pressure hoses...but come back tomorrow." Wikipedia articles, even FAs, are no great shakes. Certainly they don't justify the sense of self-entitlement these prima donnas pretend. Nor do they make up for the many levels or irresponsibilty directed at people outside the project that results from their work.

The only thing of any value in Wikipedia is it partially functions in the the same task Wikia Search fails at, collecting a list of manually generated sources (very imperfectly vetted) and indirectly returning them on the top of search request. You don't need article writers for this task at all.

[Emperor]

For a while I made it a game to pick apart the featured article of the day. It wasn't all that difficult to find glaring errors, if I already knew something about the subject. For topics where I had no prior knowledge, Wikipedia articles seemed perfectly plausible. On the other hand, Wikipedia is often better than the other crap on the internet.

As the owner of another website that lives on user-generated content, I can honestly say that I love article writers.

[Malleus]

For a while I made it a game to pick apart the featured article of the day. It wasn't all that difficult to find glaring errors, if I already knew something about the subject. For topics where I had no prior knowledge, Wikipedia articles seemed perfectly plausible. On the other hand, Wikipedia is often better than the other crap on the internet.

As the owner of another website that lives on user-generated content, I can honestly say that I love article writers.

I think that in a not insignificant number of cases the wikipedia entry is very likely the best info available on the internet. Admittedly that doesn't necessarily mean that it's much good, but that's not so much down to the article writers as to the screams of "Conflict of Interest!" whenever anyone who clearly knows what they're writing about turns up.