A very insightful anecdotal review of why Wikipedia is such a hateful and hated platform and community, as far a sane and successful professionals go.

The Closed, Unfriendly World Of Wikipedia

by Danny Sullivan on November 23, 2011


A noted award-winning technologist and former Guardian writer only this morning brought this blog post to my attention, but sadly Sullivan has closed the comments before I could say what I would have wanted to:

I have a confession to make. Wikipedia's arcane and abusive-to-outsiders platform and community are indeed a reprehensible state of affairs. But, as a paid editor of Wikipedia, I do better financially that way. If Wikipedia were more tolerant, and open, and friendly to experts, then I'm sure I wouldn't get these calls at 9:00 AM from multi-millionaire Davos attendees who are livid about how their biography, or their company's article, or the article about one of their friends in politics, has been sabotaged by Wikipedians. If Wikipedia were a smooth process for fairness and expertise, then there would be no need for paid editors like me who have taken the scores of hours to finally learn how to have a fighting chance by gaming the broken system a little bit. -- Gregory Kohs

This post has been edited by thekohser: