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.

[Sarcasticidealist]

I'd agree that the overall quality of Wikipedia is not high. In particular, very few FAs meet the nominal FA prose requirement of "engaging, even brilliant" (mine don't). The de facto prose standard for FAs is "competent, free of easily noticable technical faults and without any really terrible stylistic decisions." But for many subjects - including almost all of those that FAs - Wikipedia provides the clearest, most accessible, free online treatment.

Wikipedia is most useful not when it's a substitute for other sources, but when it's a substitute for ignorance.

As for GBG's original point, there's a segment of article writers for whom smugness is endemic. But there's an observer bias there, just as there is for admins: the article writers you notice are the ones prancing around ANI shrieking that the Wikipolitician caste is ruining the encyclopedia, and that everybody should actually be more like them (the article writers).