•Doomed: why Wikipedia will fail
Ars Technica, MA -1 hour ago
A cyberlaw professor argues that Wikipedia is doomed. The online encyclopedia will need to choose between being "high quality" and "open," but both choices ...

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I think this article lays it out quite fairly. The site is probably too big of a target for uncredited volunteers to win the war against garbage. Increasing lockdown seems like the best solution, but that doesn't attract editors either--just helps prevent it from getting worse.

This isn't a failure in the sense that nothing useful has come out of the project, but failure in the sense that it no longer progresses. Given the trends, at some point in the future, the content of Wikipedia as a whole will stop improving (progress will be counterbalanced with promotion and subtle promotion).

Just who do you think is going to keep sanitizing your garbage dump once people like Peter Demian have finally taken the cure?

Noooo Body …

Ja Ja

Yeah, it's a disease. Sorta like anti-vaccination cranks.

The beauty of this article is not the insight between "freely editable and high quality" which is in fact not much or an insight at all. As the quote above shows Goldman has at least touched upon the dysfunction that infects Wikipedia. This rot is not a natural outcome nor inevitable result of the maturing project. It is a fatal flaw that might have been otherwise if Wikipedia didn't import all failing of internet culture, especially those of its Usenet roots: drama, insular conceit and libertarian self entitlement.

Unfortunately, those things are so much an integral part of the human condition, in any group or community, that I suspect it would be easier to avoid importing the habit of breathing air.

Neither Wikipedia nor it's predecessor Usenet possess these characteristics in amount that can be considered normal.

That would have been a good response if it hadn't been exactly the point that One was making.

I think that properly-managed, it can still be saved. I doubt it will ever match the frenetic growth of its early days, but if it was locked down more (which will hopefully start with flagged revisions on BLPs, though I realize that that's not a clever thing to say for on-wiki PR reasons) it should be possible to maintain enough editors for the reduced maintenance requirements (though flagged revisions actually come with increased maintenance requirements, just lessened consequences for deferred maintenance) to be met, and some continued expansion (in the form of new articles and improvements to existing articles). I don't think Wikipedia will fail unless and until a better model is implemented. Wikipedia's challenge is to make sure that it's the one implementing that better model.

Is "Ars Technica" a site for technical arses?

Certainly, just like "Ars gratia artis" means "Ass for ass's sake". Perhaps that should be the motto for Wikipedia.

Not quite.

Not unless you guys' idea of a stable site is something like this.

Jon

I have always pondered(well not always, I don't spend my whole life thinking about wikipedia and its issues) why don't they permanantly lock an article once it reaches Featured Status. It could still be edited when new info comes along or its status could go up for review to see if it is still FA worthy. Instead of wasting time guarding FA's from vandals and POV pushers or from just plain getting bloated with pointless crap/cruft, editors can try to help get more articles to this status and these guys can claim 'Hey each FA we get is a triumph of the wiki model.' Since FA's are such a small percentage of the 'pedia, it would be better use of their time to lock those up and get other articles up to speed.

Of course, this could never happen since many there can't fathom the idea of barring Isp's from blp's becuase it is apparently everyone's God-given right to edit a wikipedia page until someone in power gets mad at them and only then you are not allowed to edit, unless of course, you befriend the right people.

That's just my humble suggestion. Lock up Featured Articles so you don't have to waste time guarding them and get other articles up to speed.

In their dreams.
No, it's more like «Asses For The Sake Of Asses».

Ja Ja

"Better model". Heh heh heh.
I know what happens to a site that pretends Section 230 is a magical charm to protect against lawsuits.

If a smart attorney manages to convince a jury that Section 230 doesn't protect
forums, and that Wikipedia is a kind of "forum".....all that attorney needs to do is
call a guy named Wayne Parham as a witness.

(I'd tell you the story of his battle with Audio Asylum, but it's long and bizarre,
and it's better if Wayne himself tells it. )

If that was the point, he chose completely the wrong sequence of words to make it.

Saying "the content of Wikipedia as a whole will stop improving" is a little different from saying the content will decompose - and the rate of decomposition will increase the more serious people are chased off, and become outnumbered by wikikids and grawps.


On current form, wikipedia is ideologically bound to reject "better" models.

No, my idea of a stable site is something like this:





That guy's web development leaves something to be desired... on his info page, he attempts to insert the Greek letter pi in running text, but uses the nonstandard means of surrounding a "p" with a font tag calling for the symbol font, which doesn't produce the desired effect in standards-compliant browsers like Firefox, which insist that a "p" is a "p" and a "pi" is a "pi" no matter what font the developer tries to display it in... thus leading his site to say 'When you see "p" on a speaker, you're looking at a great deal more than a company logo.' He should have used a proper Unicode representation of the letter pi. Our own annoying Jon Awbrey at least knows how to insert Greek letters and other oddball characters in a way that actually displays correctly.

Either way you gotta mess o' Π00Π to clean up, Herc.

Ja Ja

I agree that this would work, but I'm not sure if Wikipedia has the political will to swallow this. On the date when promotion and subtle vandalism dominates constructive edits, it will be very hard to convince hardliners that we're losing the war with nonsense. For many editors, "anyone can edit," is a philosophy that transcends practical considerations.

At that point, I think encyclopedia-focused editors might finally force a credible fork. I'm not sure which faction would remain at wikipedia.org, but I would bet on the open editing hardliners.

Again with the unXamined ASSumptions of WeWiki Vs. DemWiki Talk.

What you need to get through your Gr00pThink Blinkers is the fact that a large number of your worst offenders are safely e-sconced in office, little boys and squirrels in oversize hats who are simply too immature to grapple with the concepts of journalistic ethics and responsible scholarship.

Look Homeward, ∠ !!!

It is the Jerks at the Switch who Blew It !!!

Jon

Quite correct. That is most of the reason I had for concluding that Wikipedia was doomed a good while ago.

Meanwhile you can't get to grips with your own inability to square the circle that your support for a hard on WP:EL makes promotion a given for every BLP subject that wants to make use of teh Wiki to give themselves free google juice and web presence.

Though it's good to see the spanking new arbs putting WP:EL to good effect in cutting out BLP promo drama when a single unresolved WP:EL drama bounced AE notice runs to four times the length of the article that kicked it off - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AE#...ued.2C_again.29

Proves the point there's no such thing as bad publicity, so long as the Wiki is talking about the promo subject, or the subject's promo[t]ers.

AF

You good folks are missing the point.
Goldman's article is spreading like wildfire, and
Wikipedia's glorious reputation is taking a further hit.

Thus
Thus
Thus
Thus
Thus
Thus

And BTW, Goldman has been predicting WP's failure for YEARS.

Having just taken the time to read the article it's hard to argue many of the points it makes. imho.