Wikipedia talk:Why is Wikipedia losing contributors - Thinking about remedies

Feel free to post here informal comments.
We'll try to integrate them with the main page.

Auto-protecting articles of a certain level

I don't know if I'm using this page properly per the nature of the article but I would like to suggest that once an article reaches Ga, FA or FL status, it receive permanent protection against IP edits and non-autoconfirmed users until it is delisted and personally, I would like to see the requirements for auto-confirmation that allows you to bypass basic protection enhanced. I often find it frustrating and in many ways inhibiting to see large amounts of edits, obviously sometimes per several articles, by IPs or new users that need to be checked individually.

The major driving force that makes this more of a chore than a pleasure is having to wade through edit after edit to find out which is vandalism, which is misguided and which actually provides useful information, even on a locked article since a new user can affect them. On GA+ articles, the problem becomes bigger because a group or individual has generally put a lot of effort into these pages including research, writing, sourcing, etc. Then, in the case of something like Transformers (film), a new film in the series comes out and people feel it necessary to change these articles, almost always by bloating plot but in other ways as well. For someone like myself who didn't follow that article before, I come to it, see it is GA status but I have no idea if it is in the same state it was when it passed GA or has become worse and no one was monitoring it. If these articles were giving moderate protection that required newer users to request edits, it would go a long way to preserving editors work on what should be the flagship articles of the project and perhaps lessening the impact that negative editing can have on the editor's work. It would also mean that there may be an endpoint to your work where you get it to a certain status and can entrust that edits being made are almost certainly in the positive by established and/or learned users. Certainly any tools which can streamline the process or better detect bad editing would be welcome.Darkwarriorblake (talk) 11:12, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see this as a solution, because I would swap one deletionist for ten vandals no questions asked. Wnt (talk) 17:55, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll take someone you can talk to or easily undo vs someone who just wants to replace words with "balls" and "Gay" across multiple edits, sometimes in tandem as at Horrible Bosses so that ClueBot doesn't catch them both. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 13:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Validation

This has been somewhat covered on the main page already, but one idea I've heard discussed elsewhere is that of having a rating system in the edit history itself. For example, there could be little thumbs up buttons, so when you see an edit you like in the edit history, you hit the button, which records your action. It would be a means of giving some validation to editors who go around making good edits.

On a more general note, I think that everybody needs validation, especially people who are doing a service like editing Wikipedia. I know that "Wikipedia is not a social network" but I think we could learn a lot from social networks. Humans are supposed to be social beings, after all. -- Adjwilley (talk) 18:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Problematic admins

Where are your diffs for this? If anything, that wouldn't be an administrator problem, it is a problem with the rules. Ryan Vesey Review me! 19:25, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

One of the major contributors to this is currently on a 24 hour ban for COI editing and flaming, so he might not be able to be as objective as one might hope. Guy Macon (talk) 17:24, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Major issue. While there are some really good admins, there are some horrible ones. It appears that pre 2007, the election of admins happened via defacto. Maybe it's time renewable terms for admins instead of a 'monarch system'. Hillabear10 (talk) 17:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

It would be facinating if adminstrators would go back to writing articles after 1 year. After being an admin for a whole year you can still coach new admins and help with technical questions. But your main job as a wikipedian should be writing articles. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 03:36, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:Burden

Personally, this is one of the main ones for me. I have had many an Admin revert edits and warn me about edit warring because I am burdened to prove my case to improve upon an article. Regardless of the fact that I have reliable sources or not. QuAzGaA 20:07, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Er...

Could someone remove the irrelevant personal attack against myself placed by banned user Bogdan Nagachop? I don't feel I should just wipe it out myself. Thanks, --JaGa^talk 21:15, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

You're right. That attack has to be refactored/removed as too personal. Blackvisionit (talk) 21:28, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Done Quasihuman | Talk 21:44, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Lack of response

I'm not sure how to include this, but I think one problem could be that a lot of users get no response when they ask a question on a talk page, ask for feedback on articles they created, or ask for an editor review. This is very discouraging, and creates the impression that their input is not important to the community. In many ways, this is unavoidable for a talk page where there is no active watcher of the article, but in other contexts it could be avoided. Quasihuman | Talk 21:44, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Go on, this is also a main issue. Here some suggestions:

• 1 - Every user is granted the right not to interact with you, even if asked in the talk page, unless you're pointing some bad misconduct...
• 2 - Every user has the right to ask other users for review/RfC
• 3 - Discussion about articles, taking placing in a personal talk page, is 1-1 not many-to-many, other users will not see it...
• 4 - There are so many bureaucratic pages that users in their spare time are not very likely to read RfC page...
• 5 - Getting rid of all that bureaucratic pages and have editors refer ONLY to a main/cathegorized RfC page will greatly help interaction...
• 6 - No matter who answers you - getting answered and reviewd is the goal

Blackvisionit (talk) 22:15, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Deletionism

I'll preface this by saying that although I'm an adherent to Carvaka and Moist philosophies IRL, and have no real love for Buddhism, I tend to take the Middle Way on content; I'm not really an inclusionist or a deletionist. However, I think the section as it stands (as of the timestamp) is 1. extremely exaggerated, 2. polemical, and 3. not entirely accurate. There are those who try to game the system to get something deleted, yes, but not all deletionists can be tarred with the same brush any more than inclusionists can be called copies of A Nobody (before my time, really, but I read my Wikihistory). ATM, that section is indicative of the very problem this essay seeks to solve; it points the finger at one group of people, slaps a label on them, and declares them "the problem". If nothing more than a counterbalance, I think there's more that can be added on, i.e. I'd argue that enormous lists of non-notable people, such as those that frequently pop up in Indian/Pakistani village articles (where I have actually seen the local police officer and taxi driver be glorified as "great men" more than once), are a larger problem. And incidentally, you can talk about wanting "10 vandals more than 1 deletionist", but all that shows is you aren't one of the people dealing with the huge streams of shit vandals pour on us every day. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I respect those efforts, yet... most of the time when I see vandalism, the edit is reverted before I manage to submit my own. Within the past week I saw Tosh.O on a national TV rebroadcast on the Comedy Channel call for anyone and everyone to come and vandalize his Wikipedia page, and I reverted a grand total of one edit from the whole U.S. (True that article has good edit notices) Wnt (talk) 06:14, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I deleted a block about deletionism. The author was clearly frustrated, and I feel his concerns, but I think the section as written had a few problems: (a) it would turn off deletionists who will dismiss the arguments out of hand; (b) it was too condemning overall; (c) it confused being a prick with being a deletionist. They are different. I tried to work some of his points into a new section about abuse of power. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wxidea (talk • contribs) 06:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not an entirely invalid view- anyone at AfD will see that kind of behavior periodically- it just needs to be balanced out. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:18, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, as a deletionist I was offended by the straw man caricature drawn in that section. The problem isn't deletionism (the belief that Wikipedia needs to be held to tight standards with a focus on quality control) per se, but rather inappropriate deletions and those performed in an incivil manner. There's a big distinction here, although it oftentimes gets blurred. One way to make Wikipedia more welcoming to users whose content is deleted would be explaining in layman's terms why it was deleted, with perhaps a suggestion for further editing (such as a primer on reliable sources or a directive to edit a preexisting article on a similar subject). My suggestion on the page about creating a better introductory system is relevant here, since this should lead to less page reversions/deletions. ThemFromSpace 17:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

It's been a decade but delitionism (which isn't a word and, by the standards of deletionists, should probably be deleted) is a real problem. I'm a subject matter expert and virtually never post on Wikipedia. Sometimes, when I think a link would be useful, but usually not. Along with some friends, we made our own Wiki. Why? Because deletionists, who I'm virtually certain have less experience than us in the field we write on, make adding to Wikipedia a miserable experience. It's not really a public Wiki; it's a clubby place for a group of insiders - who have the time to do things like make 50,000 edits - to delete. Does this make Wikipedia stronger? I doubt it. I come across countless errors and virtually never correct them. Again, why? Deletionists: what's the point? Wikipedia is a top-rated resource because it doesn't run ads and doesn't compete with Google which drives the vast majority of traffic. That success is despite the deletionists, not because of them.Ruby Alisa Day (talk) 16:50, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

"I'm not a deletionist, far from it, but some of my best friends are . . ." I think Day misses the point. Deletionist is a word because people use the term in a meaningful way, specifically within the context of wikipedia. There is no separate page for it as it it is better covered in Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia. Whether the term migrates to other contexts remains to be seen. I. A. Richards is useful here: "Words have not got – by natural design as it were – senses of which they are the owners. They are instruments which give directions to thoughts, nothing more". Looking at Day's editing record, most of their total 17 edits are about promoting their own website by adding references to it. So no wonder they have run foul of the deletionists!Leutha (talk) 14:12, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Sure I used a bit of polemic, and it is possible for people to carefully delete things that really aren't relevant, but at least if you follow important current events and try to contribute to articles about the major topics and people that come up, it seems like the bad deletionists are a whole lot more visible than the good ones. But I've posted my piece [1] and there's no sense arguing over it, when this probably will come to nothing anyway. Wnt (talk) 19:59, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I disagree

Looking in the deletionist section, I have some things that I disagree with. "The philosophy of deletionism has the side-effect of killing too much good along with the bad." - Is it a possibility that editors have different opinions about what is good or bad for Wikipedia? "There is a risk of ignoring NOR or BLP when taking stuff out of an article because "they don't think it's important", or right, based on their three-minute thumbnail knowledge of the topic, without regard to the sources which do think it's important." Those are not deletionists in the common sense of the word. Deletionists care about what reliable sources think. It is only a matter of what individual editors believe to be reliable sources. For example, I think that Lifehacker is a reliable source for software because the articles are checked for accuracy, but others may say that it is an unreliable source since it is described as a blog. "Deletionists often don't fix things. They revert your entire edit, and may write many paragraphs into a talk or discussion page." What editors think are fixing Wikipedia relate to the their beliefs. Is there any proof that most deletionists revert entire edits and/or bring them to a noticeboard? The section needs to be written from a neutral point of view. Joe Chill (talk) 04:53, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this page is ever going to become neutral. It seems to be a forum for a bunch of people complaining about everything that is wrong with Wikipedia. Ryan Vesey Review me! 04:59, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Your contribution is also fundamental in reaching neutrality. Refactor the article if you think some sections are worth it. ZipoBibrok5x10^8 (talk) 12:34, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I think arguments should be presented on both sides, "Deletionists" to me seems too negative. Rimsky.cheng (talk) 03:40, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments (rant) from user

This was removed from the main page by users Ryan Vesey and NawlinWiki; original text by 71.227.188.7 and also restored by Jacksonjake. I don't think this adds to the discussion's points; but I'm against just killing off people's passionate comments. Wxidea (talk) 05:59, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The Problem Is Inherent: Wikipedia Rejects Fact & Truth

At the very center of Wikipedia is a rejection of thousands of years of philosophy holding that truth has an independent existence. Without that basic principle at the center, any notions of "knowledge," "authority," and "reference" fall apart. And they collapse not just in the airy abstract, but in the gritty day to day. Most "edit wars" here are between people who value facts, and others who do not. Wikipedia's organizing principle holds that fact and truth are whatever a consensus of editors say they are. That's how you work, both philosophically and practically. The result is that all editors are equal, except those who have somehow obtained administrative rights, in which case they are equal to other administrators; that an editor or administrator need not be familiar with a subject to edit or administer an article; that all issues will be decided by consensus, which by definition at Wikipedia is correct.

Any expert or authority on a topic immediately learns that appeals to fact are meaningless. If a majority at Wikipedia decided that 2 + 2 = 5, then that's what Wikipedia will publish. Similarly, if a majority decides that "4" shall not be mentioned, then it will not be mentioned. Fact, and truth, have no validity in themselves. This means that they are subject to political determination, i.e., the process of obtaining agreement. Those who believe that 2 + 2 = 4 will need to lobby for 4. Wikipedia has an exhaustive set of rules that purport to guide such discussions, but those rules are routinely ignored. For instance, debates will rage within an article over whether a bit of information is "notable" enough for inclusion. This is in spite of Wikipedia's clear rule that "NOTABILITY" applies only to whether a topic is worthy of an article, but not to information within the article itself. Pointing out that editors and administrators have ignored Wikipedia's own "standards" is useless; when truth and fact are subject to politicking, who can be surprised when people here ignore mere rules?

The cumulative effect of this essential defect in Wikipedia, which I believe to be an artifact of the ignorance of its top-level founders, who I suspect lack the exposure to even elementary concepts of philosophical and scientific inquiry, is to render Wikipedia a repellent environment for authorities on any subject, and indeed for those whose general intelligence includes a well-developed logical sense. Wikipedia's "standards" aren't "standard," and no one from top to bottom here bothers to notice, much less care. Instead, they wring their hands over whether the project's software is too complicated for new users to learn. Well, kids, yes it's true that your software is utterly, completely, and comically atrocious, which might have something to do with why Wikipedia tends to attract young geeks without basic knowledge of anything other than video games and computer code. But, as tempting as it might be to focus on the issue, that's not really the problem here. After all, much of the Western canon survives because monks transcribed it by hand. The software here is tough, but not nearly that tough.

The issue at Wikipedia -- then, now, and forever, unless the core changes -- is that you don't believe in truth or fact. It renders all of the content at Wikipedia suspect. It is why no respectable academic institution anywhere in the world will allow a student or faculty member to cite Wikipedia as a source. It's why Wikipedia is the punch line to countless jokes. You cannot be a trusted source of information when you don't believe in fact. You simply will not attract authoritative input, nor should you. Perhaps Jimmy Wales, who I gather started his career in the pornography business, needs to take an elementary philosophy class or three, to acquaint himself with the nature of truth over the centuries. But I won't be holding my breath. Update your software if you want, Wikipedia. Put a smiley sticker up. None of it will matter until you wrestle with the intellectual vacuum that exists at the very core of your enterprise. Are you even qualified to examine yourselves?

I would like to see this removed in whole or in part as a personal attack on Jimmy Wales. Ryan Vesey Review me! 06:01, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not capable to discuss too much about philosophy but I would like to answer some of your points. I've got no problem in stick to a few principles designed by a pornography business man (as you stated) because these principles are designed like the rules of a complex adaptive system game: you put a lot of people together, thousands, millions, ... you design just a few behavioural guidelines (not even related to principles) and then you start playing. The players (we), after a lot of game iterations, will design their own principles as a result of emerging collective behaviour. The only problem I actually see is that this big experiment has clearly split into two secluded macro-areas: inclusionsm and deletionism. Inclusionist players are always diffident to remove something because fear censorship and are not interested in truth. Deletionist players are always diffident to add something because fear loosing WP public reliability and are not interested in completeness / WP extensions. ZipoBibrok5x10^8 (talk) 12:55, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes on wiki 1 + 1 = 1532! It is sad when an admin - who is clearly uneducated - decides to delete material the he/she holds as personal truth but is factually incorrect. It is always funny to see how they try to justify their actions, especially when the majority of editors clearly explain why they are incorrect. Hillabear10 (talk) 17:36, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to remove it for that reason. The poison-well nature of the argument about Wales discredits that section enough, on its own.--Tedd (talk) 16:52, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Website needs to be quicker and slicker

I would be more inclined to make edits to Wikipedia if the site was quicker. Everything about editing Wikipedia, from getting the edit window up, to previewing, to saving, is just that little bit annoyingly klunky and "sticky". If you are making frequent small improvements in passing, while reading articles, then these delays add up to a pain in the a*** and a disincentive to do it. Also, sometimes I come across parts of articles that have been trashed at some point, and I want to go back to find the last good version. This is a HUGE pain. It can take ten minutes or more sitting watching Wikipedia grind away bringing up old versions and version diffs. If Wikipedia was really slick and fabulously quick, I think the editing experience would be that much better. Not sure if it just boils down to more money for more hardware, or if are there smarter improvements to the software that could also be made.... 86.181.169.99 (talk) 00:00, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Fragility

Possibly this has been mentioned elsewhere (sorry, I have not read all the material), but another reason why some people might be less inclined to devote a lot of effort to Wikipedia is its fragility. It's not hard to see that without a large army of tireless enthusiasts, the whole project would be completely destroyed by vandals in a matter of weeks. If Wikipedia loses that critical mass, then everyone's work goes down the toilet. Maybe some people contemplate that and figure "well, maybe I shouldn't invest too much of my time here". I must admit that sometimes I have felt that way. I have no idea whether it's just me, or if others feel the same. 86.181.169.99 (talk) 00:18, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment

I'm writing an article on my blog on the rise of the internet, and came across the graph showing that the number of wikipedia articles peaked in 2007. In trying to find a simple "why it happened" - I found this.

I used to be a keen editor of wikiepedia. Then I came across people who would just delete anything I wrote without even discussing it - that put me off - because they were just being bullies. However, it was not until I found an interesting article on peak oil and thought "hey - any body interested in energy and climate like global warming would want to read this". So, I went to the article on global warming and put a link. Within seconds it had been deleted. I put it back, thinking it was a mistake. Within seconds it had been deleted again. (I think I went to put a note on the talk page explaining why I thought it was appropriate). Not ever having had the problem before, I then inserted it with a comment and was banned from the site. Since then I've learnt that the person doing the deletion is an eco-activist and I had unwittingly tried to add a simple link to "their" article. As a scientists myself, with an interest in wind energy, I started looking closer at what they were writing and I'm certain that those editing were the academics writing the papers, which the editors would then say "you can't quote or cite anything but [our] papers". In other words, the whole thing was corrupt.

To put it in perspective, since that time, I've done research into the types of people, and largely those editing (these articles) are public-sector, young so tending to the left and pro-environment. Whereas the other side tended to be private-sector, older and retired and tending to the right and from jobs like engineering.

In other words, whilst not intentional, it is far too easy for a group of activists to "take over" whole sections of wikipedia. The result, I believe is that wikipedia vastly over-represents the "public-sector" views of academia, and fails to represent the "private-sector" views of the vast majority of people. And that means that whilst academai is a very small section of society, its viewpoint not only predominates, but because of the way wikipedia works, a minority viewpoint, turns into a majority of wikipedians, which then act to exclude the majority viewpoint which can become deleted without trace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.2.50.16 (talk) 10:28, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Just to add a last comment .... wikipedia is based on the idea that you have to be able to cite some expert. It therefore gives anyone claiming to be an expert an unfair advantage. To give a simple example, around 2007 I created a simple graph showing that global temperature had "paused" since 2001. I created a simple section to insert into the global warming article containing some of the things that had been said in the press about the lack of recent warming. This was denied, on the basis that the "experts" (almost all of who have an interest in global warming alarmism as it helps keep their grant funding coming) had never mentioned a "pause".

The facts showed a pause. It was starting to be talked about by respectable commentators. But the editors (who wrote the scientific papers) said it was "original research" and so could not be mentioned in wikipedia until it was mentioned [i.e. they mentioned it] in a scientific paper.

I thought about this and as far as I could see, the only possible way to enable the pause to be mentioned given that the editors were the academics (or closely linked), was to change the rules of wikipedia to enable "original research". I even considered an entirely new wiki - factopedia. This would be like wikipedia, but instead of only being able to cite an expert and not do original research, it would be the opposite: only statements supported by data would be allowed and "expert views" like any unsubstantiated views would be banned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.2.50.16 (talk) 10:39, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Corruption Is A Big Problem with Wikipedia

I was recently blocked for 48 hours after I reported a three revert rule violator and noticed that the user I reported, User:TheRedPenOfDoom, did not have a block notice on their talk page like I did. Blocking people with opposing views, especially when they are factual, is not acceptable. Wikipedia is just going to continuing losing editors if this corruption remains.JoetheMoe25 (talk) 20:54, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

The above user @JoetheMoe25: was repeatedly reinserting inappropriately sourced content about a living person into an article despite numerous warnings on their talk page. If the people we are "losing" are people who are here to carry out hatchet jobs, lose away! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:57, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

This is not a one-off incident. It is the rule of thumb that prolific editors are not blocked but the other editor is. I have never seen it otherwise. This is one of the reasons only a hardcore 1% edit: they won't let anyone else do it. 2A00:23C4:1591:4C00:5070:E740:6327:CE12 (talk) 17:55, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

rules should be followed?

I propose to add one more sub section to the "Examples of problems" section, concerning following the rules.

An example for a commonly ignored rule: Types of content removal "When removing content from an article, whether it be a whole section or even just a single word, if the removal is likely to be opposed by one or more other editors, it is important to make sure there is clearly a consensus to remove the content. When in doubt, discuss prior to removal."

There is an opposite problem as well. One may be sanctioned for placing a request for enforcement in wp:AE, although there is no written rule. Ykantor (talk) 08:22, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Requiring books as references: difficulty in the South

There seems to be a “luck of the draw” at Wikipedia, where some editors, unlike others, belittle newspaper articles as references and require mention in several books. Some editors seem to be unaware that publication of books is nowhere near as common nor as cost-effective in the South as in the affluent countries of the North. Also, the multiplicity of languages spoken in many Southern countries makes the publication of books a rarity, usually at one’s own expense. Unless Wikipedia is to become largely a Gringo preserve, I suggest editors be restrained from excessive demands for books to serve for references and for prominence in the South. Newspaper articles and websites independent of the subject of the article should be accepted with less skepticism.Jzsj (talk) 17:02, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Where does one go to give feedback?

Is there some centralized place where editors can go to give targeted feedback on why they would leave, or think about leaving, the project? I have not found such a place, nor does there seem to be any annual user survey like the types often used by many employers to get feedback about experiences in the workplace. I would be interested to get a pulse check across a wide spectrum of editors as to what they see as the major issues and also see how the perceived problems change with the number of years one spends on Wikipedia. This essay mentions a couple of areas I can personally relate to as being concerns, but it seems like it's all anecdotal evidence from discussions. TheBlinkster (talk) 16:40, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Agree. But then the lack of one suggests they don't want to know.ash (talk) 13:45, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I know that Wikipedia is not a forum, but there really needs to be a forum somewhere for editors to get together and discuss Wikipedia that can include a feedback section, but also has far more than just that, there should be sections where projects that are mere seeds of an idea can be pitched to see if they have enough support to get off the ground, and organize people for tasks that have to be done. Washuchan73 (talk) 09:44, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) or one of the other village pump pages might be a match for what you are looking for. isaacl (talk) 23:05, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

What a great idea, TheBlinkster. I'm definitely for a user survey. They're of great value in the workplace, and they would be of value here - as long as Wikipedia will take corrective action based on the results. I'm pondering writing an article to be titled something like "I Wrote An Article For Wikipedia, Here's Why I'll Never Do It Again" - which, of course, I won't be writing for Wikipedia. (I second that emotion, ash.) GoldDustProspector (talk) 03:09, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Consensus-level revision required--rewording of "No Original Research" into much more appropriate "No Obscure Reference"

How about changing "No Original Research" into "No Obscure Reference"? Shortcuts remain the same except WP:ORIGINAL would be replaced with a slightly shorter WP:OBSCURE. This term more accurately fits in many ways, as does the term 'Reference', both singly and combined. Why bother? What's at stake? How about changing "No Original Research" into "No Obscure Reference"? Shortcuts remain the same except WP:ORIGINAL would be replaced with a slightly shorter WP:OBSCURE. This term more accurately fits in many ways, as does the term 'Reference', both singly and combined. Why bother? What's at stake? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:6000:A340:AE00:D4DB:6BCE:5D23:FBA1 (talk) 02:11, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Section on languages missing

I did not see a section on languages. We all know that travel books on a specific place to visit can be written in different ways, even if their authors have the same knowledge of the subject. And for me, Wikipedia pages written in different languages should be read as different approaches to the same subject and not as "translated" pages. I am not sure that French Canadians who translate English pages into French bring great added value. When I see the mention "This page has been translated from the English page", I give up. I think that this point should be discussed. What do you think?Nbrouard (talk) 08:43, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

For your specific example, regarding practices on French Wikipedia, you'd have to discuss it there. Regarding English Wikipedia, Wikipedia:Translation describes the process of translating articles from other language Wikipedias. It is somewhat controversial, as I understand it; some people think a roughly translated article is better than no article; others prefer that translation only be undertaken by someone skilled in the process with respect to the two languages (in addition to translating the text, the sources should also be verified). Please note, though, if any article appears to be of poor quality, including ones that were originally translated, anyone is free to work on improving the article, even completely rewriting it if that seems best. Wikipedia talk:Translation is probably a good place to discuss this topic further. isaacl (talk) 17:55, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Complete lack of recourse

Judging by my experience and those of some of my colleagues working in life science, Wikipedia suffers from a total lack of recourse against knee-jerk decisions made by moderators, who appear to have life and death control over not only articles but user accounts. This is often coupled with a total lack of civility. I've stopped contributing pages completely now Indieshack (talk) 04:18, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Double standard

Notability rule has its own problems, but once set, it should be applied equally, or it holds little value.

Eg, the submission of Draft:Ryujinx has been rejected serval times due to lack of reliably sourcing, yet many dedicated emulator pages in List of video game console emulators do not pass the three significant reliable coverages standard (for video game project) either. Certain senior editors keep talking notability rules, while at the same time ignore the inequality application of the rule. 01, 02, 03 Islandking2000 (talk) 04:25, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Premise of this page

The premise of this page is that Wikipedia is losing editors. I understand that this was true for a while (e.g., when ClueBot took over most of the simple vandalism patrol work, so hundreds of editors were no longer needed for that purpose), but that it is no longer true. Perhaps this page should be revised? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:16, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

This article should be required reading for new contributors

... before they're allowed to create a new article, because it might prevent people from becoming new contributors, prevent them from having a horrible experience and prevent them from wasting their time on something that makes them never contribute again. If I'd had advance awareness of the incivility and disruptive conduct waiting to greet new contributors and new articles no matter how well-written, well-researched, well-supported with verifiable reliable references, no matter how well in compliance with Wikipedia guidelines the articles are, I never would have bothered wasting time writing at Wikipedia. The sharks smell newbie blood in the water, and suddenly a few deletionists who serve the god of "It's not notable no matter what because I don't care about that subject" go in for the kill, and the rest of the world doesn't get a Wikipedia article on a subject that readers might find notable, useful and interesting that they're looking to find information about. As long as Wikipedia empowers internet trolls to arbitrarily determine an article's existence (rather than equally applying clear standards that enable contributors to determine in advance whether an article's subject will be acceptable), and allows them to target well-meaning and productive contributors while ignoring Wikipedia's own standards of civility and conduct, Wikipedia will lose contributors. GoldDustProspector (talk) 02:42, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Hey GoldDustProspector. I'm sorry you had a bad experience. WP:GNG looks simple but is actually quite complicated, which can be frustrating to new users. We've all been there. I've watched my articles get deleted too. It took me a couple thousand edits and going to New Page Patrol school to learn GNG well enough to realize that it is a fair, objective system, and not just some deletionists voting however they want at AFD. Have you ever seen a source assessment table? Here's a screenshot. This is the kind of thing people are doing in their heads when they evaluate sources for GNG. Have you ever seen WP:RSPSOURCES or WP:NPPSG? We have discussed the reliability of thousands of sources at places like WP:RSN, and we have taken notes as to their reliability in different places on Wikipedia. You can install a script such as User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/CiteHighlighter to assist with identifying reliable and unreliable sources. Looks like two of your AFD's that failed ran afoul of the "significant coverage" requirement, which requires a couple of meaty paragraphs about the subject in a reliable source, not just a passing mention, and not just data on a primary source website. Anyway, I'm just rambling now. But I hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:24, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Novem Linguae,

Thank you so much for your helpful reply, and I'm sorry it took me so long to see it. I have had an unpleasant experience but I should have waited to write a more thoughtful comment when I was not feeling so upset about the situation. There are a lot of collegial friendly people working together here.

The subjects I wrote about pre-date the internet and much of the significant coverage of them (magazine and newspaper reviews of their records and concerts, interviews of the band members, etc.) is not online from the original sources that were published in the 1970s and 1980s, so I was attempting to provide references to coverage of the subjects that is viewable and verifiable online. Some comments and actions in reply were uncivil and conveyed some animosity rather than focusing on policy and helpfulness, which surprised me.

The information you've shared is very helpful. Thank you again for taking the time to help mentor a new contributor.

Best regards, GoldDustProspector 14 July 2021 GoldDustProspector (talk) 21:12, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Power users need to be limited.

I seen several articles where they are edited, only to reverted by power users because they disagree what wikipedia should be about within minutes. there should be no reason why many of power users have over 1 million edits. If content is that of what some incel thinks is correct, it defeats the purpose of wikipedia because it skews perception and removes neutral point of view — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:8000:5000:E9D2:F009:C881:88CE:99A4 (talk) 10:50, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Inclusionism vs deletionism: perfectly balanced, as all things should be

I think both inclusionists and deletionists add value to Wikipedia, by guarding against different dangers. If I understand correctly, the main risks to Wikipedia are currently the following:

- Decline of editorship. Under this scenario, Wikipedia editors become gradually fewer. As a result, fewer articles are created with decreasing quality, and Wikipedia loses credibility. People wish the encyclopedia would get better, but they cannot commit themselves as the project increasingly looks like a lost cause. Eventually, Wikipedia stagnates and deteriorates, perhaps getting taken over by a tech company. The purpose of this talk page was to address this danger. Thankfully, as of 2022 the number of editors is stable and slowly growing.

- Stagnation of quantity. Inclusionism guards against this danger. New editors are put off by the steep learning curve and perceived lack of support by fellow Wikipedians. They also might feel that articles they read as users are already "good enough" and it is not their job to contribute. Deletionists delete information faster than it is created, with some quality information being lost in the process, and Wikipedia stagnates. Eventually, Wikipedia might become boring and this could cause a decline of editorship.

- Decline of quality. Deletionism guards against decline of quality. New work of mediocre quality is generated faster than the improvement of existing articles, and existing ones might be undermined by unwelcome low quality edits. This causes Wikipedia to overextend, becoming less readable and reliable.

- Decline of Wikipedia in other languages. The relative success of English Wikipedia combined with increased knowledge of English worldwide removes the incentive for Wikipedians to write in their native language. This improves the English Wikipedia as more time and effort are dedicated to it, but hurts other language versions. This has various negative effects, such as reduced accessibility and loss of knowledge present exclusively in other versions.

For English Wikipedia, the way forward seems to be striving to increase contribution, which should be evenly allocated to both quality and quantity. Under a simple model of complete inclusionists vs complete deletionists, this balance would be soon broken as one tendency would be at least slightly stronger. This perhaps means that collective effort should be directed in a way that promotes a balanced quality - quantity increase.

As a case study, I can offer you the example of Greek Wikipedia. Greek Wikipedia suffers simultaneously from low quality and from low quantity, while there is a decreased incentive to contribute because knowledge of English is relatively good among Greeks. I don't know if Greek Wikipedia is improving in terms of quality vs quantity. However, editorship has been increasing at a steady rate among infrequent contributors since 2017, while frequent editors have remained stable . Inforambo (talk) 09:58, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Yet Wikipedia is losing editors.

Part says [citation needed]: Just go to statistics. The definitions for Editors are relevant to reading this graph correctly. Based on that, instead of "is losing editors", you should write and insert a screenshot of the exact stats based on the selections: the exponential years 2002 to 2007 are also unique, a similar effect like many launches of internet-based things (think Dragon Ball app etc.); since that time, the data says there are always more than 100k editors (avg. 90k). I will do not more analysis on this, however, the phrase "is losing editors" should be specified. 17387349L8764 (talk) 08:19, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I had a really cool idea!

I had a really cool idea to foster a more connected community and benefit the Wikimedia Foundation in the process! With some friendly, creative, and, dare I say, fun competition, I came up with the idea for a contest where editors compete for a week to have the most creative user page based on a selected theme. It’s creative, engaging, and doesn’t affect the encyclopedia at all; it just focuses on creating more aspects of Wikipedia that contribute to editors wanting to stick around. Because, I’m sorry, but when all anyone is experiencing is deletionism, human nature is to avoid such negativity. My purpose was to create a space that offers something lighthearted, and I pledged to donate $5 to the Wikimedia Foundation for every contestant who participates! :) my contest was nominated for deletion.

It’s not a mystery what the problem is. 9t5 (talk) 02:36, 7 June 2024 (UTC)