I LOVE Wikipedia, I think it’s one of the best websites of the internet.

But the fact is that Wikipedia has many flaws:

  • Editing became very hard on Wikipedia based on the amount of rules to respect
  • Wikipedia is biased, many cultures and minorities are not well represented among editors and pages.
  • Wikipedia is a dependence, I can’t imagine Wikipedia disappear, I think it already changed the way people see knowledge, not as something fixed anymore, but as something dynamic that changes and evolve.
  • Wikipedia ‘sources admission’ are also very… Weird. Because you can be a professional in a special field, it doesn’t mean your contribution will be accepted, just because your source is not coming from a ‘reliable source’, even if YOU are this reliable source.

There are other problems as well, but I think those are the most important ones.

What do you think about it? If you could change anything or everything to Wikipedia, what would you do?

  • ufra
    5•3 years ago

    Not sure if everyone already saw this, but it seems relevant:

    Wikipedia’s 1%: Purdue study reveals most content is from small group of editors

    Sorin Adam Matei, a professor in Purdue University’s Brian Lamb School of Communication, and Brian Britt, assistant professor in the South Dakota State University Department of Journalism and Mass Communication and a Purdue graduate, sought to define just who is providing the massive amount of content. They had access to every edit made to every article from Wikipedia’s first 10 years, 2001-2010.

    …

    The book presents some interesting findings about the way in which a new elite has emerged in the world of communication and about the way in which social media groups evolve,” Matei says. “Adhocracy – the idea that crowdsourcing projects like Wikipedia aren’t these decentralized and spontaneous ventures – is orchestrated by an organizational system that combines a stable power hierarchy with individual mobility.”​

    https://www.purdue.edu/research/features/stories/80-of-wikipedias-content-created-by-1-of-writerseditors-purdue-study/