zlacker

Nobody with stories such as yours seem to actually give a link to the article in question.

>>teddyh+(OP)
I have a story like this, but I did the work (that was backed out) over a decade ago. The domain was not especially political (something related to history of music notation). It sticks with you because when you are already an expert in an area, and spend days contributing high quality content with good references only to have it vaporized without comment/reason, it is deeply demoralizing and creates long standing resentment. I vaguely remember the subject matter, yet remember distinctly the feeling of having all that work purged. I’m sure Wikipedia politics have changed since then, but my desire to contribute has been pretty well quashed.

>>teddyh+(OP)
yeah all these accounts of Wikipedia being hostile to new users must be lies and exaggerations /s

>>teddyh+(OP)
That's because we don't have the (as the OP puts it, insane) temperament to fight some battle for days on end for something we really don't care that much about. It takes effort to dig up some random edit from years ago that wasn't important enough to fight about then and certainly isn't worth the stress to fight about now. It's a lot easier to just bitch about this obviously real problem instead of having to make the same kind of effort we didn't even do the first time to somehow justify and defend our anecdote.

>>Sargos+5m
> It takes effort to dig up some random edit from years ago

Yes, but a simple link to which article it was would be enough. What also might be useful is a user name and/or a rough estimate of what the time period was, but without even an article name, there is nothing anybody can do about fixing these things.

>>IggleS+h9
Yep. I made an attempt to get into it over a decade ago, and it didn't help that I was heavy in the Flash game/animation scene and felt that was the best way to contribute. I say it didn't help, because so few of those pass the ridiculously restrictive 'Notability Test' of Wikipedia.

The animation could have 50 million views and be known across the internet, but because no 'reputable news organization' wrote about it, i.e. no CNN or BBC article or whatever, they would routinely be brought up for deletion and quickly killed.

Which always seemed strange to me, that this new fangled technology that took advantage of the power of the Internet wouldn't find anything on the Internet itself worthy of gracing its virtual pages. Especially since, as Wikipedia itself states, "Wikipedia is not Paper", and doesn't have a physical limit to what it can talk about or include.

It always annoyed me that these things wouldn't get passed the notability filter, but the most obscure Star Trek episode would have a dedicated page with a full synopsis and details and Easter Eggs, despite the fact that there couldn't have been a news article about that specific episode anywhere out there and the author had to be drawing from the episode... I mean, primary source, itself in order to get that information, which is something that gets squashed elsewhere (No primary sources!)

The hypocrisy just got to me big time. And then when I'd fix spelling or grammar issues on other random pages and see every single one of those get reverted without comment, it was clear that doing anything on Wikipedia was just a big waste of my fucking time. While I still read it to get a really rough handle on topics sometimes, I will never 'contribute' to it again, including every time that giant "We Desperately Need Your Financial Support" message from Jimmy Wales comes up on the site once a year.

I'd love for there to be an alternative where the admins aren't such deletionist zealots, but alternatives just don't exist.

I should also state that I had such a negative experience trying to contribute to Wikipedia that it still riles me up thinking about it to this day. And there's not a whole lot out there that riles me up.

>>cables+To
Generally speaking these days, whenever I see a non-minor / specialist article in need of correction, I tend to rely on the talk section to make points that maybe an editor can apply better.

That's what I did for Wikipedia's article on software synthesizers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_synthesizer), which in 2014 was rather out of date, particularly on its "typical" examples and other elements.

The article does look a fair bit better now. It does seem to still carry a little awkwardness (eg statements like "a software instrument is akin to a soundfont" which is not really correct) and a few out-of-date moments (eg why mention Csound and Nyquist as music programming language examples but not mention more common examples these days such as Max/MSP or PureData?) and some other quibbles I have. But it is better. Maybe I'll have to make a few more talk points someday. :)

Personally, I do think Wikipedia for the casual contributor is unfortunately broken. But given the amount of trolls and agenda-oriented people out there, I actually can understand why there is a high barrier to entry. It's just a bit unfortunate because it also restricts the diversity of the contribution ecosystem. I'm not sure how to reconcile the two personally...

>>cables+To
Wikipedia's notability rules are generally about ten/twenty years out of late, and seem to be designed on the assumption the internet doesn't exist. As you said, they often miss out notable works that aren't reviewed by what they class as 'mainstream' sources, and they also often end up failing to consider the amount of credibility someone may have in their own area of expertise.

For instance, in the gaming world, I often look at Serebii.net as a good example of where Wikipedia's credibility priorities are misplaced. To them, it being a fan site run pseudononymously makes it less credible/reputable than a publication like IGN or Vice or what not, but in the actual community/among those who know of the topic, it's actually the far more credible source. The owner has written in magazines, been quoted by popular media sources, used as a reference by those seen as more reputable, etc.

But Wikipedia doesn't think like this. To them, credibility equals being paid as part of a major publication, and it doesn't matter even if you're a distinguished professor writing on your blog or academic site otherwise. And this then hurts the niche topics you mention even more.

>>CM30+yZ
Subject-matter experts, such as distinguished professors, are considered reliable sources regardless of where their statements or writings are published. I'm not sure if it has always been this way, but it is currently written into Wikipedia's policy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-p...

You're right about fan sites. It's harder for people outside of the fan community to evaluate whether a fan site is reliable, and that contributes to the skepticism you see.

>>teddyh+No
It was a lower tier event or personality of WW1 or WW2. Not a Churchill, Paton or D-Day, but something lesser without reaching insignificant. It was 10 or 15 years ago - in the days when it was still common for articles to be incomplete or missing. I couldn't estimate when that period of Wikipedia ended, but I'd guess at least 10 years+. I'd be amazed if someone hasn't managed to fill the gap since, as articles are generally much more complete. Current Wikipedia has other issues.

It was some hours I spent on a topic I knew well, and had a good selection of books on my own shelves to cite, triggered by finding an incomplete or missing article, or a glaring error. Nothing more. After the challenges contributing I lost interest and moved on. I was doing Wikipedia a favour and trying to contribute, they apparently weren't interested. I'm not going to fight for it, but as a result I'm not open for trying more, or ever again.

As for username, I have no idea whatsoever, but offhand I can only remember one of the several LJ usernames I had, some I used for months rather than just a few days. Mind I doubt I could accurately list all the topics I blogged about on LJ, either, but could cover the main interests easily. I'm not even sure a username was needed at all but it may well have been.