29
Jun
1

Where wikipedia fails

I love the idea of Wikipedia. A user generated encyclopedia, where people decide what information needs to be addressed under each topic. Theoretically, people who are well studied or professionals in a particular field can contribute to a topic and make it a great resource of information. However, I feel that the current Wikipedia is a complete failure.

Wikipedia’s failure can be summed in a single word: ‘accountability‘.

Because there is no accountability for what is written, people write about topics that they have no business writing about. Because there is no accountability for creating false information, people correct topics that they have no business correcting. And because of the lack of acknowledgement due to the lack of accountability, the people who actually do have the knowledge and ability to write informative, professionally and concise, don’t!

Here’s how I would fix it: Give credit to those who write, and penalize those that spam and those that create inaccurate or personally biased information.

I have seen several good contributors driven completely away from Wikipedia because their articles were mutilated, or some passerby thought their resources were spam. The articles that those authors had created or edited to a professional level, have since been reduced to garbage. I myself have downgraded to only removing spam links (which is a daily event) and no longer actively contribute content. When 10-year-olds question the whole concept, maybe it’s time to make some changes!

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1 Comment:
  1. MDK 22 Aug, 2009

    Agrees and disagrees. Most of the so called professionals; don’t really know what they’re talking about half of the time. They just borrow other sources from other pages, some can be inaccurate. I am a programmer and Engineer. I’ve seen some Programming contents to be really inaccurate or ripped or out of content or inconclusive.

    Some are but some aren’t. It is really hard to tell which is accurate and which is not. The problem is – do to its popularity and People are confining in Wikipedia for the answers.

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