I’m familiar enough with Wikipedia to know that, yeah. I am also familiar enough with Wikipedia to know that there are topic areas (such as Israel/Palestine and the Holocaust in Poland on the English-language version) where the shortcomings of the wiki system are completely evident. Once you have to restrict editing to users with more than 500 edits and make special rules how to handle sourcing, it’s clear that the wiki just isn’t a suitable mechanism: if there are so many people wanting to write about a topic that you have to do that, then why not abandon the wiki concept altogether?
The greatest success story of the wiki principle isn’t Wikipedia, nor any other Wikimedia project. The greatest success story of the wiki principle is OpenStreetMap, which does limit itself to objective facts and is used not just by people, but also organizations. I work as a software developer and I’ve encountered usages of OpenStreetMap data many times, but of anything on Wikimedia projects? Wikipedia is great for teenagers to get an overview of the world, but everyone who actually needs the information in it has better sources for it anyway.
if there are so many people wanting to write about a topic that you have to do that, then why not abandon the wiki concept altogether?
Because it’s quick? At that point it’s not just the last thing anyone wrote - it’s a collaborative effort from many experienced volunteers. Wikipedia doesn’t have to be either a purely “no rules” wiki or a purely “all rules” paper encyclopedia.
Where would you suggest as a better source for general information, when one would otherwise start with Wikipedia?
I’m familiar enough with Wikipedia to know that, yeah. I am also familiar enough with Wikipedia to know that there are topic areas (such as Israel/Palestine and the Holocaust in Poland on the English-language version) where the shortcomings of the wiki system are completely evident. Once you have to restrict editing to users with more than 500 edits and make special rules how to handle sourcing, it’s clear that the wiki just isn’t a suitable mechanism: if there are so many people wanting to write about a topic that you have to do that, then why not abandon the wiki concept altogether?
The greatest success story of the wiki principle isn’t Wikipedia, nor any other Wikimedia project. The greatest success story of the wiki principle is OpenStreetMap, which does limit itself to objective facts and is used not just by people, but also organizations. I work as a software developer and I’ve encountered usages of OpenStreetMap data many times, but of anything on Wikimedia projects? Wikipedia is great for teenagers to get an overview of the world, but everyone who actually needs the information in it has better sources for it anyway.
Because it’s quick? At that point it’s not just the last thing anyone wrote - it’s a collaborative effort from many experienced volunteers. Wikipedia doesn’t have to be either a purely “no rules” wiki or a purely “all rules” paper encyclopedia.
Where would you suggest as a better source for general information, when one would otherwise start with Wikipedia?