Hi, I'm new here

[Lir]

Hello, I'm new here, but stumbled across this site as I was reminiscing about my glory days as Wikipedia's original "enemy of the state". As some of you know, I was one of the top 10 most prolific editors during the initial phase of Wikipedia, and was nearly elected to the Arbitration Cabal, at which point I was personally banned by the self-anointed "God King" Jimbo Wales. I was the first person to receive a "permanent" ban, which Jimbo had vowed never to do. I am truly honored by some of the comments I have read here about myself, particularly the rather apt comparison with Eugene Debs. It's been many years, so I'm sure some of my details are off, but I will describe my experience with Wikipedia as I remember it.

There is a post here which discusses the time I called Jimbo Wales. In fact, we spoke several times on the phone. He tried to make it sound like a one-off thing, an awkward encounter, but it wasn't the first time and he had asked me to call on several occasions. I will admit that I did hang up on him, and yes I was drunk. I simply found him to be intellectually dishonest and frankly offensive. As some of you may remember, Hurricane Katrina left a lot of people without homes or jobs. As a staunch libertarian, Jimbo insisted that they should earn their own way in life, without being dependent on others. He insisted that FEMA is a fascist organization. Remember this, the next time he asks you for money! Perhaps you agree with him, it doesn't matter, I simply found his attitude offensive and insensitive, especially so soon after the disaster. I feel like the article on him should discuss some of his less positive attributes, instead of lauding him as a hero of the internet.

Yes, it is true that Wikipedia used internal data which should have been kept secret, in order to identify and "out" me. The network security guy they hired (just another Wikipedian with an ax to grind), was able to unlock my password and prove that I was me, since I was using the same password. He also used this to acquire my email address and determine my name and location. Quite simply, they doxed me, years before 4chan and doxing was a thing. This was all before I was banned, when I decided to try editing on another account, and avoid my notoriety. Subsequently, they contacted my university, and insisted that I was obsessed with photographs of genitalia and vandalizing their website. That led to an awkward conversation with the university administration, and was most certainly an egregious act... on their behalf. I have long considered this to be an example of real-life harassment and defamation, orchestrated by the leadership of Wikimedia.

What Wikimedia failed to mention in their complaint against me, was that I never added such photos. In fact, I was taking them down, because I felt (and continue to feel) that some photographs really don't belong in an encyclopedia. You can link to them, fine, but readers really don't need to be saturated with high-resolution photos of some Wikipedia admin's private parts, because that is just disgusting. It is well known that there is a certain segment of highly... how should I say... perverted people within Wikipedia leadership, and they love their sex articles. Pedophiles are, in fact, powerful on Wikipedia, and I suspect they get off on having their pictures displayed for children to see if they happen to click on the wrong link.

Those of you unfamiliar with the internal dynamics of Wikipedia might assume I am exaggerating, as it seems like such a nice website, but others of you will know that if you approach the sex articles (especially anything involving furries, pedophilia, or bestiality) you will encounter some very dedicated edit warrior admins. Wikipedia isn't just trying to educate people, it is trying to convince people of specific ideas, some of which are toxic and perverse. Many articles have a political or socioeconomic agenda, with strawman arguments hiding behind a veneer of critical objectivity. This really shouldn't surprise any rational person, because Wikipedia is not some altruistic non-profit, but the private playground of a single man and his cronies. That man, Jimbo Wales, got his start in the internet world by running a porn site. You can verify the facts for yourself. I believe he also had some white collar legal issues in Illinois, which explains why he moved to Florida.

I am often depicted as a notorious troll, but this is really an exaggeration. It is the same style of propaganda as that which Jimbo has used against Larry Sanger, whitewashing him out of the history in a sort of Stalinist purge. For the record, even though Larry and I really don't like one another and very much come at things from the opposite side, I will say emphatically that he deserves far more credit for Wikipedia than Jimbo. At least, when Larry was around, there was the presumption that academic standards were to be expected. Even in the early days, Jimbo didn't really do anything. He wasn't editing, he wasn't writing, he wasn't fixing things or adding articles. He was simply a pompous man who sat in a web forum and enjoyed the adulation of his adoring fans. The real work at Wikipedia is done by people who write, and they aren't paid a damn penny of all that money Jimbo rakes in. By the way, if anyone you know donates to Wikipedia, please remind them that Jimbo wasted an awful lot of that money on prostitutes and expensive alcohol in Moscow. There was a huge scandal over this, and Jimbo has never taken responsibility. There is simply no responsible leadership at the top. It is an absolute disgrace, both morally and intellectually.

I think its asinine to believe that people should give money to Jimbo, in order to create this wonderful source of information. Why would you trust him? In all honesty, have you seen the site? There's a lot of stuff there, but if you start digging, so many facts are just wrong. Huge sections are still just plagiarized from the Encyclopedia Britannica, and then distorted by the 'telephone game'. It blows my mind when people use Wikipedia as their 'source'. I usually compare Wikipedia to an educated alcoholic. He could get it together, but not if you keep enabling him with free donations. Even Wikipedia admins such as Raul654 have admitted certain moral shortcomings, and his user page states that if Wikipedia were a person, it would be a sociopath. Indeed, that is because Jimbo might be a sociopath, and he handpicked the 'leadership'.

Now, I will admit, I have trolled Wikipedia a fair amount in my day. I have watched with amusement as they ban other people for being alleged 'sockpuppets' of Lir, while utterly failing to even notice me. From time to time, whenever I get bored, I make a game out of adding false information to Wikipedia. I will invent people that never existed, events that never occurred, places that are found on no map. I will make sure to surround them with credible facts, and esteemed sources. These edits remain, for years, for decades, because most of the people editing Wikipedia have no real knowledge of the subject matter. I honestly wonder, why they prefer to have me vandalizing the site undetected, when it would be far better to let me edit openly and constructively.

Sadly, they have taken the road of paranoia and imaginary power, insisting that I am persona non grata, even though I can edit Wikipedia with ease anytime I want. Meanwhile, I have lost any desire to really participate in the project. As I myself have become a legitimate subject matter expert, I certainly share Larry's disdain for the open process of Wikipedia. Why would I want to contribute to that site, gaining no benefit for myself, and merely assisting Jimbo in his own delusions of grandeur. Why would I want to waste time edit warring and debating with anonymous people who simply do not know what they are yapping about? I write elsewhere, under various pseudonyms, and I'm quite happy with getting paid.

I wonder though, why Wikipedia doesn't see the futility and irrationality of the no tolerance attitude toward 'sockpuppets'. At one point, I was given a lengthy ban for this response to the accusation of sockpuppeting, "yes, fyi i have nearly one hundred sockpuppets. That includes 23 sysops, 3 developers, 2 arbcom members, and a member of the board in a pear tree." They put enormous investigative effort on a daily basis into identifying sockpuppets, analyzing IP addresses, habits, patterns, and writing styles. Why? Why not simply focus on the quality of an edit, instead of focusing on who made the edit? Today, I went ahead and made an account called Lir is Back. I proceeded to engage in constructive edits, and was banned within minutes. They didn't even entertain the idea that I might simply be another individual. No discussion, no warning. They even barred me from making an appeal. This speaks volumes about their attitude, but it is not terribly efficient, as I can easily just log out and come back with an entirely different ip. Meanwhile, they continue to ban other people, by claiming that they have 'caught' me. Seriously, evading the ban is trivial, so why do they try so hard?

One of the biggest problems with Wikipedia is it empowers editors, above writers. As I writer, I admit that it can be useful to have a second pair of eyes, to help with grammar and flow and word choice. However, the editors on Wikipedia became convinced that they are subject matter experts, and over the years they became increasingly disrespectful and heavy-handed. If you fail to follow the increasingly complex, arbitrary, and rigorous Wikipedia style guidelines, you can expect all of your work to be reverted, with no attempt whatsoever to simply adjust what you have done. However, if you follow the guidelines, and add utter bullshit... This creates a feedback loop of mediocrity, where small minded people follow the rules and add mundane garbage, trolls follow the rules and add creative garbage, and intelligent people simply log out. I have literally been published within a REAL encyclopedia, and it had less stringent requirements about superficial style guidelines - the focus was on content and accuracy.

Wikipedia is not run by intellectual principles. The core problem is this: If you add substantial work to Wikipedia, it could all disappear overnight. Without any discussion, some one else can come along and revert it all, complaining about one particular concern they had. They won't bother to try and fix it, or adjust it, or discuss it. It will just be gone. If that person outranks you in the informal hierarchy of Wikimedia, you just waste all your time and energy. Quite simply, you'd be better off blogging.

Edit warring is where Wikipedia originally broke down, and I am proud to say that I was a leader in the early edit wars. There are a number of Wikipedia conventions in use today, which I developed and fought for, through the most inane tactic of endlessly reverting an article back and forth. I am the reason the three revert rule exists! I am not merely the reason, but frankly I'm the one who had the sense to realize a rule was needed. When I joined Wikipedia, edit warring was explicitly ALLOWED. I made the problem manifestly clear, by refusing to simply log out and let the morons win. Indeed, I take pride when I look at an article like DNA or Minoan Civilization or Munich, and know that I won. However, this is a completely idiotic process which wastes everyone's energy, driving good writers away, until the only people left are sycophants and bureaucrats.

Obviously, the correct means of addressing a dispute is to hold a discussion. Unfortunately, Jimbo never rose to the challenge of actually engaging in debate, and he allowed an adhoc 'cabal' to invent rules and regulations which they themselves never actually had to follow. You can get banned for not following the three-revert rule... but they won't ban themselves. So you can't edit Wikipedia as an equal participant, but only as an understudy. What educated person wants to work for free, under the guidance of fake professors and powertripping children? Unfortunately, Jimbo himself never relinquished power, and those who latched on to his coattails have not only driven Wikipedia into the morass of mediocrity, but they have nicely enriched themselves as well. During the early days of Wikipedia, it was often seen as an experiment in decentralized government, but just look at it now.

End rant.

--------------------------

I was amused to take a look at the final version of my user page, right before my ban. At the time, there was some kind of admin edit war taking place on my user page, and I got fed up with the idea that admins were vandalizing my page.

''Please do not [CENSORED] my [censored] page anymore; thank you Wikipedia [censored], one and all.'''
I am [censored], [censoring] my own user page; this is my favourite page, because it is my [censored] page.

QOTD, "Some Wikipedians are more [censored] than others. Others are allowed to [[Wikipedia:Be_bold|be bold]] and to [[Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules|ignore all rules]]. This is an example of sheer [censorcy]."

I do [censored] like the Wikipedia and think it is run by a [censored] administration, composed of [censored] bureaucrats and [censored] [censoreds]. I [censored] the allegations made against me, and was [censored] given every chance to defend myself against the lengthy list of [censored] "evidence". As my [censored] politically-motivated ban has now ended (and let's all remember that stating [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?ti ... id=7699460| I have three sockpuppets in a censored tree]" was considered a bannable offense), and as I am now reinstated as a user with full [censored] rights and privileges*, I would appreciate it if the [censoreds] would stop [censoring] me and my [censored] supporters, and I certainly see no reason for the [censoreds] to continually revert my [censored] edits. At the very least, if you [censored] [censoreds] want to ban me, you should make use of the [censored] conflict resolution process which you pretend to expect everyone else to follow, except that you [CENSORED] their requests and [censored] use it yourself.

I remind everyone that my [censored] ban was repeatedly opposed by several members of the [censoring] arbitration committee, that 8% of the [censored] Wikipedia community actually voted to elect me to said committee, that I was a prolific and productive editor for many years across thousands of [censored] articles, and that the evidence against me is [censored] conclusive; furthermore, having personally met [censored], and having read his [censored] fiction, I understand that his credibility in the community has been much [censored] over the past 18 months. Ultimately, it would seem that one should not be so quick to believe what one's [censoring] government asserts, especially when that government is a wiki-government of appointed [censoreds] and anonymous [censoreds]. Please do remember that this is the very same community which embraced a [censored] professor at the highest levels, and which clearly does [censored] have a history of idyllic honesty (these being two [censored] observations which should certainly raise some [censored] logical suspicions in your [censored] mind about how accurate and reasonable the [censored] charges against me truly were).

Indeed, the most [censored] evidence against me is now 5 years old, and amounts to swearing and edit-warring during a period of time when both swearing and endless edit-warring were both explicitly permitted by the likes of [censored], [censored], [censored], and [censored], all of whom frequently engaged in similar [censored] behavior themselves! I therefore assert that my true crime was daring to argue with the [censorers] during their formative years, and that subsequently they have waged an incessantly one-sided and [censored] campaign to discredit and [CENSORED] me (both at Wikipedia, other internet sites, and in real-life), because (quite simply) they are [censored], [censored], [censored], and [censoredly] [censored] [censoring] [censoreds] with no regard for the [censored] constitutional processes which earlier [censored] wiki-citizens attempted to implement.

Furthermore, although it may sound rather [censored] to observe this, I did actually win roughly 90% of my [censored] edit wars, which indicates that the true [censoreds] were those who [censored] me, since the '[censored] majority' has clearly never had a problem with me or my [censored] edits.


All power to the [censored]! Sic semper [censored]!!!

''and my stapler, somebody took my [censored] stapler...''

Explanation for [censored] people: [CENSORED] --> [Censors] --> [Censoreds] --> [Censored] Common Users Who Do All the Work... See the [censored]?

For more details on how Wikipedia actually works, be sure to read the famous [censored] novel: ''[[Animal Farm|Censor Farm]]''

Another [censored] treatise on these [censored] issues is the [censored] work: ''[[On Liberty|On Censored]]''

[Randy from Boise]

Welcome to Wikipediocracy!

RfB

[The Garbage Scow]

Your block log and the edit history of your userpage are a laundry list of old timey admins!

[Lir]

Lol. I made a lot of friends. Snowspinner was my favourite.

[Poetlister]

Lol. I made a lot of friends. Snowspinner was my favourite.

And of course a lot of enemies. Wikipedia does polarise people.

[Dysklyver]

Tis is very interesting, thanks for writing up your bit.

[The Garbage Scow]

You haven't been San Franned yet, so, in theory, you could still come back! With sufficient groveling, of course.

[Vigilant]

You haven't been San Franned yet, so, in theory, you could still come back! With sufficient groveling, of course.

Practice puckering.

http://wikipediareview.com/lofiversion/ ... 33178.html

[Lir]

I come back whenever I want, its easy to change your IP. What I always wonder, is why does Wikipedia prefer to have me vandalizing articles, instead of engaging in constructive edits? It's fine either way, I just question their judgment. I've always said I'm willing to engage in discussion and work toward the creation of an encyclopedia, but since Wikipedia insists on being such a toxic community, I am equally willing to undermine it.

[Lir]

I come back whenever I want, its easy to change your IP. What I always wonder, is why does Wikipedia prefer to have me vandalizing articles, instead of engaging in constructive edits? It's fine either way, I just question their judgment. I've always said I'm willing to engage in discussion and work toward the creation of a quality encyclopedia, but since Wikipedia insists on being such a toxic community, I am equally willing to undermine it.

http://wikipediareview.com/lofiversion/ ... 33178.html

https://www.google.com/search?sclient=p ... sler&cad=h

This is a great example, although there are of course many many more, as I've been doing this for nigh on twenty years. One does improve, like any skill. Not only did my statement regarding the Van Allen belt remain within the wiki article, it was then copied by other sites and became a 'fact'. Undoubtedly, it entered student research papers and (as those students graduated) became something taught by teachers. It is not my fault that the editors at Wikipedia don't understand the material, and aren't willing to engage in reasonable debate or discussion. I enjoy writing, and would happily strive for improvement, but am equally content with making destructive edits.

I feel Wikipedia has (or had) great potential, but today it should be seen as a lesson in the need to question and doubt one's source. Wikipedia is 'fake news', and emphatically not a useful source of information. People need to realize that Wikipedia's administration is incompetent, and this will always prevent them from moving forward. It's not just a question of knowledge or expertise, but a fundamental problem with how they approach debate and their unwillingness to discuss concerns. The administration at Wikipedia profits (socially and economically) from the hard work of naive volunteer editors, whom they refuse to treat with basic respect. Every debate inevitably results in personal attacks. The dispute resolution process is a popularity contest, driven by polemics and emotion, resulting in people (including admins) getting banned in a seemingly endless cycle. This is not an environment which generates genuine progress. At the core, Jimbo Wales is intellectually dishonest. He proclaimed that decision making would involve 'consensus', but never surrendered his own authority over the project. As a result, the site's administration is dominated by people who are afraid to challenge him, generating a top-down model in which the people at the top share Jimbo's ignorance and bias.

Today, Wikipedia has more articles than ever, filled with long paragraphs full of presumably factual detail. However, sprinkled throughout the entire website, are hidden biases, misleading arguments, quotes that are completely fictitious, and lots and lots of names, dates, and places that never existed. Wikipedia is not just a drunk guy at the bar, telling interesting stories and stuff that you didn't know. He's a drunk guy who is having himself a laugh, trying to see just how gullible and ignorant you are.

I once had a student plagiarize Wikipedia, and I told them, "I know you plagarized this, because I wrote it."

[Guido den Broeder]

Welcome Lir, good to see you here!

[The Garbage Scow]

I come back whenever I want, its easy to change your IP. What I always wonder, is why does Wikipedia prefer to have me vandalizing articles, instead of engaging in constructive edits? It's fine either way, I just question their judgment. I've always said I'm willing to engage in discussion and work toward the creation of an encyclopedia, but since Wikipedia insists on being such a toxic community, I am equally willing to undermine it.

Because they're

1) Unbelievably stupid.
2) Determined to never evolve, to the bitter end! Because pillars or something.

How much of people's time do they waste on vandal fighting because they absolutely refuse to require registration to edit? And how much of those same people's time do they waste by expecting them to file AiV reports, semiprotection requests, etc., only to decline those for moronic reasons, like "they haven't edited for a few hours, I bet they'll be ok now"? Brainless. They EXPECT lots of people to continually watchlist articles and be at the ready to revert vandalism instead of using basic tools they already have to reduce vandalism.

Every so often I'd get back into reverting vandalism again, only to stop after one of my pending changes or article protection requests were denied. That's nothing more than a slap in the face. "Get back to work, peon!" F them. Now I don't edit at all. Let them die under a pile of vandalism and garbage.

[rhindle]

I once had a student plagiarize Wikipedia, and I told them, "I know you plagarized this, because I wrote it."

Too many students are barfing wikipedia these days.

[Lir]

How much of people's time do they waste on vandal fighting because they absolutely refuse to require registration to edit? And how much of those same people's time do they waste by expecting them to file AiV reports, semiprotection requests, etc., only to decline those for moronic reasons

Yah, it's just thankless work. You are volunteering, for what? You are working hard within a toxic and inefficient culture, solving issues that have already been solved and shouldn't have to be solved, and you don't get paid a dime. Jimbo is making cash, his friends are making money, they are jetsetting around the globe talking about this awesome community they've built, padding their resumes with all their 'non profit' work and 'tech leadership', but you are just basically doing all the work and get none of the credit. Why bother?

[Bezdomni]

Thanks for posting Lir. What you say is really interesting, because I find myself getting sucked into constantly polishing a high-visibility turd. You remind me of Loys Bonod, who sort of famously caught his students in mass "pompage" (plagiat, si tu veux) of his own disinfo on various sites (though fr.wp got the most media attention).

I hope you and Jake and any fact-checkers out there might be able to put together a good blogpost. That post you started with was (obviously) excellent. If you're just doing it as a PSA: thanks. bien reçu.

[Lir]

Yah, you check out some of these articles, and they have not improved in over a decade. More information gets added, but the flow, the structure, the grammar, the accuracy... it's the same goobeldy gook as before. Real writing isn't just dumping a bunch of facts in, you have to read, and re-read, and strive to be more concise and use better word choice. Wikipedia is just chock full of run on sentences to nowhere, randomly inserted into paragraphs without any real cohesion or transition. You can try to work on it and actually create a cogent article, but you come back the next day, or a few months later, and realize all your effort was a complete waste of time.

[Eric Corbett]

How much of people's time do they waste on vandal fighting because they absolutely refuse to require registration to edit? And how much of those same people's time do they waste by expecting them to file AiV reports, semiprotection requests, etc., only to decline those for moronic reasons

Yah, it's just thankless work. You are volunteering, for what? You are working hard within a toxic and inefficient culture, solving issues that have already been solved and shouldn't have to be solved, and you don't get paid a dime. Jimbo is making cash, his friends are making money, they are jetsetting around the globe talking about this awesome community they've built, padding their resumes with all their 'non profit' work and 'tech leadership', but you are just basically doing all the work and get none of the credit. Why bother?

Why indeed?

[Lir]

Collaborative writing only works with discussion, built upon mutual respect and the acceptance of inevitable disagreement. This cannot be achieved by a committee dominated by bureaucrats who are rushing through their umpteenth dispute resolution.

Every time Wikipedia bans someone, its not because that person is utterly impossible to work with, but because the admins realize they have to ban someone in order to keep going, because they don't have time to actually sit and hold a serious discussion. This is why you have users getting banned, by admins who get banned, by other admins who get banned, on and on. Wikipedia is very much a case of 'too many chefs' all throwing random ingredients into a pot, and there is this cult mentality that Jimbo has created something wonderful, when people really need to step back and say, "What a waste of time..." The world would be a much better place if all these writers would simply go start a blog and focus on their pet topic.

When Wikipedia was started, it was difficult to get free web hosting, the sites were of poor quality, and search engines didn't work very well. Today there are many options, and we do not need Wikipedia at all.

[Vigilant]

Collaborative writing only works with discussion, built upon mutual respect and the acceptance of inevitable disagreement. This cannot be achieved by a committee dominated by bureaucrats who are rushing through their umpteenth dispute resolution.

Every time Wikipedia bans someone, its not because that person is utterly impossible to work with, but because the admins realize they have to ban someone in order to keep going, because they don't have time to actually sit and hold a serious discussion. This is why you have users getting banned, by admins who get banned, by other admins who get banned, on and on. Wikipedia is very much a case of 'too many chefs' all throwing random ingredients into a pot, and there is this cult mentality that Jimbo has created something wonderful, when people really need to step back and say, "What a waste of time..." The world would be a much better place if all these writers would simply go start a blog and focus on their pet topic.

When Wikipedia was started, it was difficult to get free web hosting, and the sites were of poor quality. Today there are many options, and you (the writer) do not need Wikipedia at all.

Well, sometimes people are just assholes to work with.

[Catnip the Dwarf]

I don't know enough to say anything to most of this, but:

Wikipedia isn't just trying to educate people, it is trying to convince people of specific ideas, some of which are toxic and perverse. Many articles have a political or socioeconomic agenda, with strawman arguments hiding behind a veneer of critical objectivity.

Yes, absolutely (though I'm not sure how you would put a strawman in a Wikipedia article...?).

What I always wonder, is why does Wikipedia prefer to have me vandalizing articles, instead of engaging in constructive edits?

I don't think that's quite it. What they want is to not have you there at all; they won't respond positively to either behavior, and if they take unjustified actions that drive you to vandalism, it's "all your fault". When they decide that a constructive editor is not worth keeping around, either they're doing what they have to do or they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, depending on who you ask.

Yah, it's just thankless work. You are volunteering, for what? You are working hard within a toxic and inefficient culture, solving issues that have already been solved and shouldn't have to be solved, and you don't get paid a dime. Jimbo is making cash, his friends are making money, they are jetsetting around the globe talking about this awesome community they've built, padding their resumes with all their 'non profit' work and 'tech leadership', but you are just basically doing all the work and get none of the credit. Why bother?

I don't know about anyone else, but I use Wikipedia (and Commons) to practice skills, build confidence, and have a good time. I've never taken it as seriously as other "Wikipedians" seem to. I don't know what they think they're getting out of it -- clearly something else. Of course some of them get the benefit of having their views taken as "fact" by naive readers.

If this is all true, it's a shame they kicked you off. I hope you find a way back if that's what you want.

[Textnyymi]

When Wikipedia was started, it was difficult to get free web hosting, the sites were of poor quality, and search engines didn't work very well. Today there are many options, and we do not need Wikipedia at all.

Back in 2005 Wikipedia was ranked as the 35th most visited site in the world according to Alexa dot com.
Now it's almost 2019, Wikipedia has been ranked as the 6th or 7th most visited site for 9-10 years, and when people think about Alexa, they think about a thing on the table which speaks to them. Does that device take info bits from the free encyclopedia?

[Dysklyver]

Does that device take info bits from the free encyclopedia?

It sure does, and it doesn't give attribution. Amazon gave the WMF one million dollars to stop them complaining.

[Poetlister]

Does that device take info bits from the free encyclopedia?

It sure does, and it doesn't give attribution. Amazon gave the WMF one million dollars to stop them complaining.

And the people who actually own the copyright on Wikipedia content, the article writers, haven't exactly seen much of that money.

[Catnip the Dwarf]

https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/amazo ... gence.html (warning: has mysterious autoplaying music)
https://slate.com/technology/2018/10/am ... ation.html

You can't "donate to Wikipedia". The people who actually build it don't get anything. Outsiders don't seem to realize this.

Wikipedia often isn't a good source in the first place, nor is IMDb, which they're also using. They're both "anyone can edit" sites.

[Poetlister]

Wikipedia often isn't a good source in the first place, nor is IMDb, which they're also using. They're both "anyone can edit" sites.

Yes, we know that. The question is whether, if you avoid those sites, you can find sites that are guaranteed to be reliable and have all the information you need.

[Dysklyver]

Wikipedia often isn't a good source in the first place, nor is IMDb, which they're also using. They're both "anyone can edit" sites.

Yes, we know that. The question is whether, if you avoid those sites, you can find sites that are guaranteed to be reliable and have all the information you need.

The answer of course is "yes but".

The but is a combination of needing research skills, having access to information behind paywalls or in physical books, and the time it takes.

The concept of a free easy to use site with all the information you need is very attractive... and called Google.

In general Wikipedia is just a short go-to primer stuck at the top of your Google search.

[Poetlister]

It's at the top precisely because that's the easy option for Google.