A reader writes:
As a former frequent (and now occasional) editor of Wikipedia, a few thoughts on the various reports of its demise, and the popular theory that turf-warring bands of administrators are to blame – there is another side to this coin.
Many editors who find themselves being "oppressed" by administrators often do so with good reason: Political partisans frequent the site, and many politically sensitive articles are common battlegrounds from activists trying to cement their version of the facts into the web encyclopedia of record. Spammers and self-promoters both attempt to use the site to hawk their wares or tout their employers, their band, etc. There are many noteworthy people, including a few scientists, who have been banned from editing due to a persistent desire to edit their own biographies and inflate the importance of their own careers. Numerous crackpot scientists would attempt to place their ridiculous claims, devices, and therapies on par with legitimate medicine. And many editors' contributions are just plain garbage – material that is unsourced, dubious, or flat-out-wrong.
Some of these people will accept gentle self-correction, but many of them will not, acting as though modification of the encyclopedia is a God-given right. And if and when their corrections are reverted, it's always the same excuse: the administrative authority being exercised is ALWAYS arbitrary and capricious and being done for no good reason. In short, the failing always lies with the admins, and not with contributors who can't be bothered to learn (or who are there to flout) the norms of the site.
Of course, turf-warring admins do exist – any community as large as Wikipedia will have its share of bad apples. And there has been, ever since the site's founding, a perpetual debate on the subject of "notability" – the notion that some topics are of insufficient importance to merit coverage in the encyclopedia. Probably 90% of the notability battles concern attempts at self-promotion, as articles about local garage bands get whacked; however the other 10% often concerns obscure topics that some editors find important and interesting and others consider trivial, or lowbrow topics such as Pokemon species or porn stars which some editors considered unworthy of mention.
But during my Wikipedia editing career (I stopped editing regularly for personal reasons having nothing to do with the site's policies, and remain a contributor in good standing), it was my observation that over 80% of the contributors who ran afoul of the admins had very little useful material to contribute to the encyclopedia. The vast majority of the rest were valued contributors on many topics but were unwilling to submit to community consensus on a controversial topic they held in high importance (Israel-Palestine being a notable example of this), and decided to walk as a result.
The Dish 