Wikipedia's War on Gaming History and Threshold RPG (Page 4 of 4)

5) Wikipedia has absolutely no respect for experts. While actual policies show respect for experts, most of the people who control Wikipedia do not. Many Wikipedians frequently demonstrate extreme hostility towards the involvement of experts. They will start with the COI and NPOV excuses, and then they will argue experts were only consulted as a result of "canvassing." This attitude towards experts is the complete opposite to the way academics and researchers treat experts, and is another reason the information on Wikipedia is unreliable and increasingly inaccurate.

6) The obsession with deleting obscure topics is a slow suicide. Obscure topics is what Wikipedia does best. Paper publications are forced to prioritize based on notability because they are creating a physical object. As one of their policies states, "Wikipedia is not paper." It does not have these limitations. If someone were doing serious research, Wikipedia would be a horrible place to go. The information is unreliable and no serious audience, professor, or professional would accept the sources. But for obscure stuff, pop culture, niche areas, etc., Wikipedia is amazing. If you need information about an old, canceled TV show, out of print comic books, rare toys, or anything like that, Wikipedia is a great resource. Sadly, the current trend is to get rid of all that stuff since it is not terribly notable. So what if it isn't notable? Who cares about notability? If notability was so great, we'd be using Encarta. Wikipedia is playing towards its weakness and completely surrendering its area of strength. That is more than a shame. It is a tragic loss for everyone.

7) Too much of Wikipedia's leadership is corrupt. The system is the beginning of the problem as I already noted. But on top of that, the degree to which Wikipedians protect their own is absolutely astonishing. If you have enough edits and enough friends you can do whatever you want. You can run roughshod over "outsiders" and then bury them in various "tattle tale methods" to get them in trouble. The different ways you can report someone for censure is amazing. There have to be at least 6 or 7 different ways to report someone that I either experienced or witnessed, and I have read about another 5-10. The experienced insider will use one after another to get rid of whoever they don't want around.

1) Dump WP:N (notability). Worry about verifiability and accuracy, but forget notability. It is too subjective, and the result of it is a loss of interesting, valuable information.

2) Make all adminships temporary. You get 1 year as an admin, and then you spend at least 1 year as a regular editor.

3) Stop deleting obscure or niche topics.

4) Hire a lot more paid staff to be your "real administrators." These people need to be under constant review to prevent abuse, and their main job should be to patrol the volunteer administrators for inappropriate behavior. There should be a very low tolerance for suspicious behavior. Wikipedia has a huge pool of potential administrators. They can fire with impunity for questionable actions.

5) Call editors "users." Call administrators "editors". For both groups, it will take their egos down a notch.

6) Narrow it down to *1* way to report someone for bad behavior.

We need to start recording MUD and MMO history now. We need to do it in an organized fashion that will be respected not just by the hacks at Wikipedia, but by an academic or other legitimate researcher. MMOs seem huge and mainstream now, so it is hard to imagine people considering them insignificant. But that is how we felt about MUDs 10 years ago, and nowadays many gamers don't even know what a MUD is (or they are dismissive of them in the extreme).

This is a cautionary tale for people with interest in any obscure or niche topic. Wikipedia cannot be relied on to preserve history or information about non-mainstream topics. The current culture actually discourages it. It is our responsibility to find better ways to preserve such information, lest it be lost to the vicissitudes of time.

Thanks in part to a huge outcry in the gaming media, this issue finally attracted some objective, rational editors and administrators who actually care more about Wikipedia than their contribution score. Since that time, the Threshold article has been restored and is being worked on. Sadly, it has also been proposed for deletion 3 more times, and the "usual suspects" are still trying to get it deleted (again). This goes to show there are indeed good editors and administrators working on Wikipedia. Tragically, they suffer and rail against the same self-serving deletionist movement as everyone else.