I would have expected it to be destroyed by vandals, marketeers and trolls, and that nutcases and people with alternative facts would have crowded out actually knowledgeable people.
For every person with a deep insight in a subject, there are fifty people who think they have a deep insight, and it is hard to tell the difference from the outside.
My concern was not that nobody would contribute, but that the wrong people would contribute.
Also "neutral point of view" is impossible, as any writer knows.
It is surprising and amazing the Wikipedia works so well. Although I'm sure they use a lot of resources on combating trolls and manipulation.
Neutrality in context really means covering all the significant points of view that are supported by reliable sources. The tricky concepts are the notions of undue weight (you really can't document everything anyone has ever said about Aristotle, for instance), and where to draw the line on what sources are regarded as reliable.
Wikipedia has a bunch of power user tools that are not very clear to the average user. Power users also have the ability to lock hot topic pages so only other power users can touch them.
I suspect it might have to do with the early adopters, who were not shitheads and as far as I learned, they are not soft on protecting their turf against vandals and other idiots. That created also lots of collateral damage and criticism, the loudest critic on wikipedis I usually hear is that they are too strict and eager on banning and locking articles.
> For every person with a deep insight in a subject, there are fifty people who think they have a deep insight, and it is hard to tell the difference from the outside.
If it’s hard to tell the difference from the outside, how do we know which one we got?
But it’s trivial to revert edits that don’t have valid citations. Tons of idiots do put shit in there all of the time but a pretty simple set of guidelines allows trivial reverts.
For every person with a deep insight in a subject, there are fifty people who think they have a deep insight, and it is hard to tell the difference from the outside.
My concern was not that nobody would contribute, but that the wrong people would contribute.
Also "neutral point of view" is impossible, as any writer knows.
It is surprising and amazing the Wikipedia works so well. Although I'm sure they use a lot of resources on combating trolls and manipulation.