Wikipedia is one of, if not the best thing(s) to happen to the internet. It achieved basically what the internet's aim was: to democratize information.
Even when I have to learn something, ANYTHING, I'll go to Wikipedia, after which I read the sources of the article for in depth research. And while I dislike their political articles a lot, the science, math, history and arts articles are genuinely incredible to read.
Information is like internet.
It should be organized, but decentralized.
Wikipedia is a place of ultra-centralization where a handful of influential contributors have most of the power and will enforce the content they want using administrative processes (or arbitrary locking of pages) until you give up.
Otherwise don't be disappointed the day you disagree with the Wikipedian "neutral" point of view.
> Wikipedia is a place of ultra-centralization where a handful of influential contributors have most of the power and will enforce the content they want using administrative processes (or arbitrary locking of pages) until you give up.
I have also came to a realization of this when I saw a number of politically motivated powerful contributors vandalizing a calm and mature page about an old historical topic by introducing irrelevant if not made up content. They locked the page immediately after because "there was a threat of vandalism", ironically. It was really unsettling to see it as it unfolded.
I've defended Wikipedia fiercely, about how it's a reliable source because "you can see the sources that are cited" etc. But it is not always a reliable source for ordinary people. It only takes some determined powerful contributor to mess up.
It is a great tool nevertheless, but it really is centralized.
> I saw a number of politically motivated powerful contributors vandalizing a calm and mature page about an old historical topic by introducing irrelevant if not made up content.
No need to be cryptic here. Link to the content in question and the relevant edits so others can make a judgement about your experience. Otherwise why post this?
In the introduction, the war was painted as basically an "ethnic cleansing campaign", which nowhere in the article was such words used, and is a gross oversimplification. Although both sides massacred each other (mostly the actions of irregulars), the independence war itself was never defined like that before. Additinally, an odd "Historiography" section was added. To me, it looks pretty clear that these edits were made in bad faith.
The "switch" mentioned in the comment is the 1923 compulsory population exchange between Greece and Turkey following an agreement between Greek and Turkish governments, which I think shouldn't have happened as both countries would be more diverse.
If only people valued the idea of "world citizenship" and rejected all forms of extreme nationalism...
The internet is neither of these in its current implementation. It is a highly centralized but self-healing network with no organization above the oeprational level, itself built on centralized adherence to rules. Asking for organzation built on top of this to be decentralized is a weird expectation.
Even when I have to learn something, ANYTHING, I'll go to Wikipedia, after which I read the sources of the article for in depth research. And while I dislike their political articles a lot, the science, math, history and arts articles are genuinely incredible to read.