Alright, imagine Wikipedia is a boat. It is held up by articles, which are pieces of wood. Workers are allowed to enter and leave to add additional woods in different critical areas. Over the 9 years its been online, it turned from a small raft into a roman warship. Its so perfect that the captains want to make it sleeker by shaving off excess wood.
That is the Wikipedia we know today. The most complete encyclopedia known to men, it stands as a tribute to web 2.0- and the power of online collaboration. However, as the knowledge of Wikipedia exceeds most people, the editors are leaving. What does that mean? Is Wikipedia “complete”? Or do we need some professors to start writing Wikipedia?
The problem is not “completion”- for example, while every school in my small home nation of Singapore has a wiki page (My school can be found here), schools in most other countries does not have wiki pages. That proves that there are still places wikipedia can be improved upon.
The brain drain is not caused by overknowledge. It is actually the rules which are holding it back. Wikipedia has an extensive laws to prevent unneeded articles and unneeded information. The moderators can watch every new page being born. The “bad” pages are nominated for speedy deletion- within a few hours. Wikipedia usually delete pages through a vote of moderators, much like the jury system. However, these pages are deleted without any proper reason.
Their reason for speedy deletion? Lack of notability.
I understand deleting self-biographies, but when I tried to make a Wiki page for this site, Techxav got the axe, all while other small blogs with the same amount of views have an exceptional long Wikipedia page.
I didn’t even have time to tweet it out for people to help edit before they shut it down. That is a few hours.
I can accept that our website is not notable enough, but youtube e-celebrities such as Shay Carl and Shane Dawson deserve wiki pages. Shay Carl (shaytards) vlogging every day of his life for a year, while Shane Dawson (shanedawsontv) has more subscribers then Philip Defranco (sxephil), another famous youtube celebrity. The strange thing is PhillyD has a wiki page while Shane’s and Shay’s are speedy deleted.
I may be wrong on some points, but it is very clear what Wikipedia needs to do to grow- just “surviving” won’t do on the internet. They need to let loose a little and start letting a broader range of topics to be on the Wikipedia. If not, all the indie wikis will be able to eclipse them.
I would like to introduce you to Wiki.com, where you can search all indie wikis, such as wikia. Go for it. You can find out about the perks in Modern Warfare or find a wiki on whatever you like. Go try it and search for something specific. You will be presently surprised.
(Image from WSJ)