Kryp

I see Wikipedia as a valuable resource and I particularly appreciate that knowledge and images are free, and that everyone can contribute here. Since I began editing, I made good and bad experiences here.

Critical remarks on my experience in Wikipedia

I experienced that WP had a bad reputation in scientific institutions, primarily because of a high degree of incorrect information contained here. My natural first reaction was that I tried to correct some mistakes and unbalanced information, and thus to contribute a little to a better reputation of the project. It was a good experience that I was able to correct some errors here. As an active scientist I am used to provide published references to statements that need such references, and initially I never had problems. In some cases I got feedback and I was also able to learn many new things here. I also learned that in some cases my own corrections were incorrect, and that I had to correct my view. All this was a good experience.

Later I made bad experiences with a minority of obviously experienced users in the German section (my perception was that their style was rather aggressive, I felt chased out, and learned that I was not the only one), and shifted more and more to the English section where users were more tolerant. As an active scientist at a university I learned that this encyclopedia is not always driven by scientific background knowledge, and that this is a systematic problem based in WP's policies. The policies as such appear well thought, but the problem is the lack of effective protection against abuse by members of the community. After more than one year editing here I was able to confirm what others had previously experienced, that also the English section has these problems. One bad experience and I became very cautious here too.

Low reliability and lack of scientific expertise

When Diderot and others started to compile the first encyclopedias 200 years ago they asked well-known scientists to write the articles. The result was widely regarded as a reliable recource, in the scientific world and outside. In WP this is different. Various authors can contribute to an article, but in cases of conflicts (two opinions) not the user with the better scientific background knowledge will win the conflict, but the experienced WP user who is used how to win the conflicts and who knows the tricks.

WP's policies are not in alignment with scientific reality. In science we are in a situation that much nonsense and incorrect information is published, and the advancement of science depends on persons being able to distinguish between nonsense/outdated/unbalanced information and views, and precious/correct/well established/up to date information. Some experience is necessary for such a judgement, and for exactly this reason Diderot and other editors of encyclopedias employed experienced scientists to write the articles. WP's articles often contain unbalanced, outdated and incorrect statements because the authors insist on formal requirements without having sufficient background knowledge to be able to judge if the cited information is nonsense, incorrect, unbalanced or outdated. If only 95 % of the statements are correct, the whole work turns to be unreliable.

Scientists know which publications are more relevant, and which ones less. If two opinions were published in two papers, scientists can judge if the two are equally acceptable or not. I experienced that WP users were not able to do this. They just cite a reference and that's it - the nonsense statement cannot be removed. I had one case where I had to perform a query using Google Scholar to demonstrate that the WP user's opinion was supported by 1.5 % of the scientific publications. Only after doing this the user gave me the mercy to include a statement in the article that the other view (which was supported by 98.5 % of the publications) was also possible. This was a bad experience, I lost precious time and I will never do such a research again, only to justify an edit. It was definitely not my intention to contribute here in order to learn how to win edit wars.

Nonsense information is usually based on published references

In my own scientific career I have published - like every scientist - many statements that later turned out to have been nonsense, unbalanced or incorrect information. Many points are so clear today that it is not necessary to publish a different view - and consequently nobody took care to correct that. Even the most famous peer-reviewed journals contain serious mistakes, especially if they touch uncommon subdisciplines. A recent example is the description of a new genus Leviathan in the Nature magazine - neither the authors nor the reviewers knew that a generic name can only be established once in zoology, and which database must be consulted to check if a new name is free. A WP author could write total nonsense by citing all this kind of nonsense information. In fact this happens so often (undeliberately, because many WP authors have so serious problems in distinguishing between nonsense and reliable information) that the reliability of scientific articles in this project is perceptably weak.

Experienced WP authors create the most serious problems in this system. They usually have a great and deep knowledge in their field - which is exactly why they have so serious difficulties to understand that they do not know everything in every subdiscipline.

The problem of "original research"

WP's policy not to allow "original research" is often abused to revert corrections of mistakes. Almost every single sentence in every WP article contains "original research". It is necessary to know where to draw the line between common knowledge and results of a scientific study. WP users have different perceptions about the limits in which original research is allowed here, and this is a big problem. Experienced WP authors can destroy another user's work almost entirely, and they can always use only this argument. The golden rule is: the experienced WP user will always win the conflict.

Examples: statements like "a book is present in public libraries", or "the Linnean collection which is located in Stockholm contains Linnean type specimens" do not need a reference because scientists know how to query in public databases to verify such a statement. In zoology it is sometimes necessary to know exactly which Article of the ICZN Code applies - scientists are supposed to know these things. Some WP authors do not have this knowledge and consider such statements as results of "original research", they demand published references. In one case (here) I was demanded to provide a published source for the statement "ICZN Code Article 8.1 applies to exactly this case" - the fact was so totally clear that it is logical that no such statement would ever have been published. If these WP users do not obtain a published reference as demanded, they may abuse their power to remove very basic and often important statements, which would be necessary to understand basic facts (in the mentioned case my edit was replaced by a link to a rule in the Code that did not apply to this case). Working in such an environment is not possible.

The result of this behaviour is that WP contains much nonsense and outdated information (also because active scientists do not feel invited to participate).

Some WP users are more equal than others

Some experienced WP users also take the power to discredit other users' contributions by adding unnecessary flags "citation needed" for statements that can be easily verified by common methods and which consequently would not need citations, or, very often seen, a flag "this article does not contain references", although everyone can see that appropriate references were given below.

In many other cases it would be really helpful to know on which published references the statements were based, but these have no flags "citation needed". If you ask you obtain the answer that the articles were initially written by experienced WP users who gave one single reference for the whole article and that it would look odd if a citation would be given behind every single statement (it seems they were not able to know that other chapters could later be added to the article). Once again suggesting that WP's policies are arbitrarily used and abused, and that those who know the tricks always win the game.

Experienced WP users even have more power. They may take the freedom to establish self-invented standards, and force others to accept them. In the example given here a WP user established an unusual and totally new standard of citing zoological names from early original sources - some letters and ligatures were cited as in the original typeface, but others not. Corrections were immediately reverted, asking for using a consistent standard remained without success.

Possible solutions

One solution would be to allow active scientists having more rights than other users. But who is an active scientist? Experienced active scientists do not necessarily know more than experienced WP users. It always depends in which field a person is specialised. This can only be judged from the contents of the edits. Everyone can make a mistake and overlook something.

Another solution would be that other users could correct the mistakes. This would definitely enhance the reliability and reputation. In WP trying to correct a mistake is exactly what does not work. This is the core of the problems here.

There are only very few experienced WP users who create these conflicts and problems and who always use the same arguments based on their very narrow personal interpretation of WP's policies (in the English section less than in the German section, where I experienced a generally much more aggressive style and much less tolerance for different interpretation of WP's policies). I experienced most WP users as fair and tolerant.

It is one of the major problems of Wikipedia that very few users abuse their power to discredit and level down the reputation of a whole project.

The core of the problems is not WP's policies. It is their abuse.

I see the only solution in much more rigid and effective measures against experienced WP users who have repeatedly been proven to have abused WP's policies. New users should be much better protected and should find help much more easily. Every article page should have a button "Revert unjustified? Report it". The report should not go to a body of persons who know the involved WP user personally.

Systematically induced mistakes

Another big problem in WP is that if the WP community has once taken a nonsense decision (due to the lack of background knowledge), this can practically not be corrected later. For example various features in the taxoboxes (the term "synonym" is incorrectly used, author and date are not linked with the original description). The argument is always "we know it is incorrect, but it would be too much work to correct it in all articles". I would identify this as a systematically induced mistake, in a system working with decisions taken by the user community. It is impossible to correct it without invoking an independent scientific board that would have the right to take decisions against the majority in the user community.

Summary

With increasing experience I have revised my initially positive view of the project, and started teaching:

- Never trust Wikipedia.

- Download free images, but don't copy text.

- Never assume that cited references are reliable and up to date.

- Don't waste your time in correcting mistakes. If a statement in WP is based on published incorrect or nonsense information, this cannot be corrected because WP authors insist on the nonsense being kept in the article. In such cases they always refer to WP's policies.

- Systematic mistakes in core features of WP cannot be corrected. Don't start discussing mistakes in core features, this is waste of time.