 | This user knows by heart the first 30 digits in the decimal representation of pi. |
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I use Wikipedia primarily because I am a curious person and I enjoy the acquisition of knowledge. Most of my time in Wikipedia is spent reading. I have, in addition, made a somewhat large number of small edits and a few major edits, and there are a couple articles that I am almost entirely responsible for. Still, I would probably be described as a minor member of the community.
Places where I think Wikipedia fails as an encyclopedia
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Much as I am incredibly fond of Wikipedia and while I think it generally meets its objectives, I have discovered some instances where I would have to maintain that it fails to meet them. Perhaps it might eventually be helpful for the community for me to list a couple of them here.
- I do think there is good reason to be concerned about global warming and about how human activities can potentially affect it, but I find the global warming pages on Wikipedia to be misleading and (subtlely) alarmist. When I have tried to make or suggest changes, I have found the Wikipedians who edit those pages to be militant and uncompromising, which runs counter to the consensus-based nature of Wikipedia and which I think has resulted in Wikipedia being a source that cannot be trusted for global warming information. Most notable is the following image [1]. Notice that if the black line is removed, the other series show that temperatures at the end of the time period are essentially the same as they were in 1000. Notice also that the black line is limited so that you cannot see what it was at in 1000. Moreover, it is darker than all the other lines, it is thicker than all the other lines, and it is placed on top of all the other lines.
- There have been additions made to the Thomas Jefferson page that provided well-referenced evidence of Jefferson not being a deist for some parts of his life. In a similarly militant and uncompromising fashion, Wikipedians who edit that page continually remove such additions and in fact generally remove any changes that in any way challenge the claim that Jefferson was a deist. In the meantime, statements supporting this claim are allowed to stand. As such, I do not think Wikipedia is a source that can be trusted for information about Jefferson's religious views.
- I fully understand and appreciate the reasons for the Avoid weasel words guideline, but I have found in practice that this guideline is more harmful to Wikipedia than helpful. It should not be the case that certain words are universally ruled out (as some Wikipedians, including some administrators, treat this guideline as implying). Sometimes some of those words are exactly what is needed to make an encyclopedic statement. I have found that removing alleged weasel words can result in statements that are less nuanced and ultimately less honest than what was there before the words were removed. Moreover, I have found editors to use this guideline as an excuse to revert changes that are intended to remove POV and as an excuse to revert changes that are intended to fix unreferenced statements. In addition, the guideline is a bit vague about what exactly should be avoided, making it difficult to resolve disputes involving this guideline easily. I think that this guideline should be either reformulated or replaced, preferably to something that is more clearly focused on statements rather than on words. I honestly think that most cases of alleged weasel words can be covered as cases of statements requiring references. Other instances of alleged weasel words could be covered under a guideline concerning uninformative statements.
![[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png){kind=link}