[WikiEN-l] Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia

[Michael P Hopcroft]

kosebamse at gmx.net wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>   
>> The problem is that we peaked way too early. The site is late-alpha or
>> early beta at best, and should have big 1995-style yellow and black
>> "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" GIFs with really bad aliasing on most pages.
>>     
>
> The even more basic problem is everybody and their dog laments about article
> quality, yet nobody is bold enough to tell the world that we have already
> way too much garbage and can't even tell what is garbage and what is not. It
> has long been obvious to the insiders, and I am actually amazed that the
> rest of the world is only now beginning to realize it. Wikipedians need to
> realize that no amount of mediocre-to-shitty articles can compensate for a
> lack of quality content.
> A helpful approach would be to stop accepting new articles, take our
> content, scrutinise it and rewrite it from zero. Rewrite the encyclopedia
> and let the warriors/nutters/clueless kids have their fun, but not on our
> servers. Ah, the charm of radical solutions.
>   
An even more radical, but ultimately rational, approach would be to 
admit that the Wikipedia experiment is a disastrous failure and shut the 
site down completely and permanently.

A project with two equally important goals that are utterly incompatible 
by definition -- why was it launched in the first place? Wouldn't any 
rational observer have seen a result like this as not only possible but 
likely, if not inevitable?

The USA Today article makes a case not just for the obliteration of 
Wikipedia but ultimately for taking down the Internet itself.