[WikiEN-l] Is Wikipedia dying?

[Ken Arromdee]

On Thu, 5 Nov 2009, Surreptitiousness wrote:
>> Well, two things people can do is improve [[Evgeny Morozov]] and [[Claude
>> Chabrol]].
> Or send a {{sofixit}} to the author of the review.
>
> I think what annoys me about Wikipedia critics is that they hold the
> very solution to all their criticisms in their power. Get in and change it.

Perhaps I should write an essay SODONTFIXIT about why "so fix it" is a bad
idea.  For one thing, most people pointing to errors don't claim that
Wikipedia is bad because it contains one particular error.  Rather, they
claim that that error is representative of other errors (which they may
not even be able to find, let alone fix).  Sometimes, they may even be using
the error to point to a systematic problem; obviously fixing the single error
won't fix the systematic problem.

It also leads to some problems we're already familiar with with BLPs, such as
having to constantly watch the article for the rest of your life to make sure
the fix stays.

Also, learning how to edit articles without being reverted can take an
incredible amount of time and bureaucracy-navigating if the user is unlucky
enough to have picked articles that people are watching.  (Can you describe
the conflict of interest rules without looking them up?  What about
notability?  And how can a new person defend against rules lawyers anyway?)