back to article Wikipedia failing to recruit any new admins

The number of people approved as full Wikipedia admins is falling faster than expected, according to a report from the Wikimedia conference by The Atlantic yesterday. The admins or sysops are the crack nerd troops of Wikipedia - they have the power to delete posts, block editors or protect pages that are being vandalised. …

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  1. Piloti
    Thumb Down

    The reason is.....

    .... that the spelling and grammar on wiki-paedia is appalling. They do not even spell their own name correctly. And when one logs in and corrects the spelling and grammar, it is returned to it's incorrect former state.

    No wonder it has reached status quo.

    1. Andrew Richards
      Coat

      Re: The reason is.....

      "it is returned to _its_ incorrect state"

      FTFY.

    2. Annihilator
      Happy

      Re: The reason is.....

      Damn you. My irony-o-meter has just exploded, and I'd only just replaced it after Etonian David Cameron criticised Britain's "culture of entitlement".

      (nod to Marcus Brigstocke...)

    3. Tom Maddox Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: The reason is.....

      Ahem . . . a few corrections.

      * "Wikipedia" is a name, so the Wikimedia Foundation can spell it however they want. Also, Wikipedia was founded in America, where the root word of Wikipedia is spelled "encyclopedia," so your "correction" is wrong on two counts.

      * One does not start a sentence with a conjunction.

      * I think you mean "its incorrect former state."

      * I also think you mean "spelling and grammar on wiki-paedia (sic) *are* appalling."

      I just can't *imagine* why your edits aren't held up as exemplars of perfection!

      1. Galadrius
        FAIL

        Re: The reason is.....

        > One does not start a sentence with a conjunction.

        Ahem... one sure does. Don't you read Wikipedia?

        * Many students are taught that certain conjunctions (such as "and", "but", and "so") should not begin

        * sentences, although authorities such as the Chicago Manual of Style proclaim that this teaching has "no

        * historical or grammatical foundation"

        See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_%28grammar%29

        1. Tom Maddox Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: The reason is.....

          Consider me corrected. In fairness, that's the rule I was taught, but it wouldn't be the first time my teachers were wrong. Here's a slightly more authoritative take on it: http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/01/can-i-start-a-sentence-with-a-conjunction/. Taking Wikipedia's word for the "rule" would seem inappropriate in this context.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A second reason reason is....

    .... that on any contentious issue, from football to politics, you get admins who will revert your changes no matter how factual and evidence based your changes are. For a large amount of these issues wikipedia pages have become the personal opinion of a select few.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A second reason reason is....

      Got bored of this happening, stuff getting reverted back for no apparent reason

      The last one was an external link (I understand the nervousness), I put a link to the official event page, it was reverted to a reportage article from the BBC from five years ago and no longer relevent

      Sod that

      Wikipedia is going the way of DMoZ, content Mafia killing it

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A second reason reason is....

      And this is particularly obvious if you look at issues that are only "controversial" if you happen to be, say, a neo-nazi or nationalist.

      What you find is that a complimentary version with awfully nice portrait pictures of key "nasty" historical figures, and certain inconvenient central issues or events are simply left out totally in the "local language" version of the WikiPedia page.

      The English-language International page version generally has the unvarnished truth and rather less flattering, more neutral photos chosen.

      If you check this out using Google Translate, you will see what I mean, the obvious example to choose being the rather awful Mr H of WWII fame. Pick a Wikipedia webpage language version from any single country that fought both for and against him for best results.

      For the best laugh compare side-by-side English and translated-into-English in neighboring tabs in your web browser....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A second reason reason is....

        > And this is particularly obvious if you look at issues that are only "controversial" if you happen to be, say, a neo-nazi or nationalist.

        Right, so what you are saying is that if you find that wikipedia's content regarding your favourite baseball team is biased then you must be a neo-nazi and wikiipedia's English content only contains the "truth".

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: A second reason reason is....

          No, I'm just saying this is what the editing degenerates into when local cliques of editors think the rest of the world isn't looking or can't understand what they'ŗe writing ;)

          Typically a clue is just massive amounts of inconvenient stuff left out, far less paragraphs on the page.

          Presumably this is faster and more convenient for them than all agreeing on exactly how to rig the wording into being flattering historical revisionism. Another clue is focusing on endearing personality quirks, in the place of, say, massacres or other unpleasantness.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: A second reason reason is....

          No, I follow your reasoning, but I didn't mean from an Anglo-first or English-is-right perspective, that doesn't interest me, I don't care what language the majority converse in as long as they try to do things fairly and with maximum openness. That doesn't seem to be happening in some of the local-language pages. In fact, some of the content could well be illegal for obvious reasons in countries such as Austria, Belgium, Germany, France, Hungary, Romania, Poland, etc., although the pages may not originate from their country.

    3. dcd
      Thumb Down

      Re: A second reason reason is....

      Once tried to correct the birth place of someone that was wrong. Was auto reverted by a bot and I had to plead with the bot owner on his talk page that I was right.

      Fuck that!

  3. Tigra 07
    Go

    Mostly correct...

    You missed out the part where admins are not as necessary as they were since they can't have time to edit with all the beurocratic crap that takes up their time and the fact you can apply for extra permissions without having to become an admin, with the extra work load that entails.

    Plus with 4 million articles there's gonna be slower growth as there's less stuff to write about.

    Anyone complaining about getting reverted, if there's no citation (proof) in the form of a reliable source (not daily mail) included with your addition it will quite often be tagged and challenged.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mostly correct...

      took out a broken link to something

      added a working link to the same thing

      reverted

      arses to wikipedia, not worth my time either reading or writing

  4. Tigra 07
    Go

    Mostly correct...

    You missed out the part where admins are not as necessary as they were since they can't have time to edit with all the beurocratic crap that takes up their time and the fact you can apply for extra permissions without having to become an admin, with the extra work load that entails.

    Plus with 4 million articles there's gonna be slower growth as there's less stuff to write about.

    Anyone complaining about getting reverted, if there's no citation (proof) in the firm of a reliable source (not daily mail) included with your addition it will quite often be tagged and challenged.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mostly correct...

      you should withdraw this comment as duplication

    2. Whitter
      Thumb Down

      Re: Mostly correct...

      By "challenged" you mean "reverted"?

  5. Melanie Winiger

    Fad over

    Without going into the Technical details, I tried to edit a Wiki Page which was blatantly incorrect.

    I was over-ruled by the Admin.

    I'm not bothering again.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fad over

      yup

  6. localzuk Silver badge

    Used to edit there...

    Got sick of the bureaucracy! Editing became a chore rather than an interesting hobby. So, after 7000+ edits, I gave up.

    Admins wielded their tools like they were supreme overlords of pages rather than understanding that they are actually the janitors of the site.

    The hoop jumping is far too annoying. There are far too many admins who spend their time editing the admin pages rather than actually editing articles.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. John H Woods Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Used to edit there...

      I agree - the admins are often plonkers. My last ever wikipaedophilia edit was to change a minor typo where someone had written that induction hobs had to meet 'minimal saftey standards' for impact. I changed it to minimum and it was immediately changed back. The admin, who was either thick and/or not a native English speaker insisted the terms were synonyms and that there was therefore no need to change them. I pointed out that if he were correct, there would have been no need to revert my changes, but to no avail.

      It's all ego with these guys, there's no arguing with them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Used to edit there...

        The 'admin' you complain about was not an admin. They have since your edit in December been blocked for disruptive editing. They _were_ a dick. It took awhile for that to be found out. You didn't help that, did you?

        If you can't recognize what is going on, why am I not surprised you are confused by it?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    barriers

    I tried to upload a picture to Wikipedia the otherday for the first time in probably 5 years and it was such a confusing farce of boxes to tick, drop downs to select that in the end I just gave up. No doubt the article I wrote will get pulled shortly as well.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    oh, wikipedia, I remember that

    *wanders off and checks two topics he knows a lot about*

    Yeah, that's why I don't go there, if the content is as bad as that covering something I know a lot about, how on earth can I trust it to tell me things I know nothing about

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I'm sure the page on WMDs is just fine

  9. This post has been deleted by its author

  10. Great Bu

    Complete.....

    Surely the number of Admins is falling because Wikipedia is pretty much complete now, all the knowledge ever is now on it and we can sit back and bask in it's glow......

    1. Andrew Richards

      Re: Complete.....

      "_its_ glow"

      1. Pedigree-Pete
        Happy

        Re: Complete, its_glow

        No irony here then....

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Complete.....

        "_it's_ glow"

        reverted due to lack of authoritative citation.

  11. Ian Johnston Silver badge
    FAIL

    Much explained by the BBC

    Anyone else see this article on the BBC website?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18833763

    Every stereotype of a wikipedia admin is there. Want to know who's reverting the edits of a respected academic in the field? Why, an overweight, unemployed pizza delivery boy in his thirties, that's who. Because the crowd, that's why.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I used to edit Wikipedia...

    ..but then they incorrectly declared that my IP address was an open proxy and blocked me.

    This stimulated a painful discussion with admins over why they were not correct. Several different individuals grilled me about what I do for a living and why I use Wikipedia.

    In the end they said something along the lines of "there is a way for us to correct the issue, but we don't think you're an important enough contributor so we can't be bothered".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I used to edit Wikipedia...

      I still occasionally edit wikipedia, perhaps a few times a year, and have written about half a dozen new pages, and nearly all of what I've written years ago still stands, with useful contributions from other contributors to pages I created or added to. As to insisting on editing within a reputation-free context (that's the only reason I can think of why you won't get a pseudonymous login account and handle) and complaining about being blocked this complaint doesn't speak very positively about your willingness to take responsibility for your own editing reputation does it ?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I used to edit Wikipedia...

        To'I still occasionally edit wikipedia' AC, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU REPLYING TO!!??

        also AC lulz

        I dunno what conversation you're trying to have but you're on your own so far

        thanks for the laugh, and the Q.E.D. on wikipedia editors

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @ AC 1126

        I do have an account.

        Being accused of running an open proxy meant that I was blocked even when logged in to my well-established account.

        Sir, maybe your post says more about your tendencies to jump to conclusions and cast vague disparagements on the character of strangers?

    2. MrZoolook

      Re: I used to edit Wikipedia...

      For what its worth, I am a 'reasonably' busy editor, with all my edits remaining unchallenged except for about 4. And that garners me with about as much respect as everyone here by the sounds.

      The thing that REALLY pissed me off only recently however was some fuckhead who argued that me uploading a small gmail envelope icon for use in a user info box was deemed copyright infringement. After I pointed out to that editor (yes, not even an admin, though he is sleeping with and blackmailing some if the result of this exchange is anything to go by) that his own user page contains some copyright logos, he explained that those were OK because they consisted only of simple geometric shapes and were thus not eligible for copyright protection.

      I would have been fine with that, had the gmail envelope icon been something other then... a simple geometric shape and thus not eligible for copyright protection. After I pointed this out, he changed his tune saying that single letter logos (such as the Opera 'O') were allowed as they were uncopyrightable under US law. When I pointed out that the Opera 'O' also has a shadow underneath, and thus isn't a single letter, some other editor/admin gets involved, and tells ME to check up on the rules regarding copyright in a somewhat threatening tone.

      But all is well. I am a patient guy and one of them will die eventually and the other will revert (pun intended) into the spineless muppet he is and let others get down to actually editing and improving articles instead of dealing with his political fuck buddies.

      ~~~~

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That would be because they are cliquey, anti-expert and openly hostile.

  14. heyrick Silver badge

    I would like to say it's Wiki's fault for... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girlfriend; but the fact of the matter is that I went to make an edit to something that was incorrect (and I had docs to prove it), and this was reverted as "vandalism", and didn't want to hear otherwise. Sod that. I'll go play on TVTropes instead.

    Wiki doesn't need new editors as much as it needs to weed out the pricks from the current editors. I understand that it is probably a thankless job and there are a lot of people doing stupid things, but if this is the reception newbies get (looks at previous posts, raises an eyebrow), where's the incentive for us to give a damn any more?

    1. MrZoolook

      Heyrick... I can top that.

      Its also responsible for the statement that:

      The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right[11] and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

      I mean, its perfectly fine to assert that a country consists of 4 countries... but who am I to argue? So the 4 countries of the USA would be Mexico, Canada, Afghanistan and China... right?

  15. Kar98
    Trollface

    Oh, is Wikipedia still a thing?

    Are we still doing that?

  16. Big Dave 1
    Thumb Up

    Wiki admins used to have a high proportion of frankly insane shut-ins and sperglords abusing their positions to push their own bizarre agendas and grind axes so it can only be a good thing that they're vetting them more thoroughly. Better ten reliable admins than a thousand barking loons.

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