Tom Stam

Review of Wikimedia Foundation Inc.

I am aware that my opinion is so unpopular as to c...

I am aware that my opinion is so unpopular as to constitute heresy, but I am utterly indifferent to that fact. I believe that the TRUTH must prevail. I am unable to enumerate all the reasons why I hate Wikipedia, let alone with all the detail necessary. Essentially, Wikipedia is where all factual accuracy, intelligence, and truth go to die. But they don't die with a violent bang, but with a creeping illness.

Well, conceptually, Wikipedia is a brilliant idea... NO IT'S NOT! It is an utterly idiotic idea! Yeah, we should so create an open source encyclopedia where any schmuck with an Internet connection could edit whatever information on a compendium of general knowledge at will. What the heck could possibly go wrong with that? At best, Wikipedia's toxic anti-elitism entrusts the random ignorant layperson with the role of an expert. All encyclopedias and nonfiction works are limited and imperfect, owing to our biases and the finitude of our knowledge as mortal beings, whether as individuals or institutions. However, reliable sources are only published with academic rigor, expertise, peer review... not so for Wikis! There is no way to establish the accuracy, precision, or reliability of the information within. Furthermore, the information itself, beyond its factual accuracy or lack thereof, may not even be weighted by relevance. As an example, I remember when the article for anime was longer than that for Japanese art. The content has been described as "a mile wide but only an inch deep." Essentially, Wikipedia is the encyclopedia for people with severe ADHD.

Also, I find Wikimedia Foundation to be a very Orwellian organization, crypto-totalitarians disguised as liberators. Their attempt to be NPOV is very cult-like. When reading sources published by any institution, I expect them to inadvertently instill their institutional bias. Wikipedia's pretense of absolute objectivity and neutrality is a farce! Their operation is essentially totalitarianism disguised as anarchism. Which brings up my next point, that, at worst, Wikipedia only appears democratic and bottom-up when it is really dominated by a cabal of mods. I will admit that I am guilty of "vandalizing" Wikipedia for sh!ts and giggles now and then, but there were times where I actually attempted constructive edits for the sake of human knowledge, but getting legitimate improvements through was like pulling teeth.

As with most millennials or GenY Wikipedia was not even around until high school or college. I remember when we had to do actual research in the library, or even on the Internet. Nowadays, kids can just plagiarize Wikipedia for school assignments. Thank you, Wikimedia, for your part in dumbing down society. Funnily enough, not only is it not a good encyclopedia, it is not even a bad encyclopedia! At least a bad encyclopedia is an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is a collection of school research assignments disguised as an Internet encyclopedia.

But as bad as Wikipedia proper is, it is far from the worst. Insult to injury, Wikipedia inspired laughable wikis devoted to extreme political ideologies. Conservapedia comes to mind, being a possible parody of an ultra-conservative Republican gone full retard. Then there are ideological wikis by and for communists, the "skeptic community" [RationalWiki] and even the alt-right and bonafide neo-Nazis. And that does not even cover all of the nerdy wikis devoted, with an "autistic" level of obsessiveness, to imaginary universes on Wikia (the for-profit arm of this organization, which exists to set the illusion that Wikipedia is a nonprofit endeavor). The entire Wikipedia project should have failed the day it launched. It only succeeded at all due to generous funding from the extraordinarily wealthy but equivalently naive ultra-liberal techno-socialist utopians of Silicon Valley. Wikipedia needs to fail already and be forgotten. Yimakh shemo, Wikipedia, yimakh shemo!