Wikipedia:Problems with Wikipedia
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I do not believe that Wikipedia is failing. However, nothing is perfect; there are several places where Wikipedia can be improved. I'm creating this page as a centralized place where the problems with Wikipedia can be listed, and a solution found. Since the focus of this page is to find a solution, problems without a solution (like world peace the end of vandalism on Wikipedia) are not useful additions, nor are problems which are already solved (or that are not actually a problem in the first place).
Recent changes overload
The amount of edits per minute on the Recent changes keeps increasing; more and more vandalism is starting to slip through the cracks. Not only that, but the time until it's fixed is also increasing (sometimes over a week on particularly egregious vandalism; for instance [1] which was only reverted 11 revisions later [2]). The amount of deletion backlogs is also growing.
Possible solutions
- More automation.
Poor documentation
A lot of the documentation on how things should be done on Wikipedia is hard to find, missing, incomplete, outdated, confusing, or even downright wrong. This is not much of a problem for experienced editors (who can usually, after just one or two tries, guess the correct words which, when prefixed by WP:, Wikipedia:, or Help:, lead to a helpful redirect), but can be a stumbling block for new users. The several variations of welcome templates help, but not every new user gets one of them.
Possible solutions
- Something like User:John Broughton/Editor's Index to Wikipedia can help.
Problem editors
Blatant vandalism can be dealt with quickly; however, some problem people can drive other editors away from an article, a subject, or even the whole Wikipedia, without doing something which would lead to being blocked for more than a few hours each time. These problem people usually do not contribute to the improvement of Wikipedia (they often do the opposite), while the editors they drive away usually would make a positive effect.