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Jan 13 2009

Writing for Wikipedia - To Do or Not to Do?

Published by milawe under Misc Edit This

One of my favorite starting points for general research used to be Wikipedia, but by now, many of you in the gaming industry may have heard all the hooplah about the entire Threshold RPG vs. Wikipedia incident.  (That’s a bit of a misnomer.  I should say the incident is really between Threshold RPG and a few pompous, arrogant, and, ultimately, ignorant editors and administrators who definitely like to get together to gang-bang vulnerable articles.   You can read more about it here .

Now, I love to write, as anyone reading this blog would know, and the idea of writing something that would be really useful to someone else is a bit seductive.  That’s probably why I started this blog.  Imagine how seductive it must be to write for Wikipedia then.  There’s only one big problem, and it’s a doozy.  Anything you write can be changed or outright deleted by someone who very possibly has not not even finished high school yet.  Most of the people running around submitting articles for deletion (and arguing until they get deleted) obviously have not done a day of research in their life.  They have very little knowledge about how to write and how to cite, and their defense is the wikipedia policies and guidelines that have obviously been written for a more intelligent and educated crew.  They, however, love the power of being able to bludgeon people with their misinterpretations and ridiculous logic that would never fly in any kind of an academic setting.

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