I hear stories like this, but have not run into it myself, with the exception of areas that are inherently contentious anywhere, such as Israel-Palestine or current elections. What kinds of areas is it in? I most often run into the opposite problem of just not enough people around. I'll ask for comments on a talk page and nobody will answer for months, if ever; and even some of the WikiProjects are ghost towns if I ask a question over there. The people who do answer are usually polite and helpful. I mostly edit in history- and geography-related areas, along with a little bit of computer science. Are those unusually polite areas?
If anything, I personally find Wikipedia-writing a bit of a relaxing break from the often-rancor-filled tone of other online activities (even HN can have an edge to it). Digging up some books from the library and using them to write a new article or two, along with adding a few citations to other articles, etc., passes a pleasant afternoon.
And since then I've occasionally looked at the main article and seen how the text has gradually become less readable and more error-ridden over time. For instance, following collaborative research discussing about 20 sources, I changed the first sentence to 'Logic, from the Greek λογική (logiké)[1] is defined by the Penguin Encyclopedia to be "The formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning".[2]' in
However, people have their own ideas about what the topic is, and so the lead sentence has become the longer, vaguer, less cogent, unsourced, and, as a recent commenter has pointed out, incoherent two sentences 'Logic (from the Greek λογική logikē)[1] refers to both the study of modes of reasoning (which are valid and which are fallacious)[2] and the use of valid reasoning. In the latter sense, logic is used in most intellectual activities, including philosophy and science, but in the first sense is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science.'
(note that this [2] supports the old sentence, not the current two sentences)
All this in an article that the Wikipedia 1.0 project counts as amongst its 100 most important.
I liked editing maths articles - it seemed to attract a nice, well-informed, and result-focussed crowd. I value Wikipedia as a resource for a range of topics, such as network protocols. I liked editing philosophy articles in 2004, but I stopped enjoying it in 2006, and stopped believing that Wikipedia was a useful resource for such topics around 2009.
Good point. General articles like "logic" are contentious, which I had forgotten as I tend to avoid them. I feel Wikipedia is not at its strongest there, since it tends to require synthesis that is almost inevitably opinionated and subjective. Most good review articles in journals are opinionated critical surveys that make novel syntheses (e.g. propose a new taxonomy), which is not really Wikipedia's role.
Though, having participated in some attempts in academia to come up with consensus summaries on subjects, I think the problem may be inherently hard rather than Wikipedia-specific. If you get 10 prominent AI researchers, from several traditions, in a room and ask them to write a 5-page general introduction to AI, there will almost certainly be sparks flying. You quickly run into the trouble (as in the logic article) of jockeying over what sub-areas deserve prominent mention, how to conceive of and define the subject, etc. And the results inevitably sound "written by committee", since the intro has to include a nod to everyone's area.
I've lately taken a more systemic view of Wikipedia coverage, where my goal is to improve Wikipedia's network of articles in an area rather than mainly the top-level overview article. So I care less about what goes in [[History of Greece]], and more about the thousands of articles (most of which don't yet exist) on historical Greek people, places, events, etc. I think that network-of-coverage aspect is one of Wikipedia's strengths as a hypertext encyclopedia, whereas the overview articles are a strength of more traditional linear-text encyclopedias like Britannica. It also feels easier to make incremental progress in that approach: I sometimes just pick up a random history book from a library shelf, and start asking what it covers that Wikipedia doesn't yet cover, then begin adding that.
>I think that network-of-coverage aspect is one of Wikipedia's strengths as a hypertext encyclopedia, whereas the overview articles are a strength of more traditional linear-text encyclopedias like Britannica.
Hypertext for the win! May the power of the web be with you :)
After the most recent "well, ten minutes in Google would have been easier and more constructive than several days of telling people it's not Notable" incident, the deletionist kid involved at least had the good grace to be embarrassed at their actions.
I have authored many art related articles and corrected/augmented many others, and so far aside from the usual bots that clean up and fix typos and formatting errors, I have not seen any problems with deletions.
If anything, I personally find Wikipedia-writing a bit of a relaxing break from the often-rancor-filled tone of other online activities (even HN can have an edge to it). Digging up some books from the library and using them to write a new article or two, along with adding a few citations to other articles, etc., passes a pleasant afternoon.