Before I even begin, I'm not one of those who have been maligned by someone on Wikipedia (as of this writing) and am not writing this as "revenge." I'm writing out of a sense of moral indignation and a feeling of foolhardiness.

I used to be a big believer in Wikipedia and recommended it as a source of reliable information. After all, what could be better than a place where the experts on every conceivable subject could freely contribute to the greatest reference work of all time for the benefit of us all? How naive.

Wikipedia is not a collection of the experts on any subject, but a conglomeration of expertise, stupidity, opinion, malevolence, vandalism and typos. It was a grandiose idea, but it fails to live up to its promise so completely that it's utterly useless. There is no way to know what is factual information and what is baloney. Without accountability and reliability, it's useless. What's worse is, most people (like me before I became an editor and saw the ugly underbelly of the beast) do not realize how unreliable it is and regularly site it as authoritative. It has therefore become a menace to our society and must die. 

It's not a small matter. Wikipedia is regularly sited in forums that I visit as "authoritative" to a discussion or debate. Wikipedia is featured in news articles and on TV magazine shows. Most search engine results and most topics will result in at least one, and possibly many, links to a Wikipedia article. This mis-information machine has become a trusted source in our culture and it's anything but trustworthy. 

Wikipedia claims that writing is done with a neutral point of view (NPOV). But, that is impossible. I came across an article on abortion and added an external link to "abort73.com" (a very unique, informative, and popular pro-life website). Within seconds the link was removed and I was publicly criticized for linking to a web site that had graphic images on it. "We don't link to websites with graphic images." Oh - where did that rule come from? No where. This person had an opinion and a personal agenda to hide the truth from Wikipedians and they were going to do whatever it took to maintain Wikipedia's bias on the subject. I then found in the article a place where it referred to modern abortions as being "safe." So, I added "for the mother. The baby, of course, dies." I thought that was a NPOV way of making the distinction of who the procedure was relatively safe for. That was reverted before I could refresh the screen without so much as an explanation. I conceded that perhaps it was too POV since my POV is that the baby is a baby (according to Science), but others seem to disagree that the baby is - in fact - a baby. You know, some people believe that Elvis Presley was an alien and he's not dead, he just went home. So, I changed it to read "relatively safe procedure for the mother." That was reverted.  

If you care enough about a subject to write about it, you are naturally going to have a point of view and it's going to come through in your writing. Case in point, I wrote an article about Joomla almost a year ago. I was very excited about Joomla at the time (I still am, only I'm not heavily involved in the project forums anymore, so the zeal has dissipated some). The article has been hack, hashed and rehashed, but much of my original writing is still in place. As I look at it today, it is heavily biased! Even at that - a subject so benign that you would think there could be no way that such a topic would have controversy. My article was marked for deletion by people who had the POV that it wasn't important enough to write about. One of the rules of Wikipedia is to respect other contributors. No such courtesy exists in that culture. It's dog-eat-dog only worse. 

You may have heard about the man who was slandered by some anonymous person in Wikipedia and it was picked up and repeated by two other reference sites as fact. You can read the article here in the USAToday.

Well, that sort of behavior by stupid, bad, and/or thoughtless people has led to a mindset of editorial vigilantism and elitism. There are now within Wikipedia roving bands that advocate for all sorts of changes to the rules of Wikipedia. There are groups in favor of removing articles on subject matter that they have no interest in, limiting the information on certain articles (and they have a point to an extent, there are a ton of articles on the Lord of the Rings, including a page for nearly every character). You have camps of people who want to include more information and create a place for every bit of human knowledge. And then there are marauders that go from page to page vandalizing, trying to achieve an "under the radar" smear that will remain unreverted for a long time.

I, myself belong to a guild called "inclusionist" - mostly from my brush with the deletists. I don't actually agree with all the tenets of inclusionism, but they are the closest to where I get. At this point, though, it's pointless because it's unreliable.

When I signed in today to work on this article, I was greeted with a request for me to review the rules. The preface includes:

While we try to respect consensus, Wikipedia is not a democracy, and its governance can be inconsistent. Hence there is disagreement between those who believe rules should be explicitly stated and those who feel that written rules are inherently inadequate to cover every possible variation of problematic or disruptive behavior. In either case, a user who acts against the spirit of our written policies may be reprimanded, even if technically no rule has been violated.

However those who edit in good faith, show civility, seek consensus, and work towards the goal of creating a great encyclopedia should find a welcoming environment. Wikipedia greatly appreciates additions that help all people.

So, clearly, the word is getting around that the lawlessness needs to stop. The problem is that the underlying theory is flawed. The only theory that makes Wikipedia work is that people are basically good. The Bible tells us that just isn't true. As Christians we know that fallen people can do no good, there is none righteous, no not one, and the heart is deceitful above all else. Because people are basically bad they are going to insert their own prideful opinions; they are going to lie; they are going to mis-represent their credentials, their motives, and their POV. They are incapable of following the idealistic rules that Wikipedia puts down ... in either letter or spirit. That is the lesson of the Law of Moses - the more rules there are, the more it proves that we are incapable of being obedient.

When I want reliable information, I generally recognize that the information is only as reliable as the person who wrote it. A book by Spurgeon is going to be much more reliable than one by me. He has much more education, has spent much more time in study, and has done his time to prove his opinions and teachings are well thought-out and accurate.

The authority of the author is not even an option on Wikipedia. Our society has accepted the authority of Wikipedia based on a premise that it is a sort of "master-mind hive." The premise is false. Therefore, the acceptance based upon it should be rejected. Without accountability for who wrote it and any semblance of credibility for the information, how can we possibly trust anything on Wikipedia? It may be great and it may be garbage - we just don't know. If it's not a worthy reference work, then there is no reason for it to exist and it should go away. 

EDIT: (01Sept2006) It was interesting to wake up this morning after completing the above article last night and finding this article was slashdotted: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5286458.stm. The author of the BBC article referenced the same incident I did, but he knows more about pending changes at Wikipedia that just may serve to save it. I still contend, however, that the senior editors need to know what they are approving is accurate and there still doesn't seem to be any provision for that. 

EDIT2: (12Sept2006) Well, it seems like I've become something of a trend-setter. I start talking about a subject and suddenly everyone jumps in the conversation: check out what the Wall Street Journal had to say today.