Our Love/Hate Relationship With Wikipedia

netbuzz points us to a somewhat snarky Washington Post article about the Wikipedians' work in upholding a minimum standard of "notability" for the collaborative encyclopedia. Here's his take on the Post's bemusement from a NetworkWorld blog: "The Washington Post this morning gets its snickers at the Wikipedians who do the best they can to apply the minimum 'notability' standards needed to keep the online encyclopedia's 1.5 million English entries relatively free of worthless junk. 'It's also safe to assume these are people with a lot of time on their hands,' the Post writer notes... These are people doing a truly thankless job... and they deserve a few thank-yous."

It's not thankless

[i kan reed (749298)]

Most wikipedia editors you ever interact with are really quite nice. Wikipedia has a good sense of community. There's also a bit of personal satisfaction of knowing that you're slowly helping expand the ammount of freely available public knowledge, without the cruft.

Re:It's not thankless

[Original Replica (908688)]

"freely available public knowledge, without the cruft."- why would The Washington Post which makes it's money and reputation on charging for the distribution of knowledge, ever endorse that?

Re:It's not thankless

[EMeta (860558)]

The Post (and most newspapers) make a very small percentage of their revenue on subscription. Far more comes from advertisements; which is of course why most larger cities have free papers of some sort.

Re:It's not thankless

[Golias (176380)]

The real question here is:

Why is cruft a problem???

If somebody publishes a 15,000-word wiki on the 1970s NBC show "Cliffhangers", it's not like Wikipedia suddenly takes up more space on my bookshelf. Personally, I love that there's so much obscure crap on Wikipedia. Somebody on Fark mentioned some way-out there pop culture reference I never heard of, and Wiki has me up-to-speed in a matter of seconds. How can this possibly be a Bad Thing?

(Unless you are a journalist for a dying media with an axe to grind, that is...)

Re:It's not thankless

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

I couldn't agree more. Wikipedia went down in my estimation when they started aggressively pruning. A couple of articles I regularly used for reference suddenly vanished because the topics weren't 'notable.' Oh, and once they were deleted, non-admins then couldn't even read the old version. In my opinion, if a single user (other than the author) finds a Wikipedia entry useful then it has value and shouldn't be deleted.

One of the biggest advantages that Wikipedia has is that it can have a much larger scope than any print publication ever could, and it seems silly to squander this.

Re:It's not thankless

[harmonica (29841)]

Personally, I love that there's so much obscure crap on Wikipedia.

My opinion exactly!

However, disappointments come when an important (yeah, whatever that means) topic is dealt with in a sub-par article. Happens rarely, but it does happen. Some argue that time should be spent on improving the "less obscure" articles instead of putting up lengthy Star Wars character descriptions. But that's just a misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works. The people spending all that time on obscure Star Wars topics couldn't produce a decent article on Wittgenstein or sauce béarnaise. However, the philosophers and chefs who can aren't well-versed in that galaxy far, far away. And if I do want to learn about Han Solo's early years, I know that Britannica will turn its back on me and where to look instead. So everyone should describe the things they know really well and everyone will gain from that. (Mostly weight, in the case of the sauce, but hey, there's always Dieting - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [wikipedia.org].)

Re:It's not thankless

[soliptic (665417)]

You're talking two things here, depth and breadth.

If somebody publishes a 15,000-word wiki on the 1970s NBC show "Cliffhangers" - Depth
some way-out there pop culture reference I never heard of, and Wiki has me up-to-speed - Breadth

My personal view is that Wikipedia shouldn't be shy of breadth. One of the things I think it has going for it (versus traditional encyclopaedias and "knowledge stores") is that it can document that trivial, the everyday and the disposable, which would not be deemed worthy enough to be worth the paper-space in Britannica or book-length analyses by academics, but may still be very interesting to future generations.

On the other hand, when it comes to depth, I think pruning is probably for the best. A 15,000 word dissertation on a niche topic doesn't really deserve to be in Wikipedia - it deserves to be published in full elsewhere, and summarised / referenced / linked as appropriate to an encyclopaedia article.

Re:

[Original Replica (908688)]

The Washington Post is a business. Part of big business is to down-play the publicly perceived value of your competition, the editors and writers both know this. They also know that Wiki doesn't mail you a check for expressing your eloquent opinions. While it would be nice if mass media was based on giving unbiased information to a well informed public, that ideal has been quite eroded in the last 25 years. Read all about it. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/032000a.html [consortiumnews.com]

Re:It's not thankless

[Firehed (942385)]

That's why I like Wikipedia. As a nonprofit, it doesn't have the need to downplay competition, and thus can present more non-biased information.

Of course, what happens in theory and in practice may be two different things, especially with a user-editable project such as Wikipedia. Political articles in particular tend to get biased easily (thanks in no small part to PR departments, I'm sure), but Wikipedia has no reason to downplay would-be competition.

Re:It's not thankless

[fm6 (162816)]

Without the cruft? Your definition of non-cruft would seem to be very broad.

"Nice" or not, most Wikipedia editors I worked with had very set notions about the "right" way to do things. Even if you have the official guidelines on your side, it's very hard to get anybody to change their minds. When I participated in the "request for deletion" discussions (I think they're called something else now) people mostly had their notions of what was notable and what wasn't, and that was that. Sometimes they'd even refuse to explain their opinions.

It really doesn't matter whether the discussion are polite or not, because they never go anywhere. It's a myth that Wikipedia is edited by consensus. Content is controlled by those who outstubborn everybody else.

Re:It's not thankless

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

Why is parent moderated as funny? This pretty much sums up how Wikipedia works, in my experience. One article I saw was marked for deletion. The discussion eventually came to the conclusion it shouldn't be deleted. A fortnight later, it was marked for speedy deletion, no new points were raised, and it was deleted. I still have no real idea why, and once the page is deleted non-admins can't even get at the discussion.

Re:

[Kingrames (858416)]

Where can I nominate "Outstubborn" for the "new word of the year" award?

Re:It's not thankless

[Scorchmon (305172)]

Absolutely. I participated in one of these discussions as well, and none of the established Wikipedia editors would consider the discussion for why to keep the article. They simply throw out that the article is not notable, and when you reply with links and quotes from Wikipedia rules explaining what makes something notable, they flat out ignore you. What's even funnier is when people join the discussion who aren't established editors and the editors/admins start throwing around terms like "sock puppet" and "meat puppet" to make your contributions to the discussion dismissible. They even go so far as to go back and change their opinion from "keep" to "delete" if they decide they don't like the people arguing for the side of keeping the article.

Wikipedia policy itself is a joke. They have rules and policies set forth to suit most editors' purposes, but when their agenda doesn't sit nicely with established policy, they pull this card out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:IAR [wikipedia.org]

Repeating the same mistake

[dgg3565 (963614)]

Didn't the MSM take something of a similar attitude toward blogs once they first emerged as a real force? And Wikipedia has been gaining "critical mass" in the same way blogs did a two or three years past. Setting all that aside, the tone of the article is somewhat unprofessional if your evaluating a new idea.

Wikipedia critics miss the point, or do they?

[gondwannabe (1028488)]

Academics who sniff at Wik's uncredentialed content certainly don't get it. But the loudest Wik snipers are undoubtedly scared to death of the incredible magnet that the site has become.

Don't put Wik into the encyclopedia box. It's really a social knowledge network where opinion is just as entertaining as fact. It's engaging and addictive, especially around controversial topics. I think I spend more time on the Discussion pages than on the main pages. I enjoy (like many, I suspect) anonymously correcting l

Re:Wikipedia critics miss the point, or do they?

[fotbr (855184)]

Don't put Wik into the encyclopedia box.

The Wikipedia project tried VERY HARD to put ITSELF into that box, beginning with its very name and slogans. Don't get pissy now that people see it in that box, and have certain expectations as a result.

"Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"
"Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."

And from the about page:
"This Web site is a wiki, which means that anyone with access to an Internet-connected computer can edit, correct, or improve information throughout the encyclopedia..."

It may be all those things you mention IN ADDITION to an encyclopedia, but an encyclopedia is CLEARLY what they are trying to be.

The language nazi says:

[s20451 (410424)]

Here's his take on the Post's bemusement from a NetworkWorld blog:

"Bemuse" is a synonym for "confuse". It is not a synonym for "amuse".

Yes, yes ... evolving language, etc.

Re:The language nazi says:

[john_sheu (755802)]

From Merriam-Webster's:

bemuse
1 : to make confused : PUZZLE, BEWILDER
2 : to occupy the attention of : DISTRACT, ABSORB
3 : to cause to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement

Re:

[RAMMS+EIN (578166)]

Cmuse me?

Sounds like Wikipedia needs to study a few ideas

[HarryCaul (25943)]

First among them, The Long Tail, and why it would benefit the site to take advantage of it rather than ignore it.

The whole "notability" criteria seems very much like 1980s thinking. So many lessons of the internet being ignored there.

Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs to study a few idea

[llywrch (9023)]

You're missing the point of notability. Obscure subjects can be notable, for the simple reason that "notability" on Wikipedia is a shorthand for whether it's believable that someone would actually want to read an article on the subject in question. All species of life are considered notable, for example, as are items in a few other areas.

The concept of "notability" was created because Wikipedia is constantly bombarded with new articles about someone's significant other, garage bands who have yet to relase an album, businesses looking for free advertising, and crackpot theories. Some people think that having an article on Wikipedia is a passport to fame & credibility. What we try to do on Wikipedia is report what other people believe is notable. And most -- I'll freely admit, not all, we do make mistakes -- of the articles that fail the notability guidelines are obviously of no interest except to a very few people -- if anyone beyond it's original author.

We are not an arbitor of importance: we're just trying to write an encyclopedia about topics people want to read, not include every last possible scrap of information conceivable. Unfortunately, with Wikipedia's high Alexa rating, too many people think that an Wikipedia leads to fame.

Geoff

The reasons for a notability requirement

[Dachannien (617929)]

With notability comes verifiability. If I submit a Wikipedia article about my cat, filled with adorable pictures and tales of the cat's day-by-day exploits, it may fit into the "room for everything" model that some snubbed band members might believe is right, but who's to say that all that drivel about my cat isn't just a bunch of lies? But if it turns out that I'm the President of the United States, then my cat [wikipedia.org] becomes notable, because there are undoubtedly numerous verifiable news reports from reputable agencies detailing various events in the life of my cat.

It amuses me that most of the people complaining about the "notability" requirement are the same people whose vanity-based Wikipedia articles were seen for what they are - self-aggrandizement - and subsequently removed.

Also, for the record, I don't have a cat.

Re:

[Jott42 (702470)]

Verifieable how? Websearches exlusivly? In published works? In any language? Or verifiable by interviewing the subject? Which the definition of verifiability are you arguing? The band can easily pass the Wipipedia definition and still get removed, if all the articles are published locally in Ottawa and not available on the web, as the US editors will find nothing about them in their local newspapers. But they may very well still have a verifiable existance.

Missing the important news

[tttonyyy (726776)]

Slashdot, in true tradition, misses the current happenings in Wikipedia world.

The big story at the moment about linking to external videos on YouTube [wikipedia.org] (and other video sources).

This is all started with Fox serving takedown notices to Quicksilverscreen [quicksilverscreen.com] for linking to YouTube videos, under the assertion that linking to copyright infringing material is, in itself, illegal. Hence the repercussions for Wikipedia (and, pretty much any site governed by US law).

C'mon slashdot, keep up!

Re:

[interiot (50685)]

The legal issues weren't the only issue with YouTube links. YouTube links are generally not reliable sources (just because a video has the CNN logo in the corner doesn't mean the video hasn't been modified or fabricated, whereas if it comes from cnn.com, that's much less likely to happen). Also, Wikipedia in general tries to be very respectful of copyright. WP:EL [wikipedia.org] does mention the contributory infringement issue, but as much as we internally argue over fair use gray areas and open content, it seems like i

Notability isn't enforced strictly enough

[Animats (122034)]

Wikipedia's problem is bloat. Most of the articles about anything important were created before article 500,000. At 1.5 million, most of the articles are junk. It's bottom-feeder stuff now.

Popular culture is a significant problem. There are far too many Star {Wars|Trek|Gate} articles. There's a Wikipedia article for every Star Wars comic book. For a while, someone was trying to create one for each character in each story in each comic book, but that was beaten back.

Then there's the ongoing effort to put every musical composition available in Wikipedia. A wiki is the wrong tool for that job. CDDB/Gracenote and IMDB have real databases for that sort of information, with useful linking and searching, but Wikipedia doesn't have the structure for that.

Wikipedia bloat impacts quality. It takes a huge number of contributors just to undo vandalism and clean up messes. Those contributors are now stuck cleaning up a mountain of dreck. They're falling behind.

That's hard on a volunteer effort. There are a few editors for whom Wikipedia is their day job, but the only one known to be full time is a political lobbyist. The thing just isn't staffed to deal with all the dreck.

Re:

[AlGrinch (1018644)]

I use wikipedia all the time. I thoroughly enjoy the information. I think it is a great of example of what is good about the internet. A community of people donating the time and knowledge to betterment of us all. Like any source of information you must be a critical thinker and verify its validity, yet I find it to be very good for the most part. I would consider being critical if I was paying to use the service. I find it unreasonable to be too critical of something that is free.

Re:Notability isn't enforced strictly enough

[stud9920 (236753)]

Popular culture is a significant problem. There are far too many Star {Wars|Trek|Gate} articles. There's a Wikipedia article for every Star Wars comic book. For a while, someone was trying to create one for each character in each story in each comic book, but that was beaten back.

How better would the Wikipedia be if these articles were not present ? That's the point of an Internet encyclopedia : information that is not pertinent to YOU does not hurt financially or otherwise by just being there.

If some music nerd wants me to know John Lennon was wearing green socks on 4 April 1967 when he recorded A Day in the Life, it's not going to change dramatically the price of the Wikipedia. Heck, if I clicked through the hierarchy until I reached the article "Clothing of John Lennon during the SPLHCB session of 4 April 1967", I may be the only person who ever clicks the links, so it's virtually costless.

What if that data was actually in the "Great Britain" article because the music nerd thinks everyone who is interested in Great Britain should know about the colour of the socks of John Lennon during each recording session of Sergeant Pepper ? Guess what, YOU can edit the page to remove it (most authors won't actually mind) or move it to a more appropriate page (most authors would understand).

IMO there is no such thing as too much information.

Re:

[yusing (216625)]

Most of the articles about anything important were created before article 500,000. At 1.5 million, most of the articles are junk. It's bottom-feeder stuff now.

"Anything important"?? That's a completely subjective measure. The first 500, 000 entries were probably the most obvious ones. But much of what's "important" isn't obvious. (I'm sure you haven't scanned the next million articles to ascertain that they're "bottom-feeder" stuff. And equally sure that you're not qualified to make that judgement for al

I'm notable

[bluefoxlucid (723572)]

According to the strictest definition of Wikipedia's notability guides [wikipedia.org], I'm apparently notable by Google. Searching for my real name shows mostly matches for me, and a few hundred of them at that; that's a specific notability criteria [wikipedia.org].

I've also published 4 LWN.net articles; but that's not a direct route to fame. Also I'm Security+ certified; apparently CompTIA claims that over 25,000 people hold the cert, which is fewer than Mensa can claim (I'm part of a small but well-known group in the market?).

On the other hand, I'm jobless and have no real achievements. I speak a lot on mailing lists and publish articles and such and sometimes get a little attention. Be careful how you define "Notable."

The question is, why is this noteable to the WP?

[maidix (803080)]

What Wikipedia editors determined wasn't worthy of an entry, Washington Post editors deemed worthy of an article. Much like in the accuracy comparison with Encyclopedia Brittanica, Wikipedia has once again demonstrated that they are the ones practicing higher standards. Sure, the newspapers and the encyclopedias and everyone else who's losing eyeballs to Wikipedia will tell us all why it can't happen... each and every day that it's happening.

Admitting there are checks and balances?

[Ronald Dumsfeld (723277)]

Whilst the casual description of the deletion process, illustrated with random examples, is presented in a fairly lighthearted manner, it is an admission that there are some quality procedures in place at Wikipedia.

You do have to wonder if they chose their examples to try and give them the notability they lack.

Washington Post gets its facts wrong--twice

[Arnold Reinhold (539934)]

The Post article quotes Jimmy Wales as saying that the decision to exclude an article is based on "a discussion among known editors." The article goes on to ask who those editors are and answers its own question "these editors are called 'administrators' and they get their jobs after being nominated and voted in by the great mass of Wikipedia contributors." Well, that is wrong on two counts. The discussions on deleting articles are in no way restricted to admins. Admins do determine what the consensus of the discussion is after a fixed time period and have access to the tools to actually delete the article, but they have no special role in the discussion. The second error concerns how admins are selected. There is no vote by "by the great mass of Wikipedia contributors." There is a nomination and review process and the final decision is made by an even smaller group known as "bureaucrats." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_fo r_adminship [wikipedia.org] . That's two errors in a single paragraph, but I suppose with tight budgets in the newspaper business these days, they can't afford the kind of scrutiny for accuracy that Wikipedia articles get.

Wikipedia Becomming Elistist

[Tablizer (95088)]

In their effort to better mirror "published" references, wikipedia staff has of late been acting very elitist. They will remove material that is not cited in published sources. That is very anti-web. Publishing is old-school. Authors of newer information are not even bother to publish anymore because it is easier to stick it on the web (perhaps with ads to make a buck).

If they want to give special status or marks to citations of published material, that is fine with me. However, deletion of non-published material is going overboard. Status: okay. Deletion: Not.

Time for a wikipedia revolt.

Fair use images

[Stick_Fig (740331)]

Wikipedia is falling under the bureaucratic knife here. Currently there is a major campaign being put on from a handful of editors to remove fair use images -- that is, free to use but copyrighted -- in favor of copyright-free images. They've removed something like 30,000 fair use images from biographical articles and have been replacing them with lower-quality photos. In one case, they tried to use a really atrocious cell phone photo instead of a promotional shot. Jimbo Wales for some reason supports this insanity.

Bureaucracy is slowly turning Wikipedia into a not-very-fun place. Editors are ruining great articles by being too overzealous. The notability thing is just one example.

Info Junkies

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

Worthless junk? That's what Slashdot and the Uncyclopedia [uncyclopedia.org] are for.

Re:

[arivanov (12034)]

Funnily enough, it can on non-contentious subjects where there is a general consensus. For example if we look at the T-34, the Halifax bomber and a few other I have looked up lately, the quality of the articles and their objectiveness is quite impressive (I am familiar with the subject matter enough to catch mistakes in these).

The anarchical approach fails the moment it gets into a contentious subject or when facing with a well organised system hell bent on putting their side of the story through. Articles

Shit Casserole My Arse!

[syousef (465911)]

Don't hold back. Tell us what you really think about Wikipedia.

IMHO the problem with wikipedia is that they included the prefix -pedia in their name. Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia. It's more a global store of knowledge - a wiki - and ideas of varying quality will creep in much more than a published encyclopedia. Claims that anarchistic editing makes for higher accuracy than a published book are just unrealistic - when you set up such expectations and they are dashed you get very vocal critics of wikipedi

Re:

[yusing (216625)]

Re the (suffix) -pedia :

Let's suppose for a second that America is sometimes called a democracy for real reasons, not just to snow the untutored. We've never been a democracy, nor are all men (treated) equal, nor did the slaves enjoy life, liberty, pursuit.

And yet the ideal remains: it's a work in progress. In the same way, the founders and workers of Wikipedia would like to see it approach -pedia stature, if asymptotically. In some (more empirical) areas it already are one.

Those who sniffle about its lack

Re:Why?

[Reality Master 101 (179095)]

What would be the harm of being a repisotory of every article that somebody had the energy to write?

Because we already have the web at large for that. The point of an Encyclopedia is not be the repository of all knowledge, but to be a summary of all notable subjects. The "repository of all knowledge" IS all published knowledge.

Re:

[ubernostrum (219442)]

The point of an Encyclopedia is not be the repository of all knowledge, but to be a summary of all notable subjects.

And yet... notability as a criterion for inclusion is not and never has been an official policy of Wikipedia. It is, at most a disputed guideline [wikipedia.org], and the Wikimedia Foundation's own fundraising materials [wikimediafoundation.org] include the statement, "Imagine a world in which every person has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." Not "the sum of all notable human knowledge" or

Re:Why?

[Reality Master 101 (179095)]

Except that as I see it now the whole thing is a cluster fuck in terms of notability

Wait, something created by humans is not perfect? GOOD LORD!

I personally laugh at the webcomic entries as by wikipedia's OWN standards 99% of them shouldn't be there.

The question is notability. If they have sufficient readership (or links, based on Googling, for example), then they probably belong there.

If your web comic isn't getting enough people thinking it's notable and campaigning for it, then yes, it probably isn't. Sorry about that. Keep working on it...

Re:

[Rakishi (759894)]

Because most of them will be unverifiable and probably down right wrong. IF there are no outside sources for verification and only 1000 people in the world who know anything of the article's subject then you have a single person writing the article probably. Not to mention that the larger the wikipedia the more energy is needed just to maintain some sort of coherence in the articles and remove obviously wrong crap (which means other articles will suffer as this is a finite resource).

I'd prefer a limited wik

That's the only valid reason.

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

This is really the only good reason for the "notability" standards, IMO. It doesn't 'hurt' WP to have articles on obscure subjects, except insofar as they become impossible to verify once you get below a certain 'critical mass' where you can reasonably expect to find people who are going to know something about the subject.

Part of the benefit of Wikipedia is that it has articles on a wide variety of things, far more than a paper encyclopedia ever could. If I wanted to read Encyclopedia Britannica, I'd just

Re:slashdot entry

[mdd4696 (1017728)]

If anyone and anything were given articles on Wikipedia, you *would* have to wade through millions of junk articles to find what you want.

One important requirement for articles on Wikipedia is that they are verifiable. That means providing sources for the information in the article, allowing others to ensure that the article is accurate. If there are no published sources which contain information on the subject of the article, there would be no way of evaluating it. I doubt that the authors of an article on some kid's garage band could provide a reference from outside of their circle of family and friends.

Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Not a primary source, not a secondary source. Articles on Wikipedia are written about what is already published elsewhere. This is an attempt to keep Wikipedia neutral, and minimize the influence that a particular editor's biases might have.

Re:slashdot entry

[interiot (50685)]

One answer is that there are many wikis [wikipedia.org] out there. For almost everything that Wikipedia says it's not [wikipedia.org], there's another wiki out there that will cover the information you're interested in working on. For many of them, Wikimedia itself hosts those wikis, so it's not always a matter of DELETE DELETE, sometimes it's a matter of finding the right wiki. For instance, Wikipedia might not like to have really detailed programming guides on its site, but the content would be perfectly suitable for Wikimedia's Wikibooks. Wikipedia is a little too straight-laced sometimes, but there's Uncyclopedia if you want to add a joke to an article or otherwise go overboard with a subject. Wikibooks no longer takes game walkthroughs, but there's Strategy wiki for that.

Re:To avoid Vandalism

[Zorglub1234 (794962)]

Hells, why not link it up to the drivers license numbers.

Why should I prove that I know how to drive in order to edit Wikipedia ?

More generally, you are assuming that anonymous editors, people younger than 21 and people without a drivers license/ID currently bring more bad things than good things to Wikipedia. You may be right, but I don't see any reason to believe it just because you say it. Many anonymous editors make excellent contributions to Wikipedia, as do a lot of teenagers. What is the point of cutting down vandalism if we lose more valuable content simultaneously ?

Zorglub

Re:To avoid Vandalism

[squiggleslash (241428)]

Wikipedia is the 1994 USENET in 2006.

People exaggerate its flaws and underplay its usefulness, but everyone secretly knows it's the number one site on the 'net to start at if you need any kind of information.

People will propose stuff like what you've done. Some will, however, respond by pointing out that Wikipedia's fluidity and usefulness is actually directly proportional to the ease of access, and so any attempt to moderate it is doomed to failure. Others will run off and start their own forks, which will have all the heavy handed moderation supposedly necessary, and each will fail miserably.

Then, over time, the spammers and others with a commercial interest in vandalising Wikipedia will rise. Wikipedia's usefulness will start to drop. People will be turned off by it as a useful resource. And, many, hopefully many, many, years from now, it'll live on as a wasteland, a sad relic of an idealistic age.

But for now, it's the number one site on the 'net to start at if you need any kind of information, and just like Google Groups keeps the good in Usenet alive today, archives of Wikipedia will be awesome for "those in the know" in 2018.

Re:

[chad_r (79875)]

Wikipedia is the 1994 USENET in 2006.

And wikipedia moderation is the 1997 alt.config newsgroup.

Re:

[Stick_Fig (740331)]

That's because you're an extremist idiot and you are notable as a result. Just sayin'.