Top 10 Worst Things About Wikipedia

Vandalism

A lot of vandalism isn't even clever. If it goes unnoticed for a while (yes, this occasionally happens), it's sometimes a real pain to clean up. It's sad to see that some people would rather destroy something than build it.

I wonder what kind of person thinks it's funny to replace an entire article about Abraham Lincoln with "LOLZ HEZ the sucks" or some other nonsense. I guess it takes a stupid person.

I once looked up John Lennon, the musician, and someone had replaced his entire youth with a biography of John Lenin, founder of the USSR. I hate Wiki vandals.

Edit wars

Misinformation

I see a lot of misinformation on that website, and it gets worse every time when an article is full of fake information.

This is one of the reasons they've been petitioned in the past.

Factual inaccuracies

This is mainly a problem when it comes to updating outdated information.
Source-obsessed individuals revert any edit that tries to update an article just because there's no "reliable source," even though someone just uploaded a video of the topic happening in real life.

Yes, there are some factual inaccuracies in articles that are not constantly monitored. At least some are locked to prevent vandalism and misinformation. If the source looks skeptical, Google is your friend.

This issue is much worse than vandalism because you might get an important fact wrong, believing it was accurate because Wikipedia told you so! I guess you just have to be smart enough to check two or three other sites.

Anti-Israel bias

Admin abuse/bullying

People who take the site way too seriously

All it takes is for you to delete someone's non-constructive edit before they start harping on you, claiming you're destroying their right to free speech or asserting that there is an underground conspiracy against them.

These major users can get away with reverting all edits from casual contributors and sending them talk messages threatening to have them blocked if they don't adhere to their impossibly high standards. I even had some guy continually remove a relevant image from an article and state that he'd rather have no image at all than one that was not up to his high standards.

It is uncensored

When you try to edit out inappropriate language from articles, your changes are often reverted, and you may even be threatened with a block. The site is supposed to be friendly for all viewers, but when unnecessary profanity is included in articles, such as in the B-52 bomber article, it ruins the experience. This is one of the reasons I had to install an advanced profanity filter.

IP addresses get blocked, preventing other people from editing

Political pushers

Ah yes, the ones whose lives revolve around Googling stuff they agree with and pushing it onto other people. Seriously, read the rules, folks. Your essay about how the War in Iraq was the right way to go or about the vast anti-communist conspiracy doesn't belong here.

I'm a moderate conservative, and I hate it when people (yes, even conservatives) push their views on others. If we didn't have conservatives and liberals, there would be no point in being America.

It is propaganda when referring to political bias and is alt-left.

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Users that revert all edits that don't use "reliable" sources

Some users make it their entire life's mission to revert all edits they don't see as living up to their impossibly high expectations.
You'd think a YouTube video that actually shows the topic happening in real life would be reliable enough, but not to these swine who expect every source to come from some official site or news report.

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Giving fictional characters their own articles solely for being LGBT

It is just so dumb. Seriously, what happened to giving fictional characters their own articles for actually being iconic, such as Mario, Sonic, and Buzz Lightyear? A character being LGBT doesn't automatically make them iconic whatsoever.

Incomplete details

Wikipedia is generally very accurate and easy to use. However, there can often be a lack of information. This problem is especially aggravated by a very strict application of the notability guideline, which means that some people, groups, companies, events, etc., that aren't deemed noteworthy often have no page on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is never complete, so there will always be incomplete details here and there.

Typos

Typos are especially common in articles regarding anime, Asterix, and all the other stuff that hardly gets English attention.

Well, you can just simply edit it, even without being registered on the site.

So annoying! If you really watch Winx Club, you should know that it's spelled Sophix, not Sofix.

Gender bias and sexism

Copyright paranoia

For a free-content encyclopedia that allows you to plagiarize its content, they sure have a big fit if you don't put every little letter into your own words. Then they pounce on you for point-of-view violations.

Racial bias

Sockpuppets

Overzealous admins

The average time spent patrolling articles on Wikipedia each day is more than 14 hours. Also, admins are constantly changing rules to favor themselves and maintain their power. This article shows just how ridiculous it has become to be an admin.
You have to study copyright laws, write essays about them, and then write another essay about "what would I do in a certain situation."
The truth is, those losers are just making things very hard so THEY CAN STAY IN POWER, NOT SHARE POWER, AND NOT BE MONITORED BY FELLOW ADMINS. New admins would mean no more exclusivity and less power to boss others around.

The website claims that all users should practice civility towards each other. Evidently, that doesn't apply to administrators. About 75% of them are some of the most power-hungry, emotionally unstable people out there. All you have to do is disagree with them once, and BAM! You're gone for life.

So complicated

The most complicated part is that every time I search for literature, a picture of Tom Sawyer shows up. It's even more annoying when I download a Wiki app.

When I'm trying to find something out, there is all this complicated information.

Requires citations for everything

I must admit I kind of like this because I sometimes use Wikipedia as a quick guide to see whether something is well-known. But yeah, that sounds very frustrating.

This makes it harder for me to create a good article and not have it get deleted. I've created six that were removed.

Image fair use policy

It's funny watching them change their policy on what images can and cannot be used every other day, and then complain that Wikipedia's articles are useless without images.

This is annoying. It has led to good pictures being shrunken, which makes them less pleasant.

Japanese, English, etc., Wikipedia have very different articles regarding an item

That's right, because the Spanish Wikipedia isn't the same as the English Wikipedia, many things are different: the information, the album covers (in the Spanish version, there aren't images for the album covers), and many other things.

For some reason, the French Wikipedia is the only one with a page about El Goonish Shive, despite it being an American webcomic. You'd think it would have a page on the English Wikipedia, but nope!

Too many policies

Big ones like use reliable sources and no original research dictate what kinds of edits people are allowed to make. I've had numerous edits reverted because of these rules, even when I know the info I added was true.
And it doesn't help that there are always edit dictators who constantly and brutally revert these edits and use these rules as a way to justify their actions. I mean, I can't even update vehicle fleets because of these rules and rule enforcers.

This is one of the reasons the site is slowly losing contributors and will eventually die. They're so strict about them too, because if you violate even one of them, you're gone for any length of time.

Trolling

I want the real answer, not some nonsense that obviously makes no sense.

Teachers don't let you use it

I can kinda see why, though. It isn't always reliable. I think they should at least let you use it as long as there are sources to back it up.

This is so annoying. You always use Wikipedia for work, then when you hand it in, the teacher says, "What were your sources?" Oh, shut up.

Then you visit the site and figure it out yourself the next day: I don't know what I am teaching today.

Willy on Wheels

The infamous page-move vandal now has millions of unoriginal, uncreative clones. Boring!