Wikipedia

As a source of information, I might give Wikipedia 2 or 3 stars. They do have an extensive collection, but certainly not everything. But, the quality of writing in ways that make the information accessible to anyone is very inconsistent. The authors (and Wikipedia should encourage this) should link to external sites for more technical content.

I just tried posting a set of 4 interrelated pages. And, I'm already screaming and thinking about posting elsewhere.

1. The whole interface is obtuse and far more difficult than it needs to be.
2. Instructions are often wrong (e.g., they say to click on "Save Page" when there is no such button or link) or incomplete (they say to do so and so, but they give you no clue as to where to do this).
3. To get help, you have to go through this completely ridiculous process of posting a question. Why not just have a forum in the typical forum format? Why make it so difficult? It took me 6 tries to get a question posted.
4. They should have all of their instructions and taboos posted in a one simple to access and read area. But, no... they make you dig for it, just guess, or find out the hard way when they reject a page.
5. There should be a way to easily communicate with one individual who made a decision to reject so that you have a consistent way of making changes.

I've worked extensively on Wikidot sites and with their forum. There is a night and day difference. I just find Wikipedia to be frustrating in all aspects from the posting angle, and, I'm not sure how to express this, but there is some deeply embedded ignorance/stupidity or arrogance that prevents them from doing something other than a giant framework of obsolescence. Some group needs to do something better and push out Wikipedia.

Many times i took data from wikipedia. Most of the time i got good marks in my assignments and research papers. Thank you wikipedia.

I used to support Wikipedia and donate, which I did back in 2014. But in recent times I find that what I read is outside of what they should be publishing. Wikipedia claim on multiple profiles it published (about people and organisations) that many of them propagate misinformation. They provide no real evidence of this. Those people and groups they publish things about that I read, are supported by massive informed movements (not funded by Big Pharma or main stream media). Recently the EU Parliament with the help of these movements involving many brave people, identified atrocities committed by organisations during the Covid period. These organisations want control and censorship over anyone outspoken that goes against their narrative, which can only point to money. By not editing objectively the information written, they themselves (Wikipedia) are propagating misinformation. They should stay independent of this and they do not. One good example of this is Dr John Campbell from the UK. He has only ever presented the truth and evidence based information from reputable sources. What is said about him let alone many others is far from correct information, which means it is misinformation. Wikipedia also reported information on Russia's military with no real evidence. This is simply wrong no matter what we think of Russia and the war. From what we understand today about Wikipedia, any one of a thousand or more editors working for Wikipedia can protect any article which leads me to believe that any one of them could possibly receive back-handers to do so. Many issues arose with Wikipedia information when Donald Trump became president too. You can read this all online and I have provided some clips. Wikipedia seldom substantiates the things it publishes well, especially controversial information. If you can't substantiate it properly, do not publish it. Moreover I think Wikipedia should only provide generic information about anything and anyone, without bias. Because Wikipedias information is almost editable to anyone, it can never be reliable. Many education organisations and media groups are not allowed to quote Wikipedia information for this reason. While many things it publishes seems to be fine, there are more than enough misleading information pieces to make Wikipedia quite unreliable as a whole. The world does not need such an online resource that is skewed and unreliable in providing any information about anything. They can not be trusted, this is clear.

Probably the most unlikely success given the commercialization of the web, this is one of the best-known and most frequently used information resources there is. It's so popular there's no point in trying to describe it.

From time to time I've done some actual paid work for a living - not often, I wouldn't want to make a habit of it - at a search engine. So I happen to know that around five years ago, Wikipedia wasn't regarded as an entirely reliable resource and didn't get the help up the rankings that other, more traditional resources did. But eventually the lengthy debate over Wikipedia's usefulness has been largely won and it's widely recognized now as the site that people expect to see at the top of searches when they're looking for information on almost any subject. Even if a page may not be entirely accurate or objective, that's what people want to see before they look elsewhere for other, perhaps more academic (or more expensive) resources.

There will always be some concerns, that goes without saying with any Wiki project. It's widely known that there's some factional infighting in some organizations and beliefs and the encyclopedia has been subverted from time to time by people who are more interested in promoting their bias than anything else. But even if there is a chance, however remote, that a Wikipedia page might not be entirely factual or up to date, nevertheless it's what we all want and expect to see when we search for information and it would be foolish for a search engine to ignore that.

Which means that Wikipedia is now and is likely to continue to be the major information source for everyday inquiries on the web for the forseeable future. And there's not an ad in there, and nobody gets paid to contribute. Which is what the driving philosophy of the worldwide web was always intended to be, if you're old enough to remember back that far, and really it's quite remarkable that the project has not only survived, but risen to such status. If you're looking for a good cause to donate to, you could do a lot worse than support this one.