Editing Wikipedia

I tell my students never to cite Wikipedia, but I often use it myself as starting point for research on a topic I know nothing about. However, every single time I've tried to edit a Wikipedia article, even just a talk page, I've been flamed by trolls in under 10 minutes. In fact, if one reads the discussion pages, one will notice that the supposedly neutral senior editors are often the most insulting, partisan, and juvenile posters on them. I've been berated for my lack of education, my apparent young age, and accused of being a sock puppet, all by people who are supposed to be "watching" the articles and protecting them from vandalism, and all for trying to fix errors and problems that even an 8 year old could identify. Lots of articles are pretty good, I suppose, and it's not like anyone's reputation is at stake for the bad ones, but I can't help but wonder if Wikipedia's current system is more about trolling and bureaucratic navel gazing than with actually having good encyclopædic articles that don't read like they've been written by 12 year olds or small town pseudo-activists trying to post their resumés on Wiki Biography.

RATING: Go to the library and read a book%

(Image from davidgerard.co.uk.)