I have been trying to fix one article for several days, and to author one all day today. I just cannot find the references I need to not get it kicked to the curb every time. I protested an article that was deleted. It was restored, but it is basically just waiting to be deleted again if I cannot find a way to add references that will not be protested. And that is the bulk of the problem with that. I cannot find any references that are not connected to a commercial service or product. Take a look at these two articles if you care to and have a decent understanding of the way Wikipedia works. And thank you in advance for any advice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPA3102 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VoIP_gateway
I only know that Wikipedia deletion criteria are pretty much BS, especially relevance criteria. And that it's pretty hard to get articles approved. Community- driven Lexikon? Not really.
Until I noticed this article was gone, I thought Wikipedia was a great thing. But yeah. I am not so sure. Too many rule-crazed people out there who will not listen to reason. Wikipedia was the thing I looked at as a first line of reference. I do not care if an article has no references, and the criteria seems impossible to manage. Too few sites saying the same thing? Then it will be rejected because of that under one of a hundred reasons. Too few, and it will be rejected because of that. Just the right amount? Then someone will sidestep the issue and object to the article for yet another reason on an unending list.
There's a problem with doing the opposite as well - not enough rules, and you're not even sure you are looking at something reliable to begin with. Which defeats the basic premise of any encyclopedia, community-driven or otherwise. There probably exists a hypothetical sweet-spot between not enough rules and too many rules, but its very much a case where i'd rather err on the side of safety. I don't mind some articles not being on Wikipedia. For example, Total Biscuit, everybody's favorite cynical brit, still doesn't have a page for himself on Wikipedia. However, while i would like to read about him, I want to be sure that what I read about him is accurate (that means references), because what I read on this qualifies my opinion of that person. If it says something blatantly false, i don't really have any way of finding out because i don't know the man aside from what he's put up when i started watching his shows. If it's blatantly false, but is presented in a believable way, then i might even be inclined to believe it. The reason why it's so difficult to get something onto wikipedia is essentially this - If you publish something false on wikipedia, this can cause extreme prejudice to any number of people within a matter of seconds. We're talking serious damage potential there. As such, you need to have stringent rules to get articles up there to prevent that from happening in the first place, and very simple frameworks to get the article taken down in case it does happen.
