User:Majabl

GONE

Wikipedia's pointless: there are three types of people that use Wikipedia.


 * 1) Those who know what they are writing about.
 * 2) Those who write falsehoods, be this unwittingly through misinterpretation of a source, or through poor evaluation of a source's credibility.
 * 3) The casual browser who comes here to find out about things.

For any user coming to an article, 1) doesn't need to read the article because he already knows his stuff, 2) doesn't need to read the article because he thinks he knows his stuff or he knows what he wants to mislead with, and 3) will either read an article that is right or wrong at any point in time. 3) will not be equipped to know whether what he reads is right or wrong, otherwise he wouldn't need to read the article, and will probably use Wikipedia as his sole point of reference in whatever he is trying to learn. (Especially, it would seem, if he is a university student or a junior journalist.) This will tend to lead to the learning of falsehoods as though they were facts. So this Wikipedia malarkey all feels a bit pointless, as it's a constant struggle between user 1) and user 2) to inform user 3).

One day, if I can be bothered, I might continue this half-formed argument, but I really have better things to do with my time.

Besides, one day Wikipedia's principles will all come full circle and news articles will be used as sources for articles that formed the full opinion of some lazy journalist somewhere in some 'reputable' source. Grand.