User:Stockwellnow

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Hello Wikipedians

Consider this an open letter about how many well-meaning individuals following Wikipedia's current rules and practices take good content and trash it. I am a new editor and documenting my experience trying to improve Wikipedia on a single subject of 'open source labs'. I looked it up on Wikipedia and it sent me to OSU Open Source Lab. I knew there were other labs at other universities so I wrote an OSL disamb page, which I copied the code for below. In my opinion I did a good job - and was trying to show the breadth of the subject and hit most of the major labs at universities and list some of the company ones. Now my work has been eviscerated - by the following things happening:

I do appreciate the last two - in that at least it preserves the work - and I can work on it and make it better.

For the most part the existing editors did not make the pages better or correct the things they found wrong (e.g. add external references etc). The pages were simply tagged, deleted or moved.

However, worst of all:

  • OSU Open Source Lab, which is the original page - which I didn't do anything to other than move it to its own personal page (actually someone else did that) - now has a lack of notability tag at the top!!!!

Take away conclusions for new editors[edit]

I have no reason to believe my experience is somehow unique. Thus, the take away lesson for me is: Don't waste time creating new pages in Wikipedia unless you are willing to invest hours making them super-complete AND willing to follow and defend them for days from attacks from the entrenched editors. It should be clear this will turn off all but the most dedicated editors or those being paid to edit for a specific subject (e.g. a company).

In my opinion this is a dangerous lesson to be teaching new editors - as most will simply say forget it and never edit again - or start a flame war and then never edit again. In this particular topic- things are only marginally better than before I began editing -instead of a lot better- and I think if all the deletes are actually put into effect including killing the OSU page - Wikipedia will be clearly worse. I have read that Wikipedia is shrinking -- e.g. getting worse -- and I think this is why. I realize I am a newbie, greeny, whatever and my opinion counts for basically nothing - but I think many of you have good intentions and want to see Wikipedia become a repository for all human knowledge. With policies as they are set now that is never going to happen.

All the best, --Stockwellnow (talk) 01:42, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

My Edited version[edit]

Open Source Labs are labs dedicated to open source software or open source hardware. As the open source movement has increased these types of labs are increasing in number and activity.

The Open Source Lab may refer to:

Books[edit]


Labs (non-profit) or corporate[edit]


University related Open-Source Labs[edit]


The Current Version[edit]

The Open Source Lab may refer to:

See also[edit]

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