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by elect_engineer 2383 days ago
Full disclosure: I am the author of the Wikipedia essay "Wikipedia has cancer".

See https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21700802 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

Re "I've heard bad things about writing articles on Wikis. Lots of ego-wars." you hear those things from new Wikipedia users who decide that the first thing they should do is either [A] "Fix" the Donald Trump article, [B] try to use Wikipedia to advertise their garage band, or [C] try to correct the biases I list at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:YWAB

If you pick an article, check the history, and find that it ISN'T getting 300 edits every day, you will have a much easier time improving that article.

My Wikipedia page has a link so you can email me. I will be glad to help if you want to become a Wikipedia editor.

EDIT: Fixed a bad link.

3 comments

Ego-wars are all over the place, even if you avoid political and BLP articles. Burnt-out long-time editors are the most combative. Due to their connections, they won't get blocked.
thank you very much. Will get in touch when the time is right.

Also, that link doesn't work. think you need a dot! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Yes._We_are_bia...)

It turns out that the ycombinator.com software won't accept a link that ends with a dot.

This works:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:YWAB

Your bias link doesn’t appear to be correct.
Thanks! looks like it was a screwup by the ycombinator.com software. The original link ends with a period, and the software stripped it out -- probably because adding a period after a link that is at the end of a sentence is a common error.

I replaced it with another page on Wikipedia that redirects to the "User:Guy Macon/Yes. We are biased." page.

Full disclosure: I am the author of the Wikipedia essay "Wikipedia has cancer".

See https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21700802 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...