Wikipedia's stifling bureaucracy, large-scale edit wars, deeply-rooted cliques, and appeal to the socially inept have produced scores of current and former editors with an all-consuming grudge against Wikipedia and its powerusers. Many of these Wikipedians have harnessed their boiling hatred and spoken out against the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Their activism has, of course, been extremely ineffective.
But it's great drama. The internet is littered with dead blogs and surprisingly active anti-wikipedia communities that detail abuses of power, personal scandals among wikipedians, paid and biased editing, various 'cabal' leaks, and a host of other primo content. Here's a list of some of them for your entertainment.
Common terms
Wikimedia Foundation (WMF): The org that hosts Wikipedia. Known for being poorly-managed, opaque, and occasionally hiring abusive admins.
Jimmy/Jimbo Wales: Wikipedia co-founder and former porn hawker, the guy whose face you see every time Wikipedia begs for money. Known to be a bit of a gaffing idiot who stumbled onto a successful idea during the 90's dotcom boom. In Wikipedia's early days, he was embroiled in numerous scandals, so the Wikimedia Foundation stripped him of any real power.
Larry Sanger: Wikipedia's other co-founder and public critic. Tried and failed to create several Wikipedia competitors.
Admin/Administrator/Sysop:
Bureaucrat: (unpaid) giga
Steward: (unpaid) ultra-giga
Arbitration Committee/Arbcom: The system Wikipedia uses to settle disputes and discipline users via a panel of respected editors (i.e. powerusers). Exceptionally dramatic.
Articles for Deletion (AfD): The system where editors vote on whether to keep an article and include their rationale. Unsurprisingly gamed during edit wars and through the involvement of cabal members, causing seethe and drama.
Request for Adminship (RfA): The system for nominating and voting in admins. Success is achieved through popularity and politicking.
Cabal: A clique of editors and/or admins who spend way too much time on Wikipedia. It's such an entrenched and undeniable part of the culture that Wikipedia pokes fun at it.
Vandalism: The act of making high-quality, accurate contributions to Wikipedia.
Wikipedo/Wikipedocracy: A pejorative that developed due to the perception that Wikipedia was too friendly towards libertarians. You can find gentle reference to these scandals here.
Israel-Palestine: The cause of initial disillusionment for a huge proportion of anti-Wikipedians. The most controversial topic on the wiki.
Blogs/Sites
Spoiler alert: Like all blogs, they're dead. Still a good read though.
Wikipedia Sucks! (And So Do Its Critics.) (still active wtf)
GenderDesk (criticism from a leftist/feminist perspective)
Wikipedia Watch (dead, formerly run by the guy who effectively killed Encyclopedia Dramatica.)
Wikipedia, We Have a Problem (dead but lots of content still archived)
Wikitruth (dead)
Wiki Cabal (dead, short-lived)
Boycott Wikipedia (inactive since 2015)
Collaborative Learning (inactive since 2011)
The Journal That Speaks Truth to Wikiality (inactive since 2011)
Parker Peters Livejournal (inactive since 2007)
Wikiwatch (critical blog from 2006)
Wikisucks (another one from 2006)
Wikipedia: A Techno-Cult of Ignorance (inactive since 2005(?))
Swastikapedia (technically a blog post but old criticism from 2004)
The corpse of ED also has numerous pages on Wikipedia power brokers, all a decade stale but they summarize the dramatic happenings surrounding particular people like SlimVirgin (RIP).
Forums
WIkipedia Review the OG. It's now a zombie forum, though you can still access the old blog and access the threads through the forum's 'lofi version'.
Wikipedia Critic (failure to launch)
Wikirev (dead breakaway forum, not well-archived)
Subreddits
These are all very small but much more populated with content than the average tiny sub. If you look at most users' post histories (e.g. /u/bbb23sucks -- bbb23 is a Wikipedian), it's ALL about wikipedia.
/r/Wikipedians (not intended to be anti-wiki, but for all intents and purposes it is)
/r/wikipediaafdwatch (a bot that posts every time an article's nominated for deletion)
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I no longer believe Wikipedia is noble, but I still appreciate the contribution it had on the humanity.
That said, the terminally onlines it enabled is just crazy.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Articles on uncontroversial topics (like crocodiles or something) are usually pretty good though.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Those are pretty good. Makes seeing a previously good article getting ruined by culture war BS always sucks.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
There are now two alternatives for Wikipedia though: Justapedia and Encycla. But because of mainstream automatic dismissal of any potential competitors as "Conservapedia", one of them is dangerously being pushed over to the embrace of far-rightoids unless we all pull a Brian Krassenstein on these platforms and thus halt the incursions of far-rightoids.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Well, I sure hope they can make it.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context