User:Audiori

Wikipedia used to be fun. I started writing articles shortly after the website came into existence. I used to look at the list of "most wanted articles" and almost randomly pick a topic, research it as much as possible and begin writing. Others would join in and help me improve it or correct something if I got something wrong. It was a lot of fun. I probably had hundreds of articles under my belt (with my original user name) and was even asked to be an admin at one time. I turned it down because I didn't have enough time.

Back then, the goal of the administrators (and most of the editors) was to continually grow the database by adding more and more articles. It was thought better to expand Wikipedia and include more and more information than it was to find every little nitpicking reason to delete articles or remove someone's work. I was told by administrators on many occasions that when someone has a complaint with a specific article they should find ways to improve it before looking to delete it. If it needs more citations, they should be the ones looking to find them before anything else happens. If it needs more information, the editor that feels that way should be trying to find it and add it to the article. If they can't find it themselves, then they can ask for help. If no one can find it, then it should be considered for deletion.

Obviously, anything that could be challenged or disputed like a political comment had to be challenged and include sources. The same thing would happen with articles about non-noteworthy persons, movies or CDs. A band making cassette tapes in their garage was not worthy enough. A guy writing a blog could not be called an author. At the same time, bands with releases that were available worldwide and showed up on music reviews pages were acceptable. Makes perfect sense.

As time went on however, it seems that this goal has changed. The goal now, at least of some editors, is to remove as many articles as possible - or at least, articles that the contributor doesn't like. Band X can make all kinds of claims and go unnoticed, while Band Z gets deleted because their CDs aren't for sale at Amazon. Others expect citations about every little meaningless piece of information in one article, while ignoring hundreds of other articles that make similar claims. It's no longer about constantly expanding the database of information, but limiting it by only what a handful of people deem appropriate to include. It has become boring for that reason. What fun is it to spend hours working on an article and then have some dumbass that couldn't care less about the subject come along and delete because they don't care about it? Audiori (talk) 22:16, 2 December 2012 (UTC)