User:Lighthead/What I hate about Wikipedia...

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

This page in a nutshell:

Wikipedia's systems need to be tighter. How?
If you're volunteering your time and effort here, doesn't it make sense to learn how to deal with people? People's all there is here. If you can't deal with that, get a job and terrorize your coworkers.
And if the second bullet point is worked out, the first one will fall into place.

There's a lot of things I hate about Wikipedia. Do you feel the same way? Well, before you start, let me put my two cents in. Let's start with:

Its skins

One of the things that really irks me about Wikipedia, is that there's only one (maybe two), decent skins to choose from. The one that's decent that I'm referring to is Vector. The other ones are so cheesy, as to be ancient (I mean they're kind of a throwback to the heyday of the internet, wouldn't you agree?) in appearance. The other one that I mentioned that, maybe, is decent in appearance is Monobook. And the strange thing is that what makes it decent looking (sort of), is that it looks like Vector. So that makes it two that are really one (that sounds like a line out of Lord of the Rings... ) ^[1]

But if you thought I was finished, I'm actually just getting started. Another thing that really bothers me about Wikipedia is...

Everything's impossible to find.

If you're looking for something obscure, may you be blessed with fortune because it takes some hardcore ingenuity as to finding whatever it is you're looking for. Sometimes it doesn't have to be that obscure, you can be looking at a page relating to that topic (even a Help page if you can believe it), and you'll get to the end of the page and say to yourself, "Well, it has to be here; is it in 'See Also'... no, it's not there... " It's enough to drive somebody absolutely insane. ^[2] Nobody can find it, nobody with a capital N. I was recently looking for a certain page using the live help feature. The eggheads there pretended to know where it was. They gave me the wrong page! Impossible... By some miracle I ended up finding it myself. But can you figure out what else I hate about Wikipedia? I just hinted at it in this paragraph. No? They are...

Its people

Wikipedia's people reminds me of a combo Communist, Fascist state. That's them. And then there's the people that have been made absolutely bonkers by the whole machine that make no sense. You'll be talking about one thing, and these poor people will bring it around to, yeah, something similar, but just crazy in tone. But let's get back to:

The people that make the difference

There's a group of people here on Wikipedia that believe that it should not be a social networking site, and that it should focus on encyclopedic content. It's a whole Wikipedian philosophy, its called Exopedianism. But I'm sure that even the majority of these people revolve around a tight network. And if you are not part of this network, and you need help with something. And the topic that you need help with relates to a specific Wikiproject here on Wikipedia. And even if you find this person's name on a list of participants on this project. When you approach this person on his talk page; you may wait indefinitely for this person to contact you, sometimes only after you complain about this person. This is a foolproof identification of Wikipedia. ^[3] And...

They can even be administrators!

As any old person here on Wikipedia knows, you have to practically walk over the Wikipedian version of the "You've got mail!" message. There's no real way to ignore this dastardly message. You might return to your computer three days later and this message will still stick with you. This kind of thing makes you wonder, "Did they see my message, and then do something else?!" This can be the only reason for them ignoring you, because as I've said, they'd have to do something to get rid of that dang message!

And then there's:

IP users

These people make me wonder why they don't see how ratlike they are and how unlike hawks they are. Oops! I'm sorry, I forgot what movie this was. I thought this was Inglourious Basterds. That was just a bad joke, and an even worse insertion into this essay. The reality is that I have no beef with IP users (that is Wikipedia users who have not registered officially with Wikipedia). A lot of them even know what they are doing. And the ones that don't haven't been on Wikipedia long enough to know the rules (see next section). As far as the vandals go, whether they are IP users or newly registered account holders who don't realize that they'll be held accountable, they're just people trying to be people. There are other people on Wikipedia that make Wikipedia a hard task to deal with; such as...

Users who seem to do things by rote, and like it

These people mix up the most vile potions and concoctions that are just really hard to stomach, and just add a bitter flavor to Wikipedia in general. As for what they do? Well, the section heading says it all. These are really the people that keep other people in line; they are "the distinguished ones." They undo your revisions, especially without telling you. What don't they do! They just do it... ^[4]

May this be a warning

Yeah, may this be a warning to anyone considering registering for a Wikipedia account. If you're thinking about registering for a Wikipedia account, really weigh your options, and these things that I've said. Do it before you get hooked. Because when you get hooked you have to deal with these things, and (mostly, as the article makes clear) these "people."

References

^ This one is easy; just preview the different skins in your preferences pane and you'll see what I'm talking about.
^ Lets just say that you were looking for information as to what different fonts Wikipedia supports, you'd think you'd find it here, or here, but no... you most certainly won't... (As of dinnertime 20, June 2011; and most probably until breakfast of forever.) Sorry.
^ You can look at my contributions to most talk pages (keyword: most), and especially user talk pages, and you'll see a marked indifference.
^ I was going to cite a specific incident with a certain user, but that might even be against uncle Wiki's policy. To any user here, just think long and hard about your experiences here... Oh, you didn't have to think that hard!

[1] This one is easy; just preview the different skins in your preferences pane and you'll see what I'm talking about.

[2] Lets just say that you were looking for information as to what different fonts Wikipedia supports, you'd think you'd find it here, or here, but no... you most certainly won't... (As of dinnertime 20, June 2011; and most probably until breakfast of forever.) Sorry.

[3] You can look at my contributions to most talk pages (keyword: most), and especially user talk pages, and you'll see a marked indifference.

[4] I was going to cite a specific incident with a certain user, but that might even be against uncle Wiki's policy. To any user here, just think long and hard about your experiences here... Oh, you didn't have to think that hard!

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]