Freedom Thought: Why I dislike Wikipedia

Wikipedia purports to be the free (libre; as in liberty) encyclopedia, and is rapidly becoming a mainstream source. I contribute to the project quite a lot, too. But is this project really living up to all the hype it has generated? Is Wikipedia truly free? I think the answer is no.

I don't like Wikipedia. It is mainstream, it is not free, and it pretends to be free. I'm going to list three reasons why I dislike Wikipedia. Note that I'm not saying Wikipedia doesn't work. It probably works and most likely will fare much better than Encyclopædia Britannica can ever hope to achieve. That doesn't mean it is inherently good, or free, or even likeable.

1) Jimmy Wales has the ultimate say in all matters.

I don't care what kind of project this is, but when a project is associated with and managed by someone referred to as the "God-King", it is blatantly un-free. This sort of near-religious fervour results in the kind of shallow "freedom" that lowlife politicians promise to give the people.

Of course he works hard. George W. Bush works hard. Bill Gates works hard. Henry Ford worked hard. Stockwell Day worked hard. That doesn't mean their hard work ensures anyone any freedom.

2) Wikipedia is centralized and associated with commercial companies.

How is Wikipedia free when its content, its servers, its resources, and its database are all centralized, controlled and managed by a few individuals? Recently, Wikipedia had reached an agreement with Yahoo!, with Yahoo! agreeing to host parts of Wikipedia; negotiation with Google is also assumed to be ongoing. Why centralize and hand over physical control to capitalists? That is not free; even worse, any country, such as China, can ban Wikipedia easily.

Another argument from some Wikipedians is that Wikipedia is available for download. However, just because starting another free encyclopedia is a theoretically possible option doesn't mean it is plausible. Wikipedia has gone mainstream, with a near monopoly on open encyclopedias, and to exist alongside it and despite it is highly implausible.

An analogy might be that a bunch of freedom activists are told by the government, which purports to run a free state, to go away and start their own country on some remote island. It might theoretically be possible for their new free community to prosper in spite of the un-free government, but how plausible is this? Isn't that pointless, wasteful capitalistic "competition"?

Since Mediawiki was specifically developed for Wikipedia, why could the developers not design a p2p protocol specifically for Wikipedia? Despite the money going into Wikipedia, the servers are almost always slow beyond belief. Instead of asking for spare change from people, why not let them contribute bandwidth? Why not start a Wikinet, and revive the Freenet movement?

Why continue the assumption that anything good must have "respectable" corporate backing? Freenet was despised and ignored, because people are uncomfortable with genuine freedom, and as a result few practical uses ever came out of the slow network which has never grasped mainstream attention. However, a project as large and ambitious as Wikipedia could easily help promote true freedom, the kind that is not as shallow as modern democracy.

If Wikipedia is not about freedom, then why in the world call it the "free [libre] encyclopedia"? Wouldn't that be just an excuse to say something like this? "This project is not free as in free of charge because we want to reserve the right to make money off it but are still too uncomfortable with the thought of losing control of it. Free still sounds catchy though."

3) Wikipedia pushes impossible policies that are defended by religious fanatics.

Let's look at the "NPOV" business. NPOV stands for Neutral Point of View, and according to founder Jimbo Wales is "absolute and non-negotiable".

Free, as in liberty, encyclopedia? Forget about that for now.

NPOV (often used as an adjective) means unbiased and neutral. According to Wikipedia's policy page, it means "articles should be written without bias, representing all views [i.e. POVs] fairly". It is the Holy Grail of Wikipedia.

Semantics aside, the NPOV policy causes many problems.

First of all, it is practically impossible to determine what is truly neutral or unbiased. Human languages are quite subtle, and mechnical rules often cannot detect sarcasm or deliberate agenda-pushing. An article can be said to be fully NPOV by one party and determined to contain too much irony or bias by another party; no one is ever satisfied. This policy creates an argument to fall back on.

The way some Wikipedia users talk about "NPOV" is almost akin to religious fanaticism, much like how some Americans see their Constitution as the Second Bible.

Certainly, it is necessary to have principles laid out, but when principles become religion, particularly because they are put forth in such a fashion as to be absolutely non-negotiable, what hopes and assurances do people have toward building a free, as in liberty, encyclopedia?

Personally, I cannot agree with the GFDL, because it is a lengthy licence that still fails to ensure balance between the contributor, the end-user, and the greedy capitalist. What exactly am I contributing to in the name of freedom? Wikipedia fails to answer the question efficiently and adequately.

Why am I still contributing to Wikipedia? People can answer the self-explanatory question by asking themselves the following questions: 1) Why do people still go to college/university and make contributions to professors? 2) Why do people use Windows, knowing how badly it sucks? 3) Why do people still work corporate jobs, contributing money to executives? 4) Why do people even pay for knowledge?

No, Wikipedia is not free (libre), but as viewer one can at least use it as a free (gratuit) source for now.