User:Njsustain
An excellent discussion of why Wikipedia is broken, sunk, and anarchic: WP:WPBROKEN You might call this the "absentee landlord" syndrome. Yeah, WP, is legally owned by a BOT (that's Board of Trustees, not robot, for those of you who have forgotten about the real world), but they are not doing the job of being leaders. They are just fundraisers (primarily to protect their own salaries) and figureheads who don't even bother with the runnings of the project any longer.
The rise and fall of Wikipedia
[edit]Since Wikipedia is suffering from diminishing returns and internal corruption, I see little value in continuing to put time into articles which, however valuable they become, have no stability. Firstly, nothing is in place to stop ridiculous edits which bring false or misleading, or poorly focused information to the subject. While unlimited editing is a strength for WP in one way as it enabled its growth, it also severely limits its potential. Secondly, undue control by unaccountable administrators with no qualifications, other than that they spend ridiculous amounts of time on Wikipedia, and their inbred "white wall of silence" which goes along with it, have led to corruption, making this website of questionable validity and encyclopedic value. Essentially every article, regardless of the quality of writing, or number of good sources, is a discussion on the topic, not an encyclopedic article thereof. There is one level of discussion (the discussion page) and another level (the so called article). A handful of people (of various levels of corruption) have more say over what can go in these discussions than others do. The management system which worked initially is broken.
There have been repeated clear cases of administrators taking offense at "their" articles being edited and using WP for free advertising for commercial endeavors. Meritless responses such as a littany of irrelevent rules, meaningless WP pejorative buzzword such as "fancruft," juvennile threats, and kneejerk insults of user input all occur alongside empty claims of "good faith." Nevertheless, administrators with COI, and who can produce no valid sources can decide what goes in the article due to meritless "authority." Continued claims of community editing, ethics, consensus, etc., are without substance. Just like every other media source, the content is not based on truth OR verifiability... it's based on what the people in power want to say, truth be damned! Administrative abuse is rampant in WP. None of these strong arm tactics -- including shutting down conversations, taking ownership of articles (serving as judge, jury, and executioner), and removing user's edits while refusing to discuss proposed chages -- result in improved articles. These tactics continue to be the utter antithesis of consensus.
Update, April 2012: The above continues to apply, and is not limited to administrators. Cheers.