When I first found out about the Wikipedia my first thought was "Wow! That's a great idea". But then, when I visited topics that I was familiar with, I found that many of them were woefully inadequate for an encyclopedia. There were topics that didn't have articles yet. Many of the articles that I found were just stubs. Even larger articles were missing important information. Too many articles had factual errors.

So I decided to join in this noble experiment. I started editing—anonymously first, but then quickly getting a user account. If I had just kept to those topics I was most familiar with, things might have been different, but even there I had one very odd run-in with another editor, which should have given my a clue about how the Wikipedia really works.

But I wanted to help, to make the Wikipedia better. I saw other things that needed work, and so I started to get more involved in the "backstage" stuff in the Wikipedia namespace. Sure, I realized that there were problems, but I thought that things could be improved, just as any Wikipedia article could be improved.

It took me way too long to realize the underlying facts about the way the Wikipedia works. In this libertarian anarchy, any process is only as functional as it's most dysfunctional participant. What that means is that in too many areas the inmates are in charge of the asylum.

Sooner or later someone or some group will take a look at this experiment and will figure out how to avoid most of the problems that exist on the Wikipedia. They will fork things off to build a better user-edited internet encyclopedia and the Wikipedia will be replaced. Until then, I wish the best of luck to all the nice (and sane) users on the Wikipedia I have met and hope that they can help make the Wikipedia function more effectively. I, however, have decided that I can find better things to do with my spare time and am leaving.

gK ¿? 20:19, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[Please leave this as is. I won't be back to read any of it anyway.]