Criticism of Wikipedia

The dissatisfaction of the Encyclopædia Britannica editors led to Nature publishing additional survey documentation that substantiated the results of the comparative study. Based upon the additional documents, Encyclopædia Britannica denied the validity of the study, stating it was flawed, because the Britannica extracts were compilations that sometimes included articles written for the youth version of the encyclopedia. In turn, Nature acknowledged that some Britannica articles were compilations, but denied that such editorial details invalidated the conclusions of the comparative study of the science articles.

Larry Delay and Pablo Bachelet wrote that from their perspective, some articles dealing with Latin American history and groups (such as the Sandinistas and Cuba) lack political neutrality and are written from a sympathetic Marxist perspective which treats socialist dictatorships favorably at the expense of alternate positions.

“Some historians . . . remember [Quantrill] as an opportunistic, bloodthirsty outlaw, while other [historians] continue to view him as a daring soldier and local folk hero.”

People write of things they're interested in, and so many subjects don't get covered; and news events get covered in great detail. In the past, the entry on Hurricane Frances was more than five times the length of that on Chinese art, and the entry on Coronation Street was twice as long as the article on Tony Blair.

, which are used by editors to determine if a subject merits its own article, and the application thereof, are the subject of much criticism.Nicholson Baker considers the notability standards arbitrary and essentially unsolvable:

Criticizing the "deletionists", Baker then writes:

Another criticism about the deletionists is: "The increasing difficulty of making a successful edit; the exclusion of casual users; slower growth—all are hallmarks of the deletionists approach."

Complaining that his own biography was on the verge of deletion for lack of notability, Timothy Noah argued that:

A 2007 peer-reviewed study that measured the actual number of page views with "damaged" content, concluded:

42% of damage is repaired almost immediately, i.e., before it can confuse, offend, or mislead anyone. Nonetheless, there are still hundreds of millions of damaged views.

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