User:Pentagon 2057/rant
Hi all. I have recently semi retired, and I foresee this being my last page. I entered Wikipedia in a period of decline, with certain areas falling faster than others. The pool of Singaporean Editors when I joined was a mere handful-past the heyday of Wikipedia when there was more than a hundred- but this did not stop me. I maintained pages on the Singapore MRT, other Singapore articles, and a handful of other articles. In my first few months, I really enjoyed my time here. However, that enthusiasm was to be short lived. Now, about nine months after I joined, I finding myself in a situation where my fellow Editors are blocked, inactive or have become a nuisance to work with. Slowly, as people started to disappear, the joy of editing went with it, and my daily rounds of maintenance and assessment became a chore. Trying to find something to do, I turned to content creation, with Sengkang becoming a GA on 26 Feb, And Clementi rail accident becoming DYK 2 days later. I have managed to advance to the third round of the Wikicup, and have clocked up a lot of GARs. From what I consider to be my 'cohort', Irobotboy, TimothyH2 were banned, Nigos had (no offence) been a problematic editor, KN2731 usually working on hurricanes, which resulted in me usually working on my own. Recently, a Long time returnee-Quek157- received an indef. this was the final straw, and after taking another look at wiki, I see that wiki is slowly dying. Wiki was not like what it was anymore. With this, I shall now join the ranks of more than 200 SGpedians who have realised this and left. @ZKang123: I entrust you to take care of Wikipedia for me as I regret that I cannot stay any longer. To all reading this: may this final essay be marked by the digital blood of me and those who have left before me. 1.02 editor (C651 set 217/218) 14:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
The apparent lack of support of Wikipedia by Singaporeans is quite apparent. Even a few of my classmates will raise some eyebrows whenever they saw my doing 'weird stuff' for Wikipedia, such as taking pictures of the MRT and adding them here. Wouldn't any other Singaporean understand, that we edit, to update? But it can be very difficult to edit and improve 'in the right way', such as adding references, embellishing articles, since Singapore is quite a young nation. There are also very little other unofficial websites talking about subjects like 'Culture in Singapore'. --ZKang123 (talk) 08:51, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
I concur that the lack of available reliable sources is a rather big and annoying issue and is also the main reason why I rarely edit Singapore-related articles. Vandalism and unsourced changes – which I am reverting as I type this – worsen this problem. Also, given the rigorousness of our education system, it is difficult to bring in young editors like ourselves whom are willing to fork out time to improve articles. ~ KN2731 {t ⋅ c} 09:54, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
This post was written about 3 years ago, and yet this still rings true today. While recognising the significant improvements such as on articles in regards to Mass Rapid Transit lines and stations courtesy of ZKang123, Wikipedia in regards to Singaporean topics in general has gotten way worse ever since. Unfortunately, it remains a reality that while Singapore, who has achieved a lot within the last six decades, remains a relatively small country with a small population. It also doesn't help that many neighbouring countries have a sense of envy and jealousy amounting to hate for Singapore and its people, and so have brought such vengeful behaviours on a website that tries its best to maintain its impartiality.
Let's put it into some context. Across articles about Singaporean topics, there is a significant presence of editors hailing from neighbouring countries, and while I won't name these countries explicitly, the biggest culprits seem to hail from "M" and "P" based on their userpages and other edits. These editors seem to have a sense of personal vendetta over anything Singaporean, by trying its best to subtly remove any achievements or information (even if they are reliably sourced) anything that involves Singapore, and at the same time attempt to shove in as much negative aspects as possible on articles involving the country. They also tend to be well-established editors who have been around for years, and so their edits would rarely get reverted or questioned. With such subtlety, editors from other regions of the world are also not aware of what's going on, but I wouldn't be blaming them for this. It's like asking a Japanese person to be highly knowledgeable of the cultural and historical topics about say, Greece and Turkey or Armenia and Azerbaijan. And when they see that an established user hailing from a country close to Singapore are making such edits, they assume its "close enough".
However, what does saddens me is that we do have some Singaporean editors who also do not question and sometimes even encourage such behaviours. As I said, I wouldn't mention anyone explicitly, but if you're a Singaporean, I'm sure you're well-aware of the Sinkie pwn Sinkie phenomenon. It is also prevalent on Wikipedia.
Also a note to Pentagon 2057, I hope you could consider putting your post here back to the main space, so that future editors especially from Singapore could possibly be much more aware and knowledgeable about the situation. We shouldn't put them off from editing, but it is also equally important to be more cautious. I also do hope that going forward we would see more Singaporeans coming forward to edit on Wikipedia and help reverse the trend. I am still optimistic. Optimism is how Singapore got to where it is today. ICWTGCWHD (talk) 15:45, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
- @ICWTGCWHD: Thanks for bringing me back here after a while, it was interesting to revisit this rather low point in my wiki career. I made this with the intention of quitting wiki altogether, but eventually decided to continue albeit contributing at a much reduced rate than before. I do not intend to move this page elsewhere (although it was originally in wikispace), some of the points raised in my rant may not be valid anymore and it only serves for me to reflect on what happened in the past. I am rather intrigued with the point you raised about foreign interference and will look into it if i have the time to do so. I suggest that you also be bold and revert the changes yourself, and engage in dialogue with editors if they continue to do so. Hope that you will continue to have a good time editing. Pentagon 2057 (T/C) 14:45, 27 September 2021 (UTC)