Dear Wikipedia . . . - Successful Blog -

Uh-oh She’s Confused Again

At the request of more than one reader, I spent part of my Sunday trying to figure out something. The something was exactly why the article about Link Leak submitted to Wikipedia was not there. The article, written by journalist Martin Neumann about the Link Leak Project named by Mike Sigers, was taken down within minutes of when it was posted at Wikipedia — the free online encyclopedia.

I figured this quest to find out the exact reason would be an easy endeavor. Off I went to the Wikipedia home page.

I found out many things. I found out many, many things. I found out so many things, that I could not find my way back through the last things I found out to the first things I found, and consequently ~~twice~~ several times I had to start all over again. Wikipedia’s guidelines are a labyrinthine abyss of information sorely in need of an editor. The guidelines are indeed an encylopedia on their own.

This is the page on undeleting an entry.

I might mention that I have an above average IQ and more patience with print than most folks do, but I gave up then. I made one more try and then did the Liz thing . . .

The Five Pillars of Wikipedia

Five pillars? The Jesuits only have four pillars as far as I recall. An encyclopedia with five pillars? Okay, I’ll go with that. The five pillars are . . . I can’t tell you. When I went back to find them, I couldn’t. I did a search and found the Five Pillars of Islam though.

It was at this point, I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere fast. I don’t like researching in circles much, and I really don’t like information that doesn’t give me answers when I need them.

Email was my next resort. This is what the email said. It also included the permalink for this post.

Hi!

I’ve spent the last two hours on your site and quite frankly, I’m frustrated with your navigation. All I want is a simple answer. Could you answer this question for my readers please? Why was the following article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_leak

deleted within minutes of it’s posting at Wikipedia? To help you out, it was posted at approximately 8:20a.m. Central Time US on Saturday, May 6th.

We at Successful Blog would like to learn from this experience and are waiting at this post [permalink for this post was here] for an answer.

Thanks in advance for the time it takes you to investigate this matter.

—
Smiles,
Liz Strauss
Successful Blog

Of course the Liz thing was a friendly email. I am the nice one.

–ME “Liz” Strauss