What is not explained is that edits made by those outside the informal circle of leadership may not stick very long. The quieter rumblings about Wikipedia have less to do with vanity edits or poor maintenance of content than they do with the organization's increasingly arbitrary editorial overrides and deletions and rapidly thickening in-group culture.

Sweetheart, Get Me Rewrite

In one example, Lawrence Nyveen, writer and journalism professor, says, "When I added information to the Pace Mannion page about the infamous Pace Mannion fan club, and used scans and bibliographical entries of relevant newspaper articles, it was edited out for lack of documentation." Nyveen then provided the citations, but his edits were not restored.

Carr traces the increase in such incidences to a change in focus on Wikipedia from quantity to quality, shifting the balance of power from the inclusionists (who lean toward adding entries) to the deletionists (who lean toward rejecting entries). "As soon as the most dedicated Wikipedians began applying a quality filter to the encyclopedia, they felt the need to begin deleting the more trivial entries, such as the ones about people's pets and imaginary friends. Then, since there is no brake on the system, as you'd find in a traditional editorial organization, deletionism fed on itself."

In defending Wikipedia's edits and deletions, supporters point to Wikipedia's transparency, noting that every Wikipedia entry lists the history and discussion for the entry (such as this one for the Pace Mannion page). True enough—assuming it is sound long-range editorial policy to build an encyclopedia through a battle of wills, with the last edit winning—but deletions are another story. Once a Wikipedia editor deletes a Wikipedia article, the history of that article's edits is gone forever. Even if the article is reinstated, the page author, if challenged, must again laboriously rebuild his case.

Jason Perlow, cofounder of the food site eGullet, maintained a Wikipedia entry about this website for two years, until a Wikipedia editor put it up for deletion. Perlow then "referred to no fewer than twelve major articles from major publications (Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, TIME, etc.) and [Wikipedia editors] then turned around and said I was promoting myself." Despite Perlow's protests that eGullet is (like Wikipedia) a not-for-profit organization, Wikipedia editors deleted the article anyway. Perlow, turned off by these "self-important jackasses," says he won't try again.

Chronic disputes like these between Wikipedia editors and contributors have led to the creation of websites devoted to critiquing Wikipedia or even restoring deleted or modified articles to another wiki. The anonymously-run website Wikitruth watches for articles that are vulnerable for deletion, "especially when an article has lived for years and has dozens of edits and a sudden 'information fad' screams across Wikipedia and enough people are snowed across the voting period (about five days) to delete the article," said the respondent to a query to Wikitruth, who would not reveal his or her identity. According to this source, Wikitruth volunteers save articles to the Wikitruth site and then "put them back [on Wikipedia]."