Thread:Talk:New Editor Engagement/A fundamental problem/reply (5)

The thing is that Wikipedia is a lot stricter than it used to be. Wikipedia was like Wikia back in the day. I remember coming in back in 2005 and 2006 and never once bothering to include a reference with what I was writing because it was "obvious". References were only for those contentious things like "person X is of ethnicity Y" or something like that. Now every Wikipedia article needs to meet the high standards that are expected of articles. This leads to a lot of really great articles and prevents a heck of a lot of dross and stupid self-promotion, but it also makes it more difficult to write an article than it was back when Wikipedia was brand new. Also, Wikipedia doesn't devote the coverage to single subjects that some other sites do. For instance, take a look at the minor aliens in Doctor Who and Star Trek, they're all clumped together on single pages (because there's only a line or two about each of those aliens). These changes are mostly necessary. Wikipedia would conceivably get sued way more often, but it does make it more difficult to write an article. Articles aren't books, it's not about writing what you know, it's about research projects.