When I'm researching a technical issue, and a Wikipedia result is returned, I immediately skip over it.
I used to be able to trust Wikipedia as a "landing page" to find a brief overview of what I'm looking for, then locate additional information. But not anymore. There is an ever-growing trend on Wikipedia to create a "leaner" Wikipedia by simplifying articles, combining articles, and deleting articles.
First case in point is the Wikipedia page for "Microsoft Macro Assembler". As of this blog post, this is a very small page with "History", "Object module formats supported by MASM", "Some third-party tools that support MASM", and "Assemblers compatible with MASM" as the main content sections.
Strangely missing is the details on the actual MASM assembly language. There's no link to another wiki page. There may be a few references at the bottom to the language, but nothing in the article itself.
I considered adding to the article, but then I noticed in the history that there used to be a rather excellent overview of the MASM assembly language, but someone deleted it with the following reason:
major cleanup; remove poorly written and messy "MASM assembly language details" section which discusses specific aspects of MASM and is best suited for a user's guide
I was really hoping this was a one-off occurrence, but the more I look through Wikipedia, the more saddened I am that the entire community has turned into one large bickering and arguing festival over what needs to be deleted.
