[bane]

I've been able to get some edits through only by making a blog post that had the text of what I needed to edit into the WP article so that I could reference it as a second-hand source -- thus doing the proper kind of rain dance to the WP bureaucrats. It seems most of the time the only way to get things to stick is find the right sort of rain dance the threats the loophole needles that make somebody not revert your changes.

Another ridiculous case I know about was where the leader of the team that factored RSA-230 updated the page with a reference to the announcement. It was reverted by an editor with the note "Wikipedia is not the venue to announce your own results." So WP went from having it listed as "factored" to "not factored so far" by the revert making it incorrect. The editor who reverted the change hadn't even bothered to check the cited source where the announcement was actually made. What even was the point of the revert? Why would somebody take time out of their day to make Wikipedia inaccurate over some perceived and misunderstood ceremony following to guidelines and process?

It's so much trouble to contribute it's just not worth it, I stopped contributing entirely about 6 years ago after a bunch of edits I wrote on a topic were merged with another one even though the two topics are different. After a few weeks of fighting I just gave up. Amazingly it was unmerged and most of my original text was returned, and then usefully updated by other contributors where it still lives.

Why bother?

[jl6]

Without trying to be dismissive (I’m grateful for the examples), it looks like your first example was a simple workaround for the reasonable policy of having citable sources rather than hosting original research; your second example was unreverted within an hour and no lasting harm done; and your third example ended in a useful article with your contribution preserved.

In short it sounds like the process, while frustrating at times, is still somehow generating good outcomes.

[bane]

I mean I guess that's true. But it's also true that every reversion was entirely unnecessary.

It definitely makes a non-collaborative environment when everything you try to do to help is met with entirely unnecessary hassle.

It's a bit like trying to drive a car with a passenger who doesn't have a license and doesn't know how to drive, but is constantly telling you how to do things and even keeps grabbing the wheel and sometimes tries to reach their leg over to push the pedals. Sure it's possible to drive your car from a-to-b this way. But is it a way that you're likely to repeat? Not really.