[lkramer]

to be fair though, it can be a hassle to get something on wikipedia - writing a well thought out addition to a page, only to have it immediately reversed out can be disheartening.

I remember making a small edit to the page of my kid's school, to correct an obvious factual error, providing a source with the correct information, and ended up in an edit war over it...

[rewma]

> to be fair though, it can be a hassle to get something on wikipedia - writing a well thought out addition to a page, only to have it immediately reversed out can be disheartening.

It indeed can take work, but that's also the reason why wikipedia's signal/noise ratio is high and often passed as the tertiary source.

Still, I feel that the bulk of the work lies in establishing notoriety. Sometimes people feel that very obscure topics that lack any acceptable source and fail to establish notoriety should be center stage. Sometimes the problem is half-assed nature of a contribution. Still, it's better to give it a try than to simply complain about no one having done any work.

[KarlKemp]

I've noticed that I stopped being reverted as I made more edits. I have maybe 500 edits, total, so I doubt it's people actually remembering me. The two biggest contributors, as far as I can tell, is that your first <x> edits are scrutinized more extensively. That's either informal/by some of the spam rules/etc., or, on some wikipedias (dewiki, for example), a specific feature where your first <x> edits need to be signed off by more experienced users.

The second, and probably more important, mechanism is simply getting better. WP has a rather distinct style in that it allows absolutely zero jokes, for example, no matter how subtle. Compare with even the most respected publications... The Economist and it's silly captions come to mind.

It's not just humor, but any form of metaphor or irony will usually get reversed, as does any interpretation, even if obvious:

"As the judge became senile, his verdicts started to become erratic. Some defendants chose to gamble and not protest his assignment, and some of them probably got away with murder".

That needs references not just for senility and erraticisms. The causality will be challenged, as will the speculation on defendants motives, the imagery of gambling, and the conjecture about random verdicts potentially letting criminals get off.