Of course, if the article doesn't exist at all, you risk a war with the deletionists who've decided certain turf shouldn't exist. And occasionally there's a one-two of one user shredding an article as "excessively detailed", then another nominating it for deletion because it lacks content...

But overall, I've found it a more approachable way to contribute than trying to change or extend any article with an opinionated 'owner'. (At this point, I suspect Wikipedia's factual errors are less likely to come from "anyone can edit" than from possessive and mistaken writers actively restoring errors.)

In my experience, some of these "little hitlers" appear to be (controlled by) larger corporate entities in some way, shape or form. When the "turf" becomes profitable for some, it becomes very difficult for others to cut the grass so to speak.

Wikipedia has a great output. In my view they don't need my time and effort. They're doing great now. When I see a message asking to donate money, I do, because I assume they do need that if they're asking for money.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=21700802 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

Re: "Wikipedia has a great output. In my view they don't need my time and effort. They're doing great now." We really need a lot more help here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Typo_Team

"The Wikipedia Typo Team is dedicated to improving the quality of Wikipedia by correcting typos and misspellings. If you see any typos (even minor ones), please correct them. This kind of editing is a never-ending job, so we could use your help! Please consider joining our team. All you need to do is start correcting typos."

Re: "When I see a message asking to donate money, I do, because I assume they do need that if they're asking for money." please read

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12...

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/wikipedia-fundraising-drive-should...

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9qqds7Z3Ykd9Kdeay/...

http://thewikipedian.net/2016/03/11/modest-proposal-wikimedi...

Or any person with any kind of ideological charge, especially a boogeyman to some group or other.

The problem with Wikipedia is the fanatics with infinite time, which it accumulates because they're the ones who never give up. The other issue is it's inability to actually deal with problematic users, as the moderation doesn't teach the fanatics to be good, it just teaches them to not be so bad they'll be banned.

There are hundreds of thousands of words of meta discussion about whether to use –,—, or - in titles.

This even made its way to Arbcom. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitra...