> Maybe setting a high bar to new edits is not a bad idea.

I agree about this. If you're worried that your edit might get reverted, the trick is to argue for it on the talk page first, wait for any objections to be raised there, then if no one objects, make the edit marking it as "per talk". At that point, it will be very hard for them to just revert, and if they do so without addressing your comments they're breaking Wikipedia policy themselves.

This is a little unwiki though. If you fear your edit will be reverted, don't worry, it's still in edit history. Make a [1] Bold edit, wait for it to be reverted, then discuss.

The trick of it is that there are very high odds that the actual reverter will enter discussion with you; which means you're talking with exactly the right person on exactly the right topic at exactly the right time. O:-)

You can then proceed to figure out what (either of you [2]) are doing wrong, and get something on the page that works.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discus...

[2] Analogous to unit testing, where the bug could be in the test or in the main program; the problem here could lie with the BOLD editor or with the Reverter, or even both! If you assume good faith[3] and talk it out together, you can go far.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith

> This is a little unwiki though.

Of course it is, but it's way less unwiki than the alternative (revert wars and wiki blocks)! Being 'BOLD' works very well when you expect your edit to stick; if you have reason to think someone will revert your edit, it's just way better to proactively show good faith by arguing for your edit on the talk page.

It is entirely possible to be bold without revert warring. And the one of the best times to be bold is -in fact- when you do not expect your edit to stick. (see references, above.)

Be BOLD, but don't be reckless! Do show good faith, Do also follow all the other policies and guidelines, Do be respectful of others; Do also put a comment on the talk page; Don't start an edit war, and then you definitely won't get blocked!

Wikipedia policies and guidelines are not an optional, pick the ones you like kind of affair. When used together they document optimal processes found over years of experience.

When you follow optimal process and act in a decisive, clear and respectful manner, you'll find that you and your other co-editors can edit more rapidly, effectively and amicably, and you'll even get into less trouble along the way.

Setting a high bar to new edits increases the cycle time to deal with edits in general. If we look at control theory for analogies, and take a feedback controller (say PID) you'll see that short cycle times often lead to quicker convergence and higher accuracy; even with very crude control; while long cycle times even with very fine control will lead to much less satisfactory results.

Analogously thus with a wiki. One of the things that make a wiki (hawaiian for "quick") work is that it (potentially) has very short feedback loops when editing.

One reason wikipedia is often slower than it can be is because very many people have the "slow but fine" intuition; but less people have/(or used to have) experience with the "coarse but fast correction" regime, and thus lack the intuition that comes with that.

Nice that you talk about edits (or new articles?) that you have not seen. Spoken like a true Wikipedist: be hostile to anyone who is outside of the clique and dares to criticize it.

The hostile speed deletions and reverts applied to new users are never happen admins, or members of the clique - even if the quality of things they add is very, very low.

I even wrote above that there are ways to fight it: for example by randomizing the names of users who made the edits. Although Im quite sure that Wikipedia is full of sad people, who will spend a lot of time and effort to still be able to bypass such a system.

What is even more sad, is that in this particular discussions, you have 3 different users who wrote that it happened to them... just look to other replies to the top comment.

Ten years ago I wrote a bunch of articles in a niche of my interest. One in particular was very complex, I spent a whole month doing research for it, posted citations for everything. When I came back a few years later it was unrecognizable. Now it barely has anything of what I wrote in it. So I know how it is to see your work trashed and how difficult the 'pro' editors can be. That's why I don't write there anymore, it's like writing on sand.

Even so Wikipedia is still one of my top 3 sites. I'm doing NLP and I see the Wikipedia corpus used in hundreds of papers. It's useful in many ways.