It's infuriating. I've stopped trying to contribute.

This is a tired trope, and it shows you're the one who can't be bothered to understand Wikipedia. Wikipedia is basically an anarchy (most of the time...), meaning that it's unlikely that the person who "rejected" your changes had elevated privileges, it was probably just another editor like you. Incompetent and/or malicious admins do exist on Wikipedia, but its much less likely you encountered one of those as opposed to just a regular user who disagreed with your change.

I'm neither a fan nor a Wikipedia apologist (WP has loads of issues), just trying to explain some basics.

BTW, I assumed you meant "Wikipedia admin" when you said "moderator"; real moderators (Wikimedia employees) do exist, but they're even less likely to encounter.

On the other hand, you say:

> having intimate knowledge of a topic

These kinds of edits sometimes get reverted on Wikipedia, and rightly so. I'm sure you understand that anyone can pretend to have "intimate knowledge of a topic", ideally edits should be backed with good references/sources instead of the editor's (unverifiable) knowledge.

> The anarchy stuff is just marketing nonsense.

With this sentence you're implying that Wikipedians want the public to believe that Wikipedia is anarchic, but this is incorrect, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_no...

The link is a Wikipedia policy, so pretty much as official as it gets. The sad truth is that Wikipedia policies, guidelines, etc are mostly irrelevant to the functioning of Wikipedia.

The real de facto reality of how Wikipedia operates is that it's a complicated system with most decisions being made being local to only a single or a few articles. Furthermore, nothing is set in stone at Wikipedia, be it content or policy, they all change with the whims of the editors currently active at the relevant place and time. Which is also why policy is mostly powerless.

My references themselves (from impact factor 10+ journals) were attacked and the cause of rejection. I'm not pretending that I know more than someone else; I'm leading the audience toward where they can assess the data for themselves and make their own conclusion.

I do this by referencing high quality, peer-reviewed, reproducible research. I don't post opinion (on Wikipedia). I state facts corroborated by multiple sources.

yup this is a common problem with Wikipedia.

You aren't the only one (albeit in my case, for more mundane/esoteric topics)