It has always been like this - at least for the past 10-15 years or so it has been essentially impossible to edit wikipedia.
Basically any change you make it insta-reverted by some bot or over-zealous power-crazed editor.
I think some editors decide that they "own" certain pages or group of pages and install themselves as some sort of authority/gate keeper/moderator. If your edit does not please them, it's gone. Instantly. You only get to edit the pages if you are in the editor's cabal of friends.
If you don't have an account, or you do have an account but perhaps have only made a handful of edits, you are instantly distrusted and assumed to be malicious.
Of course, you can never prove that you are not malicious, because there is the default stance of immediate-distrust for anyone, so your edits are constantly undone and you never get to build up enough credibility to appease the editors who control who gets to edit "their" articles.
I gave up years ago after a small edit-war with someone who kept reverting changes about a UK politician who was in national news at the time. No amount of references or citations from e.g. the BBC or the Guardian was good enough as I guess the verifiable truth didn't fit with their view of what this page should selectively say about that person, and so they banned my IP as a "vandal". I gave up (but got a new IP after redialing so it was pointless)
> Basically any change you make it insta-reverted by some bot or over-zealous power-crazed editor.
You sound like someone who was pushing a particular point of view about politics, which is precisely the kind of edits that are set up for organ rejection given Wikipedia's strict stance on neutrality, sourcing, and the fact that politics are naturally contentious / prone to edit warring.
I’m going to be honest I’ve gone to some of the more controversial articles they don’t seem far off from reality a lot of the time. They usually have citations of both pro and anti arguments on both sides of any debate. Is there something I’m missing?
Sure there is a lot of spam but there is also a lot of political pressure to influence politically controversial articles. This rather old video was an eye opener for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t52LB2fYhoY
They mention the topic of the Gaza flotilla raid in the video. If you read the actual article on this topic, it's pretty balanced, and mentions in the introduction that Israel was condemned by the UN Human Rights Council and their use of force was called excessive and unreasonable. Hardly a Zionist propaganda piece.
'Nearly All of Wikipedia Is Written By Just 1 Percent of Its Editors
Researchers found that 77 percent of Wikipedia articles are written by 1 percent of Wikipedia editors, and they think this is probably for the best.'
A weird thing about SO is that you can accumulate privileges for doing nothing. I once answered a question about Python which has accumulated thousands of votes/points over the years, and now I have been granted all these editing rights that I don't even know what to do with (nor do I use them).
I got all my SO points from answering a single question on JavaFX, which I only used for about 6 months. It is not even the accepted answer (which was, and still is, incorrect).
There is a lot of demand to control the narrative on political articles. Some political groups [1][2] have mobs of Wikipedia editors trying to influence what you read. I'd be surprised if they didn't have a few moderator roles otherwise a lot of their work would be reverted.
Basically any change you make it insta-reverted by some bot or over-zealous power-crazed editor.
I think some editors decide that they "own" certain pages or group of pages and install themselves as some sort of authority/gate keeper/moderator. If your edit does not please them, it's gone. Instantly. You only get to edit the pages if you are in the editor's cabal of friends.
If you don't have an account, or you do have an account but perhaps have only made a handful of edits, you are instantly distrusted and assumed to be malicious.
Of course, you can never prove that you are not malicious, because there is the default stance of immediate-distrust for anyone, so your edits are constantly undone and you never get to build up enough credibility to appease the editors who control who gets to edit "their" articles.
I gave up years ago after a small edit-war with someone who kept reverting changes about a UK politician who was in national news at the time. No amount of references or citations from e.g. the BBC or the Guardian was good enough as I guess the verifiable truth didn't fit with their view of what this page should selectively say about that person, and so they banned my IP as a "vandal". I gave up (but got a new IP after redialing so it was pointless)