I contribute now and then, but I'm not a member. Nothing against Pupik, Don Vito, G.T., or Sage, but I swear, the Nazism of a portion of the community there makes GTP and its staff look like friggin 4chan by comparison.
I avoid much of that "community", to be honest, since it's not as user-friendly as a forum is. Generally, the F1 "experts" are a decent bunch, nobody seems to step on each others toes. Then again, there's not a whole lot of argument when you're posting information and statistics that are quite verifiable, readily available, and very black-and-white in nature. There's not a whole lot of room for conjecture on many F1-related topics.
Then you've got the guys who run around tagging "citation needed" on the most banal details of an article without even bothering to look for a citable source themselves, tag articles as "stubs" or "in need of clean up" without even taking a moment to consider improving the article themselves, and concentrate on ensuring all rules are followed to the last letter instead of actually improving the quality of the site and its articles. It really annoys me.
Aye, I had that once; although sticking to articles of comparatively minor, but accepted, importance usually gets you out of their penalty box. One was a British member who changed all my "American spellings" on an article about racing driver from New Zealand. Go figure...I have to admit in my
dork of dorks that it bothered me for a bit; but alas, anything you create is bound to be edited, so you just have to accept it, since it's part of the terms. But to be brave enough to start an article, and compose it nicely, feels rather good.
I do concur that those who point out minor issues with your article, without actually contributing so much as a spelling or grammatical revision, is just a bothersome troll of a member. For example, I don't personally care for
anime, yet I
don't jump in threads dedicated to the subject and trouble others about how much I don't like it. It's wiser to contribute nothing by inaction rather than by over-reaction, I say.
It's funny, too, because even with some of Wikipedia's more comprehensive (and in some cases overly restrictive) rules, as well as the steadfast sticklers for those rules, the site is still nothing more than a source for the casual reader, mocked by professionals and university instructors worldwide as "wholly unreliable."
That's because Wikipedia frowns down on what it calls "original research", unless your finding is published, or can be quickly verified as truth. Exceptions are made for a topic that only a handful of people (or a single individual has knowledge of), but even then, that can be construed as vanity or "cruft". Since a lot of original research comprises a good deal of tenured university work, it's easy to dismiss it. In any case, it's an encyclopedia, intended to introduce you to a topic, not be a all-encompassing, end-all-be-all source of knowledge on a subject. Plus, it settles a "bet" of sorts every so often.
If you think Wikipedia is demanding, see the work that is called Uncyclopedia.org. Some of it is really quite funny and clever, however, only about one article in 50 is actually worth the trouble to read. And yet, moderation of articles follow NO guidelines whatsoever. If they don't think it's funny or charming, it's killed off, because they don't get the joke. So it's run by a lot of people with an in-joke in-crowd, and forget the rest.
The one big thing that keeps Wikipedia "honest" is that sources are, and must be cited; few personal websites, forums, and chat rooms can promise the same.
