Joined the forum a day or so ago and bombed several threads. Gotta get your money's worth I guess.
I guess it depends on the topic. Being an open-source site (I'll ignore the concept of controlling staff editors for now - I have no knowledge of that), I find it great for general knowledge but, like you, if I'm looking for an idiot's guide to some technical topic, I am often disappointed because the posted information is simply too complex for either my tiny brain or my purpose.
FYI....
Wikipedia:Quality control
This article discusses aspects of quality control at Wikipedia which are used in developing and guiding policies and procedures at Wikipedia directed at article development. An important distinction is made between the editing of the content of articles to maintain quality, and, the conduct of editors involved in the improvement and enhancement of articles written for Wikipedia.
The very
wiki-nature of Wikipedia enables instant and continuous quality control, by allowing all editors in good standing to participate in improving articles and the encyclopedia as a whole. If someone comes across an error while reading Wikipedia, they can immediately and directly change it – by clicking on the
Edit tab at the top of the screen, and then by typing away in the edit window that appears.
While there are a few bad apples who abuse this privilege by vandalizing or propagandizing, the vast majority of people who edit Wikipedia compose articles responsibly with the common good of
humankind at heart – Wikipedia is a public resource intended to make knowledge freely available to
everyone in the world, and most participants take this very seriously.
But mistakes sometimes occur. These, and the damage done by the bad apples mentioned above, need continuous attention. The three ways that Wikipedia maintains its quality control is as follows:
(a) A great deal of
Wikipedia's volunteers' effort is applied to quality control. Wikipedia has an elaborate disciplinary system for handling vandals and other troublemakers, and a dedicated force of system administrators to enforce the Wikipedia community's decisions and policies – admins even have the power to block a bad apple permanently.
(b) Once material is added to Wikipedia, an army of volunteers organized under various departments check and recheck it to make sure it conforms to the high standards set forth in
Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (which were established specifically with the creation of quality articles in mind). There are departments for everything from
typos to
factual errors.
For a list, see Wikipedia:Maintenance.
(c) And
Wikipedia even has robots, automated users that monitor for errors and correct them automatically. For example, these days most vandalism is fixed by Wikipedia's robots, or our content editors, who are watching your every move. Be careful.