Wikipedia Sucks!

I go to Battle for Henderson Field and was greeted by Pending Changes messages at the top of the article. When I click on that message, a "revision slider tutorial" opens up telling me about how the German Wikipedians wanted it and how "we appreciate your feedback." Well, I felt like I was fighting the 1990s slider and I had no idea how to approve a pending change through that slider. I also thought regular editors like me had the ability to approve a pending a change, but I can't figure out how to do so. Admittedly, I have something of a Tim Taylor ADHD thing with situations like this, but I think it's all a load of Bullwinkle.

That's the problem with web design or software development: You leave it alone and people want changes with problems solved, but if you change anything, you make people even more angry.

I've never looked into the slider, but if you couldn't figure it out as an editor capable of approving changes, it has obviously failed in its purpose.

Here's the (so small you nearly miss it) notice that appears at the top of the conventional edit window......

Note: Edits to this page from new or unregistered users are subject to review prior to publication (help).

That "help" link goes to Wikipedia:Pending changes, the introduction to which is 274 words long.

Slider isn't mentioned once, on the entire page.

This is Wikipedia. If you gave it to professional usability consultants to assess, their report would only have one conclusion......rip it up and start again, preferably using people who know what they're doing if you don't want to simply end up in the same mess.

Pending changes was never about letting more people edit, as Jimmy Wales' lone voice kept claiming. It was about finding a way to protect more articles from "anyone" than were currently being protected by semi-protection. They knew this would introduce a horrendously complex system, one that even most Wikipedians would probably struggle to understand, but frankly, they viewed that as a price worth paying for the prize of making Wikipedia even less open to "anyone". Literally every Wikipedian who supported its implementation who wasn't called Jimmy knew this. That is the nature of the Wikipedia community today - insular and conniving. It is why many of the original editors of Wikipedia have left. You can't reason with these people, they're fanatics.