" 

 @Tezero - you're right, and actually do you know what's actually upsetting me? I have expertise on a topic, so I made what I thought was a helpful addition to an article on the SHR rat about its use as a model of ADHD. I got in an an editing war (which I had no idea what this was) with a guy that told me repeatedly I was wrong. Now I didn't want to argue with him, but his reasons for removing my edit were illogical to someone who has actually worked in that area.  

 So I asked for help - Sergio fair enough gave it to me, I was happy with that, got an acceptable resolution I thought. Then I got in an argument with the guy who originally reverted my edits, next thing I know, I get banned, Ten hours after the SHR article was changed. Ok perhaps I shouldn't have made personal comments, but it was frustrating as this guy clearly had no real depth of the subject. 

 So now from my perspective, I see I've been banned for trying to make an article better (and add a pretty well known fact within the ADHD-rat research world) with people telling me I've violated rules I had no understanding off. 

  
  But now here's the beef - and the real damage. I'm actually genuinely upset because this whole incident has negatively changed my view of wikipedia. I no longer see it as a useful resource, I see it as one where people will argue against experts and actively prevent useful information from being included for the purpose of their own egos. I am now also of the opinion that articles could well be missing basic information because people have used rules to prevent experts from making articles accurate . So not only has this experience made me ""anti-wikipedia"", whereas to the point I will use this resource less (and now I will use this anecdote to tell my students why they should not use wikipedia - whereas previously I had no issue with them using this as a first look-up), but this experience has also burned so much that I don't want to contribute to Wiki  either. So now you've also lost a subject expert (on brain stuff generally) who has 30 odd years left of his academic career, who could have been a useful contributer. Interestingly, I've also just spent the past 30 minutes researching this, and apparently my experience is not unique. 

 Wikipedia has a reputation for chasing away experts (despite having a page giving guidance on how to retain/attract experts). See these for examples: 

 http://wikipediocracy.com/ 

 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hBpuAwAAQBAJ&pg;=PA122&lpg;=PA122&dq;=wikipedia+anti-experts&source;=bl&ots;=IzS7j49Iqh&sig;=djCyMBl5cj11285k5tYSvkVes_w&hl;=en&sa;=X&ei;=4bEkVMKqLIriatOCgJAG&ved;=0CE8Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q;=wikipedia%20anti-experts&f;=false 

 http://goodwin.public.iastate.edu/pubs/goodwinwikipedia.pdf 

 http://larrysanger.org/2011/06/is-there-a-new-geek-anti-intellectualism/ 

 Really something needs to be done, if this is to be kept relevant.  They do operate a good model over here:  http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Main_Page Which I imagine was probably set up as a reaction to anti-expert mentality that is obviously well known over here. 

 Anyway, thanks for the understanding responses Tezero, although I sadly get the impression decent, egoless admins like you are actually in the minority."