Caballero1967

Even the most ambitious editor can lay claim to only a small turf in the Wikipedia world. And within the links and paths I often travel, I have found that the articles on the Haitian Revolution, the Dominican Republic and Haiti are particularly vulnerable, not only to common vandalism (WP:VAN) but also to disruptive editing (WP:DIS).

These articles are at the heart of heated debates about identity, plagued by passionate nationalism disguised as scholarship, and years of misinformation: a long list of faulty and problematic publications. Well-intended users (WP:GF) often intervene in the articles after watching a documentary, reading a book or having an insightful conversation, but without the necessary documentation (WP:RS) or proper contextualization, and thus disrupt editing. They bypass the articles' Talk Pages (WP:TP) where they could have engaged experienced editors in discussing their concerns.

Others, drive-by shooting, changing the wording just a bit to accommodate the text to their ideological paradigms without regards to the work of others before their arrival. Sometimes they insist on being correct even when their knowledge on the subject is but limited (WP:CIR). This pattern has led me to spend more time protecting pages and arguing for and against small, but essential additions rather than putting the necessary time and energy in rebuilding the articles themselves.

Articles thrive with the number and quality of editors. Please, consider collaborating on these sensitive topics to help improve our Wikipedia, a source of collective knowledge, where a typical person with a line to the Internet can access what before was the domain of the privileged few.

Other useful links: WP:WEL, WP:LGL, WP:LOP.