Is Wikipedia vandalism that big of a deal?

You're right, vandalism on Wikipedia shouldn't be such a big deal. In fact, I think those top-ranking editors are putting way too much effort into seeking out vandalism and reverting it. They're either trying to up their edit counts or throw their weight around.

When I still bothered to edit Wikipedia (and maybe I still could, if I wanted to), there were a couple of times I noticed some fairly blatant vandalism, but when I hit the edit button, I'd get an edit conflict. Either a bot or another user had cleaned up the vandalism before I got a chance to. So now if I see obvious vandalism, like "Internet Explorer is gay," I just hit Refresh and it's gone.

I also agree that more "added info" would be nice. But if those top-ranking editors don't like your info (even if it's true and verified info), well, you know what their next two edit summaries are going to be like: "rv vand" and "uw level 4" ...

Some of the pages are locked, so you might not be able to do that. But, most importantly, you would need to have someone (and probably more than 1 someone) read it, believe it, and actually start spreading it around. How likely is that?

What do you mean by top-ranking? In edits? Then it's probably because they're using huggle for an hour or so. That racks up a whole heap of edits.

I suppose in one sense, vandalism *would* be a big deal if people didn't care, because then only the well-read articles would be vandalism-free, because no one reads the others enough to revert all vandalism.

But in another sense, you're right. One thing that I heard somewhere was that

if most of your edits are to User or User Talk namespaces, you're a newbie (which was true for me);

if Mainspace or Article Talk, a normal editor (which is barely true for me; I have quite a few user talk and Wikipedia talk edits) ;

if Wikipedia or Wikipedia talk, you're an admin.

Does that sound apt to you? I found it quite fitting to a certain extent. By the sheer nature of having a "mop", you are more able to clean up and thus spend more time cleaning up after others in the storeroom and less time working with the customers in the shopfront.

First, let me mention that I love "HAGGER????!!!". He does excellent work on Wikipedia.

Second, you surely understand that vandalism reverting is how socially maladjusted teens in their mother's basement (who had no significant meaning to their lives before Wikipedia) now find an empty shell of meaning to take up space in their largely empty souls. By providing vandalized edits for them to keep tracking down and reverting, you are helping them keep up their facade of "purpose" in life.

You're right - millions of people living in third-world countries aren't as fortunate as we are. And you would know, since you're Osama bin Laden.

Luckily, most people never go to Wikipedia for "research purposes."