I used to edit wikipedia in the early days. This was mostly based on my vehicle safety research. I tended to add links to conference papers that I had written. Someone up the line took exception to this (self-promotion?!) and banned me as an editor. I tried to get this rescinded but eventually I gave up. I suppose I could have created a new account with a different email but I found that Researchgate.net was better as I can actually publish papers there.
Having said that, I regularly use Wikipedia and donate now and then.
True, and from Wikipedia’s policy page on video sources: “Anyone can create a website or video and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For this reason, self-published media is often not acceptable as a source.” They go into a bit more detail there, but the editorial committee is pretty good at policing those types of sources. Also, the climate change page is heavily scrutinized by senior Wikipedia editors who skew towards evidence-based research. Just as the editors of the old closed encyclopedias typically tried to do.
Wikipedia’s standards are rigorously enforced by a set of editors. That’s not necessarily A Good Thing! The original idea was “anyone can edit”, but now it’s “anyone can propose a change, but the editors will back it out if they don’t like it.” I got into a disagreement when I added a small edit on a bicentennial reenactment (yeah, -50 years ago- this year) I participated in. That was removed with the snarky comment, “There must be a secondary source.” I eventually found a NYT article on that activity, but the idea that direct personal experience was not acceptable seems to go against the expected original values for Wikipedia. That, plus the rather annoyingly complex mark-up to produce a ‘conforming’ article soured me on contributing to Wikipedia.
I discovered a clear error once: a book had been included in a list of published work by a well-known German author that had in fact been written by another well-known German author. I submitted a correction, and it was accepted.