Even something as clear-cut as "the provided source doesn't support this claim at all" becomes an uphill struggle to correct. When it comes to anything related to politics this problem is also exaggerated by editors selectively opposing changes based on whether they apply a desired slant to the text.
https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2024-10-17/Path_Depende...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655989
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Weierstrass_function#Accu...
One thing I should clarify is that Wikipedia's purpose is to aggregate the current general view on things. So even if you know something is true personally, you cannot put it in unless you can find a reliable place where someone has documented it. In the cases I have there I had to first find the appropriate backing references before I could make something happen so it's not a trivial fix. Getting Makoto Matsumoto in there took me many hours because I know only a tourist's amount of Japanese.
I've also edited controversial articles (the Mannheim stabbing, one of the George Floyd incident related convicts) successfully.
Anyway that's my resume. Bring me the work you need done and once I've got a moment I'll see what I can do (no guarantees, I have a little baby to care for).
This is where I would disagree, the model really doesn't work for politics and current events. In those topics Wikipedia may be better described as "The world according to a handful of (mostly US-based) news outlets". There's been a prolonged effort to deprecate sources, particularly those which lean to the right, so it's increasingly difficult to portray a neutral perspective reflecting multiple interpretations of the same topic. Instead excessive weight is given to what a majority of a select group of online sources say, and that's not necessarily trustworthy.
Most obviously it's a model which will fall flat when trying to document criticism of the press.
Like any consensus-based thing it's pretty loose. It's unlikely that EN wikipedia had much of a position on the reliability of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, for instance.
As an example, when I resurrected the Makoto Matsumoto article, I mirrored it to my personal wiki[0] in case it is deleted from the original. Another loss I lament is that of Chinese Numbered Policies[1] which I think is a genuinely interesting list and a meaningful categorization that I will eventually re-create on my personal wiki.
I'm a Wikipedia inclusionist which means I want as many true things there as possible in a way that represents the truth as accurately as possible, but it's a collaborative effort and that means that sometimes I don't get what I want.
Any way, as you can see from my earlier experience, I seem to have a skill of getting facts into Wikipedia when others do not, and I have a personal desire to see them there as well. So if you want to list a couple of the examples you had trouble with I can see if I can help. I know you said "politics and current events", but hopefully there are non-emergent situations that you can describe because evolving situations require more attention than I'm able to apply at the moment. I will still try, though. As an example, the Salvadoran Gang Crackdown had some ridiculous language on it that I removed[3] that was clearly an attempt to insert a left-wing (as it is in the US) political slant.
To be clear, I have no affiliation with Wikipedia (beyond the fact that as an auto-confirmed user I have the user privilege to create articles without going through AfC). I just have a personal interest in fact recording[2].
0: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Makoto_Matsumoto
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_delet...
2: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Observation_Dharma
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Salvadoran_gang_c...
This is amplified by the fact that active editors socialize with each other heavily behind the scenes, and over a period of many years you end up with a core group that all desire to apply the same slant.
I've also noticed that a few of these editors seem to be deliberately abrasive towards new users, perhaps with the hope that they'll break a rule by posting insults in frustration. The moment that happens those editors quickly run to the site administration and try to get said user banned. Wikipedia's policies are increasingly treated as a weapon to beat down dissent rather than a guide on how to contribute positively.
I gave them a fair shot a couple of times, but they're unreasonable and unmoved to listen to reason or experience they don't actually possess.
