I create an article on "bob", my pet cat. It says "bob" is a domesticated feline owned by Norman. Because I'm lazy I never update it when "bob" gets run over. Because it is such obscure topic, no one else updates it either. No one thinks to link it to accident report (one that killed poor bob). Non one ever expands on the life of "bob". No one updates it with link to cat species page, or the Norman page, or pets page.

That is very, very "low quality". It becomes wrong over time and never had much info to begin with.

That is obviously extreme end of spectrum. But the same issues occur for many, many topics for long ways along spectrum away from obscurity.

Wikipedia works causer there is a critical mass of people willing to create, expand, keep up to date any given topic. Topics need to be "notable" enough to reach that critical mass or else they rot. And rot reduces the value of entire thing.

I "browse" wikipedia, both the random link some else mentioned and by following links. Some, when they find knowledge is not there, try to add it.

Wikipedia GA, A, and FA articles aren't typically just contributed by a single user. They're a team effort, built up by barely-coordinated teams of strangers. The point of the project is to build a system that generates "A" articles based solely on volunteer effort.

> Also, you don't "browse" wikipedia

The Wikipedia homepage, the 'random article' link on the sidebar, and the XKCD strip (https://xkcd.com/214/) all directly oppose this notion.