The project is dead:
It is full of groups of users pushing an agenda. That in it self is not a problem but they use every possible exploit and will oppose fixes.
The large majority of users accumulates so called edits by deleting stuff others wrote. Having a lot such "edits" elevates you to a source of absolute truth.
You can find arguments between people trying to write articles (which is a lot of work) and people trying to delete their effort.
The rules state that conflicts are never about content.
So the discussion is effectively repackaged as an annoying newbie who keeps adding wrong things to articles then has the audacity to disagree with the glorious established editor with a long term track record of dealing with such annoying newbies.
The delete everything crew is basically sitting there salivating and waiting for a new contribution to happen. Who will win the +1 edit prize for reverting it first? Most likely the evil newbie wont restore his contribution instantly which will buy you time to think of some farcical excuse for removing it.
When it does happen you instantly remove it again and post the farcical excuse on the talk page.
This will buy you some time to think of a new entirely different excuse to delete it.
The content contributor now has 2 options, either he restores his contribution which will instantly take things to some corrupt admins private talk page OR he can engage in the talk page discussion where everything he says is answered with nonsense refutations + new fabrications.
If you are properly networked with the status quo you can even toss in a river of insults aimed at editors, topics and those who care about the topic.
If you manage to anger the contributor by repeatedly removing valid contributions while insulting him again and again you hit a notice board and share the url of his response, specifically the div where it is displayed isolated from your obnoxious provocations.
With each ban you fabricate you become a greater authority in the field of judging actual contributors.
You cant propose any improvement without those exploiting the flaw stating "they don't like it" and "I agree with that guy who doesn't like it"
If they would only target exploits they are actively using a pattern might emerge, so in stead they oppose everything.
At times the foundation introduces features without giving the tag teams a chance to oppose and reject it. This produces endless rivers of rage.
They basically build a distraction formula for every type of legitimate user.
I've seen people struggle for 6 months trying to get a single sentence into an article. While there are doubtful cases there are also tons of perfectly legitimate contributions with tons of accepted sources frequently used all over the wiki that are refused - ad infinitum.
At this point it becomes obvious that while there are guidelines and rules who is to implement those if it isn't the users themselves?
"haha, I deleted your shit"
"haha, I got you banned"
Or some slogan on the user page that completely gives away that the account was specifically created to target a specific user.
They are also miraculous at cleaning up after themselves. If you pay close attention you can see alt accounts suggest their obnoxious troll like behavior should be hidden from public view because it makes WP look bad.
Besides from team admin accounts gullible administrators are played like a violin. They are all to happy making a new friend and hiding something that makes WP look bad.
The games are so complex that paid editors are breeding into a serious industry. The foundation frequently dreams about doing something about that but it never seems to materialized.
What you experienced is the tolerated "solution" to the problem which boils down to eliminating the competition. You should in stead pay someone to create legitimate looking accounts that push your weblink on the business directory. These professional wikipedians can smell their own kind from miles away. They will find some private place to discuss cooperating.
If you want to play the wikipedia "game of trolls" you should ignore the article space. Focus all your effort on unmaking the most outlandish exploits.
I one time infamously suggested that user edit history should feature those edits to articles where the user made 3 or more contributions that are currently live and count at least 500 characters in total. That way I can see if the endless article writing advice perhaps comes from someone who never even tried to write articles.
Imagine how upsetting that idea is to someone with 500 established accounts. Clearly I was being very disrespectful to valued contributors there. What is insultingly called Vandal fighting is supper important to wikipedia. Editors are a dime a dozen. Writing content is easy! It is deleting it that takes valuable time from valuable contributors users. Its not easy to click a button to delete thousands of hard worked contributions. It takes a lot of patience trolling legitimate content contributors.
Sometimes they come back within the hour thinking they can just add a bunch of citations with sources to an article. Then you have to click the delete button all over again.
On your own you can only hold back a few hundred "vandals". Beyond that clicking the button becomes way exhausting.
The project is dead but the idea was nice.
excellent knowledge of whats going on :-) i wish we could create something that works some day :-)