It's always seemed weird to me that wikipedia has a problem with scaring away potential editors. I for one love editing wikipedia and never found it in anyway intimidating when I started editing in my teens, although I'm probably part of a sizable edge case of humanity that enjoys the relative complexity of the process of editing itself, markdown et al. I don't find the culture to be off-putting either, because the culture gels nicely with my personality traits and those of any person who would enjoy contributing to an encyclopedia.
Wikipedia has a learning curve sure, but like learning to use a shell instead of a gui, the pain is certainly ultimately worth the gain. The barriers to entry are nowhere near as high as those I imagine serious, academic editors face in their careers.