Please name a few of these articles in serious decay. I am very interested in seeing several examples of this. So far, all I've seen is vague affirmations that this indeed is happening. I don't doubt that it has happened, but I'd like to have a look to better understand the trouble.
-- Michael Turley User:Unfocused
[[Gas turbine]]. The article was mostly written in the first sixty-five edits (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gas_turbine&oldid=6665037) . The following ~eighty edits have contained a handful of improvements, but for the most part they are spam, vandalism and reverts. The article hasn't deteriorated that much because a few editors periodically clean up the spam and revert vandalism.
Don't get me wrong - I don't consider my writing in this article very good, and I'm often amazed that an article I worked on can be made much, much worse! But I'm tired of spending time removing spam and repairing the whole article and associated links from anon edits that originate from a turbine manufacturer's ip address (for example).
I won't work to improve this article anymore, its a waste of effort. I just move on to things that don't require constant babysitting. Haven't had the heart to take it off my watchlist though.