Wil, I've been here ten years and I can't usefully answer your question "what's going on?" in a sentence (or a paragraph or an essay). You can only learn by participating. You can learn some things by reading all the justifiably-banned users have to say, but I'm not sure they're things that will stand you in good stead. Probably the best way to answer your actual question is to dive in, write stuff with references, add photos, etc. It's actually pretty good nerdy fun and I recommend it if you're the sort of person who read encyclopedias for fun as a kid.
I'd definitely say there's no royal road to knowledge of Wikipedia. Dive in and do it and discover how lovely and infuriating your fellow humans are, really.
Thanks, David, and I agree 100% that there's a lot that I can only learn by participating. That's one reason I'm here. :) I've also been uploading sound loops to Commons, and I'm working on a few new articles on various pet interests of mine. I think the one thing left that Fae suggested I do is edit a BLP, IIRC. I know that there has been some discussion about how to handle BLP's here and on WO. These particular issues seem much harder to grok without some experience, so I think Fae was on-point when he suggested I just dive right in.
I've also learned a lot from Wikipediocracy, but YMMV. :)
,Wil