User:RobLa/Wikipedia

From electowiki
 From: Rob Lanphier (a.k.a. "User:RobLa")
 To: you! whoever you are reading this webpage
 Date: 06:07, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
 Updated: 06:07, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
 Subject:  If you're going to edit Wikipedia....

Hello readers and editors of electowiki!

If you're reading this page, there's a chance that I pointed you to this page. I have some tips for editing English Wikipedia:

  • Read the docs — One doesn't need to read all of them (because that would be ridiculous, since at least one of the documentation pages will probably have changed by the time one finishes reading all Wikipedia documentation). Still, one can start here: ("Help:Introduction" on English Wikipedia) to find tutorials about editing Wikipedia and some basic policies of that website.
  • Be bold (but don't get carried away) — There's a famous essay about being bold on English Wikipedia that can be found here: "WP:BOLD". For the most part, I've found that many folks that I speak to in the electoral-reform community are too timid, so it's not a bad idea for those folks to read WP:BOLD. However, I've found that some folks are a little too bold in POV pushing. Be careful out there.
  • Wikipedia is not electowiki — Here on electowiki, we have EPOV, which has grown more-and-more similar to Wikipedia's NPOV over time. User:RobLa's longstanding policy has been to ask for good citations, and if those aren't available, then links to living, credible online conversations where anyone can comment. English Wikipedia has much higher standards for citations.
  • Fill in your User: page - You can read all about electowiki user pages on Help:User page, and Wikipedia user pages on w:Help:User page. You get a little bit of a credibility boost if you give your real-life identity, but certainly, no editor of Wikipedia is required to disclose their IRL identity. Still you should put something on your user page, because some editors (myself included) wonders if someone has something to hide when they don't have a user page (like "User:RRichie" before that account was blocked).
  • Find a mentor (and listen to them) — Remember how I was talking about folks embracing "WP:BOLD" a little too tightly. Yeah, about that: I've advised folks that they were pushing it, only to respond by throwing Cunningham's law in my face. Wikipedia was built on Cunningham's law, and the only way things change on Wikipedia is for someone to be bold and change things. That said, recklessly renaming pages and becoming someone that more experienced editors think of as a "nuisance" doesn't reflect well on people would might be allies.

You should note that pretty much everything on English Wikipedia is fair game for editing. However, you shouldn't be surprised if someone who seems to have more time than you do reverts your change almost immediately. These things happen: see English Wikipedia's "BOLD, revert, discuss cycle" to learn more. Have fun, and be bold!

Sincerely,

Rob Lanphier (a.k.a. User:RobLa)


Versions of this memo:

  • v0.01 - 06:07, 25 October 2024 (UTC) - original memo