This page is about experienced editors reflecting on their own experiences, with a specific emphasis on what it was like to be a new editor. It was inspired by my experience meeting people at WikiConference North America and wanting to recreate that feeling onwiki. I don't think my questions were anything particularly groundbreaking and I'm sure people have attempted to collate something similar at other places like at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention. Regardless, it's thrilling to see the perspectives of so many Wikipedians. I think the best way to approach all this is to read it for yourself as open-ended answers and authenticity can never truly be summarized the way a simple survey with yes/no answers can.
On a somewhat frequent basis, I issue invitations to participate here. This is not a requirement and people are free to pitch in without a formal invitation as long as they consider themselves to be an experienced editor.
Incredibly large pages can be difficult to load. To prevent such issues, I will be keeping archives of every 100 interviews. These can be seen here:
September 28, 2012 (so, over 11 years ago)
I got into Wikipedia shortly after finishing my PhD thesis. I'd written introductory chapter on oxazolines and I knew that it would likely just sit on a shelf and never be read again. The existing page was pretty basic and I figured I could improve it very easily by just copy-and-pasting across some general information.
There were certainly things I did wrong at the start, mostly to do with getting the tone right. Writing science articles for Wikipedia is very different to writing for scientific journals, and it took me time to learn and appreciate that - but that doesn't mean I had any particular trouble I needed help with. Some things can only be learned by persistance.
I can't say that I did. Occasionally I'd take something to WP:Chem
Something dramatic would have to happen to make me stop
Not really. It's a good idea, but I'm not sure how well it works in practise. Some years ago WikiEd was viewed as a bit of a menace. The chemistry editing community of en:wiki is small, I would estimate fewer than 20 frequent editors. WikiEd class sizes could be upwards of 50 and being students their assignment pages would all appear at the same time (presumably the deadline day). This would cause a lot of bother for the community, because the new pages were often of a poor quality and needed heavy editing, merger or deletion. However, the students were being marked on these articles and were of course resistant to any of that. The experience was regrettably negative for all concerned.
The present situation is less severe.
No, never. I imagine you could make simple edits: a typo, a reference, a short sentence - but writing substantive content via a phone sounds like no fun at all. I don't expect I will ever try.
In 11 years this is first time I'm been surveyed. Wikipedia still feels like a Web 1.0 kind of a place - I don't think it understand it's content creators anywhere near at well as webpages with a similar ranking. That might be the secret of it's success, with obsessive people just being left alone to do their thing, or is might be a problem - truly, who can say?
Peaceray ( talk) 21:37, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
I started editing in March 2021.
I found some wrong info and updated some numbers as an IP, and then went in with the intention to write about fiddling and my local history a couple months later. I am not editing about fiddling (lack of RS) or my local history (privacy) lol.
I jumped into a pretty complex area of Wikipedia (copyright cleanup) at a very early point in my editing. Having a better grasp of social situations and not being so impulsive and impatient would have done me wonders in my first six months. I had a handle of most policies surrounding content, and became pretty experienced in copyright in my first six months, but I didn't have the social aspect down and made a few blunders. They were somewhat due to being less mature and clearly inexperienced, but they were blunders nonetheless and I do not intend to make those same blunders.
I joined the unofficial Discord also pretty early on, so yes! I had lots of help. I think most of the help worked, since I was asking questions in project channels (#wpcci mostly). Furthermore, I edited Fandom for a while, and I also edited a game wiki that used MW software, so I was already fully aware of the editing aspects and just needed assistance with WP-specific policy. What didn't work was WP:The Wikipedia Adventure. I couldn't figure it out.
Hopefully! I work in some pretty thankless and tedious areas so my motivation can wane and wax, but I enjoy editing. My main limiter is my IRL obligations, but I do end up being mostly active.
I had the opportunity, but the professor seemed uncommunicative when I reviewed the course, and I was already experienced. You could call my work on WP:CCI/IEP involvement (WikiEd predecessor in its "menace" era as Project Osprey put), and I end up cleaning up and sometimes interfacing with WikiEd instructors/WMF liasons about plagiarism and copyvio due to my work at WP:CPN and occasional Copypatrol.
Yes, I edit on desktop view with Vector 2022 on my phone using source editor. I do not do this often, I think it's really hard because of the screen size, but I find things like reverts and quick talk page replies to be okay to do while on the go.
I'd love to be able to time travel and change how we handled copyright enforcement back in 2000s and early 2010s. We have a couple old problems cropping up and the way everything was set up then is causing problems today in the tediousness. Plus, we had things like Billy Hathorn, where we had edits spanning from 2006 to 2021 and multiple expansions because of extensive socking.
Other wishes include:
It feels like with every major drama that happens, the enjoyment I get from my interactions with others decreases here. But I always will come back, because the people I have met because of Wikipedia are truly amazing. I respect the people I interact with a lot and I am honored to call some of them my friends. Sennecaster ( Chat) 06:26, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
This page is about experienced editors reflecting on their own experiences, with a specific emphasis on what it was like to be a new editor. It was inspired by my experience meeting people at WikiConference North America and wanting to recreate that feeling onwiki. I don't think my questions were anything particularly groundbreaking and I'm sure people have attempted to collate something similar at other places like at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention. Regardless, it's thrilling to see the perspectives of so many Wikipedians. I think the best way to approach all this is to read it for yourself as open-ended answers and authenticity can never truly be summarized the way a simple survey with yes/no answers can.
On a somewhat frequent basis, I issue invitations to participate here. This is not a requirement and people are free to pitch in without a formal invitation as long as they consider themselves to be an experienced editor.
Incredibly large pages can be difficult to load. To prevent such issues, I will be keeping archives of every 100 interviews. These can be seen here:
September 28, 2012 (so, over 11 years ago)
I got into Wikipedia shortly after finishing my PhD thesis. I'd written introductory chapter on oxazolines and I knew that it would likely just sit on a shelf and never be read again. The existing page was pretty basic and I figured I could improve it very easily by just copy-and-pasting across some general information.
There were certainly things I did wrong at the start, mostly to do with getting the tone right. Writing science articles for Wikipedia is very different to writing for scientific journals, and it took me time to learn and appreciate that - but that doesn't mean I had any particular trouble I needed help with. Some things can only be learned by persistance.
I can't say that I did. Occasionally I'd take something to WP:Chem
Something dramatic would have to happen to make me stop
Not really. It's a good idea, but I'm not sure how well it works in practise. Some years ago WikiEd was viewed as a bit of a menace. The chemistry editing community of en:wiki is small, I would estimate fewer than 20 frequent editors. WikiEd class sizes could be upwards of 50 and being students their assignment pages would all appear at the same time (presumably the deadline day). This would cause a lot of bother for the community, because the new pages were often of a poor quality and needed heavy editing, merger or deletion. However, the students were being marked on these articles and were of course resistant to any of that. The experience was regrettably negative for all concerned.
The present situation is less severe.
No, never. I imagine you could make simple edits: a typo, a reference, a short sentence - but writing substantive content via a phone sounds like no fun at all. I don't expect I will ever try.
In 11 years this is first time I'm been surveyed. Wikipedia still feels like a Web 1.0 kind of a place - I don't think it understand it's content creators anywhere near at well as webpages with a similar ranking. That might be the secret of it's success, with obsessive people just being left alone to do their thing, or is might be a problem - truly, who can say?
Peaceray ( talk) 21:37, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
I started editing in March 2021.
I found some wrong info and updated some numbers as an IP, and then went in with the intention to write about fiddling and my local history a couple months later. I am not editing about fiddling (lack of RS) or my local history (privacy) lol.
I jumped into a pretty complex area of Wikipedia (copyright cleanup) at a very early point in my editing. Having a better grasp of social situations and not being so impulsive and impatient would have done me wonders in my first six months. I had a handle of most policies surrounding content, and became pretty experienced in copyright in my first six months, but I didn't have the social aspect down and made a few blunders. They were somewhat due to being less mature and clearly inexperienced, but they were blunders nonetheless and I do not intend to make those same blunders.
I joined the unofficial Discord also pretty early on, so yes! I had lots of help. I think most of the help worked, since I was asking questions in project channels (#wpcci mostly). Furthermore, I edited Fandom for a while, and I also edited a game wiki that used MW software, so I was already fully aware of the editing aspects and just needed assistance with WP-specific policy. What didn't work was WP:The Wikipedia Adventure. I couldn't figure it out.
Hopefully! I work in some pretty thankless and tedious areas so my motivation can wane and wax, but I enjoy editing. My main limiter is my IRL obligations, but I do end up being mostly active.
I had the opportunity, but the professor seemed uncommunicative when I reviewed the course, and I was already experienced. You could call my work on WP:CCI/IEP involvement (WikiEd predecessor in its "menace" era as Project Osprey put), and I end up cleaning up and sometimes interfacing with WikiEd instructors/WMF liasons about plagiarism and copyvio due to my work at WP:CPN and occasional Copypatrol.
Yes, I edit on desktop view with Vector 2022 on my phone using source editor. I do not do this often, I think it's really hard because of the screen size, but I find things like reverts and quick talk page replies to be okay to do while on the go.
I'd love to be able to time travel and change how we handled copyright enforcement back in 2000s and early 2010s. We have a couple old problems cropping up and the way everything was set up then is causing problems today in the tediousness. Plus, we had things like Billy Hathorn, where we had edits spanning from 2006 to 2021 and multiple expansions because of extensive socking.
Other wishes include:
It feels like with every major drama that happens, the enjoyment I get from my interactions with others decreases here. But I always will come back, because the people I have met because of Wikipedia are truly amazing. I respect the people I interact with a lot and I am honored to call some of them my friends. Sennecaster ( Chat) 06:26, 17 July 2024 (UTC)