User:Clovermoss/Editor reflections

This is an essay about experienced editors reflecting on their experiences. I'll probably come up with a better summary later. But everything's entirely optional, so feel free to skip any questions you're not comfortable answering. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to throw in their two cents. I think that interviewing a large amount of experienced Wikipedians has the potential to be quite insightful.

Questions

• When did you start editing Wikipedia?
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia?
• If you could back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor?
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?
• Do you'll think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future?
• Were you involved with WikiEd?
• Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not?
• Feel free to also share anything else you wish to :)

User:Clovermoss (me) – November 28, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia?: I created my account in 2018, shortly after my sixteenth birthday.
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia?: I wanted a cool hobby and I knew that Wikipedia was open to newcomers and impactful, so I decided to join and be a part of something great. I came into all this wanting to be a Wikipedian so I knew what I was getting myself into for the most part. I also noticed that there were some pretty serious gaps and quality issues in content I was interested in improving here on the project.
• If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor?: That's a bit of a tough one because I was quite proactive in getting myself help and very engaged with the community from the start. I think my experience might have more downsides if I hadn't had the previous experience I did editing wikiHow and all the amazing help from User:Nick Moyes. He adopted me a few months into my journey as a Wikipedian and helped me figure out things whenever I was lost. There's definitely a few things that took awhile to fully click in and other stuff that I'm still learning as I edit here, but nothing quite stands out to me as something that would've worked better in hindsight.
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?: I'd say my experience as a new editor was really positive and people did their best to be welcoming to me. I will say that whenever I didn't reach out to people it kind of felt like everything I was doing was going into some sort of void because I wasn't getting any feedback unless I asked for it. That resulted in me being somewhat anxious and constantly worrying if I was doing things the "right" way or messing things up out of ignorance.
• Do you think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future?: Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm still hanging out here in 2100.
• Were you involved with WikiEd?: No.
• Have you ever edited on mobile? Why or why not?: Yes and I've given a lot of feedback to the WMF about the dedicated app for android devices. User:Clovermoss/Mobile editing goes into all this in more detail.

User:Rhododendrites – November 28, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia?: 2007.
• If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you be a better editor? I don't think I'd change anything, now that I think of it. There were times I had different ideas of "what a good Wikipedia ought to do" but in hindsight that's mostly nonsense. I did exactly what I wanted to do on Wikipedia at each stage, I suppose. If the question were "what advice would I give myself" it would probably be to think about anonymity a little more.
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?: I was an atypical newbie in that I spent a long time reading and researching before diving into editing, so I didn't need too much help. I learned from some veterans when I was researching, and when I solicited feedback on my first article. The names FT2, Dana Boomer, Wikid77, and DGG come to mind as early, helpful, interactions (sadly now one is deceased, one long-inactive, and one banned).
• Do you think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future?: Yes. There have been a few discussions and trends over the past few years that I've found discouraging/demotivating, but there's just too much I like about this place.
• Were you involved with WikiEd? If so, what was that like?: It was overall a very positive experience. I was already teaching with Wikipedia and they needed an interim program manager shortly after my last semester teaching... then I stuck around for five years. Generally positive. It reframed my relationship to Wikipedia a bit as it meant I was no longer a volunteer (even if I seperated my work and volunteer accounts), but I didn't let it affect my editing that much. There was a bunch of layoffs early in the pandemic, which included me. The upside is it gave me time to finish my dissertation. :)
• Have you edited on mobile? Why or why not?: Almost never. It's just too hard on a tiny screen.

User:Barkeep49 – November 28, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia?: I first created an account in 2005 but I didn't really start to edit consistently until 2018.
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia?: I had a lot of downtime at my job in 2018 and got tired of scrolling Twitter. I thought editing Wikipedia was something productive I could do with my time instead.
• If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor?: Having the presence of online resources available now, available back in 2005. I ended up doing some other kinds of tasks then but I think if I'd been able to go deeper in content writing I might have stuck around longer.
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?: Not really? I just spent a lot of time reading Wikipedia space stuff in order to figure out what was going on and what I was expected to do.
• Do you think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future?: I can't imagine stopping while I still have time on my term as an arbitrator and I have big post-ArbCom plans when I can get back to my first love, content writing.
• Were you involved with WikiEd?: I've spent a lot of time discussing WikiEd as I think their goals are laudable, their employees really great Wikipedians, and the messes their worst classes create unfortunate (or perhaps something less charitable).
• Have you ever edited on mobile? Why or why not?: I have but I prefer not to do more than type quick talk page messages, both because I enjoy the full keyboard and because the experience is so clunky.

User:Blaze Wolf – November 28, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia?: There are 2 answers to this. The first Wikipedia account I created was User:Blaze Fire Wolf which I created 4 1/2 years ago. The other answer is about 3 years ago on this account.
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia?: I created my account simply to fix a grammar mistake someone made and decided to help out with grammar and spelling and stuff.
• If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor?: Listen to what the admins have to say and understand that they say it in your best interest. I probably came close to getting blocked a couple times in my first year or so because I was simply too eager to help out and was helping out in areas I wasn't quite ready for yet such as at the Teahouse.
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?: Plenty. Most of it I didn't listen to very well because I simply didn't fully understand that some of the things I was doing weren't all that constructive. As I have terrible memory I don't remember any of what exactly worked and what didn't work.
• Do you think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future?: I plan on continuing editing for as long as the free time I have allows me to do so. My free time has dwindled a lot in recent years. Where I used to be active here most hours of the day, now I'm on here for a few hours sporadically here and there.
• Were you involved with WikiEd?: Not directly, though I have encountered WikiEd students who needed some guidance and needed their teachers and the staff to help out.
• Have you ever edited on mobile? Why or why not?: Not until very recently. I don't have much to say about it other than it's somewhat clunky.

User:Valereee – November 28, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia?: 2006.
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia?:I'm incurably curious.
• If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you be a better editor? I edited very casually for about a decade, usually not bothering to log in if a particular edit didn't require it. I guess it would have been nice to have had the ability to stay logged in longer, as I'd be quite interested to see how my work developed over that first decade.
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?: I created my first article minutes after creating my account. It immediately -- and I do mean immediately, it was five minutes after I created it and I was actively working -- got tagged for speedy, and another editor came in and removed the tag with the edit summary "asserts notability, giving more time for the author to finish it". It's at Valerie Taylor (novelist). The editor who gave a noob more time hasn't edited in ten years, and I still wish I could thank them.
• Do you think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future?: It's been an interest of mine for over 17 years, a major hobby for ten, and part of daily life for 6, so yeah. I find topics that need an article regularly.
• Were you involved with WikiEd? If so, what was that like?: I haven't, other than to occasionally come across a student-created article that just needs help, like Yongfeng chili sauce, which was AfD'd minutes after being moved to article space by a student.
• Have you edited on mobile? Why or why not?: I've done it, but I hate it. I'm a touch typist. I like a keyboard.

User:Scorpions1325 – November 29, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia I created my first account when I was in grade school solely to use monobook.
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia? Although I created my account in 2010, I did not actively start editing until 2017. I was bored because I temporarily dropped out of college due to extreme OCD.
• If you could go back in time, what do you think would've made you be a better editor? Up until 2020, I mostly edited categories. I did not discover WP:RCP until July 2020. I wish I had read more policies before that point because there are old edits where I do not follow policy.
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't? I do not recall needing any help learning the ropes.
• Do you think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future? I'm not sure about that one. I graduated from college last year after 8 years of extreme mental health issues, and I got Deep Brain Stimulation for my OCD last March. I saw a 90% reduction in my symptoms, but my Autism remains, and my mood can be unstable when I am under stress. I also started my career last month. Until now, I have managed to keep my mental health issues away from Wikipedia. If it gets worse I'll have no choice but to leave.
• Were you involved with WikiEd? If so, what was that like? No. I think it is a massive net negative to the project.
• Habe you edited on mobile? Why or why not? I was into Lost media, Wikipedia, Youtube, Do A Barrel Roll, Karen (slang) and the craziness that led to Adpocalypse 2.0 before they were cool. However, I have never gotten the hang of mobile devices.

User:Red-tailed hawk – November 29, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia?: I started editing Wikipedia in the latter half of 2019.
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia?: I was in college at the time, and one of the professors had us make Wikipedia accounts for a class project. After my professor gave us a lesson on some of the norms of Wikipedia, my classmates and I created a draft in my userspace. (That draft was later moved into the mainspace after the semester ended, and it remains in mainspace to this day.) I returned to Wikipedia about a year later out of boredom during the COVID-19 pandemic, and I've been here since. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:16, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
• If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor?: It's OK (and expected) for people to thoroughly revise one's contributions—having one's contributions reverted is a part of the normal editing process, even if it can be jarring at first. Part of the reason I had stopped editing in 2020 was that I was upset that the draft I had written with my classmates had been substantially revised, with a good chuck of content removed or totally rephrased. Looking back as an experienced editor now, those sorts of edits were mostly an improvement to the article, and I'm perfectly comfortable with the standard sort of bold-revert-discuss cycle that tends to lead towards article improvement—but I wish I hadn't been so discouraged at the start. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:16, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?: I had a bit of help from my professor when I was in the class. It helped in terms of learning the basics of wiki-syntax, but I was more or less on my own for learning the culture and how to interact with the broader community.
• Do you think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future?: Yep! It's been one of my foremost hobbies over the past few years, and I've got no plans to stop any time soon.
• Were you involved with WikiEd?: Nope! The class was not through WikiEd; it was something the professor did on his own.
• Have you ever edited on mobile? Why or why not?: Yes I have. I try to limit my editing on mobile, because I like to use the visual editor and I find it easier to type quickly on a desktop. It's also quite a bit easier to format citations and the like on desktop. The ability to use a keyboard and mouse, coupled with a larger screen, makes it a bit easier to use for editing.

User:HJ Mitchell – November 29, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia? March 2009.
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia? Idle curiosity. I was reading, saw a button that said "log in/create account" and pretty soon I was hooked.
• If you could back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor? I was clueless at first and didn't have much idea of what I was doing or how I could be helpful. I like that (some?) newbies get a bit more in the way of structured suggestions these days but I'm not sure I would have used them. I'd have appreciated a guide like "this is what a reasonably complete article should look like" and "here are some good sources to search". I wish I'd discovered some of my passions earlier; perhaps I'd have pursued them in formal education.
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't? Nothing structured. I remember admins like Fabrictramp, LadyofShalott, and SilkTork (the latter of whom partly inspired me to run for ArbCom) offering advice and using the clue stick when necessary.
• Do you'll think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future? I think so. My activity has peaks and troughs depending on work and family life and the weather but I've been around nearly 15 years and can't see any reason I wouldn't still be around in another 15.
• Were you involved with WikiEd? No.
• Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not? Yes, frequently. I used to use the Android app for reading and would fix typos or make other small edits if I spotted something. It's not great for internal-facing stuff and last time I used it things like scrolling through a watchlist were impossible. My watchlist is one of my main focuses of editing (it's huge and carefully curated to include noticeboards, potentially problematic articles including a lot of BLPs, IPs I've recently blocked for vandalism, common vandal targets, and a wide range of articles I find interesting or might get round to improving one day) so these days I use the web interface in a browser to view my it. Between Twinkle, the reply tool, and a few other scripts I can do quite a lot of adminning from my phone. I prefer a proper keyboard for writing anything of any length, though, and referencing on mobile is painful.
• Since you ask, you might (or might not) like my recently written musings.

User:Eddie891 – November 29, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia? 2016-ish. I edited for about six months as an IP, before registering an account in early December 2016.
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia? I saw a mistake and wanted to fix it. It was a bit intoxicating as a 12 year old to be able to make changes that other people would see-- it felt like I was actually making a difference. I created an account after I read a newspaper article about something that I felt needed a new page. I got really hooked during COVID, when having a lot of free time coincided with my brain finally grasping how Wikipedia worked.
• If you could back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor? Honestly, for me the biggest thing is patience. I probably started editing before I should have. My early articles were terrible. Probably the first couple years of editing was terrible. But instead of telling me to go somewhere else, people put up with me, fixed my mistakes, and sometimes gave tips (They still do all of the above :)). I think when we hit users with paragraphs on every mistake they make and walls of SHOUTING acronyms it can be overwhelming. And I probably would have left.
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't? Not formally, but I found a community in the military history project before too long, and though I am not super active there anymore, it was the single most valuable thing I did for retention. Women in Red similarly, for a bit. Otherwise, editors just fixing my mistakes as mentioned above.
• Do you'll think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future? Yes. Wikipedia has enough different fields that when I get bored with one thing I can go to another (I tend to go through cycles of cleaning up other articles, closing AfDs, writing content, reviewing content, etc). My involvement waxes and wanes as life does, and I am liking taking summers largely off, but I don't see myself stopping editing.
• Were you involved with WikiEd? No.
• Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not? I do very little editing on mobile (primarily accidental rollbacks), but a lot of reading (following my watchlist and identifying articles that need to be written). I cannot imagine writing content on mobile. Even short comments are hard for me without a keyboard, bigger screen, and the ability to easily navigate tabs/split screen. And I'm from the generation that is supposed to be comfortable with phones!
  • Just wanted to add that finding MILHIST and getting involved there was a massive boon to my Wikipedia career as well! I've largely moved on but I wouldn't be where I am today without the support of the community there. Also, I didn't realise how young everyone here was! I feel very old realising that I have at least a decade on most of these people! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:23, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

User:NightWolf1223 - November 29, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia?January 2021
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia?To be honest, I don't really remember.
• If you could back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor?The Mentorship system. Without it I was completly on my own
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't? I did not get any help or welcome. I attempted to write an article and was immediatly hit with a G11 deletion and a COI notice, purely because I had a bare ref and I did not understand the citation systems.
• Do you'll think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future? I am not sure.
• Were you involved with WikiEd? No, I was not
• Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not? Editing on the go is a terrible experience. Nothing works the way it should.
• I think that we should welcome everyone via bot. I wonder how many people are in the situation that I was in. Welcoming should just happen automaticly so that n00bs are not cluelessly stumbling around. /rant

User:Sdkb – November 29, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia? I made my first edit in 2012, but didn't really start editing frequently until around 2018.
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia? My early edits were largely made out of a copy editing impulse to fix errors. I became a Wikipedian gradually as I peeled back the layers of the encyclopedia's back end, motivated both by a fascination with how it works and a journalistic impulse to document knowledge.
• If you could back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor? In some of my early editing, I ran into a bit of frustration with Wikipedia's bureaucracy. For instance, I wanted to restore an article that had been turned into a redirect, and got confused when I was informed that Requests for undeletion was not an appropriate venue because the article had not technically been deleted. But on the whole, I had a fairly easy time of it — when told "you need to find notability-qualifying sources," I went and found notability-qualifying sources, which is not something most newcomers manage to do.
  There are several factors I might hypothesize worked in my favor: My education had taught me how to research, I think I'm innately much more inclined toward technical/complex environments like Wikipedia than the average person, and I just had some luck that the topics I wanted to write about had sources available and the other editors I ran into didn't totally shut me down. So ultimately, while it would have been nice to have had simpler rules and better guidance, I was able to get by. I don't think many others in my situation would have, though, which is why I've devoted so much effort to improving the newcomer experience.
  The only other thing that occurs to me is that I probably could have started editing sooner than I did if I'd been introduced to it earlier on. I was always aware that anyone can edit Wikipedia, but I never thought of it as a potential hobby until it started to become one.
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't? I never had a dedicated mentor, although plenty of experienced editors helped me out in different ways at various points. The main way I learned about guidance was reading it directly. And while I wouldn't say that that worked, it worked well enough.
• Do you'll think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future? Yes. The core motivations that make me want to edit Wikipedia (see above) are intrinsic parts of my personality, so I do not anticipate they will change. The amount of spare time I have has certainly changed in the past and may change in the future, and is pretty directly correlated with how much I edit, but even in busy periods, I tend to just edit less frequently rather than stop entirely.
  I do often edit as though I won't be around in the future, both because I might be wrong about my own future and because, in the long enough term, none of us will be around. A contribution that only provides value while an editor is still active (e.g. a bot without open-source code) is much less valuable than one that provides value ad infinitum.
• Were you involved with WikiEd? I was not.
• Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not? I occasionally edit on mobile, in two main circumstances. The first is when I'm out in the world and something prompts me to make a minor edit. For instance, I might be reading the article on a speaker I'm about to hear and notice a typo. But if it's anything major, I'll wait until I'm home and can use my computer. The second is also when I'm out in the world and get a ping about something time-sensitive. This might be the start of a discussion in which I wish to comment early to help inflect it in a particular direction. But in both of these circumstances, mobile editing is a compromise, never my desired option.
  Overall, I think there are two angles to look at mobile editing from. The first is the practical, current state. Clearly it's pretty bad — mobile editing has never been prioritized on a technical level by Wikipedia's interface designers, and it shows. The second is a more hypothetical picture of what mobile editing has the potential to become. Here, too, I'm a bit cynical. I think that the amount of information needed on-screen while editing and the amount of typing involved just makes it intrinsically a task better suited to computers than smartphones, the same as writing a novel or editing in Photoshop. Basically, there's a reason that most experienced editors do their editing from a computer. But I do think that it's worth investing some effort into improving mobile editing despite its lack of popularity. There is a lot of low-hanging fruit to be picked, and many of the editors just coming online that can help us address systemic bias in the developing world edit only on mobile.
• It's always nice to have a chance to reflect on editing; thanks for providing the opportunity :) Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:54, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

User:FormalDude – November 29, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia? 2017, though I really became active in 2021.
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia? I was an avid Wikipedia reader and wanted to help contribute to it since I used it so frequently. Volunteering here is my way of giving back to a resource that I greatly value.
• If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor? Not much, I had a pretty great experience learning to edit here. It perhaps could've been made easier by making guidelines easier to find and more condensed, but I'm not sure how exactly that could be achieved.
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't? What I valued the most was help from experienced Wikipedians reaching out on my talk page, and later on joining the Discord server and getting help from the community there. What didn't help were things that I just didn't know about in my earliest days, such as the adopt-a-user program and the WP:Teahouse. There's a lot of resources for new editors that they simply aren't aware of.
• Do you'll think you'll keep editing for the foreseeable future? Yes, though my activity level tends to come in waves, based on a combination of my motivation and availability.
• Were you involved with WikiEd? No.
• Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not? Maybe once or twice. I stay away from it because I find it to be a terrible experience. It's not intuitive, and making even small changes is a tedious process. I also have access to a computer everyday, so it's just not worth it to me to become familiar with the quirks of mobile editing.

User:Roundish – November 29, 2023

• When did you start editing Wikipedia? I made an account in 2021, but I have been making typo corrections for about a year beforehand with an IP.
• Why did you start editing Wikipedia? I think the constant typos got to me. I, like many people, had always thought of Wikipedia as this sort of endless void of information. When the COVID-19 pandemic put me chronically online, I started spending sizeable amounts of time reading Wikipedia. The random page button led me to articles that not only did not have enough information to satisfy me, but also had endless amounts of typos and grammar mistakes. Plus, I needed a new hobby.
• If you could back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor? As a new editor, I can honestly say that I learnt most of the basic policies through the WikiFauna portal. It was an entertaining introduction to the roles an editor can fill and astonishing detailed as to what and what not to do. I think a little less time in the rabbit hole and a little more time proposing controversial changes on talk pages would have given me a better taste of Wikipedia. The idea of posting a message was daunting, but I had a great experience when I finally mustered the courage.
• Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't? The welcome message convinced me to start editing. Having an easily accessible repository of links was absolutely fantastic, and I am saddened by how many editors discredit the Welcoming Committee. I often felt like some of my contributions were falling into empty space as they were overwritten, and knowing that Kj cheetham, even for a short time, had paid attention to me kept me going. It sounds vain, I know, but there you have it. More experienced editors collaborating with me when I started talk sections was also very encouraging and made me feel as though I was on even footing, but getting reverted gave me an emotional shock at first. Even now I feel my heart in my throat at an alert! I never had any help aside from that first welcome, but I think relying on myself and getting involved in the community really kept me going.
• Do you'll think you'll keep editing for the forseeable future? Absolutely. I've never had so much fun. My edit count has definitely decreased dramatically as I lost interest in countervandalism, but I am making more substantial edits now, so Template:Shruggie.
• Were you involved with WikiEd? No.
• Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not? Yes. It, for lack of a better word, sucks. I generally keep it on desktop view to review pending changes while waiting. It's awful to type on and worse to actually expand articles on. I've found an iPad works great, however, and I have actually contributed to several articles with one.
• Thanks for reaching out, Clovermoss!