User:~delta/Impostor syndrome

Impostor syndrome is a psychological phenomenon where people doubt their skills and abilities and are afraid of being exposed as a fraud. It often manifests in ways such as 1) not giving one enough credit for their accomplishments, 2) underestimating or denying one’s talents or abilities, 3) the compulsive need to feel as if they’re the “best” and that they will never be worthy enough, 4) fearing failure and considering it to be the the bane of one’s existence, etc.

There is no doubt that some Wikipedians do experience impostor syndrome while editing. Perhaps, it may manifest as editcountitis - or the feeling that one’s edit count is not high enough as other editors and that one must always be active and editing to match external expectations. Other editors may feel at times that they do not have enough FA’s, GA’s, FL’s, DYK’s or other recognized pieces of content as others. Some editors feel as if they are incompetent and always making mistakes for others to clean up and that their efforts are worth nothing and that they need to be a “perfect” editor at all times. Others may hold onto past mistakes for too long and think that that past self is exactly the same as their present self - they do not consider mistakes to be learning experiences, but rather to be failures. They feel as if that they are unwelcome on the website and that the community won’t trust them at all. Some editors could perhaps be afraid of making certain edits and/or comments on proposals or projectspace out of fear of being opposed by other editors and appearing foolish or illogical.

I myself have experienced impostor syndrome while editing before and still do sometimes. I have felt as if I didn’t have enough recognized content and that my contributions were worthless because I thought that only created messes for others to clean up, even when those aforementioned contributions were just common errors made by newer users. I have felt that I was “just another overeager countervandal CIR case” and that I was better off blocked and banned by the community in some moments, and I've sometimes doubted my judgement and did not give certain !votes on XfDs and such because I was worried about appearing irrational with my !votes at times.

So, how do you deal with impostor syndrome? For me, what helps me deal with those feelings sometimes is that knowing that each one of my edits, no matter how small, will end up helping contribute to the sum of all human knowledge and that I am helping to play a part in improving Wikipedia’s quality even if that means fixing a small typo or some grammatical mistakes. Also, another way I have dealt with impostor syndrome was focusing less on edit count, number of recognized content, etc. compared to other users, but rather focusing on the quality of my edits and on improving the encyclopedia more than anything else - even if someone does not have as much edits as other users, their edits can still leave a impact on Wikipedia and its readers. I do recognize that different editors have different ways of dealing with impostor syndrome, though, and what works for one editor may not work for another.