Wikipedia:Editor reflections

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. Its creator, Clovermoss, said this about the page:

It was inspired by my experience meeting people at WikiConference North America and wanting to recreate that feeling onwiki. It's been 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. Please note that this page has gained widespread interest (there are more than 90 page watchers) and some people from the Wikimedia Foundation have expressed interest in reading these reflections. If you're not comfortable with other people reading what you have to say, you do not have to participate.

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Questions

When did you start editing Wikipedia?
Why did you start editing Wikipedia?
If you could go 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 think you'll keep editing for the foreseeable future?
Have you ever been involved with WikiEd?
Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not?
Is there anything you would change about Wikipedia? (Question added June 13, 2024)
Feel free to also share anything else you wish to :)

User:Andrew Gray – September 22, 2025

When did you start editing Wikipedia?

My first edit was October 2004. (I may have made two or three edits the previous day as an IP). I *think* someone told me about it in summer 2003, but I never followed that up.

Why did you start editing Wikipedia?

I think maybe the most common route in - I found a mistake and corrected it. Nerdsniping! I really love that edit though - that corrected detail remained in the article right up to 2021, when it was tidied out during a (long-overdue) rewrite, just a couple of months before it would have finally needed to be updated.

If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor?

I like a lot of the signposting we have now for suitable newcomer tasks, and so on, but honestly I had a pretty good experience as a new editor and I didn't feel I was lacking support. I'd created a new article and nominated another for deletion before I'd be considered autoconfirmed by current standards.

Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?

There wasn't really much organised help around when I started, and it was possible to get really stuck into things without much guidance - there was so much to do, so you didn't really feel like you were stepping on people's toes or that there was any topic you couldn't find space to work in. I think it was months before I had any kind of significant argument with anyone, which probably helped!

I got into IRC and the mailing lists quite early on and that helped me feel I was well connected with the community.

Do you think you'll keep editing for the foreseeable future?

Yes, I can't see it ever going away. I've found it definitely goes through peaks and troughs - I spent about five years working mostly on Wikidata instead, and then the pandemic years were a bit of a wipeout for both - but I keep coming back to it.

The only thing I think that could make me give up on it would be a shift to LLM-generated content - I'm so glad we have avoided going down that route.

Have you ever been involved with WikiEd?

Not with the organised WikiEd program, but I did a lot of work with UK universities in 2012-13 as part of the British Library residency, and then sporadically for a few years after that. I wrote up some notes on that experience as Wikipedia:Participation by academic projects, I think my only project-space essay, but I am not sure it ever got much traction!

Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not?

It works fine for small copyedits, but can be a pain with large sections of text.

Is there anything you would change about Wikipedia?

I'd like to see us stop being quite so prescriptive, particularly in issues of style. Our guidelines should describe what the community think is best practice, they shouldn't be treated as laws.

There are regularly big disputes where people feel we Have To Have A Rule on something that's ultimately a stylistic choice - or worse, feel that there is already a rule that can be teased out and made absolute by a lot of very close reading of existing guidelines, as though we're interpreting a constitution. The result is that it blows up into a massive dispute, lots of bad blood and ill-feeling, half the editors involved feel like they lost out, and no-one is satisfied. I think a broader acceptance that a lot of these topics don't have simple clear answers, that there isn't one Correct Solution to all stylistic choices, would help.

Feel free to also share anything else you wish to :)

A few years back, my partner was chatting to a younger colleague, and for some reason Wikipedia came up in conversation. "Oh, he's been working on it since the early days? I guess you must be rich now." I knew we missed a trick somewhere...

None of us got rich, but some of the nicest, most thoughtful, most dedicated people I've ever worked with have been here. I think sometimes we forget how amazing it is that so many people are just sitting down and giving untold hours of their lives to making other people better informed.

User:DrThneed – September 25, 2025

When did you start editing Wikipedia?

In May 2018

Why did you start editing Wikipedia?

I generally describe myself at that time as overeducated and underemployed. I had just read a kid’s book, looked up the author on Wikipedia and noticed that some of her books had their own pages, but not the one I’d just read. So I made one. It was deleted right away of course because I hadn’t demonstrated its notability, but in the process I learned about the notability criteria, and so began the journey.

If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor?

What really helped me get going properly was making contact with other editors in real life. It is much easier to find out where you are going wrong, get help on technical issues etc if you know who to ask and can ask them directly. I was lucky that not long after my first foray into editing, New Zealand’s Wikipedian at Large ran an editathon on women in art in my city. Attending that gave me a good introduction to Wikipedia, made me feel part of a community, and got some basic questions answered. And I got my first sticker, which was quite motivating!

Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?

Yes. One of the things that really helped was when we started our online meetups in New Zealand. We have monthly meetings, which started during Covid because the Wellington editors, who met fortnightly, couldn’t do it in lockdown. And once they were having online meetings there was no reason not to open them up to the rest of us. They are a great way of interacting as a community and sharing knowledge, plans and concerns. We regularly have some of our Australian friends join us too. o Before that I had had some negative experiences – I find the processes and policies around how to edit Wikipedia are generally covered in exhaustive detail but how the community works is opaque, so I really struggled with how to get help in the community when things went wrong. For instance, when I asked for help on social media when my edits to a page kept getting reverted, I was told I shouldn’t do that as I could be accused of canvassing. That was horrible, I hadn’t even heard of canvassing, let alone that it wasn’t alright, and I wasn’t getting any help from the Teahouse or the WikiProjects I had asked. I ended up giving up and walking away for a while.

Do you think you'll keep editing for the foreseeable future?

Yes. I’m a Wikimedian in Residence now, at the university. It’s part time for six months, so my focus is much more on teaching and talking about editing than actual editing, but still, I can’t see me stopping. My focus does switch around though, I lead the New Zealand Thesis Project which involves a lot of Wikidata work. And I’m getting more into Wikimedia Commons now, and setting a tentative foot into WikiSource. So much to explore!

Have you ever been involved with WikiEd?

WikiEd is limited to North America, and I’m based in New Zealand, so no I haven’t been involved directly. But anyone can use their training materials, https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training, and I find those useful to see how they are teaching various concepts. It is frustrating to me, as someone who deals with Wikipedia in high education, that we don’t have a worldwide WikiEdu. I find that as someone involved with Wikidata and Wikipedia and whose interests are in research, library metadata and women and science history, I end up interacting with a variety of Wiki communities, including GLAM, Higher Education, Wikidata and Libraries and Wikimedians in Residence.

Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not?

Once or twice, for things that needed correcting quickly. I like to see more of an article than is easy on a mobile though! And typing is just so much easier and faster on a keyboard.

Is there anything you would change about Wikipedia?

That’s such a broad question! Personally, I would love to see English Wikipedia ban LLM-created content. We are one of the last trusted places on the internet and I think we stand to lose the trust of our readers with AI generated content of any kind. I was upset to take part in a contest recently and discover that the winner had used AI to destub hundreds of articles when I had been doing it all the hard way. I didn’t care about not winning, but I was upset that by competing with them I had potentially pushed them to create more content in a way I don’t approve of.

User:Mariamnei – September 30, 2025

When did you start editing Wikipedia?

I began editing Wikipedia in January 2024, soon after I started my PhD.

Why did you start editing Wikipedia?

During my undergrad studies, I often turned to Wikipedia as a starting point to explore new topics. It was a great way to gain some initial understanding, and from there, I would dive deeper through the recommended bibliography. As my research (focusing on the interactions between the Greco-Roman world and the ancient Near East) developed, I realized that many of the subjects I was passionate about were underrepresented on the platform. After using Wikipedia for so long, I wanted to give back to the community and help make the incredibly fascinating histories of these cultures and periods more accessible to everyone.

If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor?

I would have loved to have had a mentor to guide me through the early days of editing. While my background provided me with the research skills I needed, understanding the specifics of Wikipedia's guidelines was a steep learning curve. I honestly didn't grasp what a high-quality article should look like until I started nominating GAs and working through the checklists! Additionally, I believe there's a lack of easily accessible resources to help newcomers navigate the platform with more confidence. Simple, clear guides explaining how to contribute effectively and what's required to get involved in different areas of Wikipedia would have made a huge difference.

Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?

I was fortunate to receive guidance from some experienced editors who offered valuable advice along the way, as well as from the GA reviewers I worked with, all of whom were incredible! However, I must say that there aren't many contributors focusing on the ancient Eastern Mediterranean, just a small handful of us. This makes it challenging to find the right support and exchange ideas within my field.

Do you think you'll keep editing for the foreseeable future?

Definitely! Editing Wikipedia aligns so well with my research interests, and I really enjoy being part of this community! As my studies progress, I just love to continue contributing, especially as I read new findings and insights from my research on the Eastern Mediterranean and Roman Empire. These days, it's hard for me to read a paper without immediately thinking about where I can add this new information to Wikipedia!

Have you ever been involved with WikiEd?

Honestly, I hadn't come across it until I saw this question, but I'm definitely open to learn more!

Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not?

No, I haven't edited on mobile! does it even work well? The level of detail in editing is so precise here that I can't imagine handling things like infoboxes or adding sfns without a mouse and keyboard. That's how I do most of my work, so I prefer to have all the necessary tools at hand.

Is there anything you would change about Wikipedia?

I would improve the collaboration tools to make it easier for editors in different fields to connect and work together. Maybe the platform could suggest editors to connect and collaborate with based on editing history or interests. A more intuitive way for experts to connect and share resources would certainly improve the quality of articles. I'd also focus on making it easier for new editors to get started. Right now, there's so much to read and understand before you can begin editing confidently. The learning curve is not the simplest, which might discourage talented people who could contribute, but are intimidated by how complex it all seems.

Feel free to also share anything else you wish to :)

I would just like to say that I am happy grateful that Wikipedia exists, even with its flaws. It's an incredible resource that has democratized knowledge in ways that were not possible before! If it didn't exist, I think it would have been essential to create something like it, open-access knowledge is crucial in today's world. Mariamnei (talk) 12:16, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:Rafaelthegreat – October 4, 2025

Hi @Clovermoss: these are my answers! 😀

When did you start editing Wikipedia?

I started editing on May 4, 2025, but the history has been deleted because my edits on that day were a deleted draft.

Why did you start editing Wikipedia?

To create an article about my school (the article I talked about above) called David Thomas King School, but the draft I made for it (draft:David Thomas King School) was declined.

If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor?

I have received help from the teahouse and help desk but I have never gotten those {{welcome}} templates on my talk page from another editor. If I have received it when I first arrived to Wikipedia, I might have gotten more understandability of notability and could be becoming to be more experienced editor more quickly, as that list of pages can turn someone's Wikipedia skills to max level.

Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?

Yes. Also, my Wikipedia learning has been in the following projects:

Teahouse & Help desk.
Wikipedia essays and guidelines.
Emailing info@wikimedia.org for secret help.
Warns. Sorry...

Do you think you'll keep editing for the foreseeable future?

Hope so! I love this project and the many things you can do here!

Have you ever been involved with WikiEd?

Not sure what that is but if you refer to the education newsletter, I have signed up.

Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not?

I don't know if I have or not. The laptop is my place of editing Wikipedia.

Is there anything you would change about Wikipedia?

There are much more, but this is an example: I want everyone (mainly new editors) to have more understandability to Wikipedia's rules and guidelines, and I want them to be more simple.

Feel free to also share anything else you wish to :)

This does not have to do with Wikipedia but I will say it as it is a current event in the place I live in (Alberta):

There is a teacher strike there all over the province. Because of this, kids will not be able to go to school until an agreement with the government has been set. See 2025 Alberta teachers' strike for more info.

Thanks, ~Rafael (He, him) • talk • guestbook • projects 14:30, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:Boud – October 12, 2025

When did you start editing Wikipedia?

My first logged-in pl.Wikipedia edit was on 28 August 2002 and my first logged-in edit on en.Wikipedia was in March 2003, although I seem to remember editing as an IP editor since late 2001.

Why did you start editing Wikipedia?

Because it's absurd that with the incredible improvements in science and technology of the past few centuries and the greatly improved possibilities of evidence-based, participatory, transparent dialogue, there still exist severe violations of human rights, authoritarian governments, and worse: the crime of aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, including deliberate famine as a war crime, crime against humanity, or genocide and the climate emergency. Like probably most Wikipedians, I expect that accurate and universal open access to knowledge using FOSS at its core is likely, overall, to contribute to solving or at least reducing the severity of many of these problems.

In the sense of the complex system approach to peace and armed conflict, Wikipedia may help to change intractable-conflict systems that are low-dimensional ("polarised") into high-dimensional phase spaces where many more dimensions become significant to the evolution of the system. This increases the chance of not returning to the attractor. An example is Template:Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which lists about 216 dimensions of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. A good topic for Wikipedia research would be to study to what extent Wikipedia documentation on this topic has helped or is helping to avoid returning to an oscillation around an intractable-conflict attractor.

If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor?

Having Wikidata already exist in the early 2000s, together with {{cite Q}} and the Wikipedia-level citation templates on the different language Wikipedias, would have helped me jump 5–10 years ahead of the Wild West epoch before sourcing became mandatory. And it might have encouraged me to do more contributions on other languages, since having to convert the citation templates was an extra hassle needing a private script. Anyway, closed timelike curves are not (yet ;)) known to exist in the real world.

Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't?

Definitely. The fact that there were lots of help pages available in the Help: and WP: namespaces, and that I could edit those myself or discuss them on their talk pages, meant that it was up to me to make the effort to seek and ask for help and work with others with as many meta levels as needed. This is fully consistent with the transparent, participatory FOSS culture.

Do you think you'll keep editing for the foreseeable future?

Yes.

Have you ever been involved with WikiEd?

Not in WikiEd as such. I did try awarding optional formal credit for non-trivial Wikipedia editing for some official student courses for several years. Several small handfuls of students did actually take up the offer, with varying levels of understanding the basic idea and needing me to either edit or not edit their contributions to make them minimally acceptable. Apparently by November 2002 my effect in encouraging people to use pl.Wikipedia had already been notable, although I think that that predates my courses in which I offered students the option of getting points for Wikipedia contributions.

Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not?

I've used my PinePhone running the Mobian OS (mostly just Debian GNU/Linux) to edit a few times while travelling. In convergence mode, i.e. with a docking bar + mouse + keyboard + external monitor/tv screen, it's only mildly less convenient than with a desktop computer. I seem to remember editing with only the phone + docking bar + external keyboard (no mouse or external screen) once or twice. That was less convenient, but doable. (For anyone checking my edit history, only one is marked "mobile edit", presumaby because editing with firefox on Debian/trixie on a phone is not easy to distinguish from editing on firefox on Debian/trixie on a desktop computer.)

Trying to edit with the phone on its own seems pointless to me, unless the edits are really trivial, or the edit is fairly simple linkless text on a talk page. There's no point editing without checking related information in parallel - a touchscreen is small and the risk of accidentally saving an edit prior to checking everything properly and including an appropriate edit summary risks making it harder for other people to fix things.

Is there anything you would change about Wikipedia?

If I were the en.Wikipedia BDFL, then I would remove Google advocacy from Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources or at a minimum reduce the Google advocacy in the source-finding templates. A slightly more realistic scenario, given the increasing enshittification of Google search, is that someone else might relaunch a proposal or RfC, since two years after the late-2023 discussions might be enough for a fresh discussion.

Feel free to also share anything else you wish to :)

I would encourage anyone interested in encyclopedic documentation of peace processes to browse User:Boud/Draft:WikiProject Peace for tasks needing doing and go ahead and do them. This overall topic does not mean tip-of-the-iceberg topics – specific peace (or appeasement) talks that hit the top of the media or mass pro-peace street protests or anti-war protests, but rather means the actual institutions, legal instruments, specific concrete elements of peace processes. A broad overall peace architecture developed post-WWII and especially since the 1975 Helsinki Accords in Eurasia, and in different ways in other regions such as Latin America. There are researchers who study the topic systematically and publish WP:RSes. There's a lot more to the topic than just mafia-style bargaining by narcissistic criminals, fugitives wanted for war crimes or for crimes against humanity by the ICC, or other national leaders. There are plenty of good sources and plenty of missing articles to be created; this is currently a low-hanging–fruit area of knowledge in Wikipedia. If the number of active editors became big enough, then shifting to WP: space as a full WikiProject would become justified.

Knowledge about the peace and armed conflict system is not guaranteed to prevent a Russia–NATO full-scale military conflict in the coming decade, but ignorance is likely to increase the risk.

Boud (talk) 14:40, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:Montanabw – October 30, 2025

When did you start editing Wikipedia? March 2006
Why did you start editing Wikipedia? I saw errors in the article Arabian horse, started fixing them, and from there (wait for it... ) I was off to the races.
If you could go back in time, what do you think would've helped you as a new editor? The brand-new editor experience 20 years ago was OK, though it is better now. I do think searching the help interface was a nightmare and it hasn't improved. I think more could be done for editors who arrive "off the street" so to speak. There's a lot of attention given to recruitment and nurturing people through editathons and such, but I wonder what the stats are for where people come from prior to their first edit. For me, I was "off the street," and figured it out, but I think today some of the things put in place for new editors aren't really test-driven by actual editors, they are most just stuff the WMF cooks up without a clue as to what's actually needed.
Did you have help as a new editor? What worked and what didn't? There were some very kind editors with more experience who were supportive and helpful. I mostly reached out through various help channels and was lucky enough to cross paths with individuals who were able to see what I was trying to accomplish and help me get there. I can't recall if the Village Pump was operational then, but it wasn't helpful if it was. I think WP got a lot better about welcoming and supporting new editors over the years, though it's still a work in progress.

For me personally, it was finding support when I was a not-quite-new but not-yet-experienced editor that was hellish. Wiki-battles over content can be brutal and some people around here can be real jerks. It would be nice if the dispute resolution procedures included a few people on the side who are tasked not to resolve the dispute but to sort through the emotions surrounding the disputes. The mediation process is better than nothing, but I think that while it is correct to focus on the topic, not the contributor, sometimes our challenges ARE about "personalities" and I wish there as a safe place where people could get help simmering down (instead of just referring to WP:NPA, WP:NAM or WP:DICK. ) I have pretty good rhino hide now, but I rather wish it had not been developed with so much scar tissue.

Do you think you'll keep editing for the foreseeable future? Not as much as in the past because some of my editing energy is currently directed elsewhere, but I see myself as still contributing (including as a WP:RS, I hope) and don't see myself ever stepping away completely
Have you ever been involved with WikiEd? I have helped teach new users at some editathons, two at a university. I have not directly worked with WikiEd per se.
Have you ever edited on mobile? If so, what are your thoughts on it? If not, why not? Yes, but I hate it. Some of this is just because my eyes are aging, but some of it is the lack of the tools I need to do comprehensive editing. If I can edit on a browser in non-mobile view, as I can on my iPad, mobile editing is awkward but not horrible. But on a phone, even in a browser, in spite of supposed improvements, it is still awful and I find it near-unusuable. The inability to see things like page history is a huge barrier. People keep telling me to try the app, but every time I have, I just delete it and give up in frustration. It's like Lucy and the football... many promises that this time it will be different. Meh.
Is there anything you would change about Wikipedia? Some things, though we can probably never escape the challenges inherent to human interaction, we just have to keep re-negotiating our on-wiki Social contract. Wikipedia is a big city with a lot of different neighborhoods. I think that places like the Village Pump are helpful, but I wish we could be a little gentler with one another, remember that things said in writing are sometimes processed at a level not intended, assume a little more good faith and so on. But also, we do have to remain vigilant that not all people are here to edit the encyclopedia. To be honest, I think there are still ways that WP (like the rest of the tech world) still has corners that are a hostile environment for women and anyone else not part of the tech brotopia at times.

I also think there remains a significant disconnect between the WMF and "the community," with each being wary, suspicious, and at times contemptuous of the other. Frankly, without editors and the community, there would be no Wikipedia and we deserve to be treated with more respect by the WMF. On the other hand, I do acknowledge that sometimes the community forgets that someone has to keep the servers running and pay the utility bills. Stuff like Trust and Safety must be a part of the operation and there DO have to be guardrails, all of which ultimately is the legal responsibility of the WMF.

Feel free to also share anything else you wish to :) I am glad to be a Wikipedian, I am critical of it at times, but that's because it's worth saving. The benefits far outweigh the frustrations and it still is a force for good in the world.