User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Novem's words of wisdom

Some tips and advice. Mainly for newer editors. A "newer editor" in my mind is an editor with less than 10,000 edits.

When faced with many editors angry at your behavior, don't double down
1. Especially at WP:ANI. If a bunch of people are telling you that your behavior is upsetting them, the only right move is to apologize for being disruptive and promise that it won't happen again. If you don't do that, a pile on will occur, and you'll get sanctioned, blocked, or banned. The community has shown time and time again that they prefer to show an unpleasant person the door, even if they are otherwise a very productive contributor. Editors with 100,000 edits and bad attitudes get shown the door all the time. Don't let your wiki-career go up in flames when an apology and a behavior change could fix things.
When you are new, be a sponge
1. For any social group, including Wikipedia, if you are new, don't go disagreeing with and fighting with the regulars. Instead, be a sponge. Be flexible and try to recalibrate your thinking based on the feedback you're receiving. You need to spend some time learning the culture and how things work first. There's good reasons things work the way they do. A group's rules and culture is the equilibrium of years of discussions. Current practices are packed with institutional knowledge. Once you thoroughly understand things, then you can decide what battles are worth fighting.
Just because a policy says it, doesn't mean that's how it works
1. Wikipedia policies and guidelines (PAGs) are an attempt to document our rules, culture, current practices, and institutional knowledge. They're the textbook. But just because the textbook says to do something, doesn't mean it's the right move. Textbooks can get out of date. Textbooks can over-simplify complex situations and dynamics. Textbook writing can be stonewalled by a group of writers even though it's inaccurate. On Wikipedia, experienced editors can usually tell you the nuances of a particular situation more accurately than the PAGs. Please listen to them if you are new, instead of wikilawyering.
Our deletion guidelines are complicated, but fair
1. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (AFD) may look like a free-for-all of people voting however they want. However, there is a method to the madness. Experienced editors apply the deletion guidelines in a systematic and fair way. It can sometimes be hard to see that though because the deletion guidelines are so complicated. Admins are in on this too. AFD admins will relist discussions that are leaning in a direction that doesn't comply with our notability guidelines, giving experienced editors a chance to weigh in with the correct interpretations. And AFD admins will close AFDs against the numerical vote count if the arguments for one side are not following the guidelines. AFD votes are tracked, and regulars who do not follow the guidelines eventually get topic banned from AFD.
Avoid editing featured articles
1. These are often WP:OWNED by someone. I've had my minor copy edits to featured articles reverted about a dozen times, even as an experienced editor. The folks that shepherd these articles through the featured article process optimize and polish everything about the article, even its grammar and word choices. To decrease the chances of your edits getting reverted, consider editing non-featured articles.