This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: All editors go through a series of levels in their understanding of Wikipedia. |
In martial arts, there is a concept along the road to mastery called shu ha ri[Note 1] that could be explained as:
While editing Wikipedia:
tip: Don't be afraid, just be BOLD! There's no way you can damage the wiki that can't be corrected in under a minute that doesn't get you in the stocks.
tip: you can pick up a lot of ideas about how consensus was previously formed by reading policy, guideline, and essay pages
tip: Try to get people to react to you in ways that just happen to lie along the lines of policy. When in a discussion, instead of pointing to the policy itself, try to integrate your understanding of the policy in your own words, and try to convince people that way. You'll probably learn a lot from how they reply!