 | This is an essay on the conduct policy. 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: Sometimes, an edit made in good faith does not comply to policy or consensus. Don't be ashamed of making mistakes. |
Suppose an edit you make is reverted. You are criticized by another editor for your good faith edits. You are informed by another that an edit you made in good faith does not comply with policy or consensus, and you are given instructions, pointing you in the right direction. An article you created is proposed for deletion. How do you feel?
All of the above are things that happen to nearly everyone sometimes.
Now how do you feel about this? Your contribution that you put your heart into was opposed by someone else, and the record of this is now public. This can be seen by others in places like edit summaries or your talk page (even if you remove it from your talk page, it can still be found in an archived version).
The truth is, provided that you had your own good intentions when you made the contributions, even if others disagree with the changes you made, you have done nothing wrong. All good-faith contributions are highly valued, even if they are opposed by the majority. Of course, everyone shall be aware of the three revert rule when they decide to reimplement a change that was reverted.
The bottom line is that Wikipedia is not a club of winners or losers. Though editors have varying amounts of experience based on numbers of edits, there is no point system in which editors score and get ahead of one another for making good edits, writing good articles, or holding special positions. Each article and each edit is judged based on its own merits. Meanwhile, all editors are equal.
Most importantly of all, Wikipedia does not allow personal attacks. Criticism made toward other editors is only for the purpose of teaching and helping improve the encyclopedia. When any improvements are made by anyone, no matter how small, we are all grand winners. At the same time, a loss occurs to all whenever anyone is insulted and as a result makes fewer good edits or stops editing altogether.
You can see how many edits a user has made using this tool. You can see your own number of edits by clicking "Preferences". But edit count is only a number, and it does not necessarily correspond with one's talent or skills at editing.