User:RRabbit42/Sandbox: How to be a good editor

This is a sandbox page where anyone can add ideas about things people can do that help them be a better editor. There's a lot of rules on a lot of wikis about what you don't do, but very few pages to show you what you should do.

Though the goal is to provide positive examples, it may be necessary to list negative examples of the "don't do this" variety. The ideas here will be used to create a help page that new people can look at when they're getting started on a wiki.


 * Things you can do to be a better editor on wikis


 * Use the Preview button to check your changes before you click on Save or Publish. That way, you can fix any mistakes you made before the page is actually saved.


 * If you want to play around with a page, use the Preview or make the edit on the Sandbox. Edits in the Sandbox don't hurt anything if you mess up, but be careful not to put anything in there like profanity that would get you blocked, even if you're going to take it right back out.


 * When you come to a wiki, do a search for Category:Policy or Category:Policies. There may be specific ways that a wiki wants things done, such as our Image policy, or there may have been problems in a specific area that they've had to create a policy to prevent it from happening again in the future.
 * Look for a Block Policy. A good wiki will have a list of how long each block will be so the administrators can be consistent when dealing with problems, and will include ways people can request a block be removed. This policy will cover the big subjects to avoid.


 * Placeholder When you change something on a page, put a reason in the Edit Summary box. This will help other people see why you made a change, and if you make a mistake, it may help them realize that this mistake was an accident instead of being deliberate. Be aware that lying in the Edit Summary to try and hide your vandalism will get you blocked.


 * If you add something and it's removed, find out why. A lot of times, the reason will be in the History of the page, which shows what was put in the Edit Summary. If you don't see it there, ask the person who removed it. People who keep adding something after it's been removed, especially if they never say why in the Edit Summary, may be treated as spammers or vandals.


 * Find out who the administrators are. They can provide help, answer questions and take care of any issues you may have. You can also get help by looking for an FAQ or the Help category. General messages can be left in Forums, where other people may be able to provide the answer.


 * Don't be a jerk. If you go to a wiki to deliberately be a jerk, don't. Just don't. There's too much of that in the world already and you will usually get blocked pretty quickly anyway. Keep in mind that everything you do on a wiki is recorded, even if it's deleted or you remove it right away, and what you do on one wiki may be taken into consideration if you cause problems on other wikis. If an admin sees you cause a problem and then learns that you've caused similar problems on other wikis, you will likely be blocked for a much longer time due to this repeated bad behavior.


 * When someone leaves you a message, read it. You don't always have to reply, but you need to read it. If the message was a warning about something you shouldn't do and you want to keep doing it, you need to talk with them and provide a reason why you should be allowed to keep doing it. Ignoring warnings and continuing to do the same thing is what vandals do, and they get blocked for that.


 * Keep things on topic. If you want to talk about something that isn't directly related to the wiki, find out where it can go. Your Profile page, a blog or a forum are good candidates for this. Some vandal attempt to harm a wiki by deliberately adding a lot of off topic information to them.
 * When you upload a picture or video that will go on your Profile page, add Category:User page images or Category:User page videos to the description so we know it should not be deleted since it's in your personal area.


 * Find out what the wiki's attitude towards fan fiction is. They may have a separate section or special way of marking that something is fan fiction. Or they may have set up a separate wiki for fan fiction so that it can have all fanon works and the main wiki can focus on official information. Our wiki created the separate Phineas and Ferb Fanon Wiki a few years ago for that reason.


 * If a wiki has the Achievement Badges enabled, be careful not to get caught up in "badge spamming". Badge spamming is making an edit with the sole purpose of only to receive a particular badge. Some badges are very hard to get, like the badge for editing every day for a year, so if you have to make an edit to keep on track to earn it, try to make the edit worthwhile.


 * Resist the impulse to add categories. It's easy to do because you've got that "Add category" button at the bottom of the page. But you need to ask yourself if it is really necessary for you to add a category. Wikis that are active and have been around for a long time usually have their categories pretty well organized. People who spend most or all of their time just adding categories are really not helping make the page better and instead are just "category spamming".
 * Be careful when you add a category to a category. A lot of times you mean that some of what's in that category is also in the category you just added. But it actually means that everything in that category is also in the category you just added. See Help:Understanding catgories for more information.


 * Watch out for "antagonist fussing", which is trying to label a character exactly, precisely, minutely, what kind of an antagonist they are. The problem is that when you try to get that specific, it's hard to get other people to agree to that exact definition, which leads to edit wars. "No, he's not the secondary antagonist, he's the tertiary antagonist." "No, that's not right. (Other character) is more of an antagonist than he is." "No, he's not the tertiary antagonist, he's a former protagonist-turned-minor antagonist." Et cetera, ad nauseum.
 * When you spend your time focusing on such a small detail, you lose sight of what's really important about that character.
 * Some administrators may consider antagonist fussing a form of vandalism, especially if they learn that the person who had been doing the fussing have been contradicting themselves. This contraction can be on the same wiki or can be across wikis (they say the character is one kind of antagonist on the first wiki, then say the same character is a different kind of antagonist on a second wiki).