User:JHelzer/log

This is my editing Journal. Its purpose is to record important lessons learned in a place where I can return and review them. My contributions page is fantastic, but this will be a much easier reference to remember significant editing mistakes and successes.

Becoming an Editor
I have been a Wikipedia user since 2012 but have not done much editing. I love Wikipedia and contribute during the fundraiser each year, but good editing is time consuming and there is a lot to learn. This year (2021) I have decided to become an editor and have been learning about Wikipedia policies. So far I've learned that it is time consuming. Being technically correct in every sentence is very difficult, but I am enjoying it and improving. #LotsToLearn. JaredHWood💬 20:21, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

First Edit Conflict
Yesterday I had my first conflict with another editor where I felt sure my stance was correct and inline with Wikipedia policy. As a new editor I wasn't confident in the actions I should take when the user continued to revert my changes. I notified the other user on talk pages here: Unfortunately this didn't resolve the problem as the user reverted my changes without responding to me. I decided to wait a day and then reached out to a more experienced user. I got a great reply and learned a lot. I am saving her message here so I can easily refer back to it in the future: JaredHWood💬 20:21, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Talk:2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol/Archive_11
 * Talk:Anocracy
 * User_talk:Rkerver

So it's been 6 days and I've got an update to this little drama. Check it out. Every day or so since the first revert that I made, a different user has deleted Rkerver's content with Rkerver restoring it over and over again. Finally Rkerver engaged us on the talk page but instead of justifying the edit, they accused me of edit warring and filed a request for dispute resolution naming me and Gwennie. At the same time Gwennie filed a notice on Rkerver here. The result was that Rkerver's was dismissed and Gwennie's was upheld, which was not surprising. What blows my mind is that if you read Rkerver's comments on all these talk pages and the complaint they filed, you can see that they actually believed they were right and that we were all a bunch of persecuting vandals. Their arguments were 180° from reality but they seem to truly believe that an administrator was going to swoop in and side with them. Pretty wild. Best thing I learned from this whole experience is that this page exists. hahaha... I love Wikipedia. Be aware people! JaredHW<b style="color:#00297a">ood</b>💬 22:41, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I think I like merging
I started a major merge effort today and am having fun. I am trying to wrap my head around merging In-space propulsion technologies into Spacecraft propulsion. I created a merge plan on the talk page and will spend the next several days learning about what these two similar articles have in them so I can splice them together harmoniously. If this goes well, I'll do it again. <b style="color:#256eff">Jare</b><b style="color:#0044cc">dHW</b><b style="color:#00297a">ood</b>💬 08:07, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's confirmed. I do like merging articles. I have done the merged for several small easy ones where I mostly just merged the small article into the larger one by making it a new section, but I really enjoyed the large project of merging In-space propulsion technologies over.  I learned a lot, a lot, a lot about both Wikipedia and about Spacecraft propulsion, so two birds with one stone!  Jared.h.wood → <b style="color:#256eff">JH</b><b style="color:#0044cc">elz</b><b style="color:#00297a">er</b>💬 02:52, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Changed username
Today I changed my username. JHelzer is what I use on Twitter and for gaming. It is unique and has always been available as a username on various websites. I have been using it more and more. It is still my name, but provides just a touch more anonymity than my full name does. It is also shorter than Jared.h.wood. It was difficult to push the button and change over because I was close to 500 edits, but I figure better to change it myself now than try and fail to get it changed much later. It's ok. I'll hit 500 again in a few months. <b style="color:#256eff">JH</b><b style="color:#0044cc">elz</b><b style="color:#00297a">er</b>💬 17:33, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Don't bite the newcomers
Becoming a Wikipedia editor is not easy. There is a LOT to learn and some of it is mind-bending. Now that I've been watching pages for a while I see common edits, mistakes and arguments made by newcomers over and over and over and over and over again. For me it is important to remember that I made those same mistakes. Some of my first edits on Wikipedia were to BOLDLY correct errors that were obvious from my perspective, only to later learn that my perspective was small and flawed. When I was new, I appreciated Please do not bite the newcomers and now that I'm less new, I want to remember it.

In an effort to show kindness I wrote this message on a talk page and wanted to save it so I could use parts of it in the future. Here it is...

I saw that your recent edit was reverted at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It looked like you took great care with the edit and I'm sure it was disappointing to see it reversed. I thought you might want a better explanation than what was written in the edit comment. For all articles related to the Latter Day Saint Movement — including Mormonism and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — we follow the WP:LDSMOS and WP:NCLDS policies. It is important to read and understand those policies before investing a large amount of time making style edits to any Latter Day Saint related articles. As you read the style guide, you'll notice that there is an important perspective shift that needs to happen for Wikipedia editors on this subject about the church founded by Joseph Smith and all the offshoot churches. Many new Wikipedia editors think of their own church as "The Church", but in the framework of the encyclopedia it is just one of the many churches that have sprung up after the death of Joseph Smith. Understanding this idea, and the MOS will help you make edits that won't get reverted. You must have spent a good amount of time on that edit because you paid special attention to the context of each instance that you edited. We could use more editors like you. I encourage you to make an account, read the style guides, and continue contributing to Wikipedia. Good luck!

I am hopeful that as I age in Wikipedia editing, I can continue to encourage newcomers to break through the very rough newcomer period. <b style="color:#256eff">JH</b><b style="color:#0044cc">elz</b><b style="color:#00297a">er</b>💬 21:25, 24 February 2021 (UTC)