User:TreyHarris/How to edit safely

If you're like me, you enjoy spending time on Wikipedia, and have spent a lot of time and energy doing research and making contributions to the encyclopedia. You would probably like to continue this, and would be very upset if you somehow got blocked, even for a short period of time.

It isn't at all clear to me how you can protect yourself from from getting blocked, since there does not appear to be a due process which is always followed, and there's no document that spells out your "rights" with regard to blocking, because you have none. There are processes that are usually followed, but apparently they can be overridden for some set of reasons that are not spelled out anywhere. You can get blocked for repeated vandalism, for instance, or for violating the three revert rule, but apparently people can get blocked for other misbehaviors that are not specified, and you may not have a chance to explain yourself before the blocking happens. The admins who I've asked to explain to me how to avoid getting blocked in these unspecified cases have told me that it comes down to, "just don't be stupid." That's a fine sentiment; the problem is that we're all stupid, from time to time. I'd like something a little bit more tangible to rely on.

So I'd like to propose the following as some guidelines that, if followed, should allow you to continue contributing to Wikipedia while avoiding getting blocked. I'm not an admin, and I have no idea, other than from reading Administrators' noticeboard, how admins make their decisions. Perhaps some admins will comment to let me know if I'm on the right track here.

Basically, my suggestion is that you keep your head down; concentrate on the encyclopedia; avoid all disputes; and when in doubt, move on. If you follow these guidelines, you won't get involved in a dispute. If you aren't in a dispute, you won't get noticed by admins. If they don't notice you, they won't block you.

NOTE: I am not recommending these guidelines as ones for everyone to follow. In fact, if everyone followed them, Wikipedia would stop working. I am simply recommending them as guidelines for editing Wikipedia safely, for risk-averse people who want to avoid blocks. Probably nothing bad will happen to you if you violate some of what I suggest below. But lacking any explicit protection against violations of due process, the safest thing to do is to avoid getting noticed in the first place, and here I tell you how to do that.

Keep your head down
First of all, work on articles that aren't controversial. If you see a pov tag on an article, this is a sure-fire sign that the article is controversial. Even if the tag isn't present, articles about living people, especially politicians, are likely to be controversial. So are articles about politics in general, current affairs, sex, or modern religion. Religious history and political history can be controversial too, especially if there's a direct lineage to a modern religion or modern politics. Steer clear of these articles; people with less to lose will work on them.

Popular culture articles can be a mixed bag. It's usually safe to edit them, but if you get reverted, or if you notice heavy editing, especially re-reverts, it's time to move on to another topic. Physical science, mathematics, engineering and computer science topics are pretty safe, especially if they're esoteric. Technology, like popular culture, can be a mixed bag. Animal biology is pretty safe, but medicine and biotechnology can be risky.

Always look at the edit history before editing. If there have been any disputes recently, look for something else to work on.

Don't create new articles. If you create an article, it may be nominated for deletion, and you'll be expected to respond, which will get you noticed. There are already plenty enough articles created for you to find something to work on. Let somebody else do the heavy lifting of justifying notability (and potentially making enemies in the process).

Some edits are safer than others. No one will block you for adding references to uncited statements already present in an article. This is a great way to contribute to Wikipedia safely. Copyediting, such as fixing grammar and spelling, is also safe, but be sure to read the article very carefully to see whether American, British, or some other type of English is being used in the article so far, and make your copyedits match. If you can't figure out what variant of English is being used (for example, because the article hasn't yet used any words or constructs that differ between variants), or if the article is already mixing different variants, it's best to avoid copyediting entirely, because you have a choice to make in this case, and may offend someone if you make the wrong one.

This is a good general guideline. A decision should be regarded as a warning sign. If you realize you can make an edit one of two ways, it's best to do neither and move on to another article. Why? If there are two ways to do something, it's a pretty good bet that someone will think you should have done it the other way, and that way lies disputes. Avoid them. If you feel like you're acting almost robotically, and are exercising almost no creativity, that's a very good sign—nobody will have a problem with what you're doing.

Concentrate on the encyclopedia
If you're like most editors, you contribute almost exclusively to the main article namespace. You may read the Wikipedia: (policy) space pages sometimes, but you edit them rarely.

My suggestion is that you read the policy pages religiously. I mean "religiously" in every connotation of that word. Read and reread them frequently and carefully, especially the ones that have an impact on your article edits, such as the Manual of Style. Take them as gospel, and never make an edit that violates one. There are many cases where these pages conflict with one another in some cases. If you find yourself in the position of having to choose between them when they conflict, remember my earlier advice—you're about to make a decision, and someone might dispute your choice. Move on instead. No one will ever block you for not making an edit.

There are two exceptions to my suggestion about policy pages. One is Ignore All Rules. This page is all about using discretion and making decisions, and we've already agreed we're not going to do that, remember? Just move on.

The other exception is Be Bold. You could call these guidelines the antithesis of that. This is how to "Be Meek". What they don't tell you on that page is, no one will ever block you for not being bold. Not being bold doesn't show up in an edit history, no one even knows you were considering a bold move, so you're safe in ignoring this rule.

While you should read the policy pages religiously, never edit pages in the Wikipedia namespace. There are lots of disputes in there, lots of admins in those disputes, and lots of risk of being contradicted by someone. Remember, nobody knows about the edit you didn't make.

You should watchlist every policy page. This is so you avoid the possibility that you might violate a guideline by doing something that was valid yesterday, but against the rules today. It's really unfortunate that by watchlisting the policy pages you'll automatically watchlist the associated policy talk pages, though, because you should never edit or even read those pages. Having them on your watchlist is just a temptation, especially when something goes by that you feel strongly about. It may be possible to write some JavaScript to suppress them from being seen—that would be a great feature to increase safety in editing.

One subtle point, though. Policy pages sometimes stay stable for a long time, but when they change, the change is often a turbulent one, and that turbulence can sweep you in if you're not careful. Say you made an edit yesterday in compliance with the Manual of Style, but today the Manual is changed so that your edit is now incorrect. If you've been following this advice, you're watching the Manual, so you see the change immediately. Fight the temptation to implement the new policy change. If you can avoid it, just don't make any edits that have anything to do with the policy in either its old or new forms. Give it a few days to stabilize and make sure there are no disputes before implementing the change in your own edits. If you must edit something that the policy change has relevance to, follow it in its new form. If it gets reverted, follow it in future edits in its old form. If it gets re-reverted, go back to the new form, and so on. But, under no circumstances go back to your old edits and fix them to comply with the new policy. This can get you unintentionally dragged into a dispute you want no part of. Wait until the new policy is stable for at least a week or two before fixing your old edits.

Avoid all disputes
Avoiding dispute has been implicit in all these suggestions so far. But it should be explicit, too. You should never start a new thread on any talk page—not an article's, not a user's, and definitely not in the policy namespace. Even if you're just asking a question, it may be interpreted as an argument, or as "making a point" (see WP:POINT). People get in trouble for "disrupting Wikipedia", and if your thread turns into a big dispute, your comment may be judged as the pebble that got the landslide started.

This is not to say that you should never post any comments on talk pages. There is one case where you not only may comment, you must: if someone addresses you, either on your user talk page or on the talk page of an article you've recently edited. In most cases, the safest response is to apologize and revert whatever edit of yours is being questioned (if the edit in question hasn't already been reverted).

Be careful when reverting, though. If someone questions a small part of your edit, reverting the whole thing is likely to be interpreted as "making a point". Revert exactly that bit which has been questioned, no more, and apologize on the talk page. It is best at this point to move on from this article, at least for awhile until the heat has died down.

If someone addresses you on your talk page, it's safest to respond on your own talk page, not on the talk page of the person who addressed you. This is because, if you've followed the guidelines here, it's likely that very few people have watchlisted your user page. The person who addressed you—who knows?

When in doubt, move on
There are almost a million articles in the English-language Wikipedia. You can do lots of useful work without ever getting noticed by anyone. If you feel like you're edging towards the line of doing something objectionable, or even if someone takes notice of your work and compliments it on an article page or your user talk page, move on to another article that you haven't edited recently. Why move on when someone compliments you? Because by complimenting you, that user has shown that they're not practicing safe editing. It's likely that some third unsafe editor will argue with the compliment. They've both proven themselves to be unsafe editors by this conduct, and pretty soon, you're in the middle—and getting noticed. Just move on, and you'll live to edit Wikipedia another day.