Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/The Nets/Frustration and disappointment

Building an encyclopedia can be a frustrating thing, while at times it can seem a disappointment. This could be for a multitude of reasons. Perhaps you're making less progress than you would like, or your edits keep getting reverted, or perhaps your article has been nominated for deletion. Try not to let those things make you lose sight of the end goal, which is creating the best open source cricket encyclopedia in the world.

Paul Collingwood was never the most gifted cricketer to pick but a cricket bat or bowl a cricket ball. But what he did was work hard to make the most of the talent he had and prove the neighsayers wrong, even when his career seemed doomed during a major slump in form, and that he did. He became one of the greatest fielders in the history of the game, scored nearly 10,000 runs in international cricket, and captained England to their first world title.

The lesson we should take from this (as individual contributors) is that in the face of disappointment and failure, continued effort is the best course of action. If you are passionate about the work we do in the CRIC project, if you enjoy the time you spend contributing to articles or participating in discussion, if you find it edifying to click that "Save page" button at the bottom of each edit page with the knowledge that doing so will add a little more to the sum total of knowledge on Wikipedia—do not let anything keep you from continuing to do so. So what if some editor, with enough bias to think you are the Antichrist and enough skill in editing to be a pain in the arse about it, decides to attack you over your last contribution? So what if your most recent proposal was just shot down like a hypoglycemic goose in hunting season? So what if the task force you have been working with for the past six months has just adopted some extremely shortsighted policies? So what? That is a question, not a dismissal. It is a challenge to act, not an omen foretelling failure. Situations such as these in Wikipedia, as in life, are brick walls meant to test our desire to get over them and to a great extent meant to test our characters.

If you run into a brick wall while contributing to Wikipedia, ask yourself how you are going to handle the obstacle in front of you before anything else. Are you going to retreat from your setbacks in frustration? Are you going to retaliate recklessly against others in blind rage? Or are you going to try your best to address the situation with an even temperament and a steady hand? In any group effort such as ours, it is all too simple to become engrossed in petty squabbles and bitter disappointments. If you truly enjoy and value the work you do on Wikipedia, do not lose sight of the forest through the trees—the more you excessively indulge in those vices of frustration and disappointment, you will find that you do not enjoy the work you do here.

When faced with disappointments and frustrations in Wikipedia and the CRIC project, keep in mind what Walter Elliot once said: "Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another." Perhaps it should be said of Wikipedia that perseverance is many short edits, one after another.