Wikipedia:Recognise and respect competence
This is an essay. 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. |
Wikipedia, the biggest encyclopedia ever written, is produced by thousands of contributors with widely different backgrounds, knowledge, and motivations. Wikipedia is not, could not be, and should not be written by just a few people – it needs diversity of views in order to achieve neutrality, diversity of knowledge in order to achieve accurate information, and diversity of access to resources in order to achieve verifiability.
Recognise and respect your own competence and that of others, and be willing to refer or defer to others who are more competent than yourself. Contribute and participate in a humble manner; do not be arrogant; be open-minded; be graceful about your own competence; respect that expertise is a benefit but not a requirement for contributing or participating; and collaborate and cooperate with all your fellow community members as much as possible.
On the other hand, remember Essjay.