Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a volunteer service
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This essay contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion. Essays are not Wikipedia policies or guidelines. |
| This page in a nutshell: The editors on Wikipedia are mainly volunteers. Editors can contribute as much as they want, and however long they desire. |
Wikipedia is a volunteer service. What does this mean?
- All contributions are made on the free time of their contributors
- There are no set crews or teams working on articles on any topic, just those who come along and volunteer information whenever they wish
- Anyone can take a break for any period of time or drop out whenever they like
- You can always stop working on one group of articles, take up working on another for a while, then resume the previous one, with no expectations from others
- You have the right to quit and never return, no questions asked, no explanation needed
- There is no minimum or maximum anyone can contribute
- No one is, can be, or will be paid for their contributions
- There is no deadline
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[edit] Reasons why one may not be editing
There are various reasons why one cannot immediately edit one or more pages as they should be in order to enable it to meet certain standards, or even to prevent it from being deleted. If an editor states his/her intentions to make some improvement, but that more time is needed for any reason, this should very much be respected.
[edit] Researching topic
Sometimes, an editor may have the intention to improve an article, but finding information on the topic may be time consuming. This may include reading books, newspapers, journals, or web sites and studying the information contained within them, deciding which of these to read, or writing this information in encyclopedic form. Rome was not built in one day. Neither is Wikipedia.
[edit] Other Wikipedia activities
Many editors are busy with creating or editing a series of articles or other materials, or otherwise making other improvements to Wikipedia, and therefore, cannot have any disruption to work on any unrelated materials.
[edit] Busy life
Some people may be dedicated to Wikipedia as their number one cause in life. However, most editors are not. Editing Wikipedia is usually more in the nature of a hobby, which ranks in personal importance behind editors' personal lives and (usually) their employment. Common personal obligations and other issues that may supersede Wikipedia editing include, but are not limited to:
- Job/career
- Studies: school, college, university, or the like
- Social and family life: dating, marriage, children, familial duties, other time with family and friends
- Other hobbies or projects
- Religious obligations or holy days
- Vacations, travel, and other breaks
- Illness or other unexpected emergencies
Since Wikipedia is completely voluntary, under no circumstances are editors obligated or expected to make any edits, respond to any messages, or to otherwise have any involvement. Please don't presume that if a fellow editor has not responded to your message that you have offended them or that they are insulting you: assume good faith and remember that life might have gotten complicated and by drawing negative inferences from their lack of editing you might be making it less attractive for them to productively contribute to the project in the future.
[edit] Editing on a mobile device
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This section may need to be updated. Please update this section to reflect recent events or newly available information. Please see the talk page for more information. |
Some mobile devices, including most smartphones, allow for Wikipedia to be edited using the device (see Wikipedia:Mobile access for more details). This enables many people who would otherwise not be able to at times to edit or even compose new articles while on the go. This is a nice convenience, though it is important to realize that such editing may have limitations, and the edits may not be perfect.
Common limitations include:
- Most devices do not have the copy-paste feature. This makes it impossible or difficult to place references or templates on a page.
- Many mobile devices do not allow for all types of characters to be inputted.
- While many devices contain cameras, the process of transferring an image to be uploaded onto Wikipedia is not always possible.
- On mobile devices, since there is no mouse, it is impossible to click on toolbar icons. Some formatting may be obtained by entering certain characters known to the editor; others may not be possible.
- Few mobile devices allow multiple windows to be open simultaneously. While many allow back-and-forth navigation, it is impossible to open a second Wikipedia window to perform various functions, like checking for links.
- Frequent use of keyboards on mobile devices can be extremely wearing on the hands. The risk of Blackberry Thumb is high. Therefore, it is recommended to limit such usage, and reserve large editing projects for desktop or laptop computers.
- Some mobile devices do not allow users to sign in, and only IP edits can be made. On such devices, articles cannot be created, and protected pages cannot be edited.
- Reading may also be more difficult, especially long articles or those with charts or other similar templates.
[edit] Edits you may want to do on your mobile device
While most editing can wait until you are at your regular computer, there are some edits that you may want to do on your mobile device:
- Deletion – if a deletion nomination occurs to an article that you are interested in keeping, you may wish to comment as soon as possible. Since there is a tendency for others to follow the leader and for the earlier comments to strongly influence the outcome, being the "early bird to get the worm" is important.
- Things you may forget – If there is something you remember while you have your smartphone but will likely forget later, and the edit is small, this is a good time to make the edit.