I've been working on Wikipedia with a few goals of horrible POV pushing that needed to be improved... and succeeded. Not as much as I'd like, but a few things needed to be done and they are done. I don't want to share my account, or what I did specifically, because I reverted something someone did was sneaky and don't want them noticing (they are banned but have friends watching their pages, preventing anyone from undoing the POV they were pushing, so I found ways to work around it fixing things they aren't watching).

Instead - I wanted to share some strategies I've been using, and encourage people who want to stay out of the limelight to have a project they can contribute too.

The truth is, Wikipedia is a ghost town. There are a few editors making decisions that have huge ramifications, and people are starting to notice and speak up.

In particular, there was a discussion about how reliable a news site was, 12 people commented, 3 said it should be blocked - and that local, Spanish news site is now blocked from being used as a source anywhere on Wikipedia. Someone noticed, and it's clearly going to be overturned, but it's starting a discussion on how few editors are making huge editorial decisions for the site which has been sorely needed.

That's where you come in. Don't fight over individual articles, individual words - become an editor, learn the rules, follow the notice boards, and once you're experienced you can make a difference. Trust me - the past few years, people with other specific points of view have done just that.

Another example of places with no participation is the "articles for deletion", the same article gets relisted to build a consensus every week, to the point they are listed 3 or 4 times, because no one will come in and say "no we should keep it, it's notable and this is why" or "delete this one, I can't find any sources to support keeping it".

So, I'd like to make a post about how to participate in Wikipedia and be successful to encourage people to join.

But I'd like to ask new users to stay away from LGBT adjacent articles until you are experienced and can keep your cool, as some of the pages have a group of 20 - 25 Edit Warriors "guarding" them. You'll know you hit one if you make a small change, it's reverted, a group of people frantically come to a "consensus" on the talk page to prevent you from making changes. Once someone sets them off, it's hard to make any changes to the articles at all, they call in all their friends, but there are ways to get past the guards.

Step 1, search the bar for "WP:Consensus" and read that rule.

The first thing is on Wikipedia is "Consensus". - you vote, but you don't vote. And that's super confusing. It's called "consensus" - if I come in, and say "yes I agree", that's a vote. If I come in and say "yes I agree, because per Wikipedia's rules (here) and (here)..." that vote counts more. I'm explaining myself. If you see groups of people saying "i totally agree!" - generally that's a sign someone is asking people to come "vote" and it's something that is supposed to be ignored... well, supposed to be right?

If you are a former religious person who could quote scripture, Wikipedia is for you, because trust me, you'll get "per WP:X" in all your conversations.

One thing I want you to note is that editors on an article can NOT form a consensus to OVERIDE policy. That's a mistake people seem to make, that editors can just do what they want as long as their friends 'help them vote' for it. Unfortunately - it's working right now - because WP doesn't have enough users to overturn those little brigades of friends.

Step 2, reliable sources. Search the bar for "WP:Verifiability" and read that rule. Next, look up "WP:RS/P"

The basic idea is that everything is supposed be sourced, and we want to look at the most reliable sources. So - that's why people pushing specific POVs are hounding the reliable sources boards, to say "ban this source". For instance, saying "unheard" as a site isn't reliable, because they publish unpopular opinions. (I'm not kidding, that was a real discussion). The reliable sources, perinneal sources will let you see what you're up against - everything 'conservative' is biased, everything liberal is reliable. There is a search to look up previous discussions about sources too.

You also need to be able to make citations, and that's a bit tricky. An article is supposed to have a body that's long and everything in it has in-line citations. The lead is supposed to be a summary of the article.

Everyone fights over the lead constantly. Skip it. Write the article. Avoid removing content, that will get you flagged. You change a word in the lead and the Edit Warriors will appear an any chance you had of making that article neutral are gone.

Let's say you see an article that says "XYZ is a horrible person" - that should obviously be removed. Don't do it. Add content instead, and do it bit by bit. Do not do a massive overhaul. Add three sentences, describe it in your edit summary, save. Make another small change, describe it in your edit summary, save. Edit summaries make people respect you more - do it.

Oh and maybe in one of those edits, you make the change to the article you actually wanted to do. But it's in the midst of such a massive improvement to the article, that the change of an Edit Warrior coming in to block you is reduced, especially if the rest is just great, respectable, neutral information that isn't written from a specific point of view.

It's much harder to justify reverting a series of edits, especially when you're respecting other users contributions by not removing what they've added, when you're adding good material, etc.

Another thing you can do is really read the existing sources carefully, and add material only from the existing sources on the page. I've had people remove anything I've added from a new source, but if I add in neutral information from a source that was used to pull negative information from... they've left it.

Remember the edit warriors aren't making real objects, they are pushing a POV. So, you add a source, they object! It's not a good source! All their friends will swoop and say it's not a good source! But, this horrible article saying "This person is so bad, so so so bad, oh here is a neutral thing or two..." bam pull the neutral things in. It's harder for them to argue when it's a source already on the page.

"BOLD, revert, discuss cycle" is an essay - not a policy, not a guideline - but it's a great start to understand how to make changes, and what to do if someone reverts it. Go to the talk page, discuss it - but if you run afoul of the EDIT Warriors, it may be best to drop that article and work on something else. "WP:EDITCONSENSUS" on the other hand - that's a policy, and it describes something similiar.

... I've seriously made edits I couldn't make years ago, due to some Fandom Warrior on the page, because they are no longer around protecting the page. Wait them out.

Step 3

Use an account. You shouldn't edit anything that is a "conflict of interest" - someone you know, your company, etc. People can declare a Conflict of Interest and ask other users to make changes.

• Have a neutral name that doesn't identify you as female. The majority of editors are male and being identifiable female makes you venerable to abuse.
• Create a "user page", it should be short and avoid anything personal or anything that states an opinion, but you might add something innocent like "I love photography" or "Mountains are beautiful". When you comment on a talk page, sign it with four ~~~~ - this links your name to your username, if it's red, that means you don't have a user page, and people tend to discount what you say more strongly. But I also strongly believe in following good privacy guidelines about your user page and don't disclose anything personal.
• Avoid mentioning your personal opinions on things.
• Warning: If two people from the same IP address comment together somewhere, and it's reported and they find you sharing an IP address, it doesn't matter if you are actually two people, you will get banned for being a sockpuppet. Never work on articles together with people you live with, no matter how tempting, and avoid getting on WP from your phone/laptop where other people might be editing. I seriously know someone who was banned when their wife was reported as a sock puppet - obviously they were two people, but they had the same IP address and were banned, because they commented on the same discussion in agreement ONCE, even after being an editor with tons of good contributions for YEARS, this one shocked me.
• Never discuss another editor's behavior, only the topic at hand. A female editor mentioned "I think there are editors working together and it's frustrating" in a few places, and it was reported as being "mean" and has been escalated to the highest authority at Wikipedia to make a decision on her "behavior". I'm pretty shocked on this one, as she posted the most mild comments and I routinely see much worse every day. She's a long term editor and I saw people gloating about her "getting her just deserts" on twitter.
• If you make a lot of enemies, see above point, it might be worth it to burn your account following the new procedures for it.

Step 4

Never Edit War. You can get banned for it. Search for 'WP:3RR' in the wikipedia search bar and be aware that's how most newbies get blocked or banned, and people will purposely work together to lead you into a violation so they can report you can get you blocked, preserving their control over an article.

Other recommendations:

• There are "contentious topics" where editor's behavior is under extra scrutiny. Many of the articles have blocks for 6 month old accounts with 500 edits. Stay away from them. Everything to do with India or South Asia is an insane minefield right now. Any current event - Covid? Oh no, stay away from that. Anything to do with Gender or LGBT topics is going to get people scrutinizing your account. Stay away from those as a new user, come back when you're experienced. Once the "frenzy" of a topic is over... the articles become easier to clean up later on.
• Every user has a talk page that exists for other users to come tell you how you broke a rule, or warn you about rules. Most people who leave comments will do so in an extremely rude manner. You have to be tough about this. However: Read what they link you too, and keep in mind: Is it a Guideline or a Policy?.... or an Essay. People love to post Essays to new users accounts to make them think they've broken a rule, but essays aren't rules per se, they are suggestions. But people love to throw an essay at you and tell you to shut up or they will report you... and they are bluffing, you've done nothing wrong. But, you also won't be able to stop a group of EDIT Warriors by yourself; sometimes you just have to walk away.
• Personalize your settings so when you edit an article you do NOT automatically "watch" it. Instead, manually watch articles you care about. But you might want to un-watch something with a heated discussion and "walk away" for now. I find that I don't want to know every time someone does something stupid, it just leads to fights that will waste your time. Don't do it.

If you are an experience editor, please watch the Neutral Point of View Noticeboard and the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. When people have an issue on a page, they are supposed to post to those noticeboards, but only a few editors are providing advice... and those editors have a specific POV. If you're experienced, you can make a huge difference being a part of those boards.

Note, if you are completely new, please feel free to message me, and I'll give you a project that needs a lot of work with no editors working on it that you can use to learn your way around - there are enough people watching the "recent changes" to generate feedback on your edits, without you running into someone who doesn't want you touching THEIR PAGE and warring with you.

What I'd love advice on is a better understanding of how to report problem users. I am starting by documenting edits and keeping track of names so if there is a pattern over time, I can report them - but that also puts a target on your back if you do it.