Wikipedia does not need you
Written in 2012 by Drmies, this essay is as apt today as it was then. (image added by The Signpost)
Wikipedia does not need you
 | This page in a nutshell: Get over it. |
| “ | The light is good, and those that will come are good. |
” |
| — Cavafy (tr. Aliki Barnstone), "When the Watchman Saw the Light" | ||
You need the wiki—that's a fact. It's statistically proven and phenomenologically indisputable: you need the wiki.‹The template Fake citation needed is being considered for merging.› [citation needed] After all, you're here. Equally true, and much more insidious to the idea that we are all unique individuals and that we matter, is that the wiki does not need you—especially if you're a diva. It likes you, it appreciates your presence and your contributions, it wants you to get an account, to patrol Recent Changes (well... it doesn't mind it), to start verifying unreferenced BLPs, to make copyedits by hand or by bot—but the wiki does not need you. It wants you to trim External links sections, to change {{Reflist}} into <references /> and back again, to trim trivia sections and tag them, to add WikiProject templates to talk pages—but the wiki does not need you. The wiki appreciates your incessant jokes at WP:ANI, your useful advice at Wikipedia:Reference desk, your cheerful jabs at Jimbo Wales—but the wiki does not need you.
Should it happen that a cabal of admins, operating on the talk page of an article or the lion's den of AN/I, manages to block you on an invented charge, the world will continue to turn. The grass will grow, the birds will lay eggs, the number of Pokémon-related articles will still double every 1.7 weeks, and articles on weathermen will be brought to AfD. Sure, it won't be done as smoothly and as elegantly as when you did it, but it will be done. The wiki will continue to turn. Sad, but true.
So if things are too stressful—take a break. Or leave. The latter would be especially sad, but Wikipedia will still be here tomorrow. It's bigger than me, bigger than you, possibly bigger than Jimbo. So if you start to think you're untouchable because you're indispensable to the project, just remember: you're not. However, there's a good chance that a deep breath and a cup of tea will resolve the problem that has you stressed, and then you and the Wiki can spend more quality time together.
Discuss this story
Love me a quality WP:HTD essay in the morning.--Catlemur (talk) 09:36, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
...and in a week or two...no, wait, that’s a month or six now, with the Signpost on life support as it is...there’l be the other sort of essay, the one complaining that there aren’t enough writers. Phaughh. Qwirkle (talk) 14:50, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]