User blog:Illialidur/Why we keep on editing.

Starting off
I do not think I am alone when I say that a Wiki has helped me and given me insight into a game and it's characters. It just wanted to highlight why we do this. It is important to remember why, and I hope this helps.

The Real Thing
I once found myself editing, whereupon I found a mistake. I tried to edit it to the best of my knowledge, and I am now satisfied that I was able to fix something. I know I am not alone with this feeling. It may on occasion seem like a thankless job, this editing, but it mst definately is not. I thank everyone who posts and edits. You are out there using your free time to  help add to the world of gaming.

Keep it up. The Wiki is never complete, and never correct. One person's correct may be another person's dead wrong. This may be counter productive, but it really isn't. Differing views, when both sides considered, present a new take on the subject matter, and that is even better than a difinitive answer because it helps the reader reach their own conclusions to their problems.

I once found myself editing, and I proudly submitted my alteration. My final revision found no errors, and I was smug and pleased with myself. However, after submission, my smug final FINAL check found something I had mixed up, missed, and ultimately ruined. I painstakingly tried to find how to fix it. This is not intended to highlight my clumsyness, but the point of continued editing.

One person may find an error, fix it, but accidentally create a new problem. In turn, someone will find the new mistake and fix it, and create a few more. Not very often will something be fixed and not create new prblems. This is unavoidable when you have many different people editing the same thing. What we need, then, is patience, kindness, understanding, and persistance. The first three are to keep ourselves in check and the last is to keep on editing and adding. New content always needs to be added, and new revisions need  to be made. Are you up to the challenge?

I once found myself looking back on a previous edit, when I found something changed. My edit. I was frusterated, and I may have angrily given up editing for a while afterwards. In hindsight, this was not the best was to deal with my own wrath.

You can make an edit. you can fix an error. You can make some information correct. But you can't force someone else to think it is better. They may go back and change your edit. It may hurt, and it may not; the way you deal with it is what's important. Putting your information back to it's original place is one way, but attempting to present both ideas is far more productive. I would honestly live to re-write every article to my own preferences. It would be fun, and I may even help a few people.

But I could never help myself, learn something new or a new viewpoint. I could never present different ideas. I could never satisfy everyones search for knowledge. In the end, I would like it, but it would be nothing more than a compilation of my ideas and opinions. Changing and editing is fine, as long as you remember that every post and comment, every article, and even every mistake has something good about it. It may be hard to see, and you may not want to find it, but when you do find it, even a mistake can be worth something good.

Closing
This was never meant to be a record of my edits as I know a fair number of them are not the best ever made. In fact, I believe that an edit can never perfectly fix the game information, because there will always be confliicting edits and errors on other articles, errors on your Wiki. All we can do as the editors and authors is our best and continue presenting more refined knowledge to our fellow Wikians and the readers who turn to us for help.

May you keep editing and adding and refining the knowledge of the Wikia Universe!

-Illialidur