Wikipedia:Levels of competence

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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it.

Shortcut: WP:SHUARI

This page in a nutshell: All editors go through a series of levels in their understanding of Wikipedia

Shu ha ri

In the martial arts there is a concept of the road to mastery called shu ha ri^[1] that could be explained as:

who is a beginner, plays within the boundaries;
who is proficient, explores the boundaries;
who is an expert, creates the boundaries — or ignores them altogether.

While editing Wikipedia:

beginners don't know (and don't need to know) the rules;
intermediate users learn the rules;
advanced users learn the spirit of the rules;
finally, once users understand the spirit of the rules and principles, they can ignore them.

[edit] Challenges

Beginner

tip: Don't be afraid, just be BOLD! There's no way you can damage the wiki that can't be corrected in under a minute

Edit Wikipedia, just make a change, go ahead! If you make a mistake, someone will correct you.

Intermediate

tip: you can pick up a lot of ideas about how consensus was previously formed by reading policy, guideline, and essay pages

Can you name the five pillars of Wikipedia, and apply them?
What are some issues with the five pillars as chosen? Would you choose other pillars, why?

Advanced

tip:Try to get people to react to you in ways that just happen to lie along the lines of policy. When in a discussion, instead of pointing to the policy itself, try to integrate your understanding of the policy in your own words, and try to convince people that way. You'll probably learn a lot from how they reply!

Do you understand WP:IAR?
If you are an admin, can you enforce policy without use of your admin tools?
Can you get people to follow policy, without making a single link to a policy page yourself?
Can you convince people to follow the principles behind the policy, simply by setting a good example?