User talk:Ret.Prof

I EDITED WIKIPEDIA

BEFORE CREATING A USER ACCOUNT,

SO I HAVE BEEN HERE LONGER THAN

IT LOOKS.


Talk Page Archives:
Archive 1 (2008)
Archive 2 (2009)
Archive 3 (2010)
Archive 4 (2011)
Archive 5 (2012)
Archive 6 (2013)
Archive 7 (2014)
Archive 8 (2015)
Archive 9 (2016)
Archive 10 (2017)
Archive 11 (2018)
Archive 12 (2019)
Archive 13 (2020)



  1. Stay calm and maintain a professional demeanor. Be patient and remain courteous and civil.
  2. Avoid conflict, even when you know you are right. Give other editors the benefit of the doubt.  
  3. Assume good faith toward your collaborating editors, if not their edits. Assuming good faith is not intended to be self-destructive, but to avoid conflict.
  4. Ignore attacks. Not easily done, but a real timesaver. Attacks and counter-attacks are hazardous to your mental health. The best and most frequently offered administrative advice is to move on, and, if absolutely necessary, return the next day.
  5. Don't take it personally. Editors make honest mistakes. Communicating our thoughts is not easily done on the Internet.
  6. Don't isolate your interpretation. There are many interpretations other than yours. What you read might NOT be what was meant.
  7. Don't think of editing as a competition. WE are cohorts, collaborating to improve our thing.
  8. Don't edit when angry or upset. Stay off the article and talk page in question. Never let your anger or frustration be the deciding factor in your behavior.
  9. Don't forget the human dimension of Wikipedia editing. Keep things in perspective. There is a real, living and breathing, sensitive human on the other side of the discussion.
respectfully taken from Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention

Ray's Rules

  1. You and your problems are not the most important thing in the world.
  2. Choose your battles. Yield when it doesn't matter, and stand your ground when it does.
  3. Keep a thick skin. Don't let criticism discourage you. Instead, let it teach you.
  4. You learn more from listening than from talking. "A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something." (Wilson Mizner)
  5. Don’t waste your time arguing with an idiot.
  6. Give other people the same respect that you would want from them. (Matthew 7:12)
  7. The surest way to drive yourself crazy is to compare yourself to other people.
  8. Take the high road, no matter what the other person does. It will benefit you in the long run. (Romans 12:20)
  9. Don’t take yourself too seriously: "We share 99% of our genes with mice, and we even have the genes that could make a tail." (Dr. Jane Rogers, Human Sequencing and Mapping Project Manager, Sanger Institute); "The graveyards are full of indispensable men." (Charles de Gaulle)
  10. The most important thing is to be able to look yourself in the mirror. “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it's right.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
respectfully taken from Ray's Rules