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This essay is about How Wikipedia looks to newbies, which is very different from how it looks to experienced editors.
Editors are busy people with their own concerns, and, often, deep inside knowledge of how Wikipedia works, and (therefore) of what a Wikipedia article consists of - citations, external links, footnotes, sections, lead-in, imageboxes, categories, past discussions, previous visits to AfD, edits by sockpuppets and so on and on.
Newbies have no such knowledge. To the newbie, Wikipedia articles look like text: which, astonishingly, they can edit. So they do.
This essay considers how a newbie sees an article, and what Wikipedia should do to enhance the newbie's vision.