User:SHB2000/Big wiki-centrism

(English) This is an essay. It expresses the opinions and ideas of some Wikimedians but may not have wide support. This is not policy on Meta, but it may be a policy or guideline on other Wikimedia projects. Feel free to update this page as needed, or use the discussion page to propose major changes.

A few years back, I once came across a great saying on Just Step Sideways' Commons user page – and I must say that they really are on-point – well, to a certain extent at least. To quote exactly what's mentioned:

There's an extremely tiresome trend here among a small but vocal portion of "power users" to be openly hostile to users they perceive as being "from other projects" in particular the English Wikipedia. You may have had an account for a decade or more, and made a few thousand edits, over a hundred uploads, and participated in various prior discussions without it being a problem, but if you run afoul of these gatekeepers, you will be branded as an outsider and they will try to discount your opinion simply because Commons is not your "home wiki". Don't let them get away with it. The purpose of Commons is to support other projects with easily accesible free images, it is not supposed to be a members-only clubhouse only for those who consider Commons their home wiki. It's a nasty, underhanded way to discount valid opinions and should always be called out. Users from all projects should be welcome and valued here.

And I fully agree – I've seen this kind of behaviour on Commons countless times before. Even as someone with over 50k edits to Commons, I still occasionally get the "well, you're not part of Commons" treatment at times. But I must say that I don't think this is limited to Commons either – I've experienced similar treatment on almost all big wikis, especially the big Wikipedias. Getting the "new user treatment" when you've made thousands of non-automated edits globally and have a solid cross-wiki edit matrix (even with sysop on at least 1 project) has to be one of the worst feelings and is beyond mildly infuriating.