Wikipedia:Not a new editor

This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Shortcuts WP:NANE WP:NOTNEW

This page in a nutshell: Certain editors feigning to be new editors are not new but are very experienced banned or blocked editors.

Editors who have been

arbcom-enwikimedia.org

• They are polite and patient and can make strong policy based arguments with you under few weeks or few months of them joining the collaborative project and can do so in a collegial and friendly manner. They are also often in the habit of making intentional NEWBIE mistakes.
• Within weeks of registering they are grounded in policy, are rude and condescending to veteran editors, are passive aggressive, make sarcastic comments, argue policy with you in a subliminal manner, they almost want you to be aware of the fact that they predate your existence as an editor.
• Can create a very decent article with just 1 edit.
• Their first edit being to the talk page of a sysop to request un-deletion of an article that got deleted prior them joining the collaborative project.
• Are familiar with our markup.
• Undue Boldness.
• They know about bite and always cite bite when interacting with them. See
  WP:CITEBITE
  .
• Whilst relatively new can work with templates.
• Fluent in wiki-lingo/Jargon despite being new.
• They appear to know what they are doing and know their way around.
• Know to always use their edit summary even in their very first edit.
• Say things which imply a history predating (your) current interaction with them. For instance, an editor might make a comment like Foo is getting better at editing Wikipedia even though they have not interacted with Foo previously.
• Within their first few days, they know what ANI is, and often threaten editors and system operators with reporting them to ANI when they are being corrected.

• They may have edited as an IP user without an account for months or even years before deciding to register.
• They may be a
  valid alternate account
  used for editing certain sensitive topics.
• They may just be quicker to learn things than others.
• They may have prior editing experience on sister projects or on other websites that use MediaWiki

• Wikipedia:Newbies aren't always clueless