Wikipedia:Failure

Not to be confused with WP:FAIL.

Members of a rowing team bow their heads and cradle their faces after their defeat in a race. Even though they lost, they probably still learned something that will help them in their next event.

Failure: Without it, the world would be a different place. On Wikipedia, failure is a good thing because people are prone to mistakes, and they learn as a result of them. Every administrator probably has a few projects where they failed at something, but they will tell you that they learned as a result of them. Although failure is not encouraged in the outside world, failure here is valuable because people learn from their mistakes. So go ahead, fail! In the real world, failing on a major project or important task–landing a jet or doing a surgery–can have catastrophic consequences. But on Wikipedia, mistakes can easily get erased, deleted sections can be restored and these actions won't cause massive havoc to the encyclopedia or the rest of the world.

See also

• Wikipedia:Fruit of the poisonous tree § Wikipedia processes – discusses what to do when a failure of process is discovered after the fact