Editing Wikipedia

[sandwitch]

I participated in a Wikipedia edit-a-thon a couple months ago. The interface isn't intuitive and it's hard to learn all the rules, so I thought that working in a group would help me. After editing a few articles, I tried my hand at making a new one. I found an author with several literature awards who didn't have a page, so I used other author pages as a model. I thought I did a fairly decent job collecting secondary sources (no original research is allowed) and included the awards as an indication of notability. Next time I checked, though, it had been flagged for deletion because it wasn't "significant". I'm not sure how people really decide that since I've definitely seen less "significant" pages, but I haven't put the time in to advocate for it.

I think the experience was valuable as I often use Wikipedia as a portal to knowledge, and I plan to dedicate more time to learning the rules, etiquette, and culture eventually. As a librarian, I think that assigning Wikipedia edits would be a valuable information literacy exercise, particularly as it becomes more socially accepted as a source of knowledge. I know that professors will use it in their classes, as the research to properly edit a page will often be as rigorous as writing an essay.

Has anyone else tried editing?

[msg_v2]

Briefly in college. I think it might be a good idea to start it up again. It could help give more structure and purpose to my meandering. I can say definitively that I do something with my free time if I edit Wikipedia, and that's a plus.

[sandwitch]

Briefly in college. I think it might be a good idea to start it up again. It could help give more structure and purpose to my meandering. I can say definitively that I do something with my free time if I edit Wikipedia, and that's a plus.

Were there certain types of articles you'd edit?

[msg_v2]

Were there certain types of articles you'd edit?

I wish I could remember. I can't even be sure if it was about pop-culture trifles or not. I didn't do it for very long. I'd probably find some area less hotly contested these days, and stake it out there. If I steer away from current events and pop culture, it's probably easier to carve out my own niche these days. Getting embroiled in community politics is tough enough, I wouldn't want to deal with fandom or actual politics.

[jigglypuff]

i forgot what it was but i edited something once when i found a mistake (a wrong date, i think). i don't believe in touching for the sake of touching, so that's the only way i can see myself getting into wikipedia editing. it seems quite thankless.

[sandwitch]

i forgot what it was but i edited something once when i found a mistake (a wrong date, i think). i don't believe in touching for the sake of touching, so that's the only way i can see myself getting into wikipedia editing. it seems quite thankless.

Information-curation tends to be (see: the library profession desperately advocating for itself). I'm honestly worried about the lack of diversity among the Wikipedia editing community. Like most Internet platforms, it's generally populated by middle class white guys who never learned to play nicely with people. Fortunately, there are active members who try to make the environment more welcoming, but this is often manifested by extensive rules of conduct and other headache sources. Bitch made a podcast about a new feminist movement to represent more women on Wikipedia and found a depressing barrier- all information must be cited in secondary sources, which are prone to the same institutional failures.

I know how often I use Wikipedia, and I see younger library users default to it as their primary access to a topic. I'm afraid that the absence of an article, or a poorly presented article, will determine if information is "worth" knowing. I'm also really interested to know what it's like in the other language communities.

[msg_v2]

I would say that wikipedia calling something non-notable is pretty ridiculous, given all the pop-culture ephemera that winds up on there. I love pop culture ephemera, but I am sure what you put on there is more deserving.

Speaking of ephemera, I do remember joining the Battlestar Galactica wiki, too, and what my contribution there was. There was a page about speculation about future Cylons, and somebody just deleted because it was "disproven" in the very same episode I mentioned. Amusingly enough, I ended up being right.

That might be the dorkiest paragraph I've ever written.

[pensive_pilgrim]

I like to check out the talk pages for controversial articles and look at the process of people arguing over stuff. I'm usually pretty impressed, actually, by how civil they manage to keep it and how they generally adhere to their own stringent rules for what should be there. Still, though, I wouldn't think wikipedia would be a good source for anything controversial or even current and political really. It's an amazing source for information about things that are factual and have been known for some time, but even when looking at summaries of events within the last twenty years I often see bias that's crept in or the citing of sources that I personally find pretty questionable.

[rhinosaur]

I've edited a few pages for some of the more esoteric topics I'm familiar with.

In one class in college we created a number of pages on a private wiki as a class-wide group project. That was kind of cool and actually a really useful format for learning the topics at hand.

[skip]

when looking at summaries of events within the last twenty years I often see bias that's crept in or the citing of sources that I personally find pretty questionable.

Agreed. Some of the edits are nothing short of bizarre.