My Experience as a Wikipedia Author
As a college student, I spend a lot of time writing. Whether I’m jotting down notes or crafting an essay, there’s always an assignment due that involves writing. As a New Media and Communications major, I would never have thought I would work on a Wikipedia article for one of my classes. But, of course, that’s exactly what I had to do.
For the Writing for Digital Media class, half of the course was taught through WikiEdu’s dashboard. This is a training course for writing on Wikipedia. Through this course, nine training modules teach you what Wikipedia looks for in an article. I found these modules to be very helpful for the class. I was able to navigate Wikipedia more efficiently, find an article to edit and select what needed to be worked on. Wikipedia also offered cheat sheets, so you weren’t expected to memorize WikiCode or anything.
I will be sharing my personal experience writing on Wikipedia. I’ve offered some advice on writing for Wikipedia in a previous blog post.
Critiquing an Article
One of the first assignments from WikiEdu asked us to find an article to critique. The training model associated with this assignment provided tips on how to find an article that needs editing. Wikipedia assesses each article and assigns them all ratings. These ratings state the quality of the article to focus on what articles get worked on.
I chose the article on Marie Laveau, a famous voodoo queen of New Orleans, Louisiana in the 1800’s. When I encountered this article, it’d earned a “C-Class” rating. This meant important content was missing and it had too much unnecessary information. Because of this rating, I decided the best place to start would be the references. Many of the links were broken and outdated. The article also housed many banners throughout, much of them stating the information available needed citations. I chose to fix these first, and then when I came across new information that is relevant, I would add that in as I worked through each section.
My Contributions
Upon reading the article the first few times, I composed a “to-do” list in my sandbox to help me stay on track. The main issues I came up with were as follows:
- Verify the claims in the article,
- Check the citations and fix broken links,
- Remove unnecessary information,
- Clarify information in “Personal Life” section,
- Call the Cathedral to verify the location of the marriage certificate;
- Verify her birth date;
- Remove banners once they are fixed; and
- Add ISBN to biography
I bought a copy of The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveaux: A Study of Powerful Female Leadership in Nineteenth Century New Orleans and got to work. I did the easy things first, such as calling the Cathedral and adding the ISBN. These were minor things, but I felt they would add to the quality of the article. I sorted through every citation and made notes of which references I could not access. After this, I went through the article once more to confirm the information. During this initial walkthrough, I was only concerned with backing information up. This included replacing links that were unavailable. I decided the easiest way to do this was section by section, so I made another checklist in my sandbox to cross off each section as I went.
After completing this process, I went through the information again to add and omit information. I removed the tangents about other members of the Laveau family. I then replaced these excerpts with more information about Mrs. Laveau. In the “Personal Life” section, the information was a bit vague and difficult to read. I dissected this paragraph and attempted to make it easier to understand. Finally, I revisited all my references and made a note of the birth dates listed for Laveau. Because there is no birth record available, I chose the birth date of 1801 because it was listed more frequently. Later, I found that this birth date was most likely accurate because if she were born in 1794, her father would have been 14 at the time of her conception. It’s known that her father was a wealthy white man in New Orleans, so it is unlikely that he was 14 at the time.
After I was satisfied with my edits, I reviewed the article three more times for accuracy. I then deleted the banners and have been watching the article daily to see if someone else has made any changes.
I learned a lot, not only about Marie Laveau but New Orleans and its rich history. I am going to visit NOLA in two weeks, so this subject was fascinating to me. The edits I made to the article are valuable forlearning about Marie Laveau, especially if you are interested in New Orleans’ culture. Laveau is part of what makes New Orleans such an intriguing place. It only makes sense that her mysterious life should be accessible with the most accurate information available. I feel proud that I was able to unearth some of her secrets for the next person who is interested in her life and in the city of New Orleans to find.
Peer Reviews
When it came time for peer reviews, I was a little nervous. Other people in the class weren’t as far along in their work as I was at the time. The WikiEdu dashboard allowed me to access my peers’ sandboxes quickly. I went down the list until I found another student who’d begun editing their article. After reading what they planned to do to the article, I tried to offer a few ideas of other edits they could make. I also suggested adding images to articles to make them more visually appealing. The peer review I received was from the article I was working on before. However, because I decided to change articles, I asked someone else to review me. This person told me I was off to a great start and that I covered everything he would have suggested. This was helpful to me as well, knowing that I already worked so hard to find these things that needed changes.
Feedback
Because I was further ahead than the other students, I never received any feedback. I felt that this was hindering me, so I asked some friends outside of the class to review my work. I decided to consider their suggestions and apply them where they fit with the class. I had to keep in mind that these people are still used to writing traditionally, so they weren’t aware of the rules for writing digitally and how much different the two mediums can be. Their feedback strengthened my writing and assisted me in creating a quality Wikipedia article.
My Experience on Wikipedia
I’ve learned more applicable information in this class than I have in any other college course I’ve taken so far. We live in a digital age in which the tools we have now have changed the way writing works. Many different rules have developed with the introduction of cell phones, computers, and other technology. The world has become more instantaneous and with that comes impatience. People only want to read information that is relevant, so as an author in the digital age, our work must be concise if we want it read.
Writing for Wikipedia taught me how to present information from a neutral perspective. In every class since grade school, we have been taught to write convincing papers that argue a point. For Wikipedia, however, it’s all about presenting factual information on a subject. I like to think of it as heartless writing, which sounds bad, but it’s taking the passion and emotion out of a topic. You only want factual information. Emotions and passion can sometimes sway the facts to make the reader feel a certain way. If you take the “heart” out of it, you leave only the “mind.” The reader can then make their mind up for themselves about what they are reading.
My experience writing for Wikipedia showed me a lot about myself. In this class, I had to be more independent than in previous classes. I was expected to keep up with the course work on Wikipedia, read the book, work on a blog post, and edit an article on Wikipedia. I quickly developed the role of a “leader” in the class. I feel this is because I was not afraid to ask questions, I didn’t wait on other students to complete a task before I would attempt it, and I was able to figure things out on my own. People began emailing me to ask for assistance with the assignments, asking what exactly we are supposed to be doing, asking if I would edit and review their work, and other questions related to the class. I never noticed this before because, in a classroom setting, the teacher is always the leader. However, this class was online, and for some reason, people don’t seem to ask questions in this setting. Ultimately, I realized that it’s people like me that end up as authors on Wikipedia. Those who are driven, task-oriented, and actually care about the information that’s available. For me, I would rather people have the correct information to access when they go to fact-check something they have heard. I’m grateful for this experience and look forward to editing more articles in the future.
