My venture into Wikipedia

Backstory

Long ago when I was the Editor of the COMP InterACTIONS Newsletter I wrote an article about (among other things) Wikipedia (see here for the publication). Back in 2007, Wikipedia was still relatively new and there was good reason to be skeptical of the published content. Relevant excerpts from that article are reproduced below (with post notes and inserted links):

"...Out of curiosity, I typed in the words ‘Medical Physics’ in Wikipedia. After following a few links, I came across web pages that had the words ‘EDIT’ alongside each of the written texts. I clicked it and started to feel like a blind, thumbless plumber stumbling towards a CT with the gantry covers off (incompetent). After stopping myself from inflicting damage, I pondered: who are the contributors of these rather finely crafted words? 

After seeing some rather anonymous contributors, I noticed that characters by the names of ‘kungfuadam’ and ‘Bobo the Ninja’ appeared to be editing some of the pages. It turns out that Bobo is a self-proclaimed expert in chemistry who attends Rock Bridge High School in Missouri. I don’t know what kind of journals you are reading, but I haven’t cited or read many works from Bobo yet. [Post note: Bobo is gone! or has changed identities!] 

Some interesting facts about Wikipedia:
• Wikipedia is a free internet encyclopedia that anyone can edit
• There is a entry of ‘Wikipedia’ on Wikipedia
• According to a peer reviewed study published in Nature, Wikipedia is as reliable as an encyclopedia in the accuracy of information provided (something the traveling Britannica salesman failed to mention).

To me, Wikipedia is a shining example of how good -and bad- things can get when you mix science and everyday life. Theoretically, if you wait long enough, any falsehoods, or ‘graffiti’, would be replaced with a majority consensus opinion on the “correct” description. Interesting concept. I just hope those volunteers adding to the website are competent. Sounds like digital Darwinism. Stephen Colbert, a comedian/political satirist calls it “bringing democracy to knowledge”, which I found particularly funny, and scary. [Post note: Stephen Colbert performed a hilarious experiment with Wikipedia]"

Re-reading this didn't really change my opinion all that much, but I think it is fair to say that the growth and reliance on Wikipedia as a reference-tool has grown tremendously since 2007. That isn't to say that Wikipedia have no challenges. For a real mind-bender/meta-exercise, consider that there is a pretty good submission on the criticisms of Wikipedia on Wikipedia. In fact, Time magazine thinks it is in trouble. Surprisingly, they stated the following:

"The problem, most researchers and Wikipedia stewards seem to agree, is that the core community of Wikipedians are too hostile to newcomers, scaring them off with intractable guidelines and a general defensiveness. One detailed study from 2012 found that new editors often find that their first contributions to the site are quickly rejected by more experienced users, which directly correlates with a drop in the likelihood that they will continue to contribute to the site. "

I found this particularly worrisome after realizing that someone needed to create an entry for Jack Cunningham somewhere on the internet.

My venture

If you don't know Jack Cunningham, well... you can now read his profile on Wikipedia. My motivation for creating an entry was based on the few times I searched him through various search engines. Too frequently I'd be disappointed with the results. So I figured why not enter him into Wikipedia? It is citable and a probably a good thing to do. Plus I could add some of my medical physics competency into this massive digital-Darwin experiment.

The steps were quite easy. 

• Create a profile in Wikipedia
• Read what you need to do to create your first article
• Follow all the suggestions in that article
• And write it up in your draft-space!
• Get all your references lined up
• Write and edit.
• Edit some more
• Then submit it for review

I had some experience with HMTL coding so using mark-up language to create the article wasn't much of a challenge. There are a great number of helpful editing tools which can make referencing pretty simple.

For the record, my first submission was rejected due to poor references. Easy-peasy fix. The second revision took much longer to receive feedback, but when it came, I received a lot of great feedback from the community. Shortly thereafter it was published! I received a bunch of helpful suggestions such as inserting links to the profile (which I did through inserting a link on Harold John's wiki entry). 

Now that the page is created, anyone can edit it. And that kind of scares me a bit. Maybe Bobo The Ninja is hammering away at the page at this second (probably not). Now that I am an editor of a page, I can receive a message / flag if any changes are made. And I still have some more work to do (see the 'warnings' on the front page... that I will likely remove soon).

I have to say that the process was a lot easier than I expected. Even enough for me to consider submitting more articles or editing others. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.