Wikipedia — it’s a name everyone has heard of before and most likely has seen or used in one way or another. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that has almost any topic you can think of contained within its seemingly limitless database. It’s a great source of tertiary information and (despite our high school teachers saying otherwise) is a great place to start when researching a topic. While we, ordinary digital citizens, like to take the availability of the info we find online for granted, many have never thought about the hard work and dedication taken to structure these sites into what they are today.
I have always been interested in online databases such as Wikipedia and other such community-driven databases and amazed at the complexity of these websites. While I have contributed to some other fan wikis in my life, I have never thought of (or rather, felt the need to) contribute to something as big as Wikipedia because after all, everything you search for is already there! Or is it?
After reading Dawn Bazelys article on Donna Strickland, I thought to myself that maybe Wikipedia is not as omnipotent as some think it is. With this thought in mind, and inspiration from that article, I decided to make it my mission to find a Wikipedia page which was a stub, and to edit that rather than adding info to an already developed page. After browsing Wikipedia pages for a while about plant ecology related topics I knew, I eventually came across a quaint little article for the flower Centaurea gymnocarpa, a threatened species that I recall from my trip to Italy a few years ago. When I first saw the page, it was just a short sentence giving a brief description of the flower with the generic picture & sidebar you see on many species articles.
After a search of the internet, I was able to find updated information pertaining to the conservation status of the species and so I began, developing the page adding all the information I could find and even learning a few things (I was shocked that the flower was considered one of the 50 most endangered plant species in the Mediterranean, as it was found all over the island on my visit!) In the end, I fleshed out the page and made it look more like an actual Wikipedia page, and even cleared up some misconceptions the original page had about a garden plant of the same name! (which actually kind of made me see first hand why Wikipedia should not be used as a primary source of info).
Editing Wikipedia was definitely a learning experience for me, as I learned a lot about the process involved in editing just a small amount of a page. While it may seem discouraging to build a page from scratch, as long as you have a topic and find reliable sources, Wikipedia is very user friendly making editing is a breeze, and they have many templates to assist you if you so choose!
Editing Wikipedia also has helped me develop my science communication skills as it encourages you to write clearly and concisely (as everyone who reads your article may not be a scientist), and also to make sure your edits are neat and readable, or else you will get struck down by bots or other users undoing all your hard work!
Overall, I would rate my Wikipedia experience as a great one, as I learned a few things and even got to look under the hood and edit the guts of one of the most used websites on the internet! It also helped me develop my skills which I can use as talking points in the future on my resume, as while everyone can do it, how many people can actually tell you they edited Wikipedia?
Registering with Wikipedia Education
While we were not presented with the opportunity to register with Wikipedia education (a site designed to teach newcomers the basics of Wikipedia editing) before our individual Wikipedia adventures, I still found the site fascinating and great even if you already have experience with Wikipedia. The website offers a suite of training modules to teach you how to properly set up a Wikipedia page, which honestly i did not find much use for as much of it was review of basic grammar and citation etiquette as well as how to prevent plagiarization, which we as university students have had plenty of background training on already. The modules did however have some great guides on how to structure a Wikipedia article and how to add new information, which i feel would have been great to know before I expended the stub of the wiki page that I chose. Even experienced wiki users can find some use with the dashboard, as you can find, add and track articles that you plan on editing, and the website gives you a great checklist to make sure that any edits you make will be up to Wikipedia standards before you publish them. I would highly recommend using this website for anyone who plans on wiki editing regularly.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 