Surprisingly enough Wikipedia was not this monster I had created in my mind. As I read through the Capoeira page I noticed that most of the information there was correct and it was backed up by reliable sources. The more we learned about Wikipedia in class, the more my view of them shifted. I began to see that they are a tight-knit community, composed by thousands of volunteers and a few employees who take their job very seriously. I began to shift my way of thinking towards them and began to see them more as a business.
After a couple of weeks I decided to make my edit on the Capoeira page under the music section. I wanted to give a more in-depth look at the different toques or rhythms that are played in the roda the Capoeira. Since there are over 20 rhythms I chose my favorite five to write about. I wrote about the kinds of games that are played with each rhythm, followed by some historical facts.
After I made an account with Wikipedia, I decided that I didn’t need a tutorial about how to post an edit. Big mistake! After my first attempt to post my edit, I soon realized how serious volunteers view Wikipedia. After only a couple of seconds I received an email, followed by a message on the “talk” section of Wikipedia; stating that they were excited I was interested in contributing to Wikipedia, but that I was not adhering to their standards. They further stated that I needed to provide reliable sources along with my edit. I didn’t pay much attention to this first notice; because I already had a feeling I had done something wrong. I couldn’t really figure out where my sources were supposed to go. I made a second attempt at posting my edit, only this time I placed the sources in the wrong field. Once again after a couple of seconds, I received the same email and message. I began to feel frustrated, since I believed I was doing the right thing.
The volunteer’s screen name responsible for the Capoeira page is SudoGhost. That night I wished I could put a face to the screen name. Oh, I did! What aggravated me was the fact that it was after 11pm and I felt like he was waiting for my next post to reject it. (I know what you’re thinking, so egocentric). Well, the third time I decided to inspect the page more carefully before I posted and once again I was rejected. Only this time I decided to click on some of the usernames under the “view history” section and saw that there was many warnings for people that kept on re-posting materials incorrectly. Some people were actually suspended. I decided to try to post my edit for the fourth and last time; only this time I did not only inspected the page, but I also watched some tutorial videos that were posted to the class blog. Voila!!! Victory was mine! I think I stayed up an extra 30 minutes checking on the page every couple of minutes. I was ecstatic! I had beaten SudoGhost…or so I felt.
After I had a feeling that my edit was going to stay up, I began to keep a daily log of what was going on in the page. I wrote five blogs called: “My journey through Wikipedia.” I should have written a sixth one when I noticed that there was someone attempting to challenge my edit; but I thought that people were tired of my blogs, so I let it go. As of today, I’m happy to report that there have been no changes to my post.
The blogging process helped me stay engaged with my entry and with this project. I began to feel proud of the fact that my entry was accepted and that those were my words up there. I really took ownership of this experience. I’m still debating whether or not to erase my post after the semester is over.
Overall, I got more than what I expected out of this project. I learned how to make an edit in Wikipedia, I gained some confidence by posting something on a major website (something I never did before), while also getting pleasing grades.
There’s not much I would change about this experience. One thing I would have done differently is I would have read about or watched tutorials on how to post an edit. I think that by skipping this essential step I wasted a lot of time and energy. I would have saved myself a couple of hours of aggravation.
Overall, great project!
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