At the start of the assignment, I had intentions to create a new page for the Kettle Moraine School District. There is a Wikipedia page for Kettle Moraine High School, and it contains a red link to the Kettle Moraine School District Page. A red link indicates a link rot where the links to information have become dead links or disappeared. I thought that was strange and had begun looking into creating a new page. I learned that I needed to have a minimum of 10 edits before taking on a new page. I searched to find another topic I know, so that I could reach 10 edits.
I have lived in Wisconsin for mostly my entire life. I am very familiar with the area, and appreciate the landscape surrounding me. I know the trails and had been specifically looking at adding information to Lapham Peak or to Waukesha County. I was not able to find information to add to either of those pages. I eventually landed on the Waukesha County Park System page, saw an opportunity and prepared edits. The article is currently a stub, and hasn’t had edits since 2018.
I know from personal experience that the parks have and are continuing to implement dog exercise areas to the parks, which will contribute to the activities for members of the community. As a dog owner, I seek this information out when I visit new towns. Making these edits is extremely exciting because it could potentially help new and visiting dog owners in finding pet friendly activities. I also know what it is like to be kicked out of Retzer Nature Center, mentioned in my edits, for bringing a dog into the nature area.
I have posted about my plans in the talks, but I think I might be doing them wrong. I posted about my ideas for the Kettle Moraine School District page on my own talk, which didn’t get a response. For the dog exercise edits, I posted it on the talk page even though there was no other conversation happening. I did not receive a response.
I began my search for sources supporting the dog exercise areas. I was able to find three sources and use a definition link to another Wikipedia page. My first source supported the first sentence and related to the experience I had at Retzer Nature Center. This is important because it warns dog owners to stay away, and also notifies the public that this is a dog free area for those with safety concerns against dogs. The second sentence has references to Patch and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and includes a definition link to “dog parks.” These sources were important because Wikipedia requires citations for all information added.
After checking back in on the article, I found that no one made changes to my edits; I wonder if that is because it is labeled a stub. However, I noticed that I made a grammatical error in my edits. I had a lowercase “p” on Nashotah Park. I went back in to edit mode and made the edit. For this experience, I was able to make a minor edit that would not change the meaning of the text.
Finding the Waukesha County Parks page excited me because Wikipedia could have educated me on not bringing my dog to Retzer Nature Center, and could have encouraged me to try another park that does allow dogs. Even after some of the training, I was a bit scared to make edits on the pages. That changed when I realized that certain types of information could improve a person’s experience, and I felt it was my responsibility to try. At the end of my edits, I was notified that I had made 10 edits. I am now able to take on the task of creating a page for Kettle Moraine School District! Overall, this was an enjoyable experience and I will be attempting more edits.
