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The Wikipedia article I decided to edit is Hull Zero Three, which is a novel by the science fiction author Greg Bear that was published in 2010. I first encountered the article after listening to the audiobook one night before bed. I wasn’t familiar with this book until I stumbled across the audiobook on YouTube. I had previously read several books by the author and enjoyed them, so I was excited to listen to this audiobook and find out what it was about.
Unfortunately, I fell asleep and lost my place. What I was able to hear was very confusing, so before deciding whether to start over I wanted to check Wikipedia to get an idea of the plot. The article was very short and mainly gave information about the critical response, which was mixed. I noticed that the article was lacking a proper plot synopsis, so I went in search of the information from other sources.
The article I found related to Hull Zero Three is a review by Gary K. Wolfe, published in November 2010 in Locus magazine (a trade magazine for science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction.) The magazine publishes reviews and announcements for upcoming novels, magazines, and conventions. The article offers the plot synopsis (without any major spoilers) and seemed like the best reference for what I needed.
My first step was to post to the talk page of the Wikipedia article, describing my proposed edits and the source. I used the source editor to draft my message and let the other editors know my intention to edit the plot synopsis for this page.
I waited to see if I would get any replies on the Talk page. When I did not see any after two days, I posted the following plot synopsis for the novel:
I will wait again to see if my edits are deleted. My sense is that this page is not watched very closely anymore due to the topic and the age of the novel. It has been ten years since the novel was published and is not one of the author’s more popular works.
After posting my edit, I noticed that there was a message at the bottom of the page that says the article is a stub with a link to a page with guidelines on writing about novels on Wikipedia. I clicked on the link, and read through a manual of style for editing novel pages. I closely read the information about plot, which is the section I had added to the article.
What I read is that Wikipedia recommends 3-4 paragraphs to summarize the plot of a full-length novel. After reading the guidelines, however, I noticed that it also says this:
It also says that the novel itself is the primary source for the plot, unless there are explanatory details in which case you should use a secondary source. Armed with this new information, I set about rewriting my plot synopsis to add more detail including spoilers that I had avoided previously. Next, I returned to my article to apply the changes:
I decided to keep my secondary source as a reference because it really informed my original plot summary. I will now wait to see if I receive any feedback from other editors or if someone decides to delete what I have written.
After waiting 2 days to see if there was any feedback or if another editor deleted my edits, I saw that nothing was changed. My conclusion is that this article is not being monitored closely, and if any deletions or messages occur it will likely not be for a while. I have my account set to receive notifications for this page. If someone decides to delete the plot synopsis, I will ask for their feedback on what I wrote so that I can be better prepared if I decide to revise the article again.
Overall this was a very enjoyable assignment; I even bragged to a friend about getting the chance to edit Wikipedia. I found the training modules to be clear and simple and editing the actual article and talk pages was not complicated. The most difficult part was figuring out which article to edit since there are so many. What do I know a lot about? In general, I think I am expert in most things (not really) but when it came to really thinking about what I know well enough to actually contribute to a Wikipedia page, I felt like a newborn baby who doesn’t know anything. It was daunting to put my writing on a page that could be viewed by potentially hundreds or thousands of people. It gave me a deeper appreciation of Wikipedia editors who have written the articles that I have been reading for years.
During the weeks of the assignment, WIRED Magazine posted an article on Wikipedia:
Wikipedia Is the Last Best Place on the Internet
I hope that this article inspires internet entrepreneurs to create more crowdsourced sites that focus on providing information rather than making a profit.
