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I was extremely nervous about diving into editing for Wikipedia after reading several articles about rude Wikipedia editors and Wikipedia trolls.

The Wikipedia troll article and Professor Roschke’s experience with editing Wikipedia made me very hesitant to dive headfirst into this project. My initial experience with Wikipedia was stressful as I did the first few training exercises, and I immediately decided to start editing. I did not realize at this point that I should have suggested my edits on the talk page before starting the actual editing process as I had not read through all of the training exercises.

Wikipedia cierra“Wikipedia cierra” by Distrito Médico Monterrey is licensed under CC BY 2.0

When I realized that I had made this error, I was a nervous wreck and worried that I would be kicked off editing for Wikipedia in just the first couple of weeks of class. I made 13 edits to the Clean eating Wikipedia page, and I did not suggest any of the edits on the talk page before editing. Thankfully, all of my edits were saved, and I was not reprimanded or kicked off the site. Here are my first 13 edits to the Wikipedia Clean Eating page: 

Wikipedia Arsch“Wikipedia Arsch” by the_real_hal is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

After reading all of the stories about how rude and condescending the Wikipedia editors could be, I was extremely nervous about reaching out to my assigned editor named Shalor. I waited a couple of days before I sent an email with my questions.  After watching the tutorial on medical editing and medical sourcing, I was not sure if citing an article from healthline.com would be appropriate for the page that I was working on for clean eating?  I was uncomfortable about adding something that may not be considered a proper source.  Shalor responded to my email as follows:

Hi AJ,

With medical sourcing, it’s best to look for the strongest possible sourcing. With websites, it’s important to look to see who is writing the article, what their qualifications are, and how much editorial oversight the site provides. It’s also important to look and see if the site allows anyone to submit a piece or if they will sell sponsored posts to people looking to advertise a specific service or viewpoint.

So it looks like Healthline does have an editorial staff and doesn’t accept random user posts; however, they do allow for sponsored posts. There’s also a concern about whether or not this is the strongest possible source, as this site may not be as specific as needed for some claims, or their editorial staff may not be as strict as an academic or scholarly source would. It’s not an unusable source, but it’s not the strongest possible source out there. I would recommend instead looking at scholarly and academic sourcing, as that will hold up better under scrutiny. Just make sure that you avoid using primary sources when looking – literature reviews that summarize and cover studies are fine, but the studies themselves should be avoided.

– Shalor Toncray

After receiving Shalor’s response, I decided that it was probably not a good idea to edit a medical page for my first time editing for Wikipedia. I decided that I should start with something that I had a lot of knowledge about and felt confident editing. I work for Caesars Entertainment, so I started looking up pages associated with Caesars Entertainment. I found the Caesars Rewards Wikipedia page and noticed that it had incorrect information on the page as well as information that should not be on the page. I decided to change my page to edit from Clean Eating to Caesars Rewards. Per Wikipedia, Caesars Rewards is a casino loyalty program at nearly all Caesars Entertainment Corporation (formerly Harrah’s Entertainment) locations.

Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas“Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas” by gamillos is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

I noticed on the page that several of Caesars Entertainment’s new player’s card tiers announced this year had not been added to the Wikipedia page.  Before I began editing this time, I did everything correctly by posting my proposed edits on the talk page before I started as follows:

Diamond Plus: Higher tier requiring 25,000-74,999 tier credits earned in a calendar year. Members that reach 25,000 Tier Credits will receive complimentary access to Laurel Lounges, as they do today. They will also receive an exclusive Diamond Plus Caesars Rewards card.

Diamond Elite: Higher tier requiring 75,000-149,999 tier credits earned in a calendar year.  Members that reach 75,000 Tier Credits will receive an exclusive Diamond Elite Caesars Rewards card and $600 Airfare Credit to Las Vegas.

AJ Nadeau (talk) 20:56, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

I then waited a couple of days, and I did not receive a response from an editor or anyone at Wikipedia, so I went ahead and added these two paragraphs to the Caesars Rewards page with references #11 and #12 listed below.

  • Diamond Plus –Higher tier requiring 25,000-74,999 tier credits earned in a calendar year.[11] Members that reach 25,000 Tier Credits will receive complimentary access to Laurel Lounges, as they do today. They will also receive an exclusive Diamond Plus Caesars Rewards card.[12]
  • Diamond Elite –Higher tier requiring 75,000-149,999 tier credits earned in a calendar year.[11] Members that reach 75,000 Tier Credits will receive an exclusive Diamond Elite Caesars Rewards card and $600 Airfare Credit to Las Vegas.[12]

 

References[edit source]

11. “Earn and Redeem.” www.caesars.com. Retrieved 2020-02-09. 12.

12. “Caesars Rewards 2020 Benefits”. www.caesars.com. Retrieved 2020-02-09.

13.” Caesars Rewards at Caesars Windsor”. www.caesars.com. Retrieved 2020-02-09.

I also added reference #13 for the Caesars  Windsor section as the page has a section that asks, “This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.”  I added: Caesars Windsor (formerly Casino Windsor) uses Caesars Rewards cards.[13]

Caesars Palace“Caesars Palace” by MDB 28 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I noticed something on the Wikipedia page that I did not think should be on the Caesars Rewards page for guest privacy reasons. Under the Tier Section, it stated that Caesars Rewards has a Chairman tier and noted the following information:

Tiers[edit source]

Chairman – This level was created for Terrance Watanabe, superseding even the Seven Star rank. Perks of this level included “tickets to the Rolling Stones, $12,500 a month for airfare and $500,000 in credit at the gift stores. Harrah’s also offered 15% cashback on table losses greater than $500,000, special high-limit games, and other incentives.” [13] It is unclear whether or not any other Chairman-level player is likely to emerge, for Watanabe’s levels of play, resulting in a $189 million loss[14] at CET properties is unlikely to be approached by other gamblers.

Caesars does not have a Chairman’s tier and has never had a Chairman’s tier.  I was shocked that this information about a casino guest was on the Caesars Rewards Wikipedia page.  I reached out to my President at Caesars Entertainment and sent him the link to the Wikipedia page.  He was shocked that this information was listed under the Caesars Rewards page.  He asked that I correct this error as soon as possible.  I immediately proposed the following edit on the talk page:

Chairman’s Tier section: This level should be removed from the page as Caesars Rewards does not have a Chairman’s tier. Please see this link for the Caesars Rewards tier levels: https://www.caesars.com/myrewards/earn-and-redeem. The information on Mr. Watanabe should also be removed from the page as this information has nothing to do with the Caesars Rewards program. AJ Nadeau (talk) 01:38, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

I waited for several days, and I did not receive a response on the talk page, so I went ahead and deleted the Chairman’s tier completely.  I also deleted all of the information on Mr. Watanabe.  My bosses were pleased about this change and very thankful that I had corrected the issue.  It has been about 26 days since my first edit to the Caesars Rewards page, and I still have not received a response from anyone at Wikipedia.

As of today, February 29th, all of my edits and references are still visible, and nothing has been changed on the page.  I assume that I should consider this a win for my first Wikipedia editing experience.  I find myself checking the page often and will most likely continue to monitor it even when class is finished.  I had a positive experience editing for Wikipedia, and I am thankful that I did not encounter a mean editor or a scary troll.  Here is the link to the Caesars Rewards Wikipedia page that shows all of my edits.  Here is the link to the Caesars Rewards Wikipedia talk page that shows my proposed edits.

 

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