Intimidated would be an understatement. Wikipedia is something I turn to when I am looking for answers from somebody who is smarter than me, not somewhere I go to spread my knowledge. I would be lying if I said my fear of getting reprimanded by more experienced users didn’t cause me to procrastinate a bit, but by the time I did finally make my addition to the world of Wiki I was feeling almost empowered.
I first began my Wikipedia journey by going through a few topics I am knowledgable on such as plant based eating and indoor gardening, and I found that I was bombarded with large amounts of expertly pieced together information. I was intimidated to take on editing an article that was so well established and thought out, so I decided to go a bit smaller for my contribution. I ended up searching my hometown Racine, Wisconsin to see if there was anything of importance that others have missed.
The section that immediately stuck out to me was the section discussing Racine’s prom – A prom that has been referred to as the worlds best prom, and has become an event that puts our city on the map. While the Wikipedia article covered how big Racine’s prom is and how well known it has become, there was no mention whatsoever of the special education prom that always follows it the day after, so I found my “in”.
Although I had plenty to say about the special education prom and even the idea to expand on which schools are listed as attendees, I decided to present my proposed edit as just the main basic facts about Racine’s special ed prom in addition to my reference link. I felt that if I jumped in and made too many proposed changes at once I increased my room for error, and did not want to take the chance of having all of my information rejected due to maybe one or two mistakes. After previewing my proposal about one hundred times and adjusting my formatting just as many, I finally decided to share my ideas with the community.
Adding if the reference link in particular was incredibly nerve wracking for me, as the way sources are linked on Wikipedia is incredibly specific. I studied the steps on how to add citations over and over again, and even attempted to directly copy the way another user added their’s, but I was still nervous that I did it incorrectly and that my information would be invalidated because of so.
Much to my surprise, my addition wasn’t immediately removed and no one came to chastise me for any mistakes. I hit publish, and the world did not blow up. The Racine Wikipedia page had last been edited about a week and a half prior to my proposed contribution, but it appeared that no one was jumping to either approve or deny my suggestion. It was actually rather refreshing to see that people weren’t jumping to disprove me or invalidate me, and that Wikipedia is not always such a cut-throat place.
Following the idea that “no news is good news”, I decided to take the initiative to edit the Racine, Wisconsin Wikipedia page to include information about the annual A Night To Remember special education prom. I stuck to just the barebones facts – Including when the prom takes place, when it began, and who can attend it. I felt both nervous and excited publishing my first addition, but most of all I felt confident that the information I shared is relevant and deserving of a place in this article.
While I am not sure if my edit will stay where it is, I am proud of all of the wonderful things that our city’s special education prom brings to our community and I am glad that I can shed some light on it. Even if my edit is eventually rejected or changed, I hope that mention of the special education prom remains on Racine’ Wikipedia in some shape or form.
Overall, I found contributing to Wikipedia to be a slightly intimidating experience. It was difficult to convince myself to jump into it, but once I began to familiarize myself with the tools and layout of the site I quickly became more confident in my abilities. I wish I would have maybe attacked this project a bit sooner in order to add even more to Racine’s wikipedia page, but just because this assignment is complete does not mean that my work on Wikipedia has to be. I look forward to continuing to learn more about how Wikipedia functions and how I can continue to be a part of it. Whether or not my addition will stay is something I am unsure of, but for the time being it is definitely a cool feeling to have my contributions published on my hometown’s Wikipedia page.
