Wikipedia is one of the greatest knowledge bases available to anyone with Internet connection. It is a resource I use multiple times a week, if not daily. Needless to say, when I found out I was going to be contributing to a Wikipedia article at the beginning of the semester I was a little intimidated. My only previous experience with editing a Wikipedia page was one time in high school when I edited a page with some friends of mine in high school for a musician we like. The information was true, but far from credible or relevant to the article. Fortunately, the avid Wikipedia editing community removed our edits. Contributing to Wikipedia felt like a way to redeem myself from my past blunder.
Through following the modules on the Wiki Ed site, the process was manageable. With help from the site, I decided to edit the page for Buzzfeed. The company is important in discussions about contemporary media, particularly when discussing native advertising. I would also be lying if I didn’t admit that looking at the occasional listicle is a guilty pleasure of mine. When I looked at the talk page, there was not a lot there. There were a few comments arguing that Buzzfeed should be labelled as far-left news and fake news, but I knew those would be hard to prove and leaned more towards opinion than fact. One comment also called the sources into question. I took a look at the sources and agreed with the commenter. Many of the sources were from blogs or were over five years old, meaning that much of the information needed to be updated.
While I would have loved to overhaul the sources for the article, I knew I did not have the time because of the expansive list of sources. I began work in my sandbox, instead, on information about Benny Johnson, as I was somewhat familiar with what happened. Shalor, the Wikipedia expert helping me, instead suggested that I work on the Funding subsection in the History section as Benny Johnson had been sufficiently covered. I was embarrassed that I missed the obvious banner above the section calling for updates. The information was sparse and seemed to be added bit by bit, so it did not flow.
I left a comment on the talk page describing my plans and began working on the article in my sandbox in the meantime.
After waiting a day or so, no one had responded so I decided to begin the process of moving information out of my sandbox. I tried to work only a sentence or two at a time so that it was easy to revert the changes if need be. In the end this is what the article looked like.
I am pleased to say that my edits were accepted and are still present on the Buzzfeed Wikipedia page at the time I am writing this. I added information, including information about 2008 investment and news from just a couple of months ago about Facebook funding two shows for it’s Watch platform, and reformatted the existing information to flow better as a narrative.
This successful attempt at editing has given me confidence to continue to edit. All that to say, though, I do not take editing Wikipedia lightly. It took me a long time edit the small section. My future edits will continue to be minor until I become experienced. I am cautious about editing as I do not want to inconvenience other users or risk posting misinformation. I now understand the countless hours of work that go into creating Wikipedia pages. The opportunity to learn how to edit an article has given me the tools to continue to learn how to be a valuable contributor to Wikipedia.
