What Editing Wikipedia Taught Me About Community

Taking part in the Wikipedia editing community had a much different experience than what was expected. The editing process was simple, easy, and immediate. After looking at my work (fixing grammatical errors and sentence structure on the “History of Machine Translation” page), I realized how truly all-inclusive the editing community is, which in turn puts more of an emphasis on the importance of being a proper, thorough, and professional editor.

The changes I had made were put up on the site and were able to be read instantly, which made me feel a sense of doubt in my work despite it benefitting the article. I had inserted myself into a community that prides itself on delivering accurate and unbiased information on millions of topics, and although my work is, in essence, anonymous (I am represented by a username and no facts about myself) I felt a need to upheld a given standard. Relating to Deborah Brandt’s article “’who’s the President?’ Ghostwriting and Shifting Values in Literacy”, the term ghostwriter fits well for a Wikipedia editor as someone who writes on behalf of the community. Both ghostwriting and wiki-editing share a purpose of “highlight[ing] power exchanges between writing and social structures and also illuminates assumptions about underlying reading and writing processes that enable such exchanges” (Brandt 549-550). Editing the Wikipedia page was an act of displaying a power of changing information to be delivered to the public, and puts into perspective the importance of making sure the information is as literary and factual as possible, even if the editing process only fixes grammar or spelling. To uphold an encyclopedia-esque credibility, Wikipedia pages entrust in their “ghost-editors” to do what is expected of them through the sites guidelines with the only serious punishment coming from a small group of admins.

Jonathan Zittrain goes further into this analysis of the editing process in the chapter “Lessons of Wikipedia” from his book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. The opening paragraph starts by describing a small town, Drachten, in the Netherlands, that has removed any and all road signs that would normally govern the road. Because there is little to no rules of the road, the drivers in Drachten have become more conscious while driving, leading to less accidents and “a dramatic improvement in vehicular safety” (Zittrain 127). Nearly verbatim of my feelings on the editing process, Zittrain says “order may remain when people see themselves as part of a social system” (129). Being aware of any and all errors on my part in the editing process having an influence on the site itself and its editing community made me conscious of my necessity to deliver proper information, even without the influence of a stern set of rules and restrictions.

Brandt, Deborah. ""Who's the President?" Ghostwriting and Shifting Values in Literacy." College English 69.6 (2007): 549-50. Web.

Zittrain, Jonathan. "The Lessons of Wikipedia." The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. New Haven: Yale UP, 2008. 127-29. Print.