One of the first challenges was finding a stub or incomplete article on Wikipedia in an area that I'm familiar with or interested in writing about. There were so many to choose from. From the "Stub Category" alone, there were a total of 10,797. Scrolling down the list of stubs really intimidated me, reminding me of how little I know and how much information is circulating around the internet. The ones that I thought I could write about, there was already sufficient information on it. So I decided to start backwards. Instead of looking at the list of stubs, I decided to list out things that I did know, or things that I wanted to know about. In the end, I chose to write about Compression Stockings.
Having been a certified compression stocking fitter for over two years, I'm surprised by the fact that little information about compression stockings is on Wikipedia. Almost any standing human body can wear these garments, with exception to those with severe heart conditions. With gravity pulling us downwards, our legs, veins and valves, have to work quite hard to push the blood back to the heart. These stockings basically aid our veins in doing their job. Many people are quite oblivious to what difference these stockings can make. Those that do know about it, are usually compelled by the price and the amount of work it takes to get it on. Needless to say, I'm shocked by how little information is posted on this subject.
One of the challenges I had was editing the article itself. I am no expert when it came to web pages. The html symbols all look the same to me. I spent quite some time reading all the tips on editing Wikipedia articles. As I was editing, I thought to myself: it's amazing how many people go about editing Wikipedia articles every day. Each and every person has to go through the process of creating an account, learning all the symbols and how to make changes, and of course, actually making the changes. What made things more challenging was the fact that someone else was editing and undoing my changes as I was editing the article. The nice thing was I could check into the recent changes, who did it and what kinds of edits were done.
This incident came to show me how easy it is for people to change information posted on this online encyclopedia. People can deliberately add, remove, or change the contents, hence making it extremely unreliable. Due to the many authors/editors, the information is also poorly structured. Information can be listed in the same style and font size or come in different texts and sizes. It all depends on the person editing the article. Citations are also an issue. A lot of the information on Wikipedia lack citations. Those with citations, the sources need not be reliable thus the information is not necessarily verified. On top of all that, biases can be present. For example, as a compression stocking fitter, I would definitely recommend compression stockings to all customers, but is it necessity? I would tell people it is because I sell it. Bottom line is: Wikipedia may be used, but with caution. It could be used as a first base to research, getting a general idea of what something is about. Regardless of how much is drawn from Wikipedia, be critical, assess the article, and look for further research and information to verify what is being read. Overall, writing and editing a Wikipedia stub was a great experience, I had the opportunity to share my knowledge and results to the internet. I can't wait till next time!
Below are the screen shots to my edited stub on Compression Stockings. Be sure to check out Clara's blog. She wrote about Cyberphobia.
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Screen
capture of my Wikipedia entry about Compression Stockings from:
Shelley Du,
Capture 1. Original article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_stockings, Accessed
Mar. 23 2012.
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Screen capture of my Wikipedia entry about Compression Stockings from:
Shelley Du, Capture 2. Original article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_stockings, Accessed Mar. 23 2012.
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Screen capture of my Wikipedia entry about Compression Stockings from:
Shelley Du, Capture 3. Original article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_stockings, Accessed Mar. 23 2012.
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This is a really interesting post! I didn't know that compression tights even existed, I just thought there was only one universal type of stockings. It's really interesting that you've be been a certified compression stocking fitter for over two years. I'd like to know more about what that entails!
ReplyDeleteI agree, the html symbols were really confusing and hard to figure out. I didn't run into any structural problems with my stub that I edited, but knowing that you had troubles with the number of people editing your stub simultaneously emphasizes that we really need to be careful about the information we find online. It's just like you mentioned, the lack of citations also put reliability and validity into question. If anyone cam edit anything, how reliable can it really be right?