W5. Who do you think edits Wikipedia? - Gyongmin Moon 문경민
I had this question since the start of this lecture. Because there are just so many articles listed in Wikipedia. I think if we could make a rope made of the digital letters written on the Wikipedia website, we might even go around the whole Earth like dozens of times. So, who is doing this whole thing? Where do they get the time to do so? What will be written below is just a theory that came out of my head, so please read it with a completely relaxed state of mind.
First, it should be someone with a lot of free time. I know Wikipedia isn't a result of just a day or two, but even if I do consider the date it was made, it is still a lot of work done in Wikipedia. Some might say, "I think I can write the whole Wikipedia if I have the same amount of time.", but we need to remember that Wikipedia is free content for everyone. Which means you don't get paid for it. You need to go to your work, earn money so you don't starve or freeze to death, and then do your Wiki job. You need to check which article is empty, which content is wrong, biased, grammatically incorrect, and so on. After finishing that, you need to verify your information with a citation, so someone might not consider your work as a 'personal study'. Like this, if you want to really 'Wiki', you need to spend a lot of time on it.
Second, it should be someone who has enough guts to bounce back from the deletion. We do know that most of the deletion in Wikipedia is somewhat rational. But even though it has a good reason to be deleted, watching an article with a great deal of labor by yourself getting deleted will be a heartbreaking time. But if you want to keep on the Wikipedia editing work, you can't be frustrated about it. You need to step up and keep going. That's why I think someone that edits Wikipedia has to have a sturdy soul.
Finally, it should be someone who loves to be part of a group, and distribute his/her effort on it. Even though the history of edits and the result of the article is left on the Wikipedia site, doing a work that has no reward is a hard thing to do. This could be similar to being not paid, but this is a more comprehensive problem, because no matter how hard you edit, you won't get any fame or a badge, or a career. All you can get is a fact that you say to yourself "I've done a great job in Wikipedia today.".
These are the elements that I think are needed to the people who edit Wikipedia. So, in general, people with all these requisites could be the retiree. They have sufficient time, have the professional knowledge to share, they have enough money in their bank accounts, possibly have no fear of getting rejected since they already managed to get through similar cases during their career, and also they could be the ones who miss the sense of being a part of the group. This final result of my theory is just guessing with my common opinions on characteristics of a different groups of people, so I hope that I'm not offending anyone with my idea. Thank you for reading.
First, it should be someone with a lot of free time. I know Wikipedia isn't a result of just a day or two, but even if I do consider the date it was made, it is still a lot of work done in Wikipedia. Some might say, "I think I can write the whole Wikipedia if I have the same amount of time.", but we need to remember that Wikipedia is free content for everyone. Which means you don't get paid for it. You need to go to your work, earn money so you don't starve or freeze to death, and then do your Wiki job. You need to check which article is empty, which content is wrong, biased, grammatically incorrect, and so on. After finishing that, you need to verify your information with a citation, so someone might not consider your work as a 'personal study'. Like this, if you want to really 'Wiki', you need to spend a lot of time on it.
Second, it should be someone who has enough guts to bounce back from the deletion. We do know that most of the deletion in Wikipedia is somewhat rational. But even though it has a good reason to be deleted, watching an article with a great deal of labor by yourself getting deleted will be a heartbreaking time. But if you want to keep on the Wikipedia editing work, you can't be frustrated about it. You need to step up and keep going. That's why I think someone that edits Wikipedia has to have a sturdy soul.
Finally, it should be someone who loves to be part of a group, and distribute his/her effort on it. Even though the history of edits and the result of the article is left on the Wikipedia site, doing a work that has no reward is a hard thing to do. This could be similar to being not paid, but this is a more comprehensive problem, because no matter how hard you edit, you won't get any fame or a badge, or a career. All you can get is a fact that you say to yourself "I've done a great job in Wikipedia today.".
These are the elements that I think are needed to the people who edit Wikipedia. So, in general, people with all these requisites could be the retiree. They have sufficient time, have the professional knowledge to share, they have enough money in their bank accounts, possibly have no fear of getting rejected since they already managed to get through similar cases during their career, and also they could be the ones who miss the sense of being a part of the group. This final result of my theory is just guessing with my common opinions on characteristics of a different groups of people, so I hope that I'm not offending anyone with my idea. Thank you for reading.
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