User:Rockero/Me and Wikipedia

I had been reading Wikipedia for a while, and, knowing my personal and familial propensity towards addiction, always resisted the urge to edit, even though I had already created an account. My first edit was made on a talkpage, July 12, 2005, but I continued to refrain from editing articles until one day in October, when I came across a red link to Nican Mopohua. Since I had just finished reading two books on the subject, I decided to write the article. I have been hooked ever since. I love Wikipedia and believe in its goals and the process established to reach said goals. But I think it would be much better if editors would follow some guidelines. My goal when writing new articles, (which I do not always reach), is to do exhaustive research and write them so well that there is no need to edit them save for typos, grammatical errors, and new developments. I believe that if everyone did this, there would be fewer articles that are intimidating to edit because of their length and lack of organization. (How many times have you seen an article that required so much work that you refrained from editing it entirely out of despair?) Nonetheless, I welcome edits, additions, and corrections to the articles I have started, and I am open to commentary and criticism.

While I value the positive aspects of collaboration, it seems to me that articles are more coherent when written (or predominantly written) by a sole author.

The weakness of Wikipedia is its dependence on initiative and collaboration. People are hard to motivate, and tend to be reactionary in their thought processes and actions. If you begin an article hoping that someone else will finish it, your hopes are likely to be dashed. Just finish it yourself.

While my current wiki focus is on content generation, (I mostly write about Chicano/a art and culture, but I chime in on other subjects in which I have knowledge), I consider myself an all-around Wikipedian, in that I correct grammar and spelling, disambiguate links, wikify articles, revert vandalism, and welcome new users. I don't do RC patrol or monitor new articles or get too involved in internal Wikipedia issues, although I no longer hesitate to edit articles in the Wikipedia namespace when I feel they need clarification or improvement.

One of these days I'd like to go back and rewrite the Mexican American articles that were already here when I got here, Cesar Chávez being the most notable case. If articles on Mexican Americans and our culture are deficient or inaccurate in any way, I assume full responsibility. Conversely, when they provide relevant information that is communicated in a clear and meaqningful way, it is generally due to the efforts of my co-editors.

Although I always try to write objectively, all my articles need to be checked for bias because of my beliefs. I thank those editors that help to minimize the subjectivity of articles I start.

I think there is an over-concentration of articles on video games, pop culture, and internet culture on Wikipedia, and a dearth of articles on Mexico, Mexican culture, Chicano/Mexican American history and culture, Native American history and culture, and women's movements. Of course, this is better remedied through contribution than complaint or deletion, (fast becoming my wiki-motto) so I have been trying to write those articles that I feel are desperately needed. That said, I am glad that there are deletionists amongst us.

By way of disclosure, I have made unsigned-in edits from my work computer as 128.111.97.196.

I am an administrator, so if you need any help with anything, please leave me a comment on my talkpage.

Main page
I have made it to the main page several times, usually in the form of a DYK-worthy new article, but one article I began and had a lot of help on was "in the news" on May 1, 2006.

Edit summary abbreviations

 * - : Minus, usually followed by a number
 * + : Plus, usually followed by a number
 * attribute : "attribution of talkpage comments to author"
 * cat : Category
 * dab : disambiguate
 * EL : External link
 * fmtg : formatting
 * img : image
 * prefer : I have changed the text of the article to conform to Wikipedia Manual of Style standards or wiki-markup
 * ref : reference
 * rem : remove
 * SA : See also


 * Example: "-1 EL, + 3 cats" means that I have removed an external link and added three categories.

Suggestions

 * Make redirects for diacritics, plurals, alternate names, and alternate spellings. If you create the article piñata, make pinata redirect there. Do the same for other names by which things or people are known. You never know what someone is going to copy into Wikipedia's search window.
 * If you follow a suggestion on an article's talkpage, leave a note under that suggestion explaining what you did or at least saying that you took care of the problem. It will help keep things clear.
 * Whenever possible, link years to specific topics such as 1919 in art or 1948 in film instead of just linking the year.
 * When including a bibliography or list of works on a biographical article, if at all possible date each item listed from the publication of the first edition. It is just a bit odd to see non-posthumous works dated after the author's death, for example. It also helps establish a sense of chronology and gives a better sense of the author's activites and accomplishments. If and when the book gets its own article, the various editions can be listed there.
 * I tend to favor placing an article in as many apropos categories as possible.
 * Be as specific as possible about as much as possible.

Problems

 * Vandalism is a problem. The majority of content-generating Wikipedians are academes, students, professors, researchers, etc. We make the encyclopedia out of the kindness of our hearts and our desire to increase the accessibility of human knowledge. On the other end, most vandals are juvenile, ignorant, POV-pushers, inconsiderate, rude, and often malevolent individuals. I must not be the only one to have noticed such a chasm between the factions. While there are benefits to anonymous editing, I genuinely believe that we ought to be able to permanently block problem IP addresses and ranges.

Process
I prefer book references over web sources. When it is possible, I read as many books on a subject as possible and quote from them liberally. The introduction should answer to basic questions: If you cannot clearly answer these questions, either the topic does not deserve an entry or you should not be the person to write it.
 * 1) Who was the person (what was the organization, etc.) The first sentence should be definitive of the subject of the article.
 * 2) Why are they (was it, etc.) important? (I.e., why does it merit inclusion in an encyclopedia?)

The rest of the article should proceed as logically as possible. With biographies and organizational histories, I find that chronological order tends to be the best. Keep this in mind as you take notes during your research. (That is, pay especially close attention to dates and otheer such concrete figures.) Do not rely on a book's index! While some indices are excellent, there are inevitable shortcomings in indices.

I prefer book references over web sources.

When web resources are the only ones available, I use a slightly different process. First, I do Google and Google news searches of the topic and other closely-related topics. Then I copy the contents of the articles I find to a notepad document, making sure to also copy the URL there. Then I write the article in a sandbox, using the aforementioned web-based articles as references. This way I can be sure to include all viewpoints from the get-go, and I have all the information I need in one centralized location. Then I save the notepade document as a txt file on my hard drive to be used for later reference. I usually also save a copy of the article (in wiki-formatting) to my hard drive.

I would much rather write about the topics that fascinate me, which are arts and culture. I enjoy the study of politics, but when I am dragged into debates on the subject, it is usually reluctantly. I would much rather spend my time creating new articles on topics I truly cherish (Chicano art and Ballet folklórico are the two most notable examples of preferred topics that have unfortunately taken a back seat due to my activity on political articles) then to spend my time documenting the skirmishes between Save Our State and the Mexica Movement, or undoing vandalism to National Council of La Raza or for example.

I also don't particularly enjoy editing articles on Chicano rap or street gangs, but I do my best to keep the ones I've found in at least as decent shape as possible.

But the need for accuracy on articles that are politically-heated is so great, especially since Wikipedia has such a high ranking in Google that it is one of the first resources web-based researchers come to, that I feel obliged to contribute there. What's more, few Wikipedia editors seem to have the expertise, know-how, or will to fulfill such tasks.

Potentialities
Wikipedia is only as good as its editors. If the good people involved remain involved and recruit more good people, we could achieve the goal of providing free information for everyone. If we allow the vandals and POV warriors to push us out, Wikipedia has the potential to become an unholy backwater of misinformation, vandalism, and advertising. Nehi illegitimae carborundum.

Some have posited that it is the destiny of mankind to outlive the very planet that gave us life. If the day comes when we decide that we must send cryogenically-suspended human sex cells into space, we should also send along a copy of Wikipedia, if it has achieved it's goal.