Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/Cornell University/Online Communities (Fall 2013)/Dunkin donuts

Before we began to edit the Dunkin’s Donuts page, there wasn’t as much information regarding newer food products, nutritional information, new locations to the west coast, and controversial issues. We selected our sources from New York Times, NBC, QSR, and official information from the Dunkin Donuts nutritional page. Each of these sources were a map to us in providing us with helpful and detailed information we could use in order to augment the Dunkin Donuts Wikipedia page. While we definitely did improve the Dunkin Donuts page, it is certainly not ready to move from a C-Class article to a B-class article. We say this because a B-class article requires a significant amount of information and also a significant amount of traffic to be going on within the talk pages. Why there was certainly interaction between the users on the Dunkin Donuts page, it seems that most users may have viewed the Dunkin Donuts article to be of low importance, which is certainly an obstacle. Until ,more people view the Dunkin Donuts page as a higher priority, it will not be able to reach the status of a B-Class article. Another thing to consider is the fact that Dunkin Donuts cannot be found throughout the United States, and just recently decided to expand into the west coast. We hope that as Dunkin Donuts continues to expand, more people will be interested in the wikipedia page. Advertisements within the franchise may help in this regard.

The Wikipedia article evolved over the course of the few weeks that we had been working on it. There were several cases in the article where the information on a given subject was sparse and skeletal, and the overall article felt incomplete. Certain sections had only a bare minimum amount of information on it, enough to inform the reader on the basis of what Dunkin’ Donuts was, but not much more depth than that. We added information to various subjects, such as nutrition, location, controversies, and the history of the company as a whole. Minor edits to the article came first, with small changes to citations and minor information that needed to be added to the article. Following this, large blocks of information were added to the article, filling out the article more with information. While there were other wikipedians involved in the project initially, the drive to help with the article faded while working on the project. Finding information to add to the article was difficult as well, while some wikipedians pointed us in the right direction for where to look, the sites themselves didn’t have much information to contribute to the article that wasn’t already there.

Through our brief editing experience on Wikipedia, we encountered very helpful editors. Initially, we reached out to five editors who contributed to the Dunkin’ Donuts talk page: Viriditas, Jerem43, DarkAudit, JJ98, and the food and talk page directly. Although not every editor responded back to us, the feedback we did receive was helpful. For instance, when Zena contacted Viriditas he responded on the same day and explained that he was no longer on the project and that we should contact Jerem43. However, he was still available for questions. Jerem43 was very helpful and made us feel a part of the Wikipedia community. Jeremy left a very detailed explanation of how we can improve Dunkin’ Donuts article page. He provided other articles, Burger King and KFC, as points of reference in which we should model our article because Jeremy brought Burger King to GA status. He also led us to good sources for our article.

All in all, this project introduced us to the Wikipedia community. We learned about becoming editors and how easy and rewarding it is to contribute. Though, we learned a lot we were shocked the community was not as tightly knit. We wrote on some editor’s wall and they did not write back. The limited conversion on the talk page of Dunkin’ Donuts made it difficult to seek help. This project showcased the challenges that Wikipedia has to retain new editors.

In our group, Brendansanok worked on History, the Lead, minor edits, and controversial issues of dunkin donuts. Zk43 worked on updating locations, operations, promotions, and advertising. Zk43 also attempted to look at updating photos. Onlinecommedits worked on information about the west coast expansion, nutritional information and value, and products (especially new food products such at the Glazed Donut Bacon, Egg & Cheese) Onlinecommedits also contributed information about any possible health risks, such as certain chemicals used within foods, and concerns for high sodium. In terms of communication, our group did very well. We contacted each other during class, through email, and set up time to meet as a group after every class to work on the wikipedia article. Throughout the weekend, each member would compose an email to talk about how we were progressing, so we would be able to stay on track.

Onlinecommedits (talk) 23:37, 9 October 2013 (UTC) BrendanSanok (talk) 00:00, 10 October 2013 (UTC)BrendanSanok