Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/Cornell University/Online Communities (Fall 2013)/History of breakfast

History of Breakfast
We have made considerable changes to History of Breakfast article. When we first came across the article, it was a rather bare article with only a couple sentences devoted to each of a random assortment of categories pertaining to regions and cultures. We felt that we could contribute by both fleshing out categories a bit, and making the article read more like ‘a history’ with a chronological organization rather than a haphazard regional/cultural organization. Covering the major era's in history-- the ancient times, the middle ages, and the modern era-- each group member took a time period or a major organizational section and was responsible for conducting the research and writing the content.

We felt that as students, we should take advantage of the resources on campus for collecting sources of information for our article and heavily utilized campus libraries. Enthusiastic about beginning our project and the article that she originally chose, Nicole made a run to multiple libraries and collected a number of books about breakfast, meals, and food in different cultures. They proved to be invaluable resources for our article proposal, providing substantial information on each of the major ‘eras’ we planned to cover. The gold mine of information was a book titled, "Breakfast- A History" by Heather Arndt Anderson. It was a comprehensive collection and analysis of breakfast trends from the Neolithic era until the present day, and it sited many additional sources that we were able to use. In addition, our group found supplemental resources online through journal articles, historical databases, and encyclopedias.

Before we began making changes, our group thought to engage with expert Wikipedians who regularly contribute to the site, specifically the history of breakfast article in order to exchange ideas and make sure that our plan was reasonable and would be valued in the community. Nicole sought advice from an experienced editor and asked whether it would be wise to make changes incrementally or all at once. The editor said that it didn’t make too much of a difference as long as every change was cited. The editor also said that since most other contributors to the page had probably been made aware of our class project we should not worry too much about people reverting or interfering with our efforts. So, throughout our project, our group had people commenting on talk pages and answering our questions, but also giving us freedom to build up our page in our time. Each group member uploaded their changes at different times and at different paces. Nicole was a huge asset in engaging with other editors by submitting her changes rather early on, allowing other editors to provide feedback immediately. This then allowed Jesse and Kate to follow and submit content according to the advice that was previously given. This suggestions were a great help in guiding us to know which content was missing from the page. After content was added to page that were suggested on the talk page, we were very happy to be able to respond to other contributors that their suggested content was added.

Overall, our group definitely felt welcomed into the community. We were each contacted by multiple editors who were interested in helping us get started with our project, and we were also extended invitations to join WikiProject Breakfast. People answered questions about citing sources and uploading changes, and left affirming messages on our individual talk pages, one of which stated "The additions you made to History of breakfast appear to me to be excellent. Good work. Candleabracadabra (talk) 15:13, 2 October 2013 (UTC)." There were examples of constructive criticism and raised concern about our plan by particular users, some defending the previous layout of the page. It did cause us to evaluate more carefully how we organized sub sections. The article has been serving more as a hub and resource collection for people seeking more information rather than it has a comprehensive complication of all foods and practices breakfast related. We understand it would be unnecessary and practically impossible to change this reality within two weeks. Because of this, our article probably isn’t ready to be promoted beyond a C-class article; however, before we began contributing, the article was about 21,318 bytes, and now it is 35,180 bytes, which is certainly a significant change!

In this project: Everyone was required to learn how to use the Wiki Markup Language. Nicole collected library resources and was responsible for writing the Ancient Breakfast section. She did most of the communicating with other editors in the Wikipedia community, and nominated the article to "Did You Know". Jesse was responsible for writing the Middle Ages Breakfast section, researching online resources, and monitoring the conversations on Wikipedia to contribute when appropriate. Kate was responsible for writing the Modern Breakfast section, researching online resources, and monitoring the conversations on Wikipedia to contribute when appropriate.