User:1-800-OWLZ/NMAC 3108 Journal

Journal 1: Introduction (6/1/19)

Hello everyone! My name is Harrison Jones, and I'm an IT major. I'm currently a senior, expecting to graduate in December. I enjoy playing video games, listening to music, and writing.

I look forward to getting to know you all this semester! This will be a fun course! 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 14:46, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Journal 2: What I've Learned So Far (6/1/19)

In this course so far, I have learned primarily about all the educational features tied to Wikipedia. I have worked on wikis before, but never really Wikipedia. While formatting for the most part is not new to me and I have of course been on Wikipedia before, it is a new experience for me to edit pages on it. It is also new to work in WikiEdu, a feature I was not aware of and had no clue was so well-integrated.

I am sure over the course of the semester, however, that I will learn new formatting techniques and of new features available when editing a wiki. I am looking forward to working in this format and hope to improve my knowledge on how to properly write for a wiki. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 14:47, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ: Welcome. I'm glad you're excited about working on Wikipedia. Be sure to use the date in your journal post headers. Thanks. —Grlucas (talk) 15:01, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ Hello Harrison! I think it is great that you already have some experience with Wikipedia. I have no prior knowledge but I'm excited to learn. I hope you have a great semester! Kehli.west (talk) 18:02, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Journal 3: Evaluation of the Homestar Runner Page (6/8/19)

I have chosen to evaluate the page for the online cartoon Homestar Runner for my first page evaluation after having found it under the Wikipedia:WikiProject Internet Culture page's Former Good Articles section.

In my analysis, I found the article to be generally of good quality and only held back by a few issues. Firstly, the page expands upon too many different minor elements of the topic. The section covering cartoons features numerous smaller separated by subheaders. Given that most of the shows only have a few lines of information on them, it would be better to merge some of these together to reduce space. The page also suffers from fancruft, a term I learned from reading the talk page.I agree with the assessment, even despite the section being two years old. Some features do not have to be included on the page in order to explain the essentials of the cartoon. There are minor grammatical issues, primarily in punctuation. The most glaring example is a missing period after the final line of the second paragraph of the Music section. Finally, there are too many direct quotes. While quoting the cartoon's creators with citations is useful to illustrate points at times, it is too frequently used here when a rewording of the concepts would fit better.

Having seen the outdated rating on the WikiProject page and the current rating on the talk page, I would say they are accurate. The article is very good at providing sources and explaining the cartoon. However it is overly detailed and too reliant on direct quoting. With tweaking, the article could easily return to "Good Article" status. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 18:02, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ: What's the difference between Homestar Runner and Homestar Runner? Which is correct? Please add the article you evaluated to the WikiEdu dashboard. Be sure to proofread; generally your writing is concise, though it could take advantage of formatting strategies for the screen (see Carroll, chapter 2). —Grlucas (talk) 15:38, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: I will make sure to do better on proofreading sir. Thank you for the help. I've made the corrections you've shared as well. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 12:26, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Journal 4: My Appreciation for WikiProject Internet Culture (6/8/19)

For my self-chosen journal entry, I wished to briefly discuss how much I appreciate the existence of Wikipedia:WikiProject Internet Culture. As someone who grew up browsing the internet during the 2000s, I remember how unique and forming the landscape of the World Wide Web was for myself and others. It truly is a cultural marvel, and a major defining part of who I and many others are. I am glad to see it is being so well-documented by a dedicated group. I feel as though the culture of the internet is considered lesser than the culture of nations, and I believe that to be a shame. I believe it is as valid as they are, being one that has connected people across the globe and somewhat redefined culture as a concept. Now it is integrated into societies all over the world and become another aspect of daily life, and deserves to be documented and remembered. To see the entertainment, ideas, groups, and everything else of this element of our planet's history be recorded is wonderful in a world that more often than not takes for granted just how valuable websites, videos, memes, and so much more can completely alter everything.

I intend to work heavily with this WikiProject over the course of the class and hopefully beyond. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 18:02, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ: What should be linked in this entry? —Grlucas (talk) 15:39, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: Thank you for reminding me sir. I realize I put the link in the first journal entry for this week and forgot to do so for the second. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 12:26, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ: I agree with Wikipedia being a cultural marvel. It presents us with information all around the world. Tionnetakala (talk) 20:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@Tionnetakala: Absolutely! Even having grown up with it, I still appreciate it for how it's changed our world. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 12:26, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Journal 5: My Choice of Article (6/15/19)

I have decided to write on the Museum of Arts and Sciences (Macon, Georgia). It lacks sufficient information on the subject, contains several red links, and lacks images and sources. I've looked at the talk page and seen the article is currently labeled as stub class on the WikiProject Georgia quality scale and is of mid-importance on its importance scale. The importance rating is high enough to warrant being a selected topic. Should this article present problems, two possible alternatives could be Rose Hill Cemetery (Macon, Georgia) or Amerson River Park, the latter of which does not yet have an article. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 02:40, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ: That sounds like a great article to improve. It might even warrant a field trip (ya know... for science.) In all seriousness, a curator at the MAS might know of a scholarly journal article (that's objective and independent) about the museum. --Sara Kathryn 00:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC) (talk)

@1-800-OWLZ: Sounds good. Amerson, as I think I said elsewhere, would be a good choice, too. —Grlucas (talk) 20:54, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Journal 6: The Process of Choosing an Article (6/15/19)

Having chosen my article, I have come to ponder why so many subjects lack sufficient articles. I understand the core concepts behind why the articles are lacking, but I find the reasons difficult to imagine. If a subject is important enough that a Wikipedia page article could be written on it, I feel as though there must be at least one person knowledgeable on the subject who wrote about it and one person who is interested in creating and bettering that article. Once more I find myself appreciating the hard work of WikiProjects to ensure that articles reach contributors who would be interested in improving them. Still even with this system in place, pages can be lacking because one of those two elements are missing. Perhaps my expectations are too high. Regardless, I hope the work done in this class inspires others to critically think about aspects of information recording such as this. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 02:40, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ: I completely agree. My guess would be that not everyone has the time to edit Wikipedia as much as they would like. They might have other responsibilities that become more important. --Sara Kathryn 00:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC) (talk)

@1-800-OWLZ: I believe that a combination of factors can lead to a dearth of articles on certain subjects. For one thing, people may lack writing expertise even if they have subject knowledge. Also, their content may be deleted if it fails to meet Wikipedia's Quality Standards.TSchiroMGA (talk) 11:21, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ: I think you put your finger on why we're doing this. My field, too, is lacking, so I'm trying to do my part in making Wikipedia better. A thoughtful post. —Grlucas (talk) 20:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Journal 7: Copy Editing and Citations (6/23/19)

For the assignments this weeks, I decided to copy edit for my chosen article Museum of Arts and Sciences (Macon, Georgia) and the article Adoor, as well as add citations for both new and old information to my chosen article. Copy editing for the Museum was not too difficult, but it was difficult to do so for Adoor. Having chosen the article from a list of pages that required copy editing, I was not sure of how much needed addressing, only that it required some. I found myself making several edits to punctuation and altering the spelling of words such as center that differed from its other uses in the article. I don't feel I fixed the article significantly, but I only sought to make improvements in general to better format the information. In that regard, I believe I succeeded. Copy editing seemed like it would be simple, but after working with Adoor I came to realize it can be a true challenge.

Adding the citations to the Museum's article was also an obstacle for me. I cited several recent local news sources to support the new information I provided quite simply, but I struggled to add even the one source I did for previously existing information. I attempted to find a free archive for local newspapers but was unsuccessful. It made me appreciate citations infinitely more for local information, as even when sources are available, they are often resources that must be paid for.

Working on these assignments this week, I realize that even "simple edits" can be very complicated. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 21:01, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ: What does a typo in the first sentence say about credibility in a post about copyediting? YES! You all have access to local information for these articles; you just need to go to the library! Imagine! —Grlucas (talk) 15:49, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Journal 8: Editing Standards Around the World (6/23/19)

Editing the Adoor article, I came to realize just how complicated formatting can be. Most uses of the word "center" on the page used the spelling "centre". Of course this spelling is not objectively wrong, but it is a different one than we as Americans are used to. It had me wondering what standards were set for spelling for English articles. I decided to search for them and found the Manual of Style's spelling page. In it, it doesn't state any specific spelling is preferred universally, which I somewhat expected. However, it made me realize that Wikipedia is no doubt full of minor inconsistencies in spelling for the English version of the site. Obviously these are inconsequential, but it shows off the most unique element of Wikipedia; it is an encyclopedia for all, by all. Each page could be styled extremely differently solely depending on the culture or nationality by which the editors of each page belong to. It was an odd realization, but I found it interesting. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 21:01, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ: I have wondering this as well. You see spelling like that a lot such as colour, centre, or theatre. It is still technically correct but very different from the American English we know. I would love to look into this more and if you find anything on the subject, please let me know! Strasburg7312 (talk) 03:24, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ: Spelling and punctuation will vary (good observation). Consistency is what's important. —Grlucas (talk) 15:50, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Journal 9: Newspaper Archives and Sourcing (7/8/19)

In my research trying to gather legitimate sources for my article, I attempted to search for local newspaper archives to potentially get more information on the history of the museum. The only archive I found was for the Macon Telegraph, yet even it presented the problem of being a paid service. This started to make me think about how unfortunate it is that many local papers operate like this. It's no wonder Wikipedia has many weak articles on local landmarks and locations, as information is scarce enough without having hurdles that prevent many from accessing it. I understand the Telegraph needs to make money, but it seems so unfortunate that a legitimate newspaper that could greatly aid in constructing an article just proves to be useless. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Journal 10: Deciding What to Expand On (7/8/19)

Working on my article, I find myself consistently pondering on what changes I will want to make. Each choice affects the article in drastic ways. The most notable issue I have is trying to decide what sections of the article I want to expand on, and to what degree. I believe it would be best to create a section over individual wings and activity centers in the museum, with subsections with small descriptions for each section. However I do not know for sure if I wish to go this route. I find deciding what specifically should be focused on is one of the more difficult aspects of writing an article. My brain is very scattered, so it can be hard to pinpoint the most relevant specifics. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Journal 11: Working in Visual Editing (7/8/19)

Something I have not brought up that had been a unique experience for me is working in both a visual and source editor. As I've mentioned previously, I've worked in wikis before this class. As such, I have moderate knowledge on what codes are needed to do different things in the source. This is because many wikis, especially when I was a kid, utilized only source view. The addition of visual editing find completely new and foreign a concept. However, I have found my own personal uses for it. More often than not the best thing it provides is a real-time visual interface to see how your changes affect an article. This is not the only use, though, as sometimes my source knowledge is not strong enough to finish an article using just it. Overall, I'd say I have much to learn, still preferring the classic way but open to the new. Hopefully one day I will easily switch between and utilize them both. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

@1-800-OWLZ: I only use the source editor, as it gives me much more control. I think my preference goes back to my HTML days when I did all that by hand. Go source or go home. —Grlucas (talk) 12:53, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Journal 12: Deciding Pictures (7/8/19)

While I've already taken one trip to the museum, I did not receive enough information or quality pictures. I have been thinking about this trip, trying to decide how many pictures I need, and what pictures I do want. I feel as though this will be one of the more difficult choices I have to make in improving this article. I believe the best pictures are of the main exterior, the planetarium, and the animal exhibit, with the exhibit being a lesser idea. I know for a fact the article will need pictures of both the planetarium and overall building structure. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Journal 13: Final Picture Choices (7/20/19)

As a continuation of my last journal entry, I have added the pictures for the outside of the building and the inside of the planetarium, settling on also including a picture of Gesturing Woman, a piece by Viola Frey that stands at the entrance to the Discovery House, the largest wing of the museum. I feel the pictures are well rounded in choice, but I feel as though structurally that perhaps they are flawed. I do not want to add too many pictures, but at the same time I feel as though perhaps more or different images could be better. I have faith in their ability to accurately portray the topic however, and will most likely stick with them. I am pleased in the quality of the images, and think they add a lot to the article. In getting them on there, I learned much about adding images to Wikipedia. It feels odd as well to take credit for these images under a license considering I am by no means a professional photographer, but it is a very cool thing. I hope any work I may do in the future on Wikipedia involves images, as I find myself wanting to take more photographs to add to articles. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 18:26, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Journal 14: Finding My Information (7/20/19)

Once more, I have another entry regarding Journal 12. In that entry, I wrote about not having received much information for this article. However, having explored the web more, I find myself finding sufficient information in very odd places. For example, my article covers many details on the Mark Smith Planetarium, trying to accurately describe what is a critical section of the museum. Instead of finding articles discussing it, I have found organizations that cover these details that I did not expect. The measurements are recorded by the Fulldome Database, an organization whose website is dedicated solely to providing details for every fulldome in the world. It was not a group I expected to learn about for sure. As well, the date of the planetarium's construction is included as well. While I already had a source to potentially support the date, I found another one: AARP's records on the wing. The fact that the AARP provided information on this topic still astonishes me. Overall, I feel my information has increased substantially, and has taken me through several interesting twists and turns. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 18:26, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Journal 15: Final Reflective Essay (7/20/19)

Writing this semester for Wikipedia has been interesting and a great learning experience. The conventions of the site are different than a standard paper for a class, but still hold to mostly the same standards. Each part of the process felt valuable in better understanding how to improve not only my work on Wikipedia, but my work in general. It has taught me to be more critical and detail-oriented in what I do and has encouraged collaboration more than most of my other classes. When evaluating articles, I learned to be focused on finding errors. For some works it is problematic to approach critique by primarily searching for errors. However, Wikipedia is an open resource for the entire world, and so any mistakes or issues is critical. With too much false or improper information present on a page, you risk impacting the general population’s understanding of a subject. Writing for Wikipedia means you must take utmost care in what you write and allow to appear. Applying this during my evaluation helped me understand Wikipedia better as a result, as my article was not massively problematic but did suffer from enough issues to prevent it from being considered a good article. It gave me a perfect balance of what should be done and what shouldn’t. My formatting improved more as a result.

My contributions this semester primarily were focused on adding images and more details on topics mentioned. In my article, I had to add new categories for the exhibitions in the museum along with details to expand on the information about them. I also had to repurpose or remove links, typically because the links were to pages that do not exist. In reworking the dead links, I had to learn how to redirect from one page to another on Wikipedia. As the Wesleyan Conservatory is in reference to the Wesleyan College, I created a redirect. I also added pictures of the building’s main entrance, the planetarium, and an important piece on display. All of these contributions I felt were valuable as they better described the museum, giving it a reason to be a full article. The version I first started working in had only about a paragraph of information, no images, and no sources. Now, it has grown to include six paragraphs, three images, and nine sources, making it more properly resemble a full article. They also were useful in making sure no articles were created that weren’t necessary, as these links might have encouraged someone to attempt to write an article for a subject that simply does not warrant being its own article.

The most important thing I learned from working in Wikipedia however was that it’s important to take into consideration the thoughts and actions of others. I referred countless times to past edits, other articles, and general tips for writing in Wikipedia to improve my article. You “””must””” not attempt to write with no aid. Wikipedia is meant to be a collaborative project, encouraging multiple viewpoints and thoughts in an attempt to create the best free knowledge resource available. In that regard, I believe it’s been successful and will continue to be so. Wikipedia has survived for eighteen years as a free resource entirely because enough people care to help one another to make it the best it can be. Working on wikis in the past and now working in Wikipedia, I understand that. Overall, this class has bettered my understanding of what it means to write for any and all resources. It’s important for academic pursuits to be detail oriented, consistently strive to improve, and work with others. I enjoyed my time working on my article, and I hope it proves to be a stepping stone for the future of the article’s betterment. 1-800-OWLZ (talk) 19:42, 20 July 2019 (UTC)