My First Wikipedia Edit
Wikipedia is a crowd-sourced encyclopedia. Better than peer reviewed, it’s peer-edited! This post is a story about how I made my first edit and uploaded my first image.
The other day I wanted to find the address of the Page Warehouse in Tulsa designed by architect Bruce Goff (1904-1982), but the Wikipedia page List of Art Deco buildings in Tulsa, Oklahoma listed an address on East 13th, rather than East 11th. It also said it had been demolished.
The listed address was 408 East 13th, which is surrounded by highway off ramps. Someone must’ve assumed it was demolished because there are no buildings remaining at that address anymore. But I knew it was on East 11th, which was Route 66 in Tulsa. I drove past the building last on September 4, 2009.
Knowing the address in Wikipedia was wrong I looked up Page Moving & Storage instead of Page Warehouse. Ah yes, 2036 East 11th, the building still stands and the company is still in existence at that address.
But Wikipedia was still wrong…I couldn’t just leave it that way. I had to create a profile and correct the information, I might as well add one of the 6 images I took 4 years ago too. The registration process & editing were fairly simple. Wikipedia tracks who edits each page.
According to Wikipedia, it has over 19 million accounts (Wikipedians) with only a fraction as regular contributors. I’ve not looked at the results of their 2011 editor survey, except that 90% are male. Not sure what conclusions, if any, to draw from that.
Are you a Wikipedian?
— Steve Patterson