the wikipedia thread

[Rob14]

I did a lot of work on Wikipedia over the summer. Wrote like 40 articles, got 25 or so of them on the main page, and did a whole lot of bot work. It was actually pretty fun.

[Rob14]

you're a hero to all mankind
not even kidding
do you consider yourself an expert at the articles you wrote, or did you just research them from scratch?

I stayed far away from areas I might be considered an expert in because I didn't do much to hide my identity on my account, and I didn't want my edits to be tied to who I am professionally.

Instead, I researched stuff from scratch. I wrote a few stubs for notable actors/actresses on Broadway who were nominated or won Tony's this past season but didn't yet have an article. Most of my work was writing biographies of living people (or BLPs) for Canadian football players. Each article took up to 90 minutes to research, although there was one that was way overdue to be created that took a few days of work and is currently going through the process of being recognized as a Good Article.

[Rob14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... d=59953596

The first version of Soulja Boy's Wikipedia article, authored by the man himself at 15.

That version was immediately tagged for speedy deletion as per criteria A7 (no credible claim of significance for a biography of a living person). So just FYI, articles like these don't remain on Wikipedia. Some boneheaded admin made the dumb decision to undelete those revisions after the article was recreated. No idea why; that's not the normal process.

[Rob14]

Probably my best work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_McCarty

Forty-seven citations, so.

[Rob14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

so strange, why does this seem to affect women more?

its like the opposite of dunning kruger

This is apparently very common in graduate students, from what I understand. I've felt this way toward my grades on and off since high school.

[Rob14]

Also, since this

is

the Wikipedia thread, I got my good article credits on two articles!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_McCarty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbin_Sharun

[Rob14]

I liked this thread, so I'm bumping it. Surely this is better than the Trump thread.

This is how I spent my free time in the last week or so.

[Rob14]

It actually would be a pretty badass way to do the death penalty. If I were on death row and given the options of lethal injection, firing squad, or roller coaster, I'd definitely go with roller coaster.

I'm taking the death penalty as given, not advocating for it.

[Rob14]

In around 4 days, I'll probably be an administrator on the English Wikipedia. wheeeeeeee

[Rob14]

I was going to go straight for deleting Donald Trump's page. /sarcasm

In all reality, I'm going to use it to do a bunch of boring stuff like deleting templates and categories after proper deletion discussions. It's work I enjoy, though.

[Rob14]

Because the exciting people wouldn't pass the election process. It's brutal, man. Brutal. It was easier for me to get near the vault of the Minneapolis Fed than it's been to go through this adminship process.

[Rob14]

Nah, no pay. I guess theoretically some people have been hired by the WMF or various museums/organizations interested in increasing the coverage of their items in Wikipedia, but that's rare and I have no intention of doing that.

It

is

possible to get travel support to visit Wikimania, though, and this year it was held in Rome, Italy. That might be something I eventually do so I can meet contributors I've worked with closely for a long time and get to see a bit of Italy while I'm at it.

[Rob14]

Which of you idiots did this?

[Rob14]

After a bizarre week, I'm now a Wikipedia admin. Go me. The "election" process was exhausting.