Wikipedia Mission (What I learned)

Before I expound on what I have gleaned from this Wikipedia exercise, here are the readings that were assigned during the week I was monitoring my Wikipedia edits (I read all these essays after I had made my additions to the Oshkosh Public Museum page):

Can History Be Open Source? by Roy Rosenzweig
The Wikiblitz: A Wikipedia Editing Assignment in a First-Year Undergraduate Class by Shawn Graham
The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia by Timothy Messer-Kruse
Wikipedia and Women's History: A Classroom Experience by Martha Saxton
Teaching Wikipedia Without Apologies by Amanda Seligman
The Historian's Craft, Popular Memory, and Wikipedia by Robert Wolff
Indigenizing Wikipedia: Student Accountability to Native American Authors on the World's Largest Encyclopedia by Siobhan Senier
(I was especially interested in Messer-Kruse, Saxton, and Senier's essays)

I was first struck by the amount of editing/deleting/gate-keeping that goes on throughout the site by bots and other users. Of course I knew that anyone could add anything (theoretically, as I found out) or delete anything, but I had no experience with wanting to contribute information only to have it rejected. Deletion can occur because of a non-neutral point of view or because a person is not notable enough (among other ways) and it was interesting to read about instances where this happened. One of my classmates added a name to "List of Hmong Americans" only to have it removed because the individual did not meet Wikipedia's standards of notability.

I really enjoyed reading "Wikipedia and Women's History: A Classroom Experience" by Saxton. She notes that during her class' Wikipedia edits, changes made to pages about "women's history" were more likely to be long-lasting as opposed to adding information about women to "general history" pages. Similarly, Saxton and her class discovered that pieces crafted to discuss discrimination against women can be rejected because they are deemed to deviate from the neutral point of view that Wikipedia strives to have. This really rankled me when I read this essay. It still does even though I realize the point of an encyclopedia is to present facts...but instances of discrimination are facts too.

I did learn a little about the etiquette of adding large amounts of information to Wikipedia (again, from Saxton's essay). For instance, I hadn't thought of posting a potential edit in the "talk" section so it can be discussed with other editors. This not only shows courtesy to those who are some sort of administrator or informal curator of the page, but also can cut down on potential edit wars.

This Wikipedia mission was definitely fun. I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to edit at first, but I now feel like I have a better understanding of the merits and pitfalls of Wikipedia. I don't know if I want to continue with my Wikipedia editing career, but this short experience adds to my cumulative knowledge of digital tools that further (or hinder) historical learning.

-B-

Wikipedia Mission (Part 2)

I have changed Wikipedia for the better!(In my own small way) I also added a falsehood (gasp!), but all is well in the end. Read on to learn more about my week as a Wikipedia editor...

First, I added some extra (but factual) information to the Oshkosh Public Museum page. I pulled it all from the museum's website. I also added an "Hours and Admissions" heading. Although most visitors to a museum will probably visit the actual museum website, the OPM's Wikipedia page was poorly written and was lacking information readily available on the website. If there's an existing Wikipedia page for an organization, it might as well be accurate and fleshed-out!

I did not think any of these changes would be contested, but I thought that maybe others would make the page more well-rounded after I made my additions. As of today, no other changes have been made and the previous changes had been made in June 2013. This is not a very active page.

After a few days, I decided I needed to make a small change (an erroneous one) on a more "high profile" page and see how long it would take for someone to change it. First, I was going to change something on the Anne Boleyn Wikipedia page. I quickly discovered that this page is not open to editing, at least no that I could access. "After 4 days and 10 edits" a registered user can edit semi-protected pages, according to Wikipedia's rules. The Anne Boleyn page was also "move-protected due to vandalism", which I think means that it is a protected page. So, I decided to leave Ms. Boleyn behind.

After scanning the subjects of my favorite history podcast, I settled on the man James Reavis. His Wikipedia pages is here. (There is also an interesting podcast about his life from Stuff You Missed in History Class).

Although this page hadn't been changed since January, it is edited more frequently than the Oshkosh Public Museum page. I decided to make a subtle change: I changed his birth year from 1843 to 1943. I'll admit, I felt pretty guilty about changing factual information into a falsehood and resolved to change it back within a week if another Wikipedia user hadn't done so already. But to my surprise...they did! User "Allen3" changed James Reavis' birth year back within 10 hours of my edit.

It was exciting to both make a change (for the better) and see something I changed (for the worse) corrected...and not to have gotten a scolding.

More on what I learned, later!

-B-

Wikipedia Mission (Part 1)

The new mission from Digital History class: Make some changes to a history-related page on Wikipedia, monitor it over spring break, and blog about it! 

I've picked my page and made changes, but it just fleshes out what is already there...I'm feeling like I need to insert some erroneous fact about Henry VIII or something earth-shattering like that. (Mainly to see how long it takes for someone to change it!) 

I'll be back in a week or so to reveal my Wikipedia manipulation and share my results!

-B-

Tweet Me An Exhibition Title

  The past few readings have discussed some interesting ideas about incorporating digital tools into academic classes. Several examples came from non-history fields like journalism and composition writing, but are helpful examples of how tools like Twitter, blogging, and wikis can be used in the classroom.* This one is an example used in a history class. (T. Mills Kelly, Teaching History in the Digital Age)

                     *Sidenote: Both of these essays are written for the Web Writing site, chiefly edited by Jack Dougherty. However, anyone reading the essays can comment on paragraphs to help the peer review process before the essays are published. This format in itself is a digital tool to help raise awareness about and critique academic writing. So they're essays about digital tools, being published using a digital tool.

  I was especially struck by "Tweet Me a Story" by Leah Wright. She discusses her use of Twitter in a 200-level journalism class. The idea of challenging students to create a catchy lead in journalism is not surprising, but doing it on a public platform is. Although I have never taken a journalism class, I felt her requirement to live-tweet basketball games and a public lecture were beneficial for future journalists. Getting down quick, informative notes seems like it would be extremely beneficial practice for students of many disciplines. 

  How does this link to anything remotely concerning me, as a Museum Studies/ Public History student who has never created a Tweet in my life? Answer: Museum labels. Museum exhibition titles. The all-important Big Idea of an exhibit. 

  I am in the thick of creating labels, exhibition titles, and case titles and, let me tell you, it is HARD. Who knew creating an informative, somewhat catchy, short title would be difficult? Well, maybe most people. However, creating these with a group of people and having everyone agree is the hardest part. The pitfalls of group-work aside, giving group members the challenge to tweet these title ideas out in the public sphere and get (close to) instant feedback from group- and classmates sounds like an interesting way to collaborate. If each group had a Twitter handle and one for the class was also created, students could share ideas more conveniently than compiling a few, submitting them to the instructor, then waiting for the next class period or meeting to get feedback. If a few titles were decided upon, and the Milwaukee Public Museum was cooperative, the finalists could be tweeted out for MPM Twitter followers to give feedback. 

  Would this complicate the narrowing-down process? I don't know. Perhaps. However, I feel like it would be beneficial to try. This would challenge students and give a sneak peek at the up-coming student exhibition.

  On a completely different note...an example of a history Pinterest site that I highlighted in class. (Check out the podcast on itunes, too!)

-B-

Discussing Digital Debacles!

  The most recent reading for my digital history class was Chapter 3, "Becoming Digital", from Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web by Daniel Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig. This chapter is near and dear to my heart because of my past experience digitizing text and still images.

  One concern I have when the word "digitization" starts getting thrown around is that a distinction needs to be made between "making something in to a digital format" and "making something available online". I consider my past work as a volunteer and intern (explanation to come, hold on) to be "digitization" even though most of what I did has not been put online and probably will not be. As discussed in Chapter 3, considerations about picture quality and file size hinge on what audience you are serving; not just hundreds of students vs. three researchers per year online, but also public vs. in-house.

   An example of what I consider a public digitization project. This is a clear example of creating digital files and images of analog things and making them available to the wider public by putting them on a host website (Recollection Wisconsin). Having been the main person working on this project, I got a crash course in metadata, TIFFS, JPEGs, and dots per inch.

  I also consider scanning, photographing, and adding search terms and other metadata to the in-house cataloging software (PastPerfect) to also be digitization. I believe both forms of making a digital product to be important and equally time-consuming.

Another AWESOME digitization project, just on a larger scale. The Book of Kells at Trinity College in Dublin. This was one of the things I kept thinking about while reading Chapter 3.

Questions I had while reading:

1. Are there examples of scanned documents that are searchable? I feel like there should be (Chapter 3 says there aren't, but this book is dated)

2. Is "mark up" text still a thing? I don't think I've read a typed transcript of an original document that used the mark up symbols the authors show in the "To Mark Up, or Not to Mark Up" section.

-B-

Blogs!

Let's reflect on blogging, shall we?

  For me, blogging = journaling in public. I have always been a big journaler of my private thoughts and never shared those physical journals with anyone. Getting my thoughts on paper takes weight off my mind and can help me think through some of the tangle of emotions or ideas that get all stuck together if I don't say them out loud or write them down.

 Blogging is slightly different. I have started and deleted several blogs in my young adult life. Neither of which were meant in any way to be professional, I might add. My most recent attempt made me re-think what I wanted to do with blogs and what they meant to me. I wanted to use it as an outlet for my inner thoughts, but I am definitely aware that anyone can read these things if I have a public blog. And being public is an essential part of blogging, right? So then I should ease off the personal and talk more about school or food or Milwaukee restaurants or scholarly things...right? But then how personal does one get when talking about things like that? And how do you get "followers" for your blog if you're not really sure what you're writing about or, really, what you're doing at all?!

And now, this blog has been created.

In the spirit from which this was born (a class requirement) this blog's content will be more focused, if not scholarly. Digital history is an evolving area of study (or perhaps "method" or "tool set" would be more appropriate) that is extremely important for traditional historians and public historians alike. So let's dive in to some actual content!

Some thoughts on blogs:

1. They are a nice way to convey well-written ideas without having to publish them in a journal, newspaper, newsletter, etc. (online or paper)

2. Through this Blogger platform, customization is pretty simple (but sucks me in for at least 30 minutes....I have to get that font color just right!)

     -One of my classmates is giving a presentation about Word Press sometime soon, so it will be interesting       to learn about that platform.

3. They can be time consuming to maintain. This is especially true if you are a small historical organization who wants to have content in social media/blogs, but does not have a dedicated position for digital media.

4. For researchers or professors, a blog could be a journal about research processes or structuring a course. If it is a public blog, you could share it with colleagues anywhere you wish and get feedback about your problems or triumphs.

To conclude, here's and example of a Public History blog: National Council on Public History's blog called "History @ Work". A fairly simple set up, but with the abilities to tag subjects, add photos, post news, and leave comments.

-B-