I wasn't as comfortable contributing my labor to the Wikipedia project -- in spite of this project, I've put Wikipedia on a pedestal to the extent that I tell myself 'enough people have contributed to this site to render ~95% of the material valid' and I don't have as much confidence that my contributions help continually validate the site. However, I found a way around this insecurity by relaying information surfaced in my Google Reader (please don't die!) -- like recent studies published in medical journals on the nationwide economical impact of binge drinking in the U.S. -- and add/cite that information to an existing Wikipedia page. This way I'm not just contributing information that might be less-than-credible (solely based on my personal experiences or opinions). I also like to imagine that most people who edit and maintain Wikipedia pages have some sort of credible expertise in the fields through which they're editing Wikipedia. That, or they have a friend or significant other who is a certified expert.
At any rate, I think I helped in the continuing evolution of Wikipedia by acting as a liaison from my Google Reader's credible articles to specific Wikipedia pages, but not by much, and certainly not by comparison to those who maintain Wikipedia as a job or as a hobby (I caught sight of certain readers who've edited 10,000+ Wikipedia articles!).
What role did identity play in my participation on Wikipedia? Honestly, I felt like I was going to be exposed as an invalid. Like I said, I revere the consistent editors of this site as faceless geniuses who already posses this knowledge, and the best contributions I could muster are just excerpts from my Google Reader. Some of the tags below ("This user is CPR certified") were validating on a personal level (I guess this is one of the reasons the Girl Scouts are so popular -- the badges. Well, that and the cookies.) but I don't feel like it made me appear more competent.
The only time I was engaged on Wikipedia was then I began editing and didn't think to leave a signature and timestamp. So... that's a good thing? Meaning I didn't compromise a Wikipedia article by editing it?
Contrary to my feelings about my Wikipedia identity, I enjoyed seeing how other editors customized their user pages -- it made them seem human and less intimidating. I'd gauge their authority solely by how many Wikipedia pages they've edited (I suppose this translates to seniority in real life).
y'all
This user thinks y'all serves a useful purpose as a second-person plural pronoun, and would like to see y'all use it more often.
