User:Kaguchi: Difference between revisions
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== <span style="background:orangered;color:white"> Why I'm here <span> == |
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-- '''Kaguchi''' -- |
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I never planned to be a Wikipedian. But Fate has a way of dragging people into spaces (including the Wikipedia user space) they never dreamed of occupying. A few years ago, I googled to check if there was any online article about my former hometown. I found a few in personal and "official" websites – and in, you guessed it, Wikipedia. When I read the Wikipedia article, I instantly discovered typos, grammatical errors, and ''rubbish'' in it, particularly in the list of names of the town's founding fathers. From my intimate personal knowledge about the town's early history, I know who the founders are; so when I saw a few names that clearly didn't belong, I felt the urge to strike them out. Fortunately for me, there was an "Edit" link on the article page, and when I clicked it I landed on the editing page! There was just one problem, a warning about my IP address to be recorded if I didn't register a username. So I registered. |
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A few keystrokes later, I returned to the editing page and got rid of the offending names. Not only that, I succumbed to the temptation to rectify spelling here and there, overhaul sentence structure, and reorganize flow of thought in sentences and paragraphs. I saved the edit, and then the article became less unpleasant to my eyes. |
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Did that incident make me a Wikipedia editor? In a way, yes. But I had the funny feeling that there was a lot to learn about Wikipedia before I could summon the courage to tag myself a WP editor. The feeling was triggered when I saw strange pairs of square brackets, curly braces, and angle brackets (with embedded cryptic words) strewn all over the face of the text editor while I was busy editing. |
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I thought that perhaps it would somehow boost my ego to become a ''Wikipedia'' editor, and the only way to make that possible was to embark on a learning journey. The journey happened, and still continues to happen. |
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Revision as of 00:43, 14 December 2014
Why I'm here
I never planned to be a Wikipedian. But Fate has a way of dragging people into spaces (including the Wikipedia user space) they never dreamed of occupying. A few years ago, I googled to check if there was any online article about my former hometown. I found a few in personal and "official" websites – and in, you guessed it, Wikipedia. When I read the Wikipedia article, I instantly discovered typos, grammatical errors, and rubbish in it, particularly in the list of names of the town's founding fathers. From my intimate personal knowledge about the town's early history, I know who the founders are; so when I saw a few names that clearly didn't belong, I felt the urge to strike them out. Fortunately for me, there was an "Edit" link on the article page, and when I clicked it I landed on the editing page! There was just one problem, a warning about my IP address to be recorded if I didn't register a username. So I registered.
A few keystrokes later, I returned to the editing page and got rid of the offending names. Not only that, I succumbed to the temptation to rectify spelling here and there, overhaul sentence structure, and reorganize flow of thought in sentences and paragraphs. I saved the edit, and then the article became less unpleasant to my eyes.
Did that incident make me a Wikipedia editor? In a way, yes. But I had the funny feeling that there was a lot to learn about Wikipedia before I could summon the courage to tag myself a WP editor. The feeling was triggered when I saw strange pairs of square brackets, curly braces, and angle brackets (with embedded cryptic words) strewn all over the face of the text editor while I was busy editing.
I thought that perhaps it would somehow boost my ego to become a Wikipedia editor, and the only way to make that possible was to embark on a learning journey. The journey happened, and still continues to happen.