User:Hires an editor/Essay

It has occurred to me that by editing enough articles here has changed the way I think about things. When I look at the news, I think, "What is the source of that? What is the POV of that?" or when I read things in books, I do the same thing. I want to see the reference material. It has really made a difference in the way I view the world.

I remember reading once how, when editing Wikipedia, you’re supposed to look at things as if you were above the earth, looking down, and describing what’s going on to a space alien. Since I can’t talk to a space alien, or look down on earth from space, I just use my best judgment. My thinking has changed because of how I started this process: I have an interest in a subject. I see that the page has a misspelling, and I’m able to fix it. Cool! But then I want to contribute some information. So I do. I watch the page. Then it gets reverted. WTF? I see something about how it’s unencyclopedic. So I go back and fix it, making it a more formal style. I read the talk pages of subjects I’m interested in. A lot. I see that people can argue over substantive things, and trivial things. I see that to support their arguments, they quote Wikipedia policy, using obscure (to me) references. I check those references just to see what they’re talking about.

So now I’m in a habit. I check references within WP. I click on the links for terms I’m not familiar with. I keep correcting typos on pages; I keep making other changes to sentences to improve their style, or the their flow. I see “Citation Needed” on contributions I’ve made. So then I have to go back and find out where I got this information, and cite it. Properly. Then I want to make more contributions of information, so I put in that info, and then cite it properly as part of the contribution.

I get annoyed now, when I read paper books, or anything that doesn’t have a wikilink, because I have to go through the manual process of looking up the reference that’s cited, or do separate research for words I’ve not heard before. It’s also annoying (when reading a paper book), that I see a typo, and can’t fix it; or I can’t leave feedback easily to the author/publisher that there is an error that needs to be fixed.

I also enjoy making the world a better place. There’s all kinds of things that I can do, right now, to make Wikipedia better. I can wikify articles. I can comment on a controversy in the talk page on a subject I’m interested in. There's quite a list of things to be done.

Wikipedia has made me better, because now I understand my own biases, and my own opinions, aren’t always right. I will study the opposing point of view, to look for what supports it has, and what weaknesses it might have, too. Same goes for when I'm right. I'll make sure to support my perspective, and be aware that there are strong arguments for different points of view. We don't always have to agree. I have come to approach the world with a more open mind, and look at the world for more objectivity, questioning my thought process.

I’ve also gotten a little bit confused, because in giving fair hearing to different points of view, I have had to re-evaluate the way I look at the world. I wonder which version of English I’m going to write in, and I wonder if I should go through and rework the units of measure in some articles to a more “international” standard.

Another part of making me better, is in my contributions. Wikipedia requests editors to help do different kinds of tasks. I will usually work the first one in the list of things to do, just so I can learn about something completely outside of my experience, or interest. For example, I learned about the Four Corner Method, while at the same time cleaning up the article to make it a better read.

Wikipedia really changes the way you think!