Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/Cornell University/Online Communities (Fall 2013)/Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Contribution to the Article

We set out to add more content and references to the article, edit the existing content mainly for neutrality and grammatical purposes, attempt to link existing content to references where citations were needed, and potentially add a photo or two of the interior of the museum to give readers a glance into the interior architecture. We have accomplished all of these goals and then some. To begin with, we went through the existing article and took out all of the parts that sounded biased. We were able to reword sentences to make them sound more factual. Additionally, we simplified the introduction paragraph that appears at the top of the article page. What was existing was a bit too detailed and unnecessary for this overview. We removed some content here but mostly moved the detailed bits to appropriate sections within.

Next we started adding in new content. Specifically, we added an extensive amount of information to the “History” subsections. In the 19th century section, we detailed more about the initial construction, funding, and purpose of the museum. Moving on to the 20th century, we focused mainly on changes in museum direction, cultural context including how the happenings in Amsterdam affected the museum, the introduction of new collections and departments, and major art acquisitions. Within this subsection, we presented all of this information chronologically. For the 21st century subsection, we included details about the closing of the museum, new initiatives and programs, the museum’s privatization, and other transitions that the museum underwent.

For the “Building” section, we decided to overhaul, reorganize, and add sections to help breakdown the extensive amount of information we found. We broke apart the “Building” section into two sections, “The Original Building” and “Relocation and Addition”, and then added the “Weissman Building”, “Decay”, “Temporary Relocation”, “Benthem Crouwel Wing”, “Building Delays”, and “Reopening” subsections. We felt these subsections were important because they help to tell the full story of the museum’s building and highlighted crucial details in the museum’s evolution, especially in its recent history. We were able to find and include details about renovations in the original building as well as information about the re-opening after the addition of the Benthem Crouwel Wing.

Next, we added an entire new section titled “Visual Identity”. We gave a brief overview of the original identity and then detailed the new logo design. In the “Collection” section, we removed some of the details that were outdated. There was also little information in this section, so we updated it with subsections titled “Augmented Reality Tours” and “Digitizing the Archive”. These additions were important components to the modern aspect of this modern art museum. Finally, we added a photo from the interior of the museum since there were no photos showing the inside.

Because Emily had knowledge of the museum and an overall interest in the topic, she knew upon reading the original page that there were some gaps. All of this new content came from a variety of sources, mostly online. One resource was a book from the Cornell University Fine Arts Library that Emily found, which provided us with massive amounts of information, specifically on the history of the museum. Since Emily was familiar with the museum and had done a graphic design project on the visual identity in the past, she provided the resources for the “Visual Identity” section. The other references for all of the other new content she found using Google searches and reading through and evaluating sources. Ian was able to find some sources from the Dutch page. One resource used was mentioned by another user on the talk page.

The main struggle here was finding detailed, neutral information outside of the Stedelijk’s own website. The museum itself does a nice job going through its history on its own website, which we tried to use minimally. We recognized that sources outside of the museum may be more neutral and credible.

B-Class Status

We firmly believe that the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam article is ready to be bumped up to B-class. We have analyzed our changes based on the B-Class Criteria:

1. We believe the article is now suitably referenced. Anything that seems likely to be challenged has a referenced source. These sources are diverse and reliable; most are sources written by respected individuals and publications. Furthermore, even though it’s not a requirement for B-class articles yet, we added a significant amount of ref tags as well, including listed ref names.

2. We believe the article portrays a complete account of the Stedelijk Museum; there are no gaps in content. Especially after comparing this article to B-class Wikipedia articles, specifically other modern art museum articles, we are confident that the content is thorough and provides adequate information for the reader.

3. We believe that we greatly enhanced the article by reorganizing it and adding more detailed subsections. We want the reader to be able to locate the information they are looking for quickly rather than have to sift through paragraphs of content under general headings. The order of the sections also makes sense from a chronological standpoint.

4. We believe our article is well written. After having written several research papers in the past and a solid education and experience in writing, the content is grammatically correct and sounds pleasing. There are transitions where necessary to help with the flow of the article.

5. We believe the article contains appropriate supporting materials in the form of photographs. Because this is an art museum, visuals are an important component. While sufficient images already existed on the page, we were able to add an image of the interior of the museum to help readers visualize the museum’s added wing.

6. We believe the article is written simply and clearly with a neutral point of view. We linked to other Wikipedia pages where applicable, which will help the reader quickly look up anything within the article that they may be unfamiliar with. No unnecessary technical background is needed to read the article, nor is any difficult or specialized material on the page. Any audience should be able to make sense of the content.

Overall, given the upgrade of these six criteria, this article will leave readers satisfied. We are hoping this will be recognized and that the article receives the classification it deserves.

Article Evolution

When we first stumbled upon this article, the biased language was concerning. Additionally, some of the information was outdated and needed citations. There were some clear gaps in content, specifically in the “History” section. In terms of organization, the “Building section” needed to be broken down further. The Talk page was barren, or in Nitesh’s words, there didn’t seem to be much foot-fall; the only recent edits were made by a Wikipedia Editor, and many of the existing concerns had not been addressed.

We have been compiling research since the start of this project. It took a bit to get our feet wet on the actual Wikipedia page since we felt more comfortable adding and editing in our group’s Google doc. Admittedly, we were a bit intimidated by getting attacked by other users on the talk page, though in order to generate meaningful discussion, we had to throw ourselves out there. Santiago advertised in the Stedelijk Museum’s talk page as well as the talk pages of the WikiProjects our article belonged to: Architecture, Visual Arts, Netherlands, and Museums. Eventually, one user in particular who responded to the advertisement on the WikiProject:Visual Arts talk page proved to be very nice and helpful, so we started adding more and more content on the Talk page. We began to receive immediate feedback from this user, so we started directing questions to the user and asking him/her to look over our content before adding it to the talk page.

As we became more and more confident with this process (just this week, really), we started editing and adding directly to the article page. Getting positive and helpful feedback on the talk page definitely contributed to how the article evolved. We also began looking at Wikipedia pages for other art museums to see details that were included and then sought to add those details to the Stedelijk article. The current article is very different from the original one. Overall, it is better organized, much more detailed, includes more citations, and reflects an entirely neutral point of view. The article provides users with much more information of the Stedelijk Museum overtime and today.

Community Experience

Our community experience was overwhelmingly positive in a number of ways. Though at first our article’s talk page featured only a few posts, none of which were recent, we managed to make a lot of headway in generating meaningful discussion. Emily initially posted about our assignment and goals, though we were worried because we received no immediate replies. Santiago then posted another message calling for assistance from any Wikipedians who happened to be passing by. He then followed up and posted additional notices on the four related WikiProjects: Architecture, Museums, Visual Arts, and Netherlands. These advertisements attracted Czar (talk · contribs), a member of WikiProject:Visual Arts, Elekhh (talk · contribs), a member of WikiProject:Architecture, as well as Editør (talk · contribs), who presumably belongs to Wikiproject:Netherlands. Elekhh gave us advice on how to avoid citation overkill. Editor offered valuable perspective on different norms of sourcing between the Dutch and English Wikipedians, as well as advice on what makes a good source. Czar’s contributions were unparalleled; the amount of help he gave to our group went above and beyond our expectations. When Emily asked a question about citing the same source multiple times, Czar linked to the Help:List-defined references page, which allowed us to seriously improve the quality of the article through adding a number of named references (for the sake of future editors of this page). For Czar’s contributions, Santiago sent him some WikiLove in the form of the “Random Acts of Kindness” Barnstar, which can be viewed on his Talk Page.

As a group, we felt that, despite all of the knowledge of Wikipedia’s various norms (such as the differences between English and Dutch Wikipedians outlined by Editor), we gained a lot from the interactions on various talk pages. However, in terms of feeling as part of a community, we did not feel get a community-vibe and instead felt like individual contributors to Wikipedia. Perhaps if we had participated in Teahouse discussions we would gain a greater community feel. Also, we were mainly talking to just one other user besides ourselves. The only instance when we truly felt that our work would impact a greater community was when Czar pointed out that our work “cleaning up this article will be read by more people in a day than all of your college papers will (most likely) be read ever. Honestly, after this reality check, we had an even greater incentive to improve the page; we wanted to help out the greater community at hand. After this, we contacted Michiel Nijhoff, the head of library and collection registration at the Stedelijk. While our interactions with him were not on the Wikipedia platform, his interest in our efforts made us even more determined in our mission to improve the article. Overall, because of the independent nature of making contributions to Wikipedia, it is up to the user to engage with other users in order to get a sense of community--that there are other people “out there” contributing as well.

Breakdown of Group Contributions

Given our different educational and cultural backgrounds, as well as different areas of expertise, we decided to play to our strengths and divide up the tasks in the following way:

Existing Content Alterations

Emily made the initial edits of changing all biased content to a more neutral point of view. Santiago corrected the grammatical errors that we found and helped to reword the material to flow better. Having previous Wikipedia experience, Santiago understood the style and tone of a Wikipedia article and mimicked this as an improvement effort. Ian identified that the organization of the content could be reworked and therefore restructured the content through adding subsections. Additionally, because Ian is fluent in Dutch, he compared the existing Dutch page for the Stedelijk and compared it with the content on the English page. He was able to translate the content and fill in a lot of the gaps on the English page.

Generating New Content

Emily spearheaded the research effort. She had already known of a few sources from a previous project she did on the visual identity of the Stedelijk. Because of her design major, she knew how to identify legitimate sources that were mainly coming from art and design blogs and online publications. She also found a book at the Cornell University Fine Arts library that provided extensive amounts of information, especially for the “History” section. Emily’s personal photograph taken at the Stedelijk added a needed visual element to the article. This resource really helped to clean up loose ends and fill in many gaps that previously existed. Ian was able to locate unique Dutch sources that provided us with information about the collection, among other things. He also reviewed the critiques in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times about the museum’s addition.

Engaging the Wikipedia Community

Santiago took charge of reaching out to active Wikipedians that were involved on the Talk page in the past. He prompted the community for feedback and advertising on the Talk pages of the four associated WikiProjects. After this initial effort, Emily took over most of the conversations with other Wikipedians. Emily had numerous back-and-forth dialogues with Czar, who helped us edit the article tremendously. He was extremely patient with Emily and guided her through many aspects she was unfamiliar with, such as citing the same reference more than once and adding a photograph to WikiCommons. Through these conversations, a few other users engaged with Emily and Czar on the Talk page as well.

Technical Aspects

Santiago was in charge of making sure all of the citations were properly linked to the reference list. Emily enjoyed learning Wikipedia code and uploaded most of the new content as well as the photograph. Santiago uploaded all of Ian’s new content, which included integrating it with the existing content, since there was some overlap. Santiago also worked format the newly defined sections.

IchiniSanti (talk) 14:39, 10 October 2013 (UTC)