Week4 -- My Wikipedia Edits -- GUAN YUE

 Summary

This week, I made two small edits to the Chinese Wikipedia article on Tianhe District, which happens to be my hometown. I added two new references to support parts of the article that previously lacked proper citations. The first source is the 2022 Annual Report on Government Information Disclosure from the Tianhe District Government, which I used to back up statements about the district's geographical role and urban planning. The second source is an official list of provincial-level universities in Guangdong, which helps support information about the educational institutions located in the area. Both sources are from government websites and help improve the reliability of the article.

New Things I Learned
While looking for sources, I realized that even though I’ve lived in Tianhe for years, there’s still a lot I didn’t know about how it’s positioned within Guangzhou’s urban development strategy. For example, official documents describe Tianhe as being at the intersection of major development axes in the city, which sounds a bit like government jargon, but actually reflects its strategic importance. Another thing I noticed is that reliable sources aren’t always easy to find—even official documents are often buried in hard-to-navigate websites, and many are in PDF format, which can be tricky to cite properly.

Question for Discussion
One thing I found interesting is how editing a Wikipedia article about your own hometown can make you realize how much you take for granted. I’ve always thought it was obvious that Tianhe is a busy, central area with lots of schools—but when you’re editing Wikipedia, you start to see that even so-called “common knowledge” needs to be backed up with solid sources. So my question is: when we’re editing topics we feel personally connected to, how can we step back and stay objective? I think that “familiarity bias” is something worth thinking about, especially for editors who are contributing to articles about their own cities or regions.

Comments

  1. CUIZANMarch 30, 2025 at 1:54 AM

    Yeah, I’ve felt the same. When you know a place really well, it’s easy to assume certain facts don’t need explaining—but Wikipedia doesn’t work that way. I think the key is to always ask yourself, “Would someone who’s never been here understand or believe this without a source?” That little mental check helps a lot. Familiarity can blur the line between fact and assumption, so it’s good to slow down and double-check ourselves.

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