week8-- My Wikipedia Editing Experience This Week --WU WENHAO

 WU WENHAO,2021080464

Over the past week, I worked on editing the Wikipedia article Real estate in China. The main goal of my edits was to improve the structure, update historical developments, and add more detailed statistical information based on official sources. I created a sandbox page to organize my edits systematically before integrating them into the main article. Here is the link to my sandbox page: User:Wuwenhao19960507/Real estate in China.

In my edits, I focused on enhancing the "History" section of the article by providing a clearer periodization of China's real estate development, from the early housing allocation system to the commercialization reforms after 1978, and the market expansion after the 1990s. I also supplemented the "Market Structure" part with updated data on the number of real estate enterprises in China, citing the National Bureau of Statistics as the source. Additionally, I refined some phrasing to ensure that it aligns with Wikipedia’s neutral point of view guidelines. Furthermore, based on the feedback provided during Week 5, I made additional improvements to avoid combining multiple events or trends into a single explanatory argument unless supported by reliable secondary analysis. I also ensured that statistical data were not presented merely as raw figures, but were accompanied by encyclopedic explanations that help readers understand their broader significance within the development of China's real estate sector.

While working on the article, I made several new discoveries. One interesting finding was how the Chinese real estate sector evolved not just through market forces but also through complex government policy interventions. I also realized that some of the earliest forms of commercial housing in China, such as 筒子楼 (communal tube-shaped apartments), reflected both socialist planning and early market incentives, which was quite fascinating to learn.

During the editing process, I encountered several challenges. One major difficulty was how to correctly add interlanguage links, especially when an English equivalent article did not exist. Initially, I was unsure about how to link terms that only had a Chinese Wikipedia page. Fortunately, my professor explained how to add interwiki links using the [[zh:]] format, which helped me overcome this obstacle.

Another challenge involved translating specific Chinese policy documents, such as the Outline Report of the National Basic Construction Conference and the Decision on Deepening the Urban Housing Reform. These documents, issued decades ago, have no officially recognized English translations, and there are no corresponding Wikipedia pages in either Chinese or English. In such cases, I had to rely on AI-assisted translation tools to create the most accurate and faithful English titles possible, while making sure to keep the translations neutral and understandable for an international audience.

One question that remains for me is how to best handle situations where no reliable English source exists for a key Chinese term. Should editors always attempt a careful translation, or is it sometimes better to leave the term untranslated and explain it within the article? I would love to hear thoughts from more experienced Wikipedia editors on this issue.

Overall, editing Wikipedia this week was a rewarding and eye-opening experience. It pushed me to think critically about translation accuracy, source reliability, and how to make complex topics accessible to a global readership.

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