Week16: Wikipedia Edit - LIU ZIYE

LIU ZIYE 유자엽 

This semester’s experience editing Wikipedia has given me more experience and proficiency compared to my junior-year courses. I have gained a deeper understanding of Wikipedia’s rules and learned more advanced editing templates. Initially, I only made simple corrections to spelling or formatting errors, but gradually I began translating and expanding entire article sections. I became increasingly familiar with Wikipedia’s editing guidelines and adapted to the collaborative environment maintained by users worldwide.

While translating the article “China’s peaceful rise,” I received a reminder from an administrator. He informed me that when translating content from other language versions, I must add interlanguage links in the edit summary and note the source on the article’s talk page. He also recommended using the {{translated}} template. This reminder made me realize that even translated content must comply with Wikipedia’s attribution rules and the Creative Commons license. Later, I added the required templates and links accordingly, which helped me become more familiar with the technical editing process.

At the beginning of the semester, when completing the “10 edits per week” task, I manually converted traditional Chinese characters to simplified Chinese in an article and received a message from an administrator warning me not to manually convert character forms, as this could affect Wikipedia’s language standards and regional neutrality. This made me realize that even seemingly simple edits could impact the overall linguistic consistency and impartiality of Wikipedia.

When attempting original edits, I tried to supplement some sociological concepts with academic citations, but sometimes had to withdraw my edits due to the lack of sufficiently reliable sources. These experiences heightened my awareness of the importance of information accuracy and source reliability, teaching me to be more cautious and rigorous in source selection.

Overall, this editing experience not only helped me master technical skills but also deepened my understanding of the concept of “knowledge sharing.” Wikipedia is not merely an information repository but a public platform built on transparency, collaboration, and consensus. Although my edits still have shortcomings, such as less polished language and limited experience handling controversial content, this learning journey has laid a solid foundation for my future contributions. Moving forward, I hope to continue contributing to sociology-related articles, especially focusing on marginalized groups and labor issues, to help enrich the Chinese knowledge base.

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