A Consise History of Editing a Wikipedia Entry

We moved into a new house this summer, one that we actually bought. This was the most stressful event of my life except for one other one that required a daily beta blocker for so long I forgot what life was like without daily beta blockers. Not as chill, turns out. Anyway, it hardly helped that during the looking-bidding-buying-moving-settling-in process, I discovered the addictive thrill that is—or at least can be—editing on Wikipedia. 

Nicholson Baker knows what I'm talking about. In an article published two years ago in the New York Review of Books, he quotes a Wiki employee who explained that while the site may be a source of information for users, for editors "it's almost more like an online game, in that it's a community where you hang out a bit, and do something that's a little bit of fun: you whack some trolls, you build some material, etcetera."

"Whacking trolls is, for some Wikipedia editors, a big part of why they keep coming back," Baker writes, and then goes on to describe his own experience getting way too involved in the politics of the site.

As for me, I whacked no trolls. Instead, I rewrote the Bix Beiderbecke entry. I rewrote it completely. The entry as I found it was terrible, and because I edit an encyclopedia for a living, and because I'm soon to be a published expert on Bix Beiderbecke,* I figured I would learn enough about Wiki to build a better entry. It's worth mentioning that part of why I did this is because I love Wikipedia. I think it's a great resource, and I say that even though the online encyclopedia that employs me follows a different model. So what? Wikipedia is a tool; learn how to use it well and it will serve you well.

But I also had mixed feelings: would the lack of a decent Bix entry actually heighten the need for my book, which will (one hopes) provide good information? Or would an entry that highlights his life and achievements, emphasizing what I find to be most interesting, do the work of getting people jazzed enough about his life & music to buy a whole book?**

I don't know. In the end, it didn't matter. I just couldn't stop. I piled my books up on the table in the new kitchen and I spent every spare moment working on the entry. I made a million edits. I received encouraging comments on the article's "Discussion" page. Someone even suggested I nominate it for Good Article Status, and I was flattered enough to neglect Molly for a few more weeks so I could tighten everything up and figure out how one actually does nominate it. Which I then did.*** Followed by . . . nothing. Or at least nothing for a few months. Instead, the entry took its place in a long queue, alongside entries about Kelly Clarkson songs and Japanese video game scores. I checked it obsessively—daily, hourly—waiting for some Wiki editor to voluntarily take on the task of assessing my life's work according to Good Article Criteria.

I might have mentioned that I'm a writer and editor. That I do this for a living. How could I put so much of my self-esteem into the approval of some anonymous unpaid Wiki editor? I don't know, but I did. Then, at the end of November, after nominating the thing in September, after cutting Beatrix's cord in the delivery room and still only almost forgetting about Wikipedia, an editor who goes by the name Philcha finally agreed to do the review.

By which time I positively craved this oddly named person's approval.

What I received instead was a kind of studied politeness as Philcha, a self-described "ignoramus about jazz," began to methodically pick my text apart, sentence by sentence, citation by citation, pointing me in the direction of style manuals and primers for writing leads. Then he (she?) left this comment:

"the second number was marred by alcohol consumed by the musicians, who included Tommy Dorsey on trombone and Beiderbecke's best friend, Don Murray, on clarinet". Does this implies that Tommy Dorsey and Don Murray contributed to the alcoholic mistaken in the 2d number? Tommy Dorsey and Don Murray contributed to Beiderbecke's life or work at last, except as members as the same band for a while? If these 2 musicians NOT contributed in at least of one of these aspects, they are irrevelant - just name dropping.

I am not embarrassed to admit that this filled me with rage. As did this comment:

In "(The headmaster went so far as to inform Mr. and Mrs. Beiderbecke, about Bix, "that certain parents have objected strenuously to their sons' association with him.)"

• The parentheses are dishonest - either you take responsibility their content and for the space they take in section.
• If the item is retained, the headmaster's florid prose needs to be replaced with something consise.
  

In the end, Molly calmed me down by reminding me that this was the Internet. That this did not matter. And she's right. It also didn't change the work that I did, and she's right about that, too. Finally, it doesn't necessarily mean that Wikipedia is any worse a tool for having editors (!) who can't spell or create coherent sentences. In fact, I hope it's better now that it has a good, if not perfectly consise, Bix Beiderbecke entry.

In the end, we worked it out. Bix was awarded its Good Article badge and for the time being I've given Wiki (and my ego) a rest. And then I found five dollars.

IMAGE: No, not my house, but Bix's.

* "Expert" here should be taken with a grain of salt. I fit only in the middle range of knowledge about Bix Beiderbecke among people for whom knowledge about Bix Beiderbecke is important. I mean to make no great claims for myself.

** Perhaps some Wiki editors are selfless. Not this one.

*** I figured other people were the ones who nominated your hard work for a pat on the back, but not so at Wikipedia. You do the nominating so if you receive constructive feedback, you're around and invested enough to respond to it. Makes sense, I guess.

Comments

[amy c.]

Brendan, Wikipedia is a form of mental illness. Last summer, my friend and erstwhile sparring partner Henry Gee posted something on his blog about his outrage at Wikipedia's barring him from editing his own unauthorized wiki, and inviting friends to scribble moustaches on it. We promptly did, and as I recall -- it'll still be there in the edit history -- I had him involved with Anthony Bourdain in some sort of rodent gastrobestiality. With citations and footnotes, of course.

We were promptly set up on by -- do you remember the spiders in the movie of Minority Report? Remember the complete and utter absence of humor? That's Wikipedia editors. So I have since contented myself with looking out for documentable "fuck you"s, like the Schwarzenegger-veto/Ammiano affair, and being the anti-Holden on Wikipedia whenever possible.

[Brendan Wolfe]

The hive mentality does not always produce intelligence, I guess. What strikes me about Wikipedia -- it's a strength, but christ is it also a weakness -- is the presumption that anyone can be an editor. Even should be an editor. ("Be bold!" is the Orwellian rallying cry of Wiki-types.) And while I recognize the element of self-justification, economic and otherwise, implicit in this argument, but NOOOOO!

[Jill Hofmockel]

And then I found five dollars is my new favorite thing. I think it will quickly replace 'Just Saying.'

[G]

I was hoping you could more into this part:

"How could I put so much of my self-esteem into the approval of some anonymous unpaid Wiki editor? I don't know, but I did."

Surely there was something you wanted to accomplish.

[Brendan Wolfe]

G, thanks for the comment. What I wanted to accomplish was first, learn the Wiki process, and second, improve the Bix Beiderbecke article. I also was curious to learn whether any of the choices I made in writing the article would provoke annoyance or disagreement among Bixophiles. (It didn't.) While I hadn't set out to learn about Bix -- I was satisfied that I already knew the basics -- I did, in fact, learn plenty. So that was nice.

As for why "I put so much of my self-esteem into the approval of some anonymous unpaid Wiki editor" -- I guess it's not really surprising. You spend many, many hours writing something and, if you're like me, you crave some recognition of that fact. A reporter might get a pat on the back from an editor and then a letter from some happy or enraged reader. A freelance writer collects a paycheck. A blogger receives comments. Authors of books rack up sales and get phone calls from their mothers. But the Wiki editor gets ... what?

So the GA Review process was appealing on the level of serving as some kind of recognition for the trouble of having worked on the article. By "recognition," however, I don't mean a rubber stamp. My frustrations with the process, such as they are, do not imply that my work is above criticism, and I readily accepted all the changes suggested by the subsequent reviewer.

Thanks again for the comment.

[Glenda Childress]

Anyone who misspells "concise" as "consise" that many times has no editor cred. That's like a surgeon having a very dull scalpel. Words are the editor's tools.

Sorry, Philcha, but, judging from your syntax, grammar, and spelling, your degree (regardless of what it is) needs to be revoked.

[Colin Howell]

In fairness to Philcha, it should be pointed out that he was apparently suffering from a medical problem which was affecting his writing. During the review, he eventually passed the task to another editor named "Geometry guy", after having left him the following message:

"I'm very sorry, I am ill - I can read words but cannot write (I often write gibberish), and most of this post is pasted words found in other places. The GA Reviews I started for others will need to be done by others ... "

[Brendan Wolfe]

Colin, I appreciate you making that point. My original post was not intended to attack Philcha personally so much as express some frustration and confusion with the whole experience. That confusion is hardly cleared up by the idea of someone not being able to write but still being able to cut and paste words from other places.

That said, what I've found interesting since then is the number of people invested in defending the incoherence of that earlier review as either not incoherent or as a more or less benign function of Wikipedia. As Glenda suggests, clear writing ought to be a given, not a luxury under such circumstances.

Still, the greater and more important point, as you emphasize, is that Wikipedia self-corrected. Thanks for your comment.

[Colin Howell]

You're welcome. I quite agree that the original review was incoherent, and it must have been very frustrating for you. It seems clear that the guy should have asked for help sooner, rather than trying to continue when he obviously wasn't in a state to do a proper job.

Mostly I just wanted to explain the situation to other commenters who seemed to believe that the reviewer always writes like that, which seems not to be the case. (I've never interacted with him, by the way.)

Depending on the cause, I would imagine that it might be quite terrifying to be in a condition where you can read but are unable to write without generating gibberish.

[Consise]

Please learn how to spell the word "concise", dear professional writer guy. Or get Firefox, which has a spellchecker.

[Brendan Wolfe]

With all respect, Anonymous Commenter Guy, "Consise" in the post's headline was meant as a play on the persistent misspelling of the Bix article's reviewer. I'm sorry you didn't get the reference.