I came across this article about a mysterious editor (a few of us know
her on wiki). Nice!! :)
http://www.loyolaphoenix.com/freshmans-wikipedia-work-creates-opportunities
Freshman's Wikipedia work creates opportunities
[media-credit name="Sydney South" align="aligncenter"
width="300"]<http://www.loyolaphoenix.com/wp-content/uploads/2…]
When most people think of a biophysics conference, images of scientists
and professionals with high levels of education gathering together come
to mind, not a college freshman attending or even speaking at the event.
One Loyola student, however, has been invited to do just that.
Olivia, an 18-year-old biology, physics and biophysics triple major,
will speak at the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, taking place in
Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 2-6.
She landed her invitation to this event through her volunteer work,
which involves researching, writing, editing and other administrative
duties for Wikipedia, the free, collaborative Internet encyclopedia.
Due to security reasons involving her position at Wikipedia, Olivia's
real name has been changed for this article.
The freshman has been involved with Wikipedia for five years, with a two
--- year hiatus from about January 2010 until April 2012. Olivia started
as an editor when she was 12 in April 2007. Since then, she has been
granted volunteer administrator status, which Olivia describes as
"getting a delete button."
However, she said she does much more than that. All of the work Olivia
does on Wikipedia is unpaid and considered volunteering, as she spends
several hours on most days a week working on the site.
"I do a lot of administrative work, like looking at the decisions of the
community in discussions, deleting stuff that should not be there,
antivandalism work," Olivia said. "I do some dispute resolution work
too, so when people get in fights [in discussion forums or concerning
content edits], I try to solve them."
Olivia has written six featured articles, or articles featured on
Wikipedia's homepage because they are the website's most reliable
content. She has written one article on cannons in a group with 10 other
people, as well as a piece on the history of timekeeping devices,
including clocks, sundials and other devices. On her own, Olivia has
also composed several pieces about constellations.
"We have very strong policies that you have to use reliable secondary
sources, you can't do your own research and put that in," Olivia said of
writing and researching for an article. "You basically find out
everything you can and distill it into an article."
She also participates in Wikipedia Projects.
"We call them WikiProjects for short. They're focused areas of
collaboration for people; so it's where anyone who is interested in
whatever can work on stuff and bounce ideas off each other, create work
lists or lists of resources," Olivia said. "Anybody can edit, that's the
beauty of it. Not a lot of people realize that anyone can edit."
She started a WikiProject, "WikiProject Women Scientists," with Sarah
Stierch, a gender gap fellow for the Wikimedia Foundation, who reaches
out to women to get them more involved with Wikipedia and who tries to
get more articles written about women.
The Wikimedia Foundation is "a nonprofit charitable organization
dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of
free, multilingual content," according to their website, and not only
operates Wikipedia but also Wiktionary, Wikiquote and Wikibooks.
"[Stierch] and I decided that there is a systemic bias in Wikipedia
against articles about women and against things that relate to women,"
said Olivia on why she started the project. "It was just a natural fit,
since I want to be a woman scientist also."
Her invitation to the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting occurred when a
female professor and biophysicist from Duke University was perusing an
article about herself. When Olivia saw who was browsing the profile, she
contacted the professor and invited her to join her WikiProject. Their
conversation turned into an invitation for Olivia to attend the
conference, engage in and help with a Wikipedia meet-up and editing
session and tentatively speak to the Committee for Professional
Opportunities for Women about the biographies of females scientists and
the importance and ease of writing them on Wikipedia. Her flight and
registration fees will be paid for by the Biophysical Society.
"I can't quite believe this is happening," Olivia said. "It's
awesome.
I'm very excited."
The Biophysical Society Annual Meeting attracts over 6,000 attendees
from over 45 different countries, including scientists, professors and
other biophysics enthusiasts.
Olivia's roommate Anne, a freshman forensic science major who is not
using her last name in order to protect the identity of Olivia, shares
similar enthusiasm for Olivia's opportunity.
"It's an incredible opportunity that someone who is 18 years old and
just in college is personally invited to an amazing conference like
this," Anne said. "She totally deserves it."
Olivia's mother, Sue, whose name has also been changed because of her
daughter's sensitive Wikipedia involvements, said she was as excited as
her daughter.
"This is obviously a wonderful opportunity for [Olivia] to, first of
all, really immerse herself in the subject of biophysics and confirm, or
not, that this is the field she wants to pursue," Sue said. "And meeting
other students, professors and professionals in the field will help give
her a really good picture of what working in this field would be like.
It just seems like it's an important door opening for her. She might
have had the chance to attend in a couple of years, but getting to go as
a freshman just seems like a jump start."
Olivia's involvement with the project has presented her with a unique
opportunity not only to attend the conference, but to participate in a
collective community.
"I've seen really great collaboration, I've seen people write great
things," she said. "I've seen everyone from stupid 12 year olds to
80-year-old grandparents work together and create things. [Wikipedia]
gives me opportunity to work with people around the world and create a
body of knowledge that the world has never seen before. I also get to
share all of the cool things that I'm interested in, and that's awesome."
--
*Sarah Stierch*
*/Museumist and open culture advocate/*
>Visit
sarahstierch.com
<http://sarahstierch.com><<