A climbing total of 6,000 people visit Wikipedia every second, making it one of the most visited sites in the world. When asking Siri a question, the top result is almost guaranteed to be the Wikipedia article definition. Often times, Wikipedia is the first source people access to undertsanding a topic. Yet, the impact of Wikipedia is often lost on people. College students have the power to become powerful agents for editing on Wikipedia --- simultaneously gaining a useful editing toolkit and comprehensive knowledge on specific topics and sources.
Why Are Students Not Editing Wikipedia?
Launched in 2001, Wikipedia has grown up with the average college student today. Yet, the majority of students have never edited on the site or fail to gain the courage to start editing pages that seem unreliable or in need of more information. Having become so engrained in the daily interfaces of young people as a quick way to access basic knowledge of a topic, the power of Wikipedia as a freely editable online encyclopedia has largely diminished in the minds of users. Not to mention the negative connotation of Wikipedia as an untrustworthy source most students have grown up listening to within the classroom setting. Veritably, Wikipedia articles have strict standards for the type of sources, grammar, and rhetoric that can be used to both edit and create pages on this platform. With that, students have the opportunity to provide more equitable knowledge through freely editable sources.
Since most college students have not grown up learning about how to edit on Wikipedia, they often feel less inclined to take the initiative to add or edit information. Instead, this action seems daunting --- adding information on a platform that’s viewed on such a large scale. Students often think of themselves as simply consumers of knowledge, hindering the opportunity for knowledge to spread and grow out of the academic sphere and into the public sphere. Wikipedia allows students to provide access to equitable forms of knowledge through the academic resources afforded to them. Wikipedia benefits students’ comprehension as well, allowing them to gain an in-depth understanding of specific topics. Due to the Wikimedia Foundation’s strict guidelines on neutrality and close paraphrasing, it is paramount that editors understand a plethora of sources on a topic before delving into the creation or maintenance of an article. Moreover, the "Talk” page found on the top left of any Wikipedia article, allows anyone to discuss recent or potential changes to an article with other Wiki editors, giving students critical participatory editing skills.
How to Take Social Action with Wikipedia
Now more than ever, students are taking social action to online platforms in order to educate, inform, and amplify the public on issues of white supremacy. Since the killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2021, several Wikipedia articles surrounding victims of police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement spiked enormously in page views, with an upwards of 100,000 views documented just in the past week. Consequently, many of these pages still need updates, greater sourcing, and more content. For example, when you compare the article on the KKK with that of the Black Panthers, the disparity in content is overwhelming. In order to take social action to Wikipedia, several organizations have implemented fun Wikipedia based opportunities for the public to get involved in editing these important pages.
