Sincerely,
Nicholas Michael Bashour
Washington’s Wikipedia profile gets cleaned up during ‘Edit-a-Thon’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/history-buffs-buff-up-washingtons-wikip…
For a man who once had a pretty big presence in Washington, Crosby Stuart Noyessure had a
pretty anemic presence on Wikipedia. At least, he did on Saturday morning, when the
19th-century publisher of the Evening Star newspaper’s listing on the crowdsourced, online
encyclopedia was a mere two sentences long.
But by Saturday afternoon, Noyes had been supersized, or at least given a Wikipedia
treatment a little more in keeping with his importance: seven paragraphs and five
footnotes.
This was all thanks to Andrew Kuchling, who was one of about two dozen local history buffs
who spent Saturday at the Historical Society of Washington engaged in a Wikipedia
“Edit-a-Thon.” Their mission: Create, improve, correct and footnote Wikipedia entries
related to our fair city.
Sure, these Wikipedians could work solo, in the privacy of their homes, but there’s
something more communal about doing it together.
Of course, the Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon was a lot more sedate than other activities ending in
“thon”: marathon, telethon, Toyotathon. . . . Picture studious people bent over their
laptops at the polished wood tables of the society’s Kiplinger Research Library. Some had
pulled reference materials from the library’s collection, others were looking for material
online. Librarians and Wiki experts were available to help.
The first issue was what to tackle. The library had provided a list of possible starting
points, a few people, places and things that many D.C. residents no doubt know about but
that were absent on Wikipedia or inexpertly presented: Petworth, quadrants, Chuck Brown,
Howard Theatre, School Without Walls, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Sycamore Island,
Snows Court. . . .
Crosby Stuart Noyes wasn’t on the list, but Andrew, who lives in Bowie and works as a
software developer for a cable company, thought the guy could use some help.
“I think running the Evening Star all those years is fairly significant,” Andrew said.
He’d fleshed out Noyes’s life using a 1932 book on notable D.C. figures from the society’s
collection and added links to a newspaper article the journalist had written in his 20s.
After fixing the spelling of the middle name of one of Noyes’s son — it wasWilliams, not
William — Andrew decided to beef up the two sons’ entries.
“It’s a way of exercising my writing skills, but I don’t need to work on it for days and
days,” Andrew said. “Four hours is plenty.”
Rita Moore and Nicole Beyer sat across from one another one table over. Rita, an insurance
agent by day, had the vertical file from the Petworth Citizens Association to one side and
was contemplating tweaking the Petworthentry to indicate that the borders of that
neighborhood have been somewhat flexible.
Nicole, a senior at George Washington University, was fleshing out the entry forConcordia
German Evangelical Church and Rectory in Foggy Bottom, adding information on the value of
the church’s property and how big the congregation was.
“I’m a big fan of Census data,” she said.
Adam Lewis, the historical society’s director of development and the person who in 2008
rescued Wikipedia’s main Washington, D.C., entry from mediocrity, described the perfect
entry: verifiable, with proper citations and a neutral tone. And it can’t contain original
research.
Said Adam, “You’d be surprised how many people say, ‘Well I live down the block, and I
know X.’ ”
Just living down the block and knowing X doesn’t cut it on Wikipedia, which is why so many
articles are flagged as needing work.
But what a vast and potentially dispiriting endeavor. At last count, there were 4,193,775
English-language entries on Wikipedia. All anyone can hope to do is nibble away at the
errors contained therein and add tiny drops of information to the vast sea of knowledge.
“I think every little bit helps,” saidChloe Raub, a Catholic University library sciences
student who was working on the listing for William R. Perl, an Austrian-born lawyer and
head of the Jewish Defense League’s Washington office. “I think that what Wikipedia
depends on is a whole lot of people taking a little time to make it better.”
At his computer, Adam scrolled through some other D.C.-related entries, clicking on Pierre
Charles L’Enfant. The entry looked pretty good. Then Adam noticed something. “His entire
early life is not cited,” he said disapprovingly.
Get cracking, Washington Wikipedians!
For previous columns,
visitwashingtonpost.com/johnkelly.