Wiki Page

     Wikipedia is probably one of the most popular sites that students (whether or not they openly admit this) use to find information about different topics. Wikipedia is convenient to use, relatively quick to read, and gives a broad overview. Using Wikipedia on occasion myself has allowed me to quickly grasp a topic for research (or even just a topic of simple interest), before I move on to the next step of looking for more in-depth, academic and reliable sources of information.
     For this assignment, I had a chance to use Wikipedia as an active member and actually add information to an article "stub". It is quite simple to obtain a wiki account; however, one is not needed to make an edit to an article, it helps to add a name to the actions. Finding a wiki stub was also quite simple, and actually kind of fun. I had no idea how many "stubs" existed and in various subjects. Some I was surprised to find that there was so little information. However, the act of actually editing a wiki stub was not that simple or easy at all. Writing in Html-code is difficult, as the code itself is quite complex. Adding images were especially challenging. I had intended to add a picture of the drape suit to my own Wiki stub, as I figured visuals would help for understanding the context. However, finding an image that Wikipedia accepts (from wikimedia commons) was not possible. Considering the article was a stub, there was no relevant picture out there. In addition, sizing, adding a border, adding a caption, and reformatting the actual text was extremely difficult to attempt in Html code. Its surprising how pampered we are, only some time after use of the internet has become the norm. The actual content and writing of the article was not as complex.

The 1950s Drape Suit from the "Bold Look". Retrieved from the Houndstooth Kid's blog.
[Untitled photo of the "Bold Look"]. Retrieved from: http://mrlapel.blogspot.ca/2008/08/bold-look.html.
 More images and information can be found in the Gentleman's Gazette

The topic I chose for my Wiki stub is the Drape Suit.  After the initial perusal, I found a single mistake in the original Wiki stub! The drape suit, although similar in appearance and design, is not the same as the sack suit. With this realization, I had found many mistakes in my own research and concept of the drape suit. It was fun re-learning and learning something myself, while trying to share some information with others. However, this assignment was stressful. The knowledge of how easily accessible Wikipedia is and who may be viewing my work caused me to raise some pretty high standards. Anyone could read the information and take it at its face value. Or, someone more knowledgeable than myself can read the article and correct any errors I may have made or information I did not include. The latter being a much more comforting thought.  In addition, anyone can edit the article, and can do so to make it either better or worse. While the openness of Wikipedia is a definite advantage, it can also be a strong disadvantage. If I had instead taken this assignment as an opportunity for sabotage, I could have inserted a lot of false and misleading information. It is always important to be aware of this when taking information from the internet.
   Rheon, a fellow classmate chose to update the Wiki stub: Fashion central. This article was interesting, personally, but it also happened to be related to my field of study. It is always exciting to learn what kinds of interesting stores with brands I adore exist in such close proximity to myself. More information on her personal experience and her article can be found on her own blog. It has a bright, fun, and adorable background, which does not take away from the text at all, due to her design set up. Her writing style and design of her blog reflects her fun and sweet personality. Her own experience was similar to my own, in that using Html code to update the Wikipedia page was the biggest challenge.
     While this first experience in using Wikipedia was challenging, I believe it was wholly worthwhile. Wikipedia is a huge pool of knowledge and sharing, and it is an exciting experience to be a part of it all. Making this first hurdle of overcoming the fear of making a huge mistake online, I feel much more inclined to participate again.