Wikipedia as editorial microcosm

Although the previous section is full of successful interventions, we would like to highlight a few particularly successful projects that exemplify the kinds of successful outcomes that can arise from this project. This list will provide a sense of how many students can and do tackle a variety of issues at once to provide a substantial intervention in a stalled article.

Photovoltaics Articles

This was perhaps the most logistically complicated project undertaken by a student. The student originally noticed some issues in the Photovoltaics article but, upon further examination, realized that these issues cut across several articles, and that a new article on applications of photovoltaics was needed. Although they focused primarily on the Photovoltaics article, they worked across four articles to help coordinate content.

The four articles included the following:

• Photovoltaics (Before and After): They performed major work throughout.
• Applications of Photovoltaics (After creation by student): Created out of content from the other articles.
• Photovoltaic System (Before and After): The changes here are relatively minor. They worked on the lead a bit and moved some content.
• Photovoltaic Effect (Before and After): They moved the Effect of Temperature section here.

The student found that these related articles were ballooning because this industry had grown significantly. To address this, the student did the following tasks:

• They created an Application of Photovoltaics article to consolidate all of the uses of this technology together and help combat clutter on all of the other pages.
• The Photovoltaic Effect and Photovoltaic System articles were secondary to the main task of improving the Photovoltaics article, but they helped in trimming these two down by moving information to the Application of Photovoltaics article. They also reworked the lead of the Photovoltaic System article.
• The student reorganized the Photovoltaics article significantly. There was a huge applications section prior to the student moving most of this information to the new Application article. They also worked to rename sections and label groups of information to help guide future edits in a more focused direction.
• All of the information in the Application article came from the other three articles. As one can see, there was a great deal of information that was bloating these already large articles.
• The student left the article at a great spot for future editors, but with still a lot of work to be done. The lead for the applications article is not incredibly refined, some information throughout may need to be further trimmed down, and there is still a question of whether or not there is too much information. However, the step forward is immense and clearly sufficient as an intervention.

Art and World War II (Before and After)

This is an excellent example of a student intervening in an essay-like article. This article had been created in 2015 by a new editor who worked on the article and then disappeared. The information given was both significant and well cited, but the whole form of the article was written like an essay. The task for the student was thus to rework the article, creating a more appropriate focus for the content, organization, and style. The student transformed this article from a personal essay to an article appropriate for Wikipedia.

• They created a new organization for the article, reworking the content to fit within this new structure.
• They rewrote whole sections to eliminate the essay-like tone, as well as any other issues with Wikipedia style and form.
• They added images (which is appropriate since it's a page about art).
• Although the original article had a number of good sources, they weren't necessarily tied to statements in the article in the way that Wikipedia requires. Thus, they added a lot of "citation needed" tags for future editors.

Note that this page has remained relatively stable since (as of 2023), in part because it now has a good base of content and further work would require the work of an expert in art history or a similar field to add in a few more good sources and further shape the content.

Education in Utah (Before and After)

This is one of an assortment of articles on education in various areas. These articles have an inherent "What for?" problem, as we describe in Part 1, since the purpose and focus of such articles are not immediately clear. What kind of information is one hoping to find in an article about education in a particular area, especially one more specific than a nation? What information particular to Utah is relevant and how does one shape this?

When the student began, the article was organized as an enormous History section and contained a lot of information not necessarily directly relevant for a Wikipedia entry on Education in Utah.

• The article was reorganized slightly to make it more appropriate. Note that this change was ultimately a quick one, moving everything out of a subheading of History.
• Content that was not situated in a way that is relevant to the article was moved into better locations and resituated.
• They worked on NPOV. For example, they reworked parts of the section on Indian Placement Program.
• They coordinated this article with others. For example, they examined and linked a separate article on the Indian Placement Program and significantly cut down on the amount of information in the Higher Education section, since this information belongs in the articles for those colleges.

Basic Life Support (Before and After)

This is one of the most successful projects we have seen. There were clear issues that the student went a long way to fix and, perhaps more significantly, they did so with excellent communication and even cooperation from other editors.

• This article had significant issues with focus of the content, including significant sections of instruction and overly specialized material that violates WP:NOT. The student addressed these WP:NOT issues and greatly improved the tone.
• They did an excellent job using WP:MEDMOS to justify and guide their edits.
• They had substantial engagement with the community on the talk page, having some good discussions with other editors and successfully used the sandbox to work out their bold edits in advance. Their edit summaries are detailed and appropriately spaced out.
• Following their work, another editor came in and continued to work. This other editor mostly tidied up what the student missed (refer to that edit here).

Note that they did NOT make all of the changes themselves and the article still needs some improvements as of 2022, as some of the issues with instructional material have crept back in. Yet I'd still call this a successful project since it did the good work to get it on the right track.

Intertextuality (Before and After)

This is a complicated theoretical term used in the humanities and literary theory. As with many such terms, this article had clearly received some attention by subject matter experts but remained scattered in its organization in a way that made the article difficult to approach.

• The student performed a complete organizational overhaul of the article. Now it reads in a much more intuitive way that follows a logical flow of content while still keeping all of the content.
• They added a considerable number of citations.
• They noted some WP:OR and WP:NPOV issues and addressed them in their edits.

Their edits allowed for many other editors to come in and make changes that fit within the new organization. Since the student worked on it there have been some additions in content and citations added, but using the organization set in place by the student (refer to its status as of 2023).

Horrible Histories (Before and After)

This was an excellent case of significant and thorough editing with some cooperation with the Wikipedia community. The original article had significant problems and multiple tags, including for being essay-like and confusing.

• The student reorganized the entire article into a logical form and sorted the content into this new structure.
• A great deal of extraneous content was cut in smart ways.
• Sections were rewritten into an informative style.
• Work was done to alleviate problems in original research and NPOV.
• This was a case of live editing. The student edited heavily alongside Coin945. This editor originally wasn't giving very detailed edit summaries, but once they realized the student editor would be continuing, they started giving more detailed summaries of the edits they made.

Lightning McQueen (Before and After)

This article had problems with lack of focus in the lead and throughout the article, and it included large plot summaries of movie appearances that did not focus on the character's involvement in each film.

• The student found a model article, electing to use the Woody (Toy Story) article in order to base their edits on a featured article.
• The student addressed the lack of focus by reformatting the lead and reorganizing information moved out of the lead into the Characterization section.
• They trimmed unnecessary and off-topic details out of the entire article, including the Characterization section. They also greatly reduced and honed the plot summary articles to focus specifically on the character's role in each appearance.
• They created a space for future editors to continue work by making a new section, Cultural Impact. This is a good example of how to signal future editors to come finish work that you do not have time to do, as this section would take a good amount of time and research to really flesh out.

Note that students often want to do articles related to cultural items/topics like this, but they often present challenges since they follow a set structure (described in specific pages in the Manual of Style) and often run into issues with notability. This one should be a good reference for thinking about whether a student's selection will work for this project.

Forestry in Russia (Before and After)

This article has existed since 2007 but was expanded into an essay-like article in 2017, which prompted further contributions that followed this structure and tone. When the student found it in 2021, a bulk of the material was in the lead, with significant issues with the content, focus, and tone of the article.

• The new organization took the existing information and organized it so that it looks more like a Wikipedia article, with clear categories of information.
• The lead wasn't really a lead before but rather content that might go in the article proper. The student reworded a lot of the information in order to craft a lead from it. They also left a template message signaling a future editor to check the new lead.
• As part of the reorganization, the student considered what kinds of information should go where, ultimately moving much of the content into new categories.
• The original content was often disjointed rather than written in coherent informatic style. The student rewrote whole sections to make them work as informative statements. This also allowed them to remove some inappropriate content and make clear space for citations.

Virtual Reality (Before, After, and Virtual Reality Applications)

The student was working on this article just as interest in virtual reality was greatly increasing. Despite having many editors watching and working on the article, the student was able to make a significant intervention by focusing on some of the recently added material—an Applications section—that was having significant issues with NPOV and appropriateness (WP:NOT issues).

• They split a large section in a new article that covered virtual reality applications. This alone took a good bit of work and communication, as they proposed the split and then shaped the new article into a decent article with a lot of room for other editors to come in and work on/improve it.
• Both the Virtual Reality article and the Virtual Reality Applications article continue to have a lot of editors working on them and have continued to develop in a way clearly shaped by this intervention. Refer to Virtual Reality in 2023 and the Virtual Reality Applications in 2023.