Interview with Top Wikipedia Administrator, David Fuchs

If you're like many high school or college students, you regularly rummage through Wikipedia pages for homework help. Perhaps you're out of school but reference Wikipedia anytime you have a general academic or pop culture question. Regardless of who you are and why exactly you turn to Wikipedia, the world's largest, free encyclopedia is hard to ignore. It's there and it's big. But have you ever wondered who's actually behind making Wikipedia the information powerhouse that it is? I'm not talking about the people who edit the odd sentence or attempt to make a page about their dog, Sugar Fluff. I'm referring to people who essentially function as Wikipedia's writing staff.

David Fuchs, one of the website's top administrators, is one of those people. As you'll discover from reading the following interview, this native of Arlington, VA and VCU Arts student, writes and edits Wikipedia content everyday. Here's what he has to say about Wikipedia and his involvement with it:

Why did you become a "Wikipedian" in the first place?

I became a registered user on Wikipedia on October 15, 2005; I became interested in the site after stumbling across it while doing assignments for AP European history. I didn't edit much (aside from adding an article on my high school) until November 2006, when I really started spending more time on the site and amassing many more edits.

Do you have any kind of noble mission, like citizen journalism, as a Wikipedian

There's no "noble mission" except a small sense of pride in knowing that hundreds if not thousands of people read my workday in and day out. It's not a form of citizen journalism as Wikipedia frowns on unverified claims, original research, or unpublished thought; everything needs sources. However, there are active editors who troll for news and rapidly develop content in response to recent stories; I am not one of them.

What are your favorite topics to edit/write about (and, yes, I just ended a sentence in a preposition)?

I write about whatever catches my fancy. Among the articles I've started, expanded, or featured include historical topics such as the Bone Wars, books such as Raptor Red, video games such as Riven or Halo 3, and films such as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan or The Mummy. Generally I look for additional information on these topics anyway, and writing about them is a way of furthering my own knowledge, and sharing it with whoever else out there in the internet lands is also interested.

How many hours a week do you waste---ahem, spend---on Wikipedia every week?

I never keep track; I usually edit a bit while I'm doing other tasks. In terms of edits I make to pages, however, I make between 500-900 edits per month, depending on what occupies me in real life and what distracts me online; that breaks down to anywhere from ten edits a day to fifty or so. It would be safe to say a solid hour or two are devoted to wiki activities every day.

Tell me about your shinies...

Wikipedia has little in the way of work recognition. The top contributors who nominate featured content, representative of the very best on Wikipedia (peer reviewed for accuracy, grammar, completeness and style) are ranked on "List of Wikipedians by Featured Article Nominations" or WBFAN. Users can also give "barnstars" to each other, images attached to certain skills; for assisting in a copyedit, an editor might give the helpful user an "editor's barnstar", for example. Other than that, being acknowledged as an expert or prolific writer on-wiki is the only real benefit; internet cache doesn't translate to the real world.

Describe Wikipedia's history to me in your own words, please.

In short form: porn financed the world's greatest information source.

Go look it up.

What do you like about Wikipedia? How would you improve it?

Wikipedia is an excellent place for finding information about anything. Even if there's not too much there at one time (or it's horribly written), there's always the chance someone (like me) will come across it, do research, and turn it into an article unrivaled by any other online source (except those who copy Wikipedia.) On the other hand, I occasionally feel that some people spend too much time adding content they don't ever improve it, and we end up with what is colloquially termed "cruft"--content only fans of so-and-so show or anime or game appreciate or find useful. I think that unless moderated, this content drags down resources and overall quality (in appearance and substance) of the 'pedia. In addition, there are many bureaucrats and policy wonks on Wikipedia who don't really improve the quality of the articles, which is why everyone should be there in the first place--I'd be the first in line to toss them over the side if I could.

What should John or Jane know before they become a Wikipedia minion?

While one of Wikipedia's rules is to be neophyte-friendly (don't bite the newbs), it seems like the vast majority of new user edits are either vandalism or atrociously spelled content or info that doesn't belong on the encyclopedia. These edits will most likely be reverted on site, and don't expect much of an explanation, let alone a policy.

Get a feel for the rules and what's suitable for the wiki before jumping in; everyone's new once, but it's best to get yourself to speed before you get swamped. There's actually a "how-to" book for using Wikipedia; while it seems like a "it's a web site, duh" waste of money, from what I've read it's a very utilitarian piece of literature.

What have you written about Wikipedia as a whole?

I've never really written much about Wikipedia, but I have outlined some minor work on Associated Content aimed at "demystifying" or explaining the inner workings of the website; you can read them here:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1318940/wikipedia_and_the_death_of_truth_the.html?cat=15

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1372314/what_you_didnt_know_about_wikipedia.html?cat=15