What’s the deal with Wikipedia?  We all use it.  We all know what it is.  But does anyone really know how confusing it is?!?! Over the last two weeks, I have been working to make Global Traveler a Wikipedia article.  When I started, I figured I would just need to do some research about the company, add in the things I knew and then put in the finishing touches. I was mistaken. First of all, Wikipedia has a ton of rules.  Rules that you never thought would matter but that Wikipedia thinks is super important.  There are rules about making lists and including people’s names.  One large rule is the “Point of View” rule.  You have to be unbiased and present your article from a completely neutral point of view.  That tends to be incredibly difficult when you are making a page about a company that you work for.  One of my favorite obstacles is that you cannot have a user name that is a company name.  Despite reading hundreds of pages about Wikipedia and articles, I never came across this rule.  I learned this the hard way when trying to find out something on a help chat.  The person in the chat was so serious about this rule that he would not help me until I filed a “name change request.”  Wikipedia is not for those people just playing around. Wikipedia has its own language.  Everyday tasks done on the word processor become difficult and bothersome.  Pressing ctrl and “B” no longer makes something bold.  The Wikipedia user has to use apostrophes (‘’’) to initiate the bold and then another set of three apostrophes to end it.  Similar programming techniques are used to get italics, bullets, lists and headings.  I would tell you how to underline, but I don’t even know if that is possible in Wikipedia world. So after you master the rules and the language, there is one more problem.  People and robots continually check the site to make sure that people are posting things fairly and legally.  I tried to upload the GT logo and immediately two people were leaving messages on my “MyTalk.”  If only they knew I had no idea what was going on and didn’t even know how to find their messages!  Right now I have my page up for feedback. We shall see how that works out. Working with Wikipedia has given me a new-found respect for the articles that people put up.  Every link is the result of hard work, and every picture is the result of an intense copyright law.  It has been fascinating learning the ins and outs of the Wikipedia world, and by the end of the process I hope to be so knowledgeable that I can call others out on their mistakes.  My interaction and work with Wikipedia has confirmed my opinion that teachers and professors should count it as a reliable source.  If they only knew how hard it was to get information published on it! — Mary Carpenter, intern