User:Sarah VanArsdal

Hi, I'm Sarah VanArsdal. When I first heard about Wikipedia nearly twenty years ago, it was from a high-school teacher who brushed it aside as 'unreliable' (with the implication, I perceived, of it being 'low brow') because "anyone can contribute." This was before social media, before YouTube, before most people knew what 'a google' was.

Fast forward to now, where we struggle constantly to find anything on the internet that isn't trying to sell you something, where 'monetizing' is the unabashed goal of...(I wanted to say everyone but I'll settle for) a depressing number of people. Objective, unbiased information increasingly seems to have become a thing of the past. Suddenly, I find the 'anyone can contribute,' consensus and source-focused Wikipedia a beacon of light in our dark and confusing (mis)information-age where the looming rabbit-hole of a 'quick' google search is ever-present.

I've made just one edit, so far, pertaining to an obscure mention of 'Pluto Water' in Kurt Vonnegut's first novel. Why? Because my curiosity got the best of me, and (despite reading from a used softcover copy of 'Player Piano' so old the entire introduction literally fell out of the book) I had to google what 'Pluto Water' was. Which landed me on the Wikipedia article. Which reminded me that I can skip google altogether and just search in Wikipedia directly! Which led me to Wikipedia's refreshing policies, lifting me up out of the depths-of-disillusionment I'd be wallowing in. Simple policies, like: Assume good faith, conflicts of interest, and (my current favorite) please do not bite the newcomers.

Which reminds me--please do not bite the newcomers.

I look forward to continuous occasional editing, and hope to participate in the Spoken Wikipedia project. I know it's rare(ish) to use my full name as my username. But it's a thing I'm trying out. Permanently.

Thank you Wikipedia community for the restored faith in...things! (I was going to say 'humanity' but it seemed a little too cliché). Sarah VanArsdal (talk) 07:36, 29 March 2021 (UTC)