Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/Cornell University/Online Communities (Fall 2013)/Marissa Cooper

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Contribution

When deciding to work on the Wikipedia page of Marissa Cooper, a fictional character of the drama series The O.C., our group devised several initial ways we felt would help improve this page. Improving the grammar throughout, correcting tenses, organizing the character development section of the article – and creating several subcategories within this section (i.e. relationships), ensuring the plot for each season is accurate, rewording and editing the character’s exit section, adding a section regarding the controversy concerning the character’s exit from the show, and lastly reorganizing the content’s order lead to improvement from a C to B–Class article. In order to include, edit, and add this information, we researched news articles recently published in honor of the show’s 10 year anniversary, we read a published book The O.C.: A Critical Understanding by Laurie Bindig, and also researched by re-watching specific influential and important scenes of the show. Due to the extensive reorganization and additions to Marissa Cooper’s Wikipedia page, we all truly believe this article has been successfully upgraded to B-Class equivalent status. By looking at B-Class Wikipedia pages of other TV Show’s main characters to gain insight and inspiration to how proper TV Character B-Class articles are formatted, we improved Marissa Cooper’s page to be comparable to such pages aligning it with other high-level profiles.

Evolution of Article

As avid fans of both Marissa and the television series, we felt the existing Wikipedia article was very impersonal and disorganized. All three members of our group thought the article did not vividly portray Marissa Cooper’s character. To begin editing, we devised ways that emphasized Marissa Cooper’s important presence in the series. After, doing so we reread Marissa’s Wikipedia page and noted that key aspects of Marissa’s character were missing from the article. However, our original proposed revision is severely different from the revisions actually made. After publishing our proposal to the talk page, Wikipedia users critically responded some initial edits. One user in particular, Flyer 22, provided useful and helpful feedback. One of the most important things brought to our attention is the Wikipedia guideline pages for writing about a TV Character [Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Television]. Studying this page led us to discover additional resources to employ in order to ensure that we were properly editing Marissa’s character page. After this information was introduced to us, we made further edits to both the article and our proposal, allowing us to plan our group project accordingly.

Interactions and Community Experience

We feel as though we have definitely been active members of the community editing Marissa Cooper’s page. From the moment we introduced ourselves on the Marissa Cooper talk page, we received immediate response from several other editors. Taking those responses into consideration, we moved forward with our edits. As our editing efforts continued, we received constant feedback and tips for using Wiki language and learned how to “wikify” ourselves. Several members of the community were especially helpful by providing us with links and tools that would help us better our knowledge on more of the technical aspects of Wikipedia. Interactions such as these were very beneficial to us. However, we also faced several encounters with fellow Wikipedia editors that were not as productive, nor positive, as we had hoped for. Some members criticized our work and led us to believe that everything we had done would be deleted once we completed our project. Moments like this were discouraging for us as we were trying to be active and productive members of the community. In other words, we found some criticism to be constructive and some not to be. Overall, we definitely felt as though we were part of a community. We were constantly receiving feedback and interacting with other users interested in editing the same page as us. We enjoyed being active members of the Wikipedia community and being able to apply some of the techniques and concepts that other users shared with us.

Group Breakdown

In general, we delegated tasks to group members concerning content, communication, and technical aspects. Sammie focused on improving the content of the page, Cristelle handled communicating with other Wikipedia editors, and Jill took the reins on the technical aspects. More specifically we each edited and researched certain topics on the Marissa Cooper page. Sammie developed the “Reception” section, breaking it down into how viewers perceived Marissa’s behavior and lifestyle. In addition, Sammie wrote subcategories under the “Relationships” section to elaborate on a few more of the important relationships to Marissa’s character. In these sections, Sammie worked on learning wiki language, in particular how to link to external sources and other characters. Jill contributed to the Wikipedia article by learning and teaching the other group members how to tag external and internal Wikipedia pages within the article, how to make basic edits, how to cite sources, and various ways to tag other users for additional help and comments during the editing process. Jill expanded the lead of the article, helped add the “Character and creation” section and helped to reorganize the formatting and order of information within. Additionally, Jill researched and created new sections pertaining to Marissa’s significant relationships - including her mother and past boyfriend, Ryan. Furthermore, Jill helped set up the Wikipedia page with new subcategories to further develop Marissa’s page through characterization subcategories. Lastly, Jill responded to the Wikipedia community’s requests and constructive criticisms by implementing any suggestions or edits other users had - providing us all with a great sense of the Wikipedia community. Cristelle did extensive research on B-Class Wikipedia character articles and developed ideas on how to improve the format and content of the overall article. Cristelle thought of new categories that would serve as an improvement to Marissa’s Wikipedia page such as the relationships category as well as the reception category. Cristelle helped add the Concept and Creation category, under which she created the subcategory casting; which provides the reader with insight as to who the producers had originally envisioned to play the role of Marissa. Cristelle also helped develop the characterization category so that it would incorporate a vivid picture of Marissa’s character. Cristelle sought to improve all the errors that Wikipedia users had critiqued on the talk page. We all contributed to editing grammar and writing style throughout the page as well, especially in the lead.