My first Wikipedia entry

On: October 4, 2010
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About Xander Stolwijk
Information, electronics, media, marketing, publishing, new media. Xander Stolwijk is a project manager engaged in the design and development of communication systems in new media. During his studies in media and marketing, he translated off- and online publishing products into cross media applications, such as Mijn Volkskrant, a personalised online news service that combines offline media (newspaper) and a virtual news platform. His interest in a theoretical approach led Xander to research new media across a broader spectrum, in which he focused on subject material such as wiki's, social media, mobile media and surveillance. His work experience includes the Mobile Tagging project at the MediaLab Amsterdam, commissioned by Sparked and the employment agency Randstad. This project was organised around the development of an offline QR-campaign linked to the Internet, creating a direct link between physical and virtual space. In this campaign the audience uses their Smartphones to interact with physical space. Xander Stolwijk studied Information and Electronics followed by a course on Media, Marketing and Publishing at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of Applied Sciences. He then completed a pre-Master in New Media at the University of Amsterdam. Currently he is a Master of Media at the University of Amsterdam

Website
http://xanderstolwijk.wordpress.com    

Last friday 1st of October I published my very first Wikipedia entry ‘Howard Menger’ on the Dutch Wikipedia. The choosen topic actualy was based on a couple of simple Wikipedia-facts: First, when you want your Wiki-entry to have some reasonable lifespan you should go for a topic that’s missing in an already existing root entry. In my case, I found the name ‘Howard Menger’ on the dutch Wikipedia entry ‘Unidentified flying object’ written in red characters which means that there is no such entry present in the Dutch Wikipedia yet. Second, you improve your chances of being a Wikipedia-contributor if you act on this first fact by searching for some information about the topic you want to write about. Information in a encyclopedia need to be referenced therefore you need the references first. There was already an English Wikipedia entry on ‘Howard Menger’ so this was for me a good starting point, not only for the information about Howard but also for the layout of the text. The first step for me was to translate from English to Dutch. So essentialy my first Wikipedia entry was actually a translation job. I wondered wether what I was doing had some Wikipedia relevance. To find out I posted the entry relative early to see whether Wikipedia bots or administrators would disagree with me. After the visit of Erwin85Tbot the entry it seems to be alright. I have the feeling that the more important Wikipedia-entries, those that are visited more often, are a priority for the Wikipedia administrators. Therefore I believe that the relevance of your posted information is of influence on the lifespan of your entry. Today, my entry was visited by another bot RedBot, a bot that checks the grammar of the text. Also, Philip Man found a typo on my entry and set it right, Thanks man!

Despite all the warnings that Wikipedia entries are at risk of elemination I found it rather easy to keep my entry alive till now.

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