Wikipedia and historiography

[John Lee]

Wikipedia might be thought of as a field of action in history and and social studies education. The unique structure of Wikipedia supports learning history on many levels. At the top level, Wikipedia articles are a tertiary source, communicating information about events and people  (many in of these in the past) in an encyclopedic form. Underneath this top level are two other levels that help us to uncover issues of authorship and change in the story over time. Both of these ideas, authorship and change over time, are critical elements in disciplinary history. Wikipedia is an interesting space to explore the manner in which information comes to be and unpack the process behind this information. Central to the positioning of Wikipedia as a critical resource, are the history and discussion features in Wikipedia, as well as the identification of authorship identify (or lack thereof). The democratic nature of Wikipedia authorship is another critical issue for social studies and history educators. 

Here, we are conducting analyses of Wikipedia articles featured list for WP history articles. The list is available at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_articles#History This analysis is focused on the following questions. 

1. Account for the postings (number of revisions, time range from first to last, notation of periods of activity)
2. Describe progress or development in the article from the original post to the most recent update (use Jones' descriptions of B-17 and special effect articles as a guide)
3. Critique the quality of the article in its current state (use Rosenzweig's approach, writing quality and factual information)
4. Describe the discussion around the article
5. Background information on the most active contributors (use Boston Massacre work as an example)

[Madeline Coven]

Elizabeth Needham
1. There have been about 100 different postings, from the 9 of January 2007 to the 13 of September 2010. Many postings can be grouped around times that the article has endured the greatest scrutiny: its creation by "Yomangani", a period of talking and editing on 14 January 2007, "Yomangani"'s revision to the article's organization and addition of information, and reversion of vandalism on 28 December 2008.

2. Like the B-17 article, this one started with many postings by the author, but it has far fewer revisions than the B-17 article. The obscurity of the subject may explain this, and the shorter period it has been up. Unlike the B-17 article, this was revised mostly by its creator, and by others only a few times each. After a period of structural changes, there was mostly stylistic revision, and some information added after.

3. The article on Elizabeth Needham has matter-of-fact encyclopedic prose like many other Wikipedia articles. It did not favor Needham, describing her as ruthless to the prostitutes who worked under her, but the article, perhaps given its sources, gives no reason for this, and does not give context to prostitution in London in the eighteenth century. Needham is introduced mostly as the madam in Hogarth's Harlot's Progress engravings. This gives some context to her life, but otherwise the article focuses on her famous clients and her death from harsh treatment at the pillory.

4. The discussion around the article is mostly centered around the pock marks or patches from smallpox said to be on Needham's face. There is not a lot of substantive discussion, due again probably to the obscurity of the article's subject.

5. "Yomangani" is the most active contributor by far, but the tools for finding his/her background were either down or the links took me to places where I could not find anything.

[Cristina Fishbane]

The article “The History of Poland (1945 – 1989)” was created on March 29, 2005 by Piotrus and has since undergone over 875 revisions. The most recent of these revisions was completed on October 8th of this year by RobertG. It is interesting to note the substantial increase in revision activity on certain dates, particularly: October 19, 2005; July 11, 14, and 15, 2005; the months of February and March of 2007; April 7, 2007; and August 29 – 30, 2008 all saw a significant amount of revisions to the page.

According to Jones’ (2008) analysis of the B-17 and Special effects articles the initial Wikipedia posting is typically brief and merely a paragraph or two which eventually become the lead paragraphs of the article. However, the initial “History of Poland” posting was quite extensive. Posted by Piotrus, the initial "History of Poland" Wikipedia page included 5 sub-sections, breaking the history of Poland up by time period. Each section averaged approximately 10 paragraphs. The current revision essentially follows the same timeline organization, yet the subheadings are more descriptive and tend to provide more topical information about the period, such as populations shifts, de-Stalinization and national communism. It appears that the writing itself, while still of high quality, would be easier to comprehend for the general populace. The article in its current state appears to meet Rosenzweig’s (2006) criteria of high writing quality and factually correct information. “History of Poland” is certainly presented in academic, dictionary-style prose and comprehensively covers the period between 1945 and 1989. The current article also provides an extensive list of references as well as external links and a section for further reading.

The discussions around this article are exceedingly interesting and at times quite intense. The discussions are illustrative of the vested interest of several editors in this particular article. Contributors can be seen questioning not only the word-choices of others, but also factual information, sources and organizational structure of the article. Unsurprisingly, the discussions are mostly between those who are also the key contributors to the article. The main contributor, with 245 edits, is Piotrus with the second place editor trailing behind with a comparatively small 64 edits. According to Piotrus’ page he is one of the top 50 Wikipedians, and in January of 2005 was elected to the position of Wikipedia administrator. According to his page Piotrus, a Pole, has obtained his Masters in Economics and Sociology and is a PhD candidate in Sociology.

[Michael Maurer]

Manchester Mummy
1.) There are 227 revisions and postings from June 14, 2008, to September 24, 2010. Malleus Fatuorom is biggest contributor. Many of the postings take place throughout 2009, not long after the original post in 2008.

2.) The original post was by Malleus Fatuorom. Most of the revisions are added and edited by this author, who also is the creator. Unlike the B-17 article, Malleus Fatuorom edited and revised the article, as if making it his own. Many of the revisions are critiqued and changed by Fatuorom. Many of the changes are minor, concerning word usage, but some have to do with medical information, especially concerning embalming.

3.) As of now, the article is written in somewhat of a piece-meal fashion. The sections do not flow together well, and since most of the facts are controversial, it is hard to tell which ones are true, and which ones are not. Much of the article reads more like a folk tale, rather than an historical piece of literature. It is hard to discern between what is fact and what is not because so much of the information contradicts itself either through what was written in her will, and what was said to have occurred.

4.) Much of the discussion centers on the embalming process mentioned in the article. Some users either want more information on the unknown process used to embalm the body, or deny its usage and want more facts. Fatuotrom stresses that he obtained the information from credible sources, and is only writing facts.
Much of Fatuorom’s referencing comes from the will of Dobson, which he considers viable, while other users disagree and suspect that the primary source is incorrect. Fatuorom stresses that he cites Dobson’s paper, and swears by its accuracy.

5.) The most active contributor is Malleus Fatuorom. He abides by the GA/FA review process, and does his best to make his articles accurate and factual. He is major contributor to Wikipedia, and is an editor of many articles. Also, he took an administrator position, but later resigned. His involvement with the Manchester Mummy article is due to his affection for the self-described, “quirky.”

[Palmer Bowman]

I chose to analyze the Wikipedia entry on the Red Barn Murders, and found the entry very informative as I had never heard of the Red Barn Murders prior to this assignment. On November 13th, 2006, “Yomangani” created “The Red Barn Murders” article. This study includes all edits to the article up to October 10, 2010. During that time there were 430 revisions made by 217 unique editors. Of that group, 168 editors revised the article only once, 32 made 2 edits apiece, 12 made 3 edits, 5 made 4 edits, 11 made between 5 and 9 edits, “Edmund Patrick” made 20 edits, and “Yomangani” made 58 edits. The article accepted FAC on August 9th, 2007.

“Yomangani’s” original version of the article consisted of a lead paragraph and three other body paragraphs which went into further detail about the murder, trial, and popular interest of the Red Barn Murders. The first to edit the article was “Ser Amantio di Nicolao”, who edited the article roughly five hours after its creation. “Ser Amantio di Nicolao” merely made a few grammatical changes and added in some particulars to the lead paragraph (underlined sections highlight editions to article):

The '''Red Barn Murder''' involved the killing of a young Suffolk woman, Maria Marten, by her lover, William Corder, the son of the local squire. The two had arranged to meet at the Red Barn, a local landmark, before eloping to Ipswich in order to be married. Maria was never heard from again. Although Corder sent her family letters claiming she was in good health, her body was later discovered buried in the barn after her stepmother claimed to have dreamt about the murder. Corder fled, but was tracked down, found guilty of murder, and hanged in Bury St. Edmunds in 1828. The story dominated the media, provoking numerous articles in the newspapers, songs and plays.

The structure of the article still remains very similar to its structure when “Yomangani initially created it; however, there have been various sections and pictures which have been added. On February 15th, 2007, “Yomangani” returned to add another section providing information on “The Capture and Trial” of William Corder. The content of this section remains largely the same in the most current edition, but it has been divided into two separate sections; “The Capture” and “The Trial.” “Yomangani” would also expand upon the execution of William Corder, adding a section titled “Execution and Dissection” on February 16th, 2007. On July 4th, 2007, “Edmund Patrick” would make a few minor grammatical revisions on the “Execution and Dissection” section of the article and made the following revisions to the “Rumours” section of the article:

Further rumours circulated about the death of Corder and Marten's child. Both claimed that they had taken their dead child to be buried in Sudbury, Suffolk, but no records of this could be discovered and no trace of the burial site of the child was ever found, and in his written confession Corder admitted that on the day of the murder he and Marten had argued over the possibility of the burial site being discovered.

Rosenweig would say that this article on the Red Barn Murder contains sufficient factual information. One of Rosenweig’s basic tenets when discussing Wikipedia and its potential in education is centered around the fact that it is better for its active participants than for its readers. The Red Barn Murder article is a prime example of this as it really appears to be an article which the editors take great pride in, and aim to relay the most accurate information to the readers. This article has evolved to contain a plethora of information, and it is evident that the facts have been checked on multiple occasions to assure accuracy. While this article is informative, it lacks the command of scholarly literature, persuasive analysis, and a clear and engaging prose. It is effective in communicating the information; however, the article provides little to leave its readers anxious to inquire further about the matter.

The discussion around the topic includes a variety of subjects. There is discussion over Corder’s burial, and “Edmund Patrick” states that Corder’s skeleton was cremated in 2004. The discussion also calls to the editors attention that they forgot to mention certain pieces of information, and the discussion board serves as an alert for information to be added. For instance, on November 23rd, 2007, it is noted that the place of the murder is not mentioned in the article.

“Edmund Patrick” is a 58 year-old beekeeper who is interested in historical research and art history. This editor has had his/her work published in newspapers and magazines, joined Wikipedia roughly 3 1/2 years ago, and believes Wikipedia to be a reliable source. “Edmund Patrick” is a primary contributor to one article and believes that the world would be a safer, saner, happier place without religion. I was not as successful finding information on “Yomangani”, who contributed the most to the article.

[Lauren Ellott]

King Arthur
1. I believe that the article was created on November 6, 2002 by Llywrch. This editor is sill active on wikipedia, although they do mention that they had to take care of their daughter and may be participating to a lesser degree. There seemed to be about 7,500 edits in that time period, the most recent by user Avoided.

2. The original article was more complete than I expected. It had pictures, a main paragraph, and it traced the creation of the Arthurian legend from the medieval time period and the Romance time period. It does also discuss more about the modern representation of Arthur in movies, plays, and musicals. The most recent version of the article follows the same trend, but instead adds more details and pictures. There is more analysis about historical books and sources in the the recent article.

3.The article is well done. There are many different aspects of it, that trace the creation of the Arthurian legend. As pointed out by the B-17 article, the writing is more straightforward, rather then Pulitzer prize winning writing. However, it does its job of conveying the message for the reader. The creation of the Arthurian myth is complex to begin with, but the article does a fairly good job of tracing its origins and discussing the possibility of Arthur being an actual person and who the historical Arthur may have been (if he was a real person).

4.As far as I can tell, the King Arthur page was created November 6, 2002, with the newest update being today, October 15, 2010. "Ilyrch" and "Frecklefoot" were two of the earliest contributors in the discussions. Many of these discussions were about facts and what was worth being included in the article. After the article had reached the featured list, many of the discussions were about the quality of the writing and what should be included/discarded in the article. The general trend seems to be to maintain the integrity of the article. Some comments were harsh, saying that something was removed because the writing was just bad. There is also a discussion about what should be added to the article, including a chart about comparing King Arthur to the Biblical King David.

5. The earlier contributers were Llyrch, who did many of the earlier edits. They are still an active contributer and most their additions to the article were about content of the article, rather than writing style. They were adding more to the article, rather than deleting things. The most recent contributer, "Avoided" is actually a German contributer, which is interesting, since German language articles on wikipedia are second to English articles. Many of the more recent edits, including the one by Avoided, were deleting recent additions. I think that this is because most contributers want to maintain the status of the article.

[Taylor Blanton]

Swedish Immigration to the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_emigration_to_the_United_States


I chose the Wikipedia entry on “Swedish immigration to the United States”. It appears that the first posting was on July 6, 2005 by a user known as “Fred J”. Since that time, there have been around 700 postings on this entry, including 500 within the past 3 years. From January to September of 2007, almost 300 posts can be attributed to a contributer known as “Bishonen”. These edits include a variety of different posts, including adding links and sources, as well as adding specificity to the entry.

The original article was simply two sentences that introduced when and why immigration from Sweden to the United States began. It did not include any pictures, references, or complex ideas. It has been significantly enhanced with a great deal of information added over time. It appears that the additions have come piece by piece over approximately a 2 year period (2006 to 2008) where most of the additions have been made. It seems to progress relatively seamlessly from subtopic to subtopic.

The discussion begins with a seeming debate over extreme bias in the point of view of the article and the way in which it is written. While most of the issues there have been resolved, there is still some disagreement over the perspective of the writing. One of the most recent discussions though is grammar, including noun-verb agreement.

Overall, the quality of the writing seems to be adequate with no major grammatical errors that I see. While I am not an expert on Swedish immigration, I do not notice any major historical errors. I looked most intently in the references made to the United States at that time, as that is the area I know the most about, and everything seemed correct.

The most active user, Bishonen, is a Wikipedia administrator, and also maintains several other pages, including the “Great Fire of London”, and “Harriet Bosse”.

[Shawn Gumbleton]

Unification of Germany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Germany)

Number of edits: Several thousand, if not more. Constantly being edited since Oct. 2004, though oddly revisions did not begin until over a year later, in Dec. 2005. The latest revisions reflect the page’s status as a mature article, and either incorporate smaller historical events into the larger narrative or smooth out such inclusions into a more readable whole.
Quality: Article has an actual introduction that discusses the background of Germany’s unification, and while not engaging, is fluently written. Content is impressive. The article discusses the beginnings of German nationalism in the late eighteenth century, the Kulturkampf, the series of wars, and even includes a small historiographical section (which could stand some expansion). There is an excellent bibliography at the end of the entry.
Discussion in the page’s earlier days (through 2006) centered on whether Germany’s unification should serve as an introduction to a larger entry on the German Empire, or if the entry on unification should be separate. Other topics of discussion pertain to the proper translation of German words, which major German historical topics should be included (such as the Zollverein)
Auntieruth55 is the page’s informal go-to and supervisor, and is currently active on Wikipedia’s article on classroom bullying, a hot topic. Other pages he/she has contributed to include pages on Bavarian history and European military history. The current page was heavily retrofitted by Auntieruth55, in order to be a better classroom resource for his/her students.
Jmabel was earlier a very influential contributor to the page, but he/she has since semi-retired from the Wikipedia community due to frustration with endless arguing over page edits. Jmabel, during his/her most active time, contributed to a number of different entries with seemingly little linking them. Comparing Jmabel and Auntieruth55’s compared historical interests as gleaned from reading their “pet” pages, one concludes that Auntieruth55 likely has a greater depth of knowledge on the subject.

[Christopher Thomas Dague]

For this assignment I chose to analyze the article dealing with the “unification of Germany.” The unification of Germany in 1871 has been described as one of the most important political and economic events of the late-modern era in European history.

1. Account for the postings (i.e. number of revisions, time range from first to last, etc.).
This article, as should be expected, has had thousands of revisions over the course of the last six years with the first post being recorded on October 15, 2004. Although there have been well over a thousand revisions to the article, the majority of those revisions must be attributed to a person with the screen name of “Auntieruth55” who has made 838 revisions. The next person closest to “Auntieruth55” only has 83 posts. This article has been up since 2004 and the most recent post a little over a week ago on October 8, 2010.

2. Describe the progress or development from the original post to the most recent update.
I went back and searched the initial post made in October 2004 and I was absolutely floored by the major differences between what was and what now exists. In the original post, the article provided a simple description of what the term “unification of Germany” actually means. The original post showed the dichotomy of the term.

The unification of Germany can refer to:
- the 1871 formation of the German Empire under Otto von Bismarck
or
- the 1990 re-unification of Germany at the end of the Cold War

The latest version of the article is much more substantial and detailed. It is partitioned into the following categories:
- Summation
- German-speaking Central Europe in the 19th century
- Economic collaboration: the customs union
- Vormäz and 19th-century liberalism
- First efforts at unification
- Founding a unified state
- War with France
- Political and administrative unification
- Beyond the political mechanism: forming a nation
- References
- External links

The latest version of the article also does something else that the first version does not: it classifies the difference in terms with regard to the unification movement in 1871 versus the “re-unification” movement of 1990.

3. Critique the quality of the article (use Rosenzweig’s approach (i.e. writing quality and factual information).
One of the aspects of Wikipedia on which Rosenzweig focuses his attention is whether it actually has created a valid historical resource (125). As a part of his analysis, he uses a model whereby he compares various entries from among Wikipedia, Encarta, and the American National Biography Online. If nothing else, Rosenzweig recognizes the shortcomings in all three of the resources with presumed facts that are actually false as well as various misrepresentations.

Although Rosenzweig’s article provides some relative credibility to Wikipedia as a source for information, the one point that is elucidated in the article is the overwhelming “choppy quality that results from the stringing together of sentences or paragraphs written by different people,” (132). Essentially, he feels that the quality of writing that is presented in sources such as the American National Biography Online is certainly superior; especially when an author like James McPherson is par t of a publication.

Like Rosenzweig suggests, the writing in the article concerning “German unification” demonstrates a lack of prose. Moreover, it fails to mention relatively important components of the origins of the unification movement that date back to the 18th century. It could be argued that the unification movement actually commenced in the 18th century under the dominant rule of the Hohenzollern family. Moreover, the article fails to mention the geo-political creation of Napoleon that is referred to as the Confederation of the Rhine. In 1806, Napoleon actually dismantled the Holy Roman Empire as a polity. In lieu of the archaic polity, he established the Confederation of the Rhine which was comprised of sixteen German states – excluding Prussia and Austria.

The article also does a less than average job of explaining the importance of the Zollverein, or German customs union of the early to mid-19th century. It merely explains that it reduce “protectionist” economic barriers among the German states. It does little to explain the political aspects of the union and how it was used as a mechanism for larger states to dominate the economic landscape. The only other glaring shortcoming of the piece is the underrepresentation of the Revolutions of 1848 and the dueling forces of liberalism and conservativism as operating catalysts toward unification.

Thus, like Rosenzweig would suggest, there is overrepresentation on some topics while others are barely covered. However, I found no glaring factual errors based on my level of expertise on 19th-century Germany.

4. Describe the discussion around the article.
The article on German unification is considered a feature article, meaning that it is considered one of the best in the Wikipedia community. The discussion over the article primarily concerns itself with the underrepresentation of certain topics. I found it intriguing that one of the items that I felt was poorly explained (the Zollverein) was not even included in the article back on 2007 – three years after the article was originally posted. Even today, as was previously mentioned, the topic of the Zollverein is poorly covered. The other topic that was in question was the merging of the three major wars fought by the Prussians between 1864 and 1871 (1864 with Denmark. 1866 with Austria, and 1870 with France).

5. Background information on the most active contributors.
As was mentioned earlier, the one major contributor to the article is a person with the screen name of “Auntieruth55.” In looking at Auntieruth55’s background, it can be found that he/she has been a major contributor to multiple articles, including: the war of Bavarian Succession, the Cologne War, Herman Detzner, etc. Moreover, he/she has made over 17,000 contributions and seems to focus his/her attention primarily on central European history. His/her profile states that he/she is ABD (all but dissertation) in his/her studies.

[Clayton Traver]

Parthian Empire

1. 433 Revisions, March 26th, 2006-October 12th, 2010, No activity in 2007, lots of activity in 2010 but almost all of the revisions were minor. Many updates in 2008 and 2009 to make the article more complex.

2. Almost all of the posts were created by PericlesofAthens, a person with obvious interest in the subject. Most of the updates not by him were by the same few people with the exception of later, minor updates in 2010 which were edited by a large group of people who made one or two additions to the article. Interestingly, some non-primary English speakers also edited the article, indicating cross-cultural interests. Like the B-17 article, however, almost all of the large revisions were by the initial article. No other authors adopted the article as their own.

3. This article is both old and on an expansive topic. As a result, the article is extremely long and diverse in information. It is categorically divided efficiently into historical, social, and cultural sections subdivided nicely for the reader’s ease. The introduction paragraph is a bit lengthy for first glance use, but a reader should find all the information they need quite easily. The information is accurate and basic; the writers did not include personal opinion in the writing. Finally, the references are all from scholarly, printed sources rather than random webpages claiming authenticity. This aids the article’s reliability and use for finding further information on each of the subjects. This article was also featured on the front page of Wikipedia!

4. The discussion section is very high quality. Most of the posters back up their opinions and changes with quotes from scholarly books, and the debates center around the facts from these books. Since the Parthian Empire is an old subject, most of the basic facts are easily identifiable. As a result, most disagreement centers on phrasing, terminology, and in what section to put information. The comment at the top of the page is especially inflammatory, cursing a previous poster’s word choice.

5. The major contributor and original author of the page, Pericles of Athens, describes himself as being mostly interested in the history of China, but he has created and edited many articles involving ancient civilizations from all over the world including Greece, Rome, and Persia. He has won many awards from Wikipedia such as the Golden Wiki Award and the Featured Article Medal. This means that this article on the Parthian Empire should have a large amount of merit compared to other articles.

[Sarah Kate Bartel]

History of Miami

1. I believe there are 1,166 revisions that have been made to the article entitled “History of Miami” since its original construction on January 1st, 2006 by user Jaranda. Its last edit was on October 16, 2010 by 190.135.202.67. Periods of higher activity include January, 2006, February 2006, May 2006, June 2007, January 2008, and June 2008. The highest period of activity was by far its first month of creation with 201 revisions.

2. As Jones emphasized in his article, most wikipedia articles tend to grow in size or bytes over time. This one is no exception. Starting out as on 11,285 bytes, it has grown to a current 42,312 bytes. In Jones’ analysis of B-17, Jones indicates that the original version of the article was only two paragraphs long. The History of Miami’s original version was quite long for an original. It was 23 paragraphs long and included two photos (pretty impressive, in my opinion.) The original version even had headings (American Settlement, Early Growth, and Immigrant Influx). In the first few months of the article’s creation, users Jaranda, Bastique, and AndyZ made the most amount of edits. Just within the first month, the article had been altered to only having two headings (Early settlement and 20th century) with the first having 3 subsections and the latter having six subsections. On June 3, 2008, user Comayagua99 made a macrostructural change by adding a content section entitled “The 21st Century” among other changes. Since then, the three main content areas remain the same with the subsections changing very little structurally.

3. The quality of this article in its current state is right on par with the characteristics needed to deserve featured article status. It is evident as to why it received this status; it is complete and well-rounded, it is accurate with accurate citations, and is written well and in an unbiased manner. It does sound very encyclopedic. Rosenzweig describe how the Wikipedia way works; this article has no goals further than an encyclopedia, it avoids bias, it doesn’t infringe copyrights, and there is great respect for contributors. It is truly a collaborative effort.

4. The discussion around this article was interesting to read through. As Rosenzweig points out about many articles, this article’s discussion is mainly about whether or not it is adhering to NPOV policy and debating whether it deserves featured article status. There were several instances in where copyrights came into question.

5. This article’s main two contributors are Jaranda with 96 revisions and AndyZ with 95 revisions. The next highest is Donald Albury with only 35. There are only 8 users with over 10 revisions. Jaranda (the article’s creator) is currently semi-active. His name is Jorge Aranda. He is 22 years old and is from Miami Beach. He is currently a history major at Florida International University. On Wikipedia, his main focus articles are sports related. An interesting little fact about Jorge is that he’s dyslexic. AndyZ is not active, so I will default to give background information on Donald Albury. There isn’t much information about him personally, but he does say his participation on Wikipedia is erratic. Although erratic, he has still managed to start 197 articles and edit 134 articles.

[Andrea M. Wright]

Operation Passage to Freedom
The original post was on June 30, 2007 with the latest being October 6, 2010. There are about 500 revisions to this article. The first revision was posted by Wikited with the last by Brokensphere. Most of the posts occur in 2007.
The evolution of the article from the first post to the last was extraordinary. The original post consisted of one sentence. Basically saying what it was and when it occurred. The last post provides an abundance of information including the reason behind the passage, factors influencing it, the aftermath, as well as political connotations connected to it. While Jones was correct in that initial post was brief and it expanded over time, the initial author was not the primary revisionist. Yellowmonkey made the most revisions to this article.
The article in its current state gives the reader the impression that a great deal of research was conducted on the subject matter. The article gives a chronological timeline of the events surrounding the event, from the past as well as information from the future. Rosenzweig states in his article that often times in Wiki postings there is overrepresentation on some information and not enough on others. This is true in the latest postings. Much detailed is given about the transportation to South Vietnam from North Vietnam, but little information is given on the reason for the transport.
The discussion around this article is the United States Navy transportation in 1954–55 of 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) to South Vietnam (the State of Vietnam). The article further explains the benefits of the transport as well as the consequences involved, including the Catholic Church.
Yellowmonkey was the most active contributor. His/her page consisted of a monkey dressed in a business suit, followed by “The YellowMonkey strongly condemns paid editing for businessmen as inherently un-NPOVable. Functionaries should not be able to do it.”

[Candice Gilliland Brewer]

Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916

1. Overall there have been more than 1000 posts and revisions to this particular entry. The Bulk of the revisions occur after the initial creation of the article in August, 2005. Revisions and minor edits appear to be fairly consistent after the first three months of the post with the most recent being in September of 2010. There does not seem to be any particular reason for high volumes of activity aside from additions of subheadings including "cultural impact" in August, 2007 and minor edits throughout the development of this article.

2. Just as in Jones's description of the evolution of the B-17 wikipedia article, this article has similar developments. The word choices and article headings become more descriptive and the use of multifaceted data and analysis. There have also been several reference clarifications and additions especially in the attacks and victims section. Like the B-17 article the Shark Attacks article has remained relatively consistent with regard to content, however, unlike the B-17 article, the main form of conveying information has also remained consistent with the use of prose. The majority of the edits have been minor with the exception of the addition of a few headings, but overall, the shape and tone of the article has persisted.

3. The quality of this article is excellent considering the amount of edits and contributors. The writing has evolved to be an academic prose with a matter-of-fact style. Facts are appropriately used throughout the article as well as many appropriate references and visualizations. The article lends itself to active readers who want to learn more about multiple cultural and social facets of the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916.

4. The discussion around this article varies greatly. Discussion is sustained around several topics ranging from number of deaths, specific information about how the deaths occurred, the spread of the terror through the media, and the cultural and scientific impacts of the shark attacks. There is not a lot of discussion as the main purpose of the article seems to recount the events rather than comment on the implications. The "Cultural Impact" section does, however, contain some substantive conversation.

5. The earliest contributor to this article is Schmendrick. This user appears to be the creator of the article, though that information is not explicitly clear. The user profile admits he/she is from Dallas, Texas and lovesThe Dukes of Hazzard. This person contributed work in 2005, 2006, and 2007.
Another prominent contributor is Dmoon1. This user appears to be fairly credible as an editor and has earned several "badges" from wikipedia for significantly contributing to articles and editing. There are however other contributions that seem to be questionable, such as Star Wars rewrites. This person contributed work starting in 2006, throughout 2007, and in 2008.