Waderex

Hi There! I'm new to Wikipedia, and welcome all recommendations, criticisms, and insights as I navigate in the dark.
Like useful templates on how to add new user notices to an article!

My name is Wade and I'm a web developer located in Los Angeles, California (US). I've been a long time user of the content generated by the Wikipedia community but have just recently created an account and begun to explore the vast Wikipedia ecosystem and open my eyes to the high level of skill and knowledge required to become a proficient contributor.

As a web developer, I consult many individuals who have Wikipedia entries, want Wikipedia entries, or are solicited by Wikipedia article writers. While I have no plans to be a consistent contributor, my initial contributions to Wiki articles revealed a unique relationship between Wikipedia's user-collaborated environment and the individuals and businesses who want to include their works and impact in the Internet's encyclopedia.

Initial Experience as a Wikipedia Contributor

Even though I am a web developer and have been using Wikipedia since it's beginnings, the learning curve is truly daunting. Behind the (hopefully) neutral articles exists a community with a strong culture, including a complex informal language of references, tags, and psuedocode. Fortunately, this is all documented in convenient Wiki articles, including ones about being nice to newcomers who are exploring a new world.

The guidelines to determine validity of content are straightforward on the surface, but they can quickly become ambiguous, swayed by bias, or even just contradictory. As it turns out, any client of mine (or their employees) who decided to add or edit an article about their business or biography have already violated the conflict of interest guideline.

Most of these types of entries are done in good faith with the intention of providing useful information to anyone who might search them, despite not complying to many guidelines. However, these guidelines are easily exploited, which I've learned firsthand from my initial contributions.

Article Contribution Interests

There are countless artist, professional, business, and group entries in Wikipedia, most created and edited by a conflict of interest with no knowledge of the guidelines and policies that are required for a valid page. One major policy is the Notability Guideline, which can become minutely subjective based on the scope and industry of the article. These guidelines are primarily useful tools for contributors for discussions, revisions, and changes, but can quickly become exploitable when the subject and content creator's are not aware of these policies.

Solicitors are able to extort services out of unsuspecting people by providing 'protection' or 'recovery', competitors can nominate pages for removal for lack of notability, and content can be negatively manipulated – all under anonymity (mostly) and under the guise of guidelines.

These types of articles are most appealing to me because of their significance to the subjects but potential sensitivity to maliciousness. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to provide insightful contributions to help deserving entries maintain their place online.