WikiWhat?

Wikipedia is a free, collaborative Internet encyclopedia containing over 21 millon articles written by volunteers around the world. Most of Wikipedia's articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site, with about 100,000 regularly active contributors, one of which used to be Rafael Chaiken.


Chaiken, age 22 graduated from Brown Univeristy with a bachelor degree in History. Little did he know he would become a "Wikipedian," a term used to describe someone working for Wikipedia. Chaiken first started using the website and reading articles in in 2005-06 when the website was just emerging as a trend with only one million articles at the time. He would read through articles and edit any grammatical errors he noticed or added useful links to articles, but eventually just made an account so he could write articles himself. But, before an article is posted to the site, there are tests to make sure it is Wiki-ready. Feature articles have guidelines, and must be well written, contain appropriate (if any) photos, be widely referenced, and have each sentence be attributed to a source.



Now, an employee of Wikipedia, Chaiken is able to answer a question our class had (along with thousands of other people) which is why Wikipedia continues to let people go on and edit their articles if it could cause problems such as wrong information provided on a topic, or false/made up information altogether? Wikipedia thinks it is important to keep an open policy, it was originally built so people can discover new things and get involved. The website would not have grown to the size it is today if people were forced to make an account, get approval, etc. "It just wouldn't have had the same effect," Chaiken explained.

Rafael Chaiken speaking
to our journalism
class on March 8th. 

However, he also shared that founders of Wikipedia also founded another website called Citizendium, which is sort of an "expert wiki," which required users to have a bachelor's degree in order to make any changes or upload articles to the site. This website does not have an open policy, and is not accessible in the same way Wikipedia is, therefore it did not grow in the same way Wikipedia did, and only reached a couple thousand articles.

Rafael Chaiken didn't just get lucky in landing a job with Wikipedia, his previous work experiences gave him the knowledge he needed to be successful. After graduating from Brown, he landed a job with the SUNY Press as an editor and got valuable hands-on experience. Chaiken also had a job as a copy editor at the Public Herald where it was crucial he did his job very carefully, as he was the last to see a copy before it went to be printed. "It was good experience to work on deadline and editing in general," Chaiken says. "Although a job as a copy editor goes by unappreciated but it is important nonetheless." In today's world of digital media there is even more of a need, there are constantly new things to be published.

Rafael Chaiken has had many valuable work opportunities, and encourages all students interested in journalism to look into working in the publishing industry, as it is more stable than print media at this time. Although this is not one of the highest paying jobs, if you are someone like Rafael Chaiken, you do it because you love it.