Wikipedia edit-a-thon: #EditWikiLit

Yesterday I took part in a Wikipedia edit-a-thon as part of my literary research module as part of a class assessment. I chose to edit Wikipedia’s Martian Gothic: Unification page due to its emptiness and my growing interest in sci-fi. A year ago I stumbled across this game and could find almost nothing about on Wikipedia. I still got the game and played it but it would have been helpful if there was accurate information relating to it at the time.  I was apprehensive about editing an article and live tweeting about the process.

The page was a bit of a mess when I started. There was a confusing section on gameplay and nothing on the development of the game. There was nothing on the characters and there were only four reviews. The story synopsis stopped about three hours into the game.

The first section I tackled was the Setting. This was very straight forward as it simply needed editing and small bits of information to make it more relevant. The story is complicated so I only edited what was there as it would have required me to spend at least fifteen hours replaying the game to write an accurate description of the story. But the characters were memorable and there was plenty of information to work with. Hardcore Gaming and Kenzo Uji were very helpful as I was able to both read the critical in-depth review of the game and watch it being played.  There was no Development section so I created one. I found an interview with Stephen Marley, the writer of the game. He described how the game came about and expressed his disappointment with the final product. I also filled in more information in the Reception section from more reviews that were available. I then fixed the citations and added links to both Wikipedia articles and external pages.

First the original version, before I edited it.

Fig.1 Unedited version of article. 

Fig.2 Unedited version of article. The Gameplay section is missing key elements and the Setting section needed editing.

 

Fig.3 The Story section needed heavy editing and more need to be added to the Reception section. There was no Development section or a character section.

Fig.4 The References section need to be updated, as the did the External Links.

Second the edited version.

Key: GREEN=Unedited PURPLE=Edited and/or expanded upon RED=Added

Fig.5 The first section did not need editing. The category section was changed due to changes in the article.

Fig.6 The Information section was not edited as it had all it was complete. The Gameplay section was heavily edited in this image. 

Fig.7 In the Gamplay section I added a short piece on how the game is saved and the differences between the PC and PlayStation version. The first paragraph of the Setting section was edited. But the second paragraph had enough information. The Story section is also heavily edited.

Fig.8 The Story section edit is continued in this image. I added a Character section to the article as the story was too complex to add at this moment.  I added links to internal and external pages about the voice actors.

Fig.9 The added Character section is continued here. I added a Development section as I found an interview with the writer of the game.

Fig.10 I edited the Reception section and expanded on the amount of reviews. I did not change the Aggregate scores table. I added four references to its section. 

By the end of the class I felt I had contributed in a large way to this article. Before it was sparse, now it has a lot more relevant information for those who might be interested in Martian Gothic: Unification.