What am I doing here?

Even as I was sitting at an academic conference exhibit hall booth, answering countless questions from experts about how Wikipedia really works, feeling close to an expert myself—there was something about the Wikipedia community that I would never quite feel a part of. I respected the deep altruism that ran through the veins of every Wikipedia volunteer I encountered who curated the site’s content. I too felt called to spend free time helping ensure the site’s information was reliable. I was impressed by how prolific the big players were and I admired that respect within the Wikipedia editing community was earned through diligent, devoted, and (most importantly) verifiable work. I too felt that honest work should be applauded. The merit-based culture found on the backend of Wikipedia seemed to me a rare thing online. As our fictionalized online personas increasingly dominate our real social circles and even our job prospects, who has the time to ensure the world has access to “the sum of all human knowledge”? But here was a group who did. And I helped invite more folks in to do exactly that. So why couldn’t I call myself a “Wikipedian”? Why was I so anxious to participate in a world I knew well? And why now was I turning back to this community even after being laid off from the organization that had introduced me to it?

It was sixth months ago that I lost my job. I miss having a team. I miss having reliable income. But sometimes, even stronger, I miss having a purpose. My work at Wiki Education gave me that sense of purpose. I built my professional confidence there—straight out of college, having only experienced contract and hourly jobs. A small, scrappy nonprofit, Wiki Education needed a communications person who could learn quickly, pivot gracefully, and wear a lot of hats. I got to be that person. When one of my colleagues emailed clients that she would “check with our communications team about that,” we’d giggle that the team was entirely lil ole me. Coworkers answered all of my (sometimes silly) questions with generous enthusiasm. I got to learn daily from our directors, who all cared genuinely about my growth. And everyone around me seemed to just love their job. We were doing something that mattered: helping students and experts add millions of words to Wikipedia each year in subject areas that were not only underrepresented, but essential.

It’s safe to say that Wiki Education is the only nonprofit in the U.S. that is demystifying how Wikipedia works. Sure, everyone knows how to search for information there. But fewer people know how to consume that information with a critical lens (how do you know if you can trust what you read?). Fewer folks know how to correct a typo if they see one (or know that that authority is entirely theirs to act upon). And much fewer know how to add substantial information in a way that sticks. Even those who understand the basic mechanics are often too afraid to try. They don’t want to be caught not knowing the rules. Once I myself began dipping my toes into the Wikipedia world, slowly learning the community-driven guidelines and etiquette so I could do my job, I realized just how much I didn’t understand. Fighting that perfectionist voice in my head that told me, you should know this already, I humbled myself to seek answers to my questions.

Wikipedia’s 10,000 “help” pages are supposed to prepare beginners to become contributors. With this knowledge, these beginners also become members of the free knowledge movement. It’s a beautiful, enduring vision. Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge, co-founder Jimmy Wales proposed in the site’s early years. It’s an ambitious mission, to be sure, and those devoted to it admit that they need all the help it can get. So, why is it so difficult to join? (I was not alone in wondering.) The “orientation” pages, so filled with a legalese-like thoroughness, are incomprehensible or else invisible to most. I found myself reading them the way an archaeologist might go over the same square foot of dirt for hours. I wondered how anyone new to the space could find their way around here. I imagined they must be getting very lost or else receiving some significant hand-holding. Thankfully, my colleagues had already summarized the key guidelines in trainings that I, Wiki Education’s “communications team,” would consume again and again, write and re-write, code and re-code. Trainings that are successfully used by tens of thousands of beginners each year.

It’s no secret that the Wikipedia community (as a generalized whole) isn’t always the most welcoming. But through Wiki Education, I had found the folks (both in the organization and in the greater Wikipedia movement) who were working hard to change that. And now, with some time away, I find myself drawn back into the Wikipedia mission. As rejection after rejection come through in my job hunt, I am actually more confident than ever in the ability I have to contribute to Wikipedia. The act reminds me that I do indeed know stuff.

So between submitting job applications and organizing networking calls, I’ve been writing the occasional Wikipedia biography. The activity seems to fall somewhere in between the head-down hustling required of a job search and the unencumbered rest I should also be making time for—much needed but also terribly guilt- and anxiety-ridden. Is resting “productive” enough? By writing for Wikipedia I can channel my “keeping me up at night” jitters—born not just from being unemployed, of course, but from being a human living during a pandemic. I am contributing, but not overreaching.

At first, I wrote these Wikipedia pages whenever I encountered a woman in the news who didn’t have one. She’s rad and she’s not on here?? Fixed. Soon I realized there was a pattern to who I chose. It took me a while to notice the trend since none of them seemed particularly connected: a record-holding free diver, a climate resilience specialist, a Chief Mermaid. These women each mirror what I want to do professionally—not obviously so, but in some deeper sense. They have followed their calling and are contributing to building a safer, better, more equitable, more beautiful world. So much is possible in their eyes. And the seeming disconnectedness between their paths was exactly it for me. I’ve never been so good at following one path, one skill. Ever since I admitted that, I’ve been wandering, following my curiosity, a bit confused but often inspired. I will not be surprised if someday I find myself right where I had been meaning to end up all along, without knowing along the way where that was. I trust my inner-compass is working away without my notice. I realized that by researching and capturing the career paths and accomplishments of these scientists, conservationists, artists, and all-in-all warriors, I have been showing myself lots of ways forward. Forward through the uncertainty of a relentless job hunt. There is a purpose for you out there. Forward through the seemingly never-ending, world-shrinking effect of the pandemic. You will find the “thing” and it will nourish you. And forward through the fear that I will articulate my calling and I won’t be “right” for it. These women made things happen because there was no other option but to manifest their purpose.

I want women applauded for their work. I want journalists to call them for quotes. I want our living history to recognize them in equal measure to their white male peers. But also, this is personal. I want to remind myself of my own capacity to live and act bravely. So even when I have an underlying worry that someone on Wikipedia is lurking behind one of those online corners, waiting for me to break the rules, waiting to tell me I do not belong—even when I wonder if I will ever get that interview, that job, that life, I move forward… I do the thing anyway. I write. I seek. I go.