I’m a fairly digital-literate person. But when I was assigned with editing a Wikipedia page in my Digital Humanities class, I felt a little unsure of myself. I refer to Wikipedia on a regular basis and am aware that technically anyone can add or change its content at any time. But I never seriously considered making a contribution. I decided to approach this task like any other unfamiliar digital tool - I'll just learn as I go.
First, I chose a subject that I have been studying for the past couple years. The Pittsburgh neighborhood of East Liberty has a rich history, and I felt comfortable with my level of expertise on the topic. After reading East Liberty’s page, I felt there was definitely some room for improvement. While the page included a lengthy and detailed description of the renewed growth of the neighborhood in the past thirty years (East Liberty experienced economic decline after being the subject of urban renewal in the 1960s), the historical background sections were more shallow and uneven. Certain parts of the history received attention while other equally, if not more important, aspects were glossed over or completely absent.
One glaring omission was that there was no mention of the Pennsylvania Railroad opening a station in East Liberty in the 1850s. I believe any historical overview of the neighborhood should include this event, because it played a crucial role in the neighborhood’s development into a commercial district in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Next, I watched an online tutorial about Wikipedia editing (it was surprisingly simple) and got started. While adding the missing factual information mentioned above, I also included a brief explanation of why it was important. The rail station helped to diversify the neighborhood. Previously, the page had made no mention of East Liberty’s ethnic and racial diversity. The focus had instead been on to the famous names associated with the neighborhood, such as the Mellons and the Negleys. I believed the disproportionate emphasis on the role of elite families might give the reader the impression that East Liberty was historically a white, wealthy neighborhood. I cited an open-source ethnographic study, which readers can easily reference for further information on the social and cultural aspects of the neighborhood.
This edit had been so easy (and even fun) that I decided to keep going. The recent redevelopment of the East Liberty Transit Center was not mentioned at all in the page's Transportation section. I believed this to be a serious omission since the project is playing an integral role in the ongoing transformation of the neighborhood. This subject touches on the controversial topic of gentrification. With that in mind, I was careful to abide by Wikipedia’s principle of neutral point of view (NPOV). Although I believe the transit project is failing the community by funneling public funds into luxury apartments when there is an urgent need for affordable housing, I refrained from taking a condemnatory tone. Instead, I simply pointed out that the project has raised concerns in the community over these issues and cited a news article reporting on local protests.
Looking over the history of edits to the page, I found that one of the more substantive and analytical additions was a detailed section on redlining. The user who made the edits, MellonStreet, connected redlining to the economic decline of the neighborhood after WWII. MellonStreet highlighted the social aspect of housing and how it affected East Liberty through time, transforming East Liberty into a segregated neighborhood with mostly poor, minority residents.
I believe my additions complement and balance MellonStreet’s contribution. My first edit helps better explain East Liberty’s socioeconomic makeup before redlining occurred. The second edit hints at how development today has the potential to reduce East Liberty's diversity by promoting gentrification.
Overall, my contributions to East Liberty’s Wikipedia page serve to fill in some of the gaps in the historical overview as well as balancing the previously disproportionate focus on neighborhood elites. This process has given me a better understanding of the collaborative nature of Wikipedia and the strengths and limitations of the online encyclopedia as a historical resource.
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