Bryan Kim

This past semester, I worked at the Coleman Lab to translate Wikipedia articles from English to Korean. Most of the articles I worked on were regarding the topics of digital privacy and security. Overall, it was a very interesting journey to translate publicly available information from English to Korean on Wikipedia.

There were some initial challenges that I faced while translating Wikipedia articles. First and foremost, it definitely takes some time to get used to the overall user interface of Wikipedia. Since the changes you make to an article have  the potential to be seen by millions of people, you want the information to be accurate and posted the correct way, and it took me a couple of weeks to get familiar with how to post edits, cite, and use my sandbox on Wikipedia. In order to overcome this challenge, I relied heavily on the training modules provided by the Wikipedia Dashboard, as well as asking more experienced peers in the lab when I ran into trouble. 

One of the most interesting things I realized were the differences between the English and Korean Wikipedia sites. Because they were both on the same website, I assumed that there would be no major differences between the two, but I was surprised to find out otherwise once I started working in the Korean Wikipedia. One of the first things I learned was that Korean articles generally have a lot fewer citations in their articles compared to English articles. I believe one of the main reasons behind this is that an overwhelming amount of research available is in the English language, and there is not as much research in Korean available. Throughout the semester, I tried to improve this aspect of the Korean Wikipedia by adding as many citations I could find onto the articles I ran across. 

While editing and translating articles, I also learned a lot more about some of the specific topics within digital privacy and security. I remember that one of the main articles I got to translate was regarding ride-sharing apps and their use of data and personal information. As I was translating this article, I was shocked to realize the sheer amount of data that apps such as Uber and Lyft are able to collect about our personal background, using technological features such as GPS to gather information. This article assignment was one of my largest tasks, and because I am not fully fluent in Korean, I often had to rely on more fluent speakers, such as my mom, to assist me with revising translations and making sure that they made sense. 

Throughout my experience translating articles, I believe I got a lot more familiar with the interface and user experience of using Wikipedia. I think that Wikipedia is a tool that almost everyone has used at least once, but something that not a lot of people know what goes on behind the scenes. Personally, I remember having a lot of doubts about the credibility and accuracy of Wikipedia before joining the Coleman Lab, but after joining, I feel as if I understand a lot more about all the work that goes into an article being published. Learning about the process of making changes and writing articles has generally made me appreciate Wikipedia a lot more and all the writers and editors that allow it to be what it is.