Eunice Choi

This semester I was a part of the International Privacy Literacy Project Team. I worked on three articles and uploaded them to the French Wikipedia mainspace. With each article I worked on, I learned substantially more about privacy and research.

The first article was on Privacy in Education, which focused on issues of student privacy. Working on this article really made me think about the French audience and how to better cater to them. The article’s examples were only applicable to the US, as it described FERPA and past Supreme Court decisions. None of the references or laws were relevant to French students. After I expressed my concerns, the leadership team implemented new ways to incorporate country-specific privacy information into our project. I would eventually be reminded of the issues that come with editing on Wikipedia in another language.

After uploading my second article on the Gathering of Personally Identifiable Information, I found that my username had been pinged on a Patroller discussion board by a very upset Frenchman. The user was frustrated that Berkeley students have been adding and editing Wikipedia articles that are unnecessary or poorly translated. When I first saw this, I was very taken aback. I had never considered the fact that native French users could make the connection between me and other members of the lab, in addition to figuring out the school I attend. At that moment I was very relieved that all of our Wikipedia accounts don’t contain our real names. But after talking with our I-PLP Coordinator and taking a step back from the situation, this incident definitely helped put things in perspective. From the very beginning of the lab, the leadership team told us that we shouldn’t strive for perfection. I finally realize now what that truly entails. I think when I work on anything, including the work in this lab, it is hard for me to be completely content with my work when I know that some aspects could be improved. However, in the I-PLP team, it is near impossible for an article on a non-English Wikipedia page to be perfect. We simply do not have the experience necessary to perfect an article for Native speakers. 

My last article, Ridesharing Privacy, was the only article I translated myself. I was not confident when I first uploaded the article, however now that it is up I can already see the contributions that French users have made to improve it. For example, the title of the article itself uses the accurate translation for “ridesharing”, which I was never quite able to figure out. I’m no longer scared of what I’ve uploaded as there are already signs that it can only improve.

During my time in this lab, I learned that it is okay if my work isn’t perfect. I’m very excited about the future steps to improve this lab, as well as the changes and improvements that will continue in my articles. I’ve slowly grown an appreciation for Wikipedia’s collaborative, open nature. Unlike what we were taught in elementary school, this is not a fault that invalidates the site’s credibility. In fact, I trust the site significantly more after my experience. Before I started my time in this lab if I had to search for something I would normally google it and scroll past the Wikipedia article out of habit. I now find myself actively looking for one in search results. Overall, I’ve learned to be more accepting of my and others’ work and to trust the process.