Wiki-versation : Final Report

For my Wiki-versation, I chose to have complete fun with the topic and chose to edit the page "Incidents at Disney parks". My first attempt was to edit the accounts of accidents at the park on the actual Wikipedia Disney page; however, interestingly enough, viewers seeking any accounts of these incidents were directed to a separate page. I contemplated attempting to still add to the Disney page, but thought that perhaps there would be less action and more opportunity to see my additions last on the sister page. My first attempt was to add a legitimate entry to the page. I researched online for an incident unaccounted for, and found one that fit under the Disneyland Space Mountain ride section. I carefully entered the correct date, person, tragedy, and finished with the appropriate citation. The citation wasn't exactly from a trusted source, but I had to figure that most of the incidents on this page were not from medical examiner's records. Apparently I was wrong. Within about 2 minutes, my entire post was removed with the explanation saying that though it was a "good faith" edit, it was "cited incorrectly". I was so surprised to see that 1.) this page was actually monitored frequently, and 2.) my careful research was apparently worthless. This made me think that if I could submit seemingly "factual" evidence of an incident, resulting in its deletion, I could just write anything and cite anything I wanted. I then switched from taking this site seriously to playing the waiting game. The next entry I posted was a completely fabricated account of 2 18-year-old men getting into an altercation over Princess Belle, fighting each other into the pond in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle, and accidentally drowning. It was a bit morbid, and I felt a little like I was playing with fire, but at this point, I just wanted to see who would respond and how. Sure enough, my edit was reverted. I posted it again, hoping to spur some personal response from the editor, but to no avail. I moved on to a slightly different approach: instead of adding an entirely new entry, I would edit just a few words in a long-standing, pre-existing entry. The original post listing 25 injuries on Disney's California Screamin' roller coaster went like this:
On July 29, 2005, 25 guests were injured when one train rear-ended another and 15 guests were transported to local hospitals for treatment of minor injuries.[4] An investigation determined that the cause was a faulty brake valve installed by Disney a few days earlier.
I decided to add to the end with this note:
Ride operators suggested a change in the ride's name from "California Screamin'" to "California Dreamin'" so as to avoid future confusion during passenger emergencies.[5]
This edit lasted a bit longer, 13 minutes, before being removed with the statement, "(Reverted 1 edit by Aneslick; Nice attempt at humor. (TW)) "
At least my humor was appreciated. What this actually proved to me was that people had a voice on this website. I no longer felt like my posts were automatically being deleted by a computer system programed to target spam. These were different people, coming together to protect a history they valued.
However, I wanted to go a step further and be totally obnoxious, perhaps to see if the personal responses from fellow editors would be less polite. I entered a statement of complete absurdity and pasted it about 20 times. Vandalism, in "wiki" speak. It read: "MICKEY MOUSE IS JESUS! HE DIED, BUT STILL LIVES! PRAISE BE TO DISNEY!", followed by a citation of the death of the original voice of Mickey Mouse's character. Sure enough, this was the response:
(Undid revision 363188843 by Aneslick (talk) Vandalism!!! Again!!!)
Vandalism, again. Plus 6 exclamation points. This editor had some pent up frustration, I believe. However, this response again proved to me that people had a voice on this site. It may be difficult to successfully post information that you like because the site is usually so well monitored, but at least those who are monitoring it are other users like myself. Each user who revised my entries was different, which to me exemplifies the democratic nature of this website. There was, at least to my knowledge, no sign of an overbearing source that dictated these users' revisions, or a computer that was able to edit under another user's name. In fact, in order to post anything, a "secret code" must be copied and entered to prove that you are, indeed, human. I suppose it depends on the frequency with which people check on a specific site, but the experience I had with this site proved that even if this knowledge is generated by humans, and even if it is correct, there is a sizable amount of editing that takes place before anything is accepted as truth. With thousands of editors worldwide, only a computer click away from each other, it comes as no surprise that information is monitored. Information, both true and false, may slip in under the radar from time to time, but the decision to believe it is ultimately left up to the viewer.

Here is the link to the history page for "Incidents at Disney Parks":
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Incidents_at_Disney_parks&curid=5765570&action=history