On Our Digital Mixed Race Wikipedia Entry

Some instructions for our wikipedia entry. Kindly take 20 - 30 minutes for this process. You may have to  familiarize yourself with wikipedia and the process of creating an entry before you begin. Instead of a blog entry this Monday, you can opt to post your contribution or thoughts on process instead. 

Reminder, our wikipedia draft entry is here: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mrheeberkeley/sandbox#Request_review_at_WP:AFC

After completion, please record your entry contribution at this form: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1pSiz29zvbLisZedBGSFWqWugMdVm5fedJDiA1vr8BJM/viewform

DUE: Tuesday 

Instructions

Try reading a few sample articles to get a sense of the form/format of wikipedia articles 

Some recommendations: 


- Multiracial 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiracial

- Asian American Literature 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian-American_literature



- Science Fiction 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction





- Kip Fulbeck 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Fulbeck

- Barbara Jane Reyes 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Jane_Reyes

2. After you read through some sample articles,  think about what kind of wikipedia article are you co-writing? Our wikipedia article on Digital Mixed Race is a term like Multiracial. It may have several different sections or sub-headings and may link to Multiracial as well. 

3. Look at our in progress wikipedia article. What could you contribute and edit to make our entry stronger? 

4. Read through the article below on starting an article by wikipedia. After you finish reading through

5. Gather your references. You may want to draw from Asian American Literary Review, Yes, Bay Area, news articles, academic articles and books, and other sources that are credible by wikipedia standards. 

6. Then start editing the wikipedia article. Place your references and text in the article. Follow directions and guidance from the "on starting an article by wikipedia" 


7. Congratulations you just helped create a wikipedia entry! 

8. Now, fill out the form to record your contribution: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1pSiz29zvbLisZedBGSFWqWugMdVm5fedJDiA1vr8BJM/viewform



 Instructions on starting an article by wikipedia: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Starting_an_article



  1. Try editing existing articles to get a feel for writing and for using the mark-up language in use at Wikipedia. Also, try reading some of our better articles, either those listed as featured articles or good articles.
  2. Consider creating the article on your user page first. If you have a user id, (which you must have if you are considering creating a new article), you also have your own area to start working on a new article; you can get it in shape there, take your time, and only move it into the "live" Wikipedia once it is ready for prime time. (Note: the Article Wizardhas an option to create these kind of draft pages.)
  3. Search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject, perhaps under a different title. If you find an existing article on your subject, it is best to redirect the name you were thinking of onto the existing article.
  4. Gather references both to use as source(s) of your information and also to demonstrate notability of your article's subject matter. References to blogs, personal websites MySpaceFacebookTwitterYouTube, message boards, and the like don't count—we need reliable sources. Extra care should be taken to make sure that articles on living persons have sources—articles about living people without sources may be deleted.
  5. Please do not create pages about yourself or your friends, pages that advertisepersonal essays or other articles you would not find in an encyclopedia.
  6. Be careful about the following: copying thingscontroversial material, extremely short articles, and local-interest articles.
Gathering referencesNotabilitySubject-specific guidelinesSee also
One of the first things you should write in a new article is a list of the source(s) for the information in it. To be worth including in Wikipedia a subject must be sufficiently notable and that notability must be verifiable through references to reliable sources. For now, just enter them like this (and they will automatically turn into links):

(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/books/12vonnegut.html(2) http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/space/space_shuttle.htmlLater, you'll learn how to format them to appear as footnotes.

These sources should be reliable; that is, they should be sources that exercise some form of editorial control. Print sources (and web-based versions of those sources) tend to be the most reliable, though many web-only sources are also reliable. Some examples include (but are not limited to): books published by major publishing houses, newspapers, magazines, peer-reviewed scholarly journals, websites of any of the above, and other websites that meet the same basic requirements as any print-based source.

In general, sources with NO editorial control are not generally reliable. These include (but are also not limited to): books published by vanity presses, self-published zines, blogs, web forums, usenet discussions, BBSes, fan sites, and the like. Basically, if anyone at all can post information without anyone else checking that information, it is probably not reliable.

To put it simply, if there are reliable sources with enough information to write about a subject, then that subject is notable and those sources can verify the information in the Wikipedia article. If you cannot find reliable sources (such as newspapers, journals, or books) that provide information for an article, then the subject is not notable or verifiable and almost certainly will be deleted. So your first job is to find references.

Once you have references for your article, you can learn to place the references into the article by reading Wikipedia:Citing sources. But do not worry too much about formatting them properly. It would be great if you do that, but the main thing is to get references into the article even if they are not well formatted.

Things to avoidMain pages: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Avoiding common mistakes
Articles about yourself, your friends, your website, a band you're in, your teacher, a word you made up, or a story you wrote If you are worthy of inclusion in the encyclopedia, let someone else add an article for you. Putting your friends in an encyclopedia may seem like a nice surprise or an amusing joke, but articles like this are likely to be removed. In this process, feelings may be hurt, which can be avoided by a little forethought on your part. So, just do not do it, please. The article might remain if you have enough humility to make it neutral and you really are notable, but even then it's best to submit a draft for approval and consensus of the community instead of just posting it up as unconscious biases may still exist of which you may not be aware.Non-notable topicsPeople frequently add pages to Wikipedia without considering whether the topic is really notable enough to go into an encyclopedia. Because Wikipedia does not have the space limitations of paper-based encyclopedias, our notability policies and guidelines allow a wide range of articles – however, they do not allow every topic to be included. A particularly common special case of this is pages about people, companies or groups of people that do not assert the notability or importance of their subject, so we have decided that such pages may be speedily deleted under our WP:SPEEDY policy. This can offend – so please consider whether your chosen topic is notable enough for Wikipedia, and assert (or preferably show!) the notability or importance of your article's subject if you decide it is notable enough. Wikipedia is nota directory of everything in existence.AdvertisingPlease do not try to promote your product or business. Please do not insert external links to your commercial website unless a neutral party would judge that the link truly belongs in the article; we do have articles about products like Kleenex or Sharpies, or notable businesses such as McDonald's, but if you are writing about a product or business be sure you write from a neutral point of view, that you have no conflict of interest, and that you are able to find references in reliable sources that are independent from the subject you are writing about.Personal essays or original researchWikipedia surveys existing human knowledge; it is not a place to publish new work. Do not write articles that present your own original theories, opinions, or insights,even if you can support them by reference to accepted work. A common mistake is to present a novel synthesis of ideas in an article. Remember, just because both Fact A and Fact B are true does NOT mean that A caused B, or vice-versa. If that is true, then reliable sources will report that connection, and you should cite those sources.A single sentence or only a website linkArticles need to have real content of their own.See also:

 
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I tweeted about our project & Lyrics Born retweeted it and commented! 


-Janice Le
 
Hi guys,

Here are my writing prompts from my morsel and robot from 10/22/13 in case you are looking to write about it.

Prompt 1: What standards or expectations do you break? Why?
Prompt 2: If you could redesign a piece of technology, what new features would you put in it to improve it? How would the improvement change the way the piece of technology is used?


 
Yes, Albert Einstein has come up with Special Relativity, explaining that if an object moves at almost 3.0x10^8m/s, c, or just speed of light, it can distort time by small margins. However, time distortion in large scale (anywhere between a year to hundreds of years) seems very unlikely. Logically speaking, if time machine does exist in the future, then the present and the past should be already filled with people from the future. The distinctive line between "past, present and future" will no longer exist with the time machine. Also, time traveling goes against the laws of conservation.

Not only do I don't think it will not exist, I also believe it should NOT exist. The misuses of time machine can be limitless. For instance, every student would not need to study for a final exam because they can just find out the answers in future. Scientists do not need to discover or research anything because they can just go in the future and find out.

Although time traveling has always been a heated topic in science fictional fields, it should be noted that if invented, it will surely be the most dangerous machine known to men. It will disrupt nature, human history, and human existence. Who knows what can happen if you let yourself change the past or change the future?
 

At times, I find racism prevalent in the Berkeley area. I believe it is still an issue to be raised and be resolved in Berkeley, but I admit that creating a racist-free campus is a huge challenge. One day, I bought myself a panini from the Melt and was walking towards my room in unit 2. As I was walking by Bank of America, a homeless calls me "Hey could I have a bite?", but I ignored and just walked on. Then, the homeless calls me once again stating "Alright, Chinese." This is the most obvious moment when I got to face racism in California so far, but it tells a lot. First of all, I'm Korean, not Chinese. I find it offensive to justify every Asian looking people as Chinese. It shows that blatant racism is still prevalent in the Berkeley area that the educated population failed to address. However, more instances of subtle racism do exist. People are full of racist jokes when they chat, many people find it very interesting that I, as an Asian, is not majoring in any STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields or econ/stat/business related fields. People still hold prejudices based upon skin color and fail to assess their inner thoughts. 

I believe that the educated population of Berkeley should step up and try to create a new social norm free of prejudices and race, so that people do not judge someone by looking at their skin. We, as Berkeley students, should raise awareness among both the student population and the locals to raise awareness and fight racism.

Here is a link to a very interesting and much related article on the Daily Californian that all should read, http://www.dailycal.org/2013/10/14/racism-berkeley-never-left/

Thanks, Geon Woo Lee
 
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I recently found this article pop up on my facebook feed: http://www.connie-zhou.com/asian-american-awakening/

the article is a very unique and in-depth perspective of being not an Asian, nor a Caucasion, but an Asian-American in the US. I could not describe the experience better than Connie Zhou. From being good at math to being a FOB (even if you were born in the US), we Asians experience a special kind of racism and prejudice that is usually overlooked and buried under the more infamous racism towards African-Americans and other races. But, I completely agree with Connie's view of Asian Americans as "the forgotten minority". We are equally subject to prejudices and stereotypes, but that is exactly what shapes who we are. As she ends nicely in her closing lines, "Let this be the moment when you realize you’re not white nor are you solely Asian, you’re Asian-American (and cue cheesy sap music)."

-Judy Wang

 
I don't think we should forget the past because the past is a valuable source of knowledge. We learn from the past, which we have, in a way, created through our choices. If we forget the past, we will not remember the mistakes we made or the success we have gained. We will not be able to draw from past experiences to approach future problems. We would approach everything with a new mind, which may not be efficient. It is our past that shapes who we are as unique individuals. We learn from our mistakes and we learn from our successes. We take these two experiences and call them whenever they are needed to accomplish something at hand. Forgetting the past will make us less individualistic. 

We should also live for the future. Without a sense of direction, we have no purpose in living; we would have nothing to look forward to. Living for the future sets a goal for us and we will want to strive until we reach that goal. Even if we accomplish a goal, we always have more things that we want to do in life. 

Jason Li
 
Throughout these past few weeks, we’ve been learning about Asian Americans trying to assimilate into American culture and having trouble finding their own identity. As a resident of a dominantly Asian community, I grew up thinking that I didn’t have this problem. Pretty much everyone around me had the same ethnic background and were raised if not born in America. We followed Chinese traditions, and it felt like I was pretty much living in an English speaking Asia.

After Alex Luu’s one man performance, the question of what my identity was resurfaced in my mind, and although I let that question sit on the backburner, I nevertheless would revisit that question periodically.

Now that I’ve moved to Berkeley for college, the ethnic mix around me has become much more diverse, thus forcing me to realize that I am ethnically different from a lot of the people around me.

One or two weeks ago, I went back to my home in Cupertino to visit my parents. One night, my mom asked me, “Are you Chinese or are you American?” I couldn’t answer, because I just didn’t know which side to identify with. On one hand, I practice Chinese martial arts as well as Chinese calligraphy. I also speak Mandarin at home. On the other hand, I speak fluent English, follow American trends, and am aware of the happenings in American media. A while later, I asked a friend of mine whether he thought he was an Asian or an American to which he promptly replied “Asian American”. At that point, I reached a sudden realization. Someone like me, who was born in Taiwan but raised in America, can’t be forced to pick and only identify with one culture/ethnicity since that would mean that I ignore another essential part of myself. I recently met a friend who is half Chinese, half Mongolian, and she told me that her parents encourage her to tell people to say that she is both Mongolian and Chinese when asked, instead of just saying Chinese. Just like she embraces both cultures which are a part of her, so should I. I may be Chinese by blood, but because of the culture in which I grew up, I am not just Asian. I am also American.

-Tiffany Wang


 
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"When you begin to understand the biology of human variation, you have to ask yourself if race is a good way to describe that"--- Janis Hutchinson, Biological Anthropologist


Hutchinson's argument of how race should ultimately not be a way to describe the evolutionary and biological differences we each exhibit, makes me think again of how "race" seems to be another term that allows us to label those individuals who look different from and don't necessarily fit into the rest of society. Furthermore, identification and classification by race seem to further emphasize whether or not certain individuals are either "a part" of society or "apart" from society.


In anthropology class, my professors often discuss how certain individuals are exiled or "othered" within their societies because of the apparent differences they express as a result of their illnesses, disabilities, or even non-white racial backgrounds. However, if even the supposedly white elite men of society experience a form of discrimination and "othering"- as seen in Yongsoo Park's Boy Genius- on their own, then are the white people of society necessarily the ones solely dictating and defining what societal ideals should exist for that particular society? Who then defines which races should exist and be dominant within a society?


Why, as a society, must we have definitions, labels, and categorizations for those that appear different? After all, aren't we all biologically connected and thus similar in some molecular, biological way? If we are all stripped down to the basis of DNA, we find that we are all made up of the same things---adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine; that in our molecular roots we're not so different at all.


So what  actually accounts for all the disparities, wars, and constant discrimination associated with the differences in the color of skin? Even if my skin is tan; hers may be white; and his may be black, we're still the same. "Race"- by definition- and within the context of "racial discrimination" that it is usually associated with is a sad reality of society's desperation to essentially force us to assimilate and let go of our racial uniqueness that authors, such as Lyrics Born, tell us to celebrate. Furthermore, race, as Hutchinson explains, doesn't explain the origins of our differences. So the next time you feel different because you're African American or Chinese and don't look like the stereotypical image of a white person, don't blame your race. Blame evolutionary biology.


-Abigail Huliganga



 
I recently found an article published by npr.org  that further expands on our knowledge and perspectives of “mixed race.” The following interview was conducted by the Race Card Project, ”where thousands of people have submitted their thoughts on race and cultural identity in six words.” In this case, a woman of Norwegian descent has two African American sons. Many people who pass this family along the street wonder “What are they” instead of “who are they?” A lot of objectification goes on when society sees families of mixed race.  We automatically assume that white parents must have white children, or that colors can not mix. The family themselves do not see themselves as “mixed race” though. They like to think of it as “mixed heritage.” To me, race is what we define people as by the color of their skin and their appearance. But mixed heritage means to look past the physical aspects and understand where people come from.

You can read the article by clicking on the link below.
http://www.npr.org/2013/10/14/231447526/holding-onto-the-other-half-of-mixed-race

-Rachel Chung