Project: Serpentina Arts: Wikipedia Articles
A group photo of Serpentina Arts artists at the Weisman Arts Museum. Serpentina Arts logo designed by UNO Branding.
About the project
Introduction
Because of its collective, volunteer editing infrastructure, many of us believe that creating articles on Wikipedia is easy. However, after months of engaging with the platform’s editors, learning its culture, and submitting countless revisions, I have learned firsthand that publishing articles on Wikipedia is no simple task. Although the site is designed to be a democratic and neutral space, its citation standards and editing practices reinforce biases found throughout mainstream media and thus render knowledge which exists outside of their realm of reliability invisible.
Serpentina Arts and Chicano Studies collaborate
Serpentina Arts is a collective of Latinx visual artists in Minnesota, who focus on fostering the creative and professional development of its members . I began working with the group in August of 2021 as a Minnesota Transform intern. I was hired to facilitate communications and publish Wikipedia articles about a few of the more established artists in the collective. Being a freelance videographer at the time, I was very excited to have a stable work opportunity with a collective that I was already engaged with. Although I didn’t have experience with Wikipedia at the time, I figured it would be no problem to figure it out as I considered myself quite tech savvy and had experience with publishing from my time as an undergraduate.
The articles I was tasked with publishing onto Wikipedia were written as a collaboration between Serpentina Arts and a class taught by Karen Mary Davalos, Chair of Chicano and Latino Studies, in Spring 2021. After receiving instruction from Dr. Davalos about conducting interviews, community-based research and accountability, and writing artist statements and biographies as well as entries for Wikipedia, students were grouped and partnered with established artists from the Serpentina Arts roster. Students interviewed the artists, researched existing publications about the artists, and then worked with the artists to write articles about their careers using the existing documentation.
The artists who participated in the collaboration included Xavier Tavera Castro, a Mexican photographer and filmmaker known for their striking portraits of the Latinx community; Silvana Agostoni, a Mexican-Italian visual artist known for their abstract photographs; Luis Fitch, a Mexican visual artist and founder of UNO Branding; and Dougie Padilla, a Chicano poet and multimedia artist who was a founding member of Art-a-Whirl.
Publishing articles on Wikipedia
Once the Wikipedia articles were completed by the students and approved by the artists, they were handed to me to publish. I created a Wikipedia account on behalf of Serpentina Arts, and after completing the mandatory tutorials, began moving the students’ work onto the platform. Aside from converting the citations to the Wikipedia preferred format (a variation of APA style), I began transferring the drafts exactly as the students composed them. I then submitted the drafts for review on August 31, 2021. In order to be published on Wikipedia, a draft must be reviewed by an approved editor. These are people with years of experience on the site, and countless edits and articles in their resume. Receiving review from one of these editors can take anywhere from a few weeks to six months.
Initial reviews
On September 16th, just a few weeks after submitting, I heard back about all my articles. Every article was denied and received one or more of the following critiques:
Our articles were not sourced to their liking. Wikipedia articles are typically written through a process of compiling major web sources, like NYT and CNN, and stitching them together into a clearly cited article. While this is a good way to synthesize publicly available information into something easily digestible, it is a practice that is inherently exclusive towards sources with less fame to their name. Wikipedia is also inheriting the biases which these publications all have by declaring that mainstream citations are the only sources which achieve their standards of reputability. Because the sources Wikipedia considers reputable are mostly large corporations, topics which fall outside of the interests of these media giants are unlikely to be covered and therefore will have a harder time being published.
Dr. Davalos and I were not deterred. We had expected some pushback from the Wikipedia community. We were working within their biased system, and we knew we would need to adapt to get our articles published. If our articles were “not adequately suported by reliable sources,'' then we would find articles that supported them. If they failed “to be written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article,” then we would rewrite sections. We were determined to have these articles published because a promise had been made to these students and these artists, and it was important for their careers and histories to be represented on this platform.
Comments from the editors
The reviewer who edited our articles also left us these comments on our articles.
The nature of your edits gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, but you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements.
They were right. When creating my account, I was given an opportunity to disclose whether I was being paid or not and had chosen not to. I assumed it would have slowed down my review process and figured they wouldn’t be able to tell. I was wrong, and had to promptly disclose my employment at the University of Minnesota before moving any further.
Following this development, I received some advice from an experienced editor on my pages. They said:
A problem when you're working in an area where you believe passionately that the word needs to get out about these forgotten, neglected or suppressed topics, is that your tone suffers…If I learn about a forgotten Asian-American science-fiction writer from the 1930s, the way I would write about her on my Facebook page or in a fanzine article, bears no resemblance to the way I would word a Wikipedia article about her.
Instead of making constructive suggestions about things that could be edited to make our articles stronger, this editor implied that the stories of these artists belonged on “my Facebook page or in a fanzine.” It was becoming clear to me that Wikipedia did not want our articles, and that a lot of work would need to be done to appease their scruitny. It was frustrating that because our entries existed outside of their realm of approved knowledge, it was not viewed as valuable enough to join their “democratic” encyclopedia.
Meeting community standards
Dr. Davalos and I scoured the web, databases, and academic journals for articles which supported the students' articles. After revising, reviewing, and building a sizable list of sources for each article, we resubmitted for publication on October 4th, 2021. Although we submitted, we continued revising articles and adding citations while awaiting review.
Current status of articles
From this point onwards, each article required individual attention–except for one. Silvana Agostoni’s article sat in the review queue longer than any of the other articles. However, it was approved by reviewers first on November 30, 2021 after only being resubmitted for edits once. We are unsure why Silvana’s entry was approved so swiftly, especially considering that it did not have the most sources, however, we have some theories: Silvana comes from a family of artists of whom some already have Wikipedia pages which are connected to their article. Being of half Italian descent, Silvana is the only person with a European last name.
Xavier Tavera Castro’s was the next page approved. Similarly to Silvana’s, Xavier’s was accepted upon its second round of reviews on December 13th, 2021. Dougie Padilla’s article was rejected again on February 3rd, 2022. After adding more sources and entirely removing certain sections, it became approved on June 25th, 2022.
Luis Fitch’s article has still not been approved. It was last rejected on April 14th, 2022 and is currently sitting in a queue.
Disclaimer on Approved Pages
The artists who have approved pages have asked me how they can remove this notice which appears at the top of their pages.
At this time, I am not aware of how to fix this for them. Because these articles have been supported by citations which exist outside of their realm of reliability, Wikipedia has decided that the validity of these artists' long careers and irrefutable impact must be asterisked with a cloud of doubt.
Conclusion
Wikipedia is a space that has unrecognized biases. The practice of editing cannot reflect democratic ethos while Latinx artists are considered unknown and irrelevant because “reliable” sources have not published about them. Even when significant citations are included, Wikipedia cannot get past their myth of neutrality. In this case, neutrality and objectivity are mechanisms of exclusion that allow Wikipedia to have entries about notable and well-known artists that contain self-promotional and flowery language yet deny so many others. The more communities Wikipedia alienates through their process of deeming them non-worthy, the less democratic it will become.
Links to approved articles:
