User:Bisonoturull.m/Reflection

All my life I was told and thought that Wikipedia was not reliable. Growing up, I was told not to use it because “anyone can edit it” and the information might be wrong. So coming into Online Communities class, I was confused and questioned how is a class going to be so focused on Wikipedia when it's not considered reliable? That was the mindset I got at the beginning. However, after learning more about how Wikipedia actually works, I realized that this idea is not fully true. In reality, Wikipedia is a place where information is constantly being reviewed, monitored, corrected, and improved, and false information will be flagged right away through moderation.

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During this semester, I contributed to the Body Neutrality article by adding a new section  focused on how body neutrality appears in online communities and social media. I chose this topic because I have always been interested in body image and how trends related to appearance and people's perception of themselves can influence behavior. Since we currently live in a time where physical appearance is constantly spoken about and trending, I wanted to better understand newer concepts, concepts which I hadn't really explored before. This made me want to contribute to the body neutrality page and research it with more evidence based studies and perspectives. This made the process better for me and more enriching because I was not writing anything just because I was actually learning something new.

My main contribution, where I added a full new section, can be seen in this edit (Diff) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Body_neutrality&diff=prev&oldid=1344001782 where I added a fully sourced section on body neutrality in online communities and social media. Here is the full version of the article (whole article) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Body_neutrality&oldid=1343999966 After my contribution was published , I continued improving the article with small edit suggestions. For example, I added citations to strengthen reliability, which can be seen here (diff) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Body_neutrality&diff=prev&oldid=1345541898 and moving forward I clarified my writing in parts and incorporated feedback from my peers (diff) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Body_neutrality&diff=prev&oldid=1347492911.