Walt+Disney+World+Resort+Discussion+Section

1. Account for the postings (number of revisions, time range from first to last, notation of periods of activity) 2. Describe progress or development in the article from the original post to the most recent update 3. Critique the quality of the article in its current state (writing quality and factual information) 4. Describe the discussion around the article 5. Provide background information on the most active contributors.

1. The Walt Disney World Resort wiki page has been edited almost 4000 times since it was created on February 25, 2002. The original page consisted of only a few sentences, and was considered to be a "stub." The next edit was not made until May 27, 2002, which only expanded on the sentences already in place. Edits were slow until August 2004, and eventually edits started occurring almost every day, and then multiple times a day. Almost half of the edits made have been considered "minor" edits. The article currently has a warning at the top, which states: "This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Outsourced material may be challenged and removed. October 2010."

2. The first article is only three sentences long. It states that the resort is owned by the Disney Corporation, opened in 1971, and contains Magic Kingdom, EPCOT and Disney/MGM Studios. As time progressed, more information was slowly added to the page. I'm surprised that more information was not added to its site sooner, based on WDW's popularity. Most of the early information about WDW Resort included hotel information and links to external sites. The article was broken into sections in July 2003, though one section (popular rides) was considered biased and eventually removed. The first picture to the article was added on July 14, 2003, and a timeline was added to the page in November 2004. Information about its history, attractions, attendance and resorts have been added to the article since its creation. The article has been vandalized a few times, but has always been quickly restored to its previous settings. The last edit was made by user Carlson288 on October 22, 2010 and was a minor edit to the "History and development" section.

3. As mentioned before, the article has a warning that states it needs additional citations for verification. This is understandable, as the article only has 10 references listed at the bottom. After reading the article, most of the information seems very factual - it is just missing the verification. The article seems to be free of any bias or personal opinion. There are many lists within the article (attractions, executive management, hotels, etc), which can be a little overwhelming at times. The bulleted lists make the article appear very choppy and take away from its cohesiveness. There are certain areas of the article that could use more detail but overall, it is written well and there are few grammatical errors on the page.

4. There are 2 archives of discussion about this article. Most of the discussions involve information about specific locations, but there are also discussions about ticket prices, pictures and name changes. There are discussions involving how specific the article needs to be about certain attractions, hotels, etc and what directions should be in relation to. What level of detail is necessary for the location of the park? Users debate about whether or not a park map should be included on the page. There is a long discussion about this, involving Orlando vs. Orlando area and Orlando area vs. Florida area. Another serious conversation involves the actual location is Walt Disney World. Is WDW located in Orlando, FL? Is it located in Bay Lake, FL? Lake Buena Vista, FL? Users involved with these discussions are quite persistent with their opinions and get very defensive when others disagree with them. Name-calling and heavy sarcasm is involved with certain discussions, which all seems quite silly to me.

5. There have been over 1500 users to edit the page since its creation in 2002, and there are 45 members who have at least 10 edits to the WDW Resort Wikipedia page. The most active contributor to the page is a user called "Whoville," who has made 195 edits. His first edit was made on December 24, 2005 and his last edit was January 2, 2009. There is not much information available on him, but there is a user talk namespace link on his profile.

McDoobAU93 is another frequent editor, and he has made 70 edits to the page. His first edit was made on February 28, 2008 and his most recent on September 30, 2010. He is located in Atlanta, Georgia and graduated from Auborn University in 1993. He states that he is a major theme-park fan and does most of his editing work on articles dealing with that topic. He has several user boxes on his profile (Newpage patroller, member of the WikiProject Video games, WikiProject Walt Disney World, etc) and has received several awards. Barnsters awarded include "The Random Acts of Kindness Barnster," "The Barnstar of Recovery" and "The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar."

Brian Kendig has 45 edits to the page, the first being on February 5, 2004 and the last being February 17, 2007. He is a Wikipedia administrator and states that he "edits boldly." He is a native speaker of English, alumnus of Princeton University, and formerly with Netscape Communications Corporations and Apple Computer. He has on his profile that he currently lives right next to Walt Disney World Resort, which could explain his interest in the WDW Resort page.