I presume nothing

Sherlock Holmes – The Hound of the Baskervilles

Editing Wikipedia seemed a daunting task, at least to the extent we were expected to during our 2 hour session. While previously having experience fixing typos or small errors in grammar on various pages, this was the first time I actively edited blocks of text, added reference and added substantial changes to a Wikipedia page. Having read The Hound of the Baskervilles for one of my modules, I decided to edit its Wikipedia page as I had noticed some references missing, among other things, and I considered that a decent starting point before moving on to more significant changes to the page.

I dislike using Twitter, more so now than ever, but complied with the request to tweet with the hashtag EditWikiLit any changes we were making to our chosen pages. While my first tweet suggests my first edit was to add a reference to the most recent stage adaptation of the novel, it was not my first intended edit. I initially wanted to add to the list of adaptations any actors that were missing, though I was unfamiliar with the works that either had a question mark or a hyphen, though I understand that means a lack of a Watson character in the adaptation.

I also intended to add to the reception section of the page, but I struggled in the time frame to find a contemporary review that could be cited and so left it as is. My first substantial change came before the initial citation being added when I altered the text surrounding the character of Sherlock Holmes in Ace Attorney. While I am familiar with the game to some extent, I have not yet played the entry that was mentioned and so had to find a review of the game to add as citation that the novel does play a part in the narrative, which proved harder than expected. Most of the information to be found on the narrative in the games comes from fan sites, which are edited by anonymous users who add and alter pages on each level, or in this case, each case. These fan sites are not considered to be reliable enough to cite on a Wikipedia page, even if the information is accurate, so I had to leave tweeting about changing the section until it became my final edit towards the end of the two hours.

While this section took up most of my time, making sure the wording was accurate and finding a source that could be used, I did alter a few smaller things by using an essay from The Cambridge Companion to Sherlock Holmes. Specifically, I added a mention to the liminal space Holmes occupies to the Origins and Background section, as well as quoting the essay to add to the Technique section to give further weight to the Gothic aspects of the novel, which I feel is still not mentioned enough in the page (in fact, two of the four occurrences of the word ‘Gothic’ are a result of my edits, with the first reference under Genre which has the one citation being the only other mention of the novel as a work of gothic fiction.

There is still plenty of work that can be done on the page, with the technique section needing attention since 2015 and the critical reception section being woefully short, but I feel my work has done a reasonable amount to improve the page in the 2 hours we had to contribute to our chosen Wikipedia articles. While I would hesitate to add to Wikipedia articles to the same extent in the future, this exercise did help me feel more confident in changing smaller aspects, like adding citations and correcting any grammatical errors that are present.