Creating an article (and the uncertainty that comes with it)

I wasn't sure what to do for this assignment exactly--I felt like a lot of my interests were things that already had extensive pages, and even if they weren't extensive, I wasn't sure that I knew enough to add information. I was surprised to realize just how much of what I know comes from Wikipedia. And it was unsettling, especially in relation to what we discussed in class about how this information is shaped by social forces but is then presented as objective and neutral.

I eventually thought back to a class I took from Kelly Gates last quarter on surveillance and media. I remembered that a lot of the concepts in that class kept coming back to one particular (and compelling, in my opinion) article by a woman named Julie Cohen. I googled her, and was surprised to find that she did not have a Wikipedia page at all--not even a stub. I had been under the impression that she was a somewhat influential scholar in her field. And she seems to be--she has written quite a lot of articles, and some of her work has been cited 400-500 times, according to Google Scholar.

So I thought I'd try to create a page for her. It is a daunting task--especially since I have personally not studied much about law or privacy, and especially since there is no simple, aggregated source of information on her. I hadn't given much thought to just how difficult it is to create an article just in terms of how to gather and articulate information. I had edited a Wikipedia-suggested article (Esfandiyar) for grammar and wording to practice, but this is just something else. I have to admit that I felt more intimidated by the thought of possible responses (despite having a gender-neutral username) and learning the statistics about Wikipedia editors being 90% male. Despite feeling like I am nowhere near the most qualified person to create a page for Cohen, I still felt like it was important to at least try to add at least one more notable woman to Wikipedia.

I started the page here, and maybe it'll be marked as a stub but I think it's a start. I might go back and add more information as I find it. Here are some screencaps, just in case the page does get deleted: