MedinaPedia

« You really use Wikipedia to do research ? How lazy and superficial ! »

A sentence I have been hearing for years, whether in high school, university, work or anywhere else. Eventually, even I started underestimating people who use Wikipedia as a credible source, despite the fact that I kept using it secretly. I had stayed this way until three years ago when I fell in love with the Medina of Tunis and tried to discover it. To be honest, I didn’t try to buy or borrow any history books to read. It was summer and I wanted to have an exciting adventure. So what I did was that I went directly to the Medina with a map and tried to find the historical sites and some basic information about them using my phone. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything about most of the Medina sites in Wikipedia. I found some PDF versions of historical books, but as I said earlier, I didn’t want to spend my day locked in my room reading a written description about a building that I can visit for real and enjoy directly. Also, all I was looking for was just some simple information like when and by whom the building was founded, the origin of its name, the original use of it and some old photos of either of how it was before, or current ones (especially if the place is not allowed to public access). So as you can see, I didn’t reach my goal to get to know the Medina better and discover its wealth and beauty, until last September when I met the MedinaPedia team and joined it.

MedinaPedia is a project in which members do research about different buildings in the Medina, collect photos of them and assemble them in well-structured Wikipedia articles. At the begining, I was terrified : Are we going to write the history of our Medina and share it on a worldwilde platform? We’re not even history students. What if we write false information? Do we have proof of our credibility? Our language is not that sophisticated, what if we make grammar mistakes? And mostly, how are we going to write a Wikipedia article? We don’t even know the codes and the tools of the platform. But thankfully, our coordinators and the trainers believed in us. And after some training sessions and a lot of questions, writing or translating the article became an easy task. But the main important thing that was for me the most enriching part, was having access to the library of Dar Lasram and some of its precious documents about the Medina (I had to read some books, but this time it was interesting). It made me discover many amazing facts about my Tunisian roots which made me more proud of my background and strenghthened my passion toward it.

Apart from the personal impact MedinaPedia had on me, it had a larger impact on my society and other people interested in the Medina’s treasures. Because thanks to the articles we wrote and shared, the secrets of the Medina’s palaces, mosques, medrasas and souks, are now revealed. Now any visitor or local wanting to get informed about a specific building, will most likely get a basic description of it and won’t have to get through the disappointement I’ve been through in my first attempt. And the impact that I doubted will happen at the begining was more clear during the Interference Festival in the Medina. I was a tour guide, and all the knowledge I got while writing the articles helped me accomplish properly my mission when presenting the sites for the visitors. None of the visitors I guided during the festival believed that I am a medical student and that I have no relation with history school.

At the end of every night during the festival, I would check the statistics on my Wikipedia account, and I would find a huge number of views on our articles. This proved that many like me, used Wikipedia to know more about the places they visited. And thanks to MedinaPedia, all their eager was fullfilled. And for sure, they are Medina lovers now.

So now, I am proud to say that not only I use Wikipedia for my researches, but also, I write them.

P.S: Link to all my Wikipedia contribibutions: https://tools.wmflabs.org/guc/?user=Houssem+Abida