User:Ijon/100wikidays
Back in March 2015, I succumbed to the immense inspirational force radiated by Spiritia, and became victim #2 of 100wikidays. Knowing I couldn't possibly succeed in the challenge, I dove right in anyway. I further decided to commit to making all 100 articles be biographies of notable women, as a (small) contribution to addressing the content gender gap on my home wiki. If you're into moving pictures, there's a video of me telling the story on the right, as well as a group interview about 100wikidays.
Accordingly, I began cranking out an article a day. It was wonderful! It was refreshing and rewarding and fun. It was also quite hard to make the time. My home wiki has a fairly strong anti-stub policy, so it took me, at minimum, between 90 and 120 minutes to create an acceptable article. I kept at it as long as I could, but eventually, between work, other volunteer activities, and international travel, there came a day when I just failed to write an article. I pressed on nonetheless, but failure days happened again and again, and at some point I gave up.
After long weeks of no article writing, one day I wrote an article. Then another couple of weeks went by. And I wrote another one. And last week I wrote a bunch of articles. And so it came about that I finished my 100wikidays challenge in 465 days. Essentially a hundred days plus one year. :)
So I have failed the challenge, and it was a wonderful experience. I learned a ton, made new friends, inspired others and was inspired in return, and it is one of my favoritest things in all of wikiland.
As I posted my final article, I began pondering what to do next. While I still do want to try the original challenge again, I am not committing to it yet. Instead, I am devising a new personal challenge:
Consequences of 100wikidays[edit]
One of the consequences of my writing 100 articles has been that I have added many red links to my home wiki. Some people think that's a bad thing; they are silly. Red links are a prime motivator for us Wikipedians.
Accordingly, and to atone for my sins, I am embarking on the Consequences of 100wikidays challenge, in which I will systematically go over each of the 100 articles I have created in the 100wikidays challenge and write all the articles necessary to turn all the red links in it blue.
My first 100wikidays article was about Zadie Smith, and the first red link in it was to Granta magazine. That article now exists on my home wiki, and is my first step in facing the Consequences of 100wikidays.
I do not guarantee I will be writing one article every day, but I'll do what I can. :)
I am tracking my progress here.
Here's to personal challenges for free knowledge!
(fellow alumni: care to join me? <evil cackle>)