User:Tom (LT)/sandbox/WikiProject COVID19 interview draft

Since first described in Wuhan in 2019, COVID-19 has swept the globe and affected billions of lives. Almost since the beginning, there has been a group of editors forming a WikiProject to cover this ballooning topic. And, like all of us individually and as a society, it's undoubtedly the case that this WikiProject has also matured at a rapid rate over the last three years. Here, we interview some editors from WikiProject COVID-19, and I invite you to comment about how COVID has affected Wikipedia, our readers, and your editing experience below.

1. What motivated you to become involved with WikiProject COVID-19, and when did you first start to become involved?

I started this account back in college in 2014, and participated on/off since then. But the pandemic just gave me a lot more time at home, time that wasn't necessarily free but in which procrastinating was a whole lot easier! And, as a guy who has a PhD in virology, procrastinating also became a lot more fun. I started to become more active on Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook sharing what I knew about viruses and trying as much as I could to combat misinformation about the virus, its treatments, and what we can do to protect ourselves. And then I started looking at Wikipedia articles about the pandemic in the spring of 2020, and I caught the bug again! I noticed some scientific inaccuracies, and it took every ounce of willpower to avoid fixing them. And, as you know, I ultimately failed, and the rest is history. I think pedantry/detail-obsession is a common gateway drug into Wikipedia. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:18, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

1. What do you see as the main goals of your WikiProject? Are those goals achievable and is this even desirable?
2. What do you see as the biggest achievements of WikiProject COVID-19 over the past years? Are there any contributions you're particularly proud of?
3. How and in what ways do you see WikiProject COVID-19 as having changed over the past few years?
4. Has editing in this area changed your opinion of COVID-19 and its impact? And how do you see COVID-19 as impacting Wikipedia as a whole?
5. COVID-19 has at times been contentious and disputed in many different ways (e.g. its existence, treatment, geopolitically). What have you found as the greatest areas of contention on Wikipedia, and how do members of your WikiProject approach these often complex and unresolved issues?
6. What do you see as the greatest area of need for your WikiProject and COVID-19 related articles, and how can a new editor contribute?
7. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Please feel free to share your thoughts on COVID-19, and how it's affected our movement, editing experience and the way that readers approach Wikipedia, below.