Hungarian Wikipedia is far behind its western counterparts, especially the English Wikipedia. Its articles are still few, often too short, and badly written, especially those written on topics, which are not directly linked to Hungarian culture, not to mention the numerous gaps in this nexus, the inexistent articles about topics that should be dealt with.It has been exactly 450 years since the birth of William Shakespeare, and for this glorious occasion, the Hungarian Shakespeare Committee and the Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum have proposed among many other programs, the commencing of a brand new, daring undertaking, that involves for the first time since long ago the implication of suture and current scholars from universities in a forum of mass-education: a Wikipedia-editing marathon.

To correct, expand or rewrite old, fragmented articles about Shakespeare or to create new ones about topics concerning the bard that have not been covered so far, was the task and aim of the program, in order to finally improve this educational forum to fit its foreign versions at least on this single area. The students of English studies from Pázmány Péter Catholic University along with a couple of professors, Dr. Almási Zsolt and Dr. Reuss Gabriella, were honored to be given this assignment.

The Shakespeare Edit-a-thon took place on 7^th and 8^th November at Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum. Our MA group came to represent the editors at the event. We, the seven MA students and professors had worked on these two days in the library of the Museum, constantly aided by a Wikipedia specialist, a different one each day to edit our articles: the results of two months’ work.

                                         

Through this event we were given the opportunity to get an insight into the academic world. Of course, most of the people judge Wikipedia based on the fact that anyone can edit it and often misleading information is shared there, however, it is hard to write a reasonable article, this makes it a challenge and good practice for those who want to try their hand in academic writing.

On the first day of the event we arrived to the set venue at ten in the morning sharp. We did not have any particular plans on how to get the editing done, since we have been preparing and polishing the will-be articles for almost two months. The program started with introductory speeches about how the event will look like, what interests and goals are involved, etc., so there was nothing unexpected about it so far. These introductions were held in the library, which became our office during the next two days. The initiation process was followed by a few hours work on the articles, during which we realized that our well developed academic skills were not exactly compatible with the requirements of Wikipedia. So in the afternoon session we identified these differences and struggled to overcome them, and we also attended an academic presentation that day, about Shakespeare adaptations which was presented by Pikli Natália from ELTE University.

                 

On Saturday we had a very good time, most of the articles were almost finished, we have perfected our wiki-editing skills, so we only had to add some finishing touches. Still, the editing went on from ten in the morning until four in the afternoon. In the meantime we were visited by Nádasdy Ádám, head of the Shakespeare Committee, and by Palkó Gábor on behalf of the Petőfi Literaty Museum. When finished, in the afternoon, a little celebration was organised as a closing of the event. There we also met with a group of students of Fine arts, who exposed their paintings of Macbeth made under the supervision of Révész László for this exact venue. They made a short video on how the paintings were created, and we stepped up with a short presentation on the experience this editathon has left us with.

I was glad to see there were several other events organized at the same time, in several halls, throughout Petőfi Literary Museum. I guess, when leaving the building in that evening, everyone has felt they worked on something that might actually be appreciated by someone other than the small academic groups, which is a great feeling for a trainee of humanities and fine arts, since we always have to cope with the impression that our interests and efforts may never be widely known or accepted; A good feeling- that I can tell.

I was glad to see there were several other events organized at the same time, in several halls, throughout Petőfi Literary Museum. I guess, when leaving the building in that evening, everyone has felt they worked on something that might actually be appreciated by someone other than the small academic groups, which is a great feeling for a trainee of humanities and fine arts, since we always have to cope with the impression that our interests and efforts may never be widely known or accepted; A good feeling- that I can tell.