The Barnstar is a community-driven award on Wikipedia, used to recognize editors who contribute meaningfully to Wikipedia content. It’s a way of saying “thank you” and celebrating collaborative effort of Wikipedia.
Some years ago, I created a Wikipedia page for Miss Mawer. I worked hard on it and was very pleased, and very surprised, when it got really good feedback. People said kind things about it, and one of the formal Editors at Wikipedia gave the page an award – the Theatre Barnstar.
I had never heard of a Barnstar before and I needed to look it up to find out what it was all about! Barnstars are community awards awarded by anyone who thinks that someone else’s work deserves recognition. The award is for making a significant contribution to a topic. The Barnstars are divided by topic, eg, literature, science, photography, kindness (Barnstars are part of Wikipedia’s community culture—they’re informal, friendly, and meant to encourage collaboration and recognition). My Barnstar was for the topic of theatre (all types – plays, musicals, theatre history, biographies of theatre figures, etc).
The concept and the name come from the idea of a “barn raising,” where community mem
bers come together to build something collectively.
The award was given to me by an Editor going by the wonderful moniker of The Most Comfortable Chair.