How to improve Wikipediawithout getting the Internet mad at

you

John P. Sadowski, James HareDoD Social Media Meeting, June 18, 2015

Did you know?

• Wikipedia gets 20 billion page requests from 500 million unique visitors per month, which represents 7% of the world population!

• Wikipedia is one of the top-six visited web sites!

What is Wikipedia?• Content?

– Over 35 million articles (almost 5 million in English)– 288 language editions, the largest being English,

Swedish, German, Dutch, French, and Waray-Waray– On the Wikimedia Commons, over 26 million media files,

mostly images

• How many contributors?– ~1.4 million have contributed at least 10 edits to the

English Wikipedia– ~32,000 active contributors (at least 5 edits in the last

month) on the English Wikipedia, ~73,000 in all languages

How Does it Work?

Everything on Wikipedia has been written by people like you.

http://www.lkozma.net/wpv/

The Collaborative Community

• How do volunteers contribute?o Writing articles o Editing existing articleso Copyeditingo Formatting & “Wikifying”o Adding referenceso Helping new userso Creating and adding imageso Contributing subject matter

expertiseo Mediating disputeso Administration

Public face of knowledge?

• Roy Rosenzweig, George Mason University“If Wikipedia is becoming the family

encyclopedia for the twenty-first century, historians probably have a professional obligation to make it as good as possible. And if every member of the Organization of American Historians devoted just one day to improving the entries in her or his areas of expertise, it would not only significantly raise the quality of Wikipedia, it would also enhance popular historical literacy.”

The five pillars

• Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.• Wikipedia is written from a neutral point

of view.• Wikipedia is free content that anyone can

edit, use, modify, and distribute.• Editors should interact with each other in

a respectful and civil manner.• Wikipedia does not have firm rules other

than these five general principles.

Core content policies

• Neutral point of view• Verifiability must come from reliable

sources• No original research

“The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.”

Neutral Point of View

• “Editors must write articles from a neutral point of view, representing all significant views fairly, proportionately, and without bias.”

• Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV

Everything must be verifiable

• All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation.

• Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:V

Must use reliable sources

• “Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in reliable, published sources are covered”

• Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RS

Notability: Is this article right for Wikipedia?

Articles require:osignificant coverageo in reliable sourceso that are independent of the subject

No original research

• Wikipedia does not publish original thought: all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source. Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not clearly advanced by the sources.

• Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OR

Some other rules

• Be bold! WP:BOLD• Bold, revert, discuss WP:BRD• Assume good faith WP:AGF• Be civil WP:CIVIL• No conflict of interest WP:COI

Discussion pages & Talk pages (Activity)

Signing a message: use four tildes (~~~~)

Additional opportunities for feedback

• Article ratings – articles may be rated according to the Wikipedia 1.0 scale: Stub, Start, C, B, GA, A, FA

• Peer review/Quality articles – Editors can request a review from other editors.

• WikiProject discussion pages

• Ask around! Classmates, parents, friends, lovers, other editors... there are many opportunities to get help and feedback on your work.

Conflict of interest editing

• “A Wikipedia conflict of interest (COI) is an incompatibility between the aim of Wikipedia, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia, and the aims of an individual editor.”

• “COI editing is strongly discouraged. It risks causing public embarrassment to the individuals and groups being promoted, and if it causes disruption to the encyclopedia, accounts may be blocked.”

• “Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing, and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question.”

Conflict of interest editing

Best practices (see WP:BPCOI):• Learn Wikipedia's rules before you break them.• Be up-front about your associations with the

subject.• Avoid creating new articles about yourself or

your organization.• Avoid making controversial edits to articles

related to your associations.• Don't push people to change their minds about

issues relating to your associations.• Ask for help appropriately.

Some examples

• 2006 and 2014 Congressional editing controversies

• Newt Gingrich presidential campaign• SOPA blackout

Acknowledgements

• Includes slides from:–Wikimedia Foundation– Alex Stinson (User:Sadads)– Baruch Stone (User:Basket of Puppies)–Mike Cline (User:Mike Cline)