Editing Wikipedia

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Cover slide saying
1. Groundwork
So you want to edit Wikipedia…
The good news: Small changes make a big impact. There will be a HUGE audience for whatever work you do. There are no committees and only a quirky kind of peer review. The learning curve for basic edits is not too steep. A supportive librarian community exists.
The less good news: The encyclopedia anyone can edit isn't the encyclopedia everyone does edit. So. Much. Reading. If you're new, there are people who have been there fifteen years longer than you. They sometimes like to argue. The amount that needs doing can be overwhelming. Many people have already made up their mind about Wikipedia.
My work on Wikipedia: #1Lib1Ref Public domain image addition, Approving articles via the AFC process, Women in Red, Writing librarian and stadium organist stubs, Helping novice editors, Thanking people who do good work
2. Basic edits
Vocabulary words: GLAM, Watchlist, Talk page, NPOV (neutral point of view), Notability, Source editor vs. visual editor, WP:NOT, WP:COI, WP:RS, WP:OR
Your first edits: Set up a Wikipedia account. Add something to your user page using the editor. Check out the Preferences. Read a few pages of interest. If you see something that needs attention, feel free to fix it! Add a category or a link to another page.
Screenshot of the Wikipedia page for Snack Bar with the Edit tab highlighted
Screenshot of the Source editor view of this page, showing a lot of code.
Screenshot of the visual editor for this page, showing the editing toolbar across the top highlighted
Leave an edit summary, click publish: Screenshots of two smaller windows showing where you write an edit summary and where the
Screenshot of viewing history on this page showing my edit highlighted and you can see my username and my edit summary
3. Citations (needed)
Wikipedia and Citations: Every fact about a living person should have a reliable citation. Adding a citation into the document will make it appear in the References section at the bottom. Add as much information as you can when you add a citation. It's okay if you're citing something that isn't publicly accessible.
Two useful tools: Citation Hunt for finding articles needing citations and Citer which can format your citations in Wikistyle
Citation hunt: Find articles needing citations in a topic of your interest. screenshot showing a search in the Citation Hunt page for the word
Four basic citation types. Main goal: can someone verify your fact? with screenshot of the visual editor's Add a Citation box
Workflow. Find a source, make sure it's reliable. (link) Format it; use the Wikipedia citation template, or the Citer tool. (link) Add the cite, preview to make sure it looks right (can always manually edit later). Insert. Screenshot of what a formatted citation looks like.
4. Images
Adding Images. All images must have a clear, free-license statement unless they are your own creation (in which case you can add a license). Images can be added to Wikimedia Commons (need WC account) or Wikipedia. WC gives more range, WP takes non-free Fair Use content. Items such as logos or book covers can be uploaded to Wikipedia but need a Fair Use rationale added. Examples I've uploaded: public domain photographs from NYPL, NLM and LOC, library association logos, newspaper front pages.
Workflow. Unless the image is on Flickr with the proper license, you'll be uploading an image from your computer. Upload File on Wikimedia Commons will require you to pick a license as well as note the source, author, and date. (There is no authority control here). Screenshot of the boxes you have to fill in claiming where the image came from.
More Workflow. If using the Wizard, you will also need to add at least one category. If you are adding something that is already the subject of a WP article, look for how that article's categories are worded. Tyranny of the leftmost is a thing here. Screenshot of a category search for
Image Example Time! With a small image of Cary T. Grayson, a doctor's photo I got from the National Library of Medicine.
To get started... Set up an account. Put something on your user page. Try to make an edit. Try to add a citation. Try to add an image.
Can I help? My contact information is @jessamyn User:Jessamyn jessamyn@gmail.com