How to become an contributor to Wikipedia, an outstanding example of crowd sourcing and one of the world's most frequently used websites.

1. Wikipedia & Wikimedia
Commons
A guide to contributing

2. What is Wikipedia?

3. Wikipedia
• Founded in 2001.
• As of September, 2012, on the English Wikipedia:
• 6th most accessed website in the world.
• Led by Facebook, Google, YouTube, Yahoo! and Baidu.com.
• Over 4 million articles.
• Over 550 million edits.

4. Wikipedia Languages
• Wikipedia comes in 285 different languages.
• Including German, Italian, Catalan, Latin, Yiddish, Japanese,
Swahili, and Simple English.
• Each language has its own set of rules and guidelines, and are
not simply translations of other Wikipedias.
• The largest are:
• English (over 4 million articles)
• German (over 1.4 million articles)
• French (over 1.2 million articles)
• Dutch (over 1.1 million articles)
• (See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias)

5. Wikipedia is Free
• Wikipedia is released under a Creative Commons Attribution
Share Alike License.
• This means that so long as you attribute it, it can be used by
anyone, for any purpose.
• Books
• Dedicated readers
• Integration into other websites
• Forks
• It also means that text or media that is not under a compatible
license is generally not accepted.

6. Reliability
• Wikipedia’s reliability is a point of some debate.
• Various surveys place it just behind or roughly on par with
major generalist encyclopedias.
• Can be much more current than traditional models.

7. Structure of an Article

8. Structure of an Article
Page options

9. Structure of an Article
Lead

10. Structure of an Article
Infobox

11. Structure of an Article
Table of contents

12. Structure of an Article
Links to versions in
other languages

13. Structure of an Article
References

14. Structure of an Article
Page ratings

15. Structure of an Article
Categories

16. Structure of an Article
Article

17. Structure of an Article
Discussion page

18. Structure of an Article
Edit page as a whole

19. Structure of an Article
Page editing
history

20. Structure of an Article
Edit section

21. Structure of Wikipedia
• Main space for “Live” articles, such as Doctor Who.
• Discussion space for articles, such as Talk:Doctor Who.
• User space, such as User:Jimbo Wales, where you keep
projects, your details and related materials.
• Wikipedia space, for policies, noticeboards, guidelines and
material for the running of Wikipedia, such as Wikipedia:Five
pillars.

22. Page Ratings
• Stub: Short article, no major content.
• Start: Some content, not enough references, needs a lot of
expansion.
• C and B class: Better articles, still need work.
• Good Article: Peer reviewed. Could do with refinement, but
good writing, coverage and sourcing.
• A class: Excellent article. Normally peer reviewed.
• Featured Article: The best Wikipedia has to offer. Extensive
peer review.

23. Wikipedia Rules

24. Wikipedia Governance
• Wikipedia is an adhocracy.
• Decisions about the direction of Wikipedia is made by the
community. There is no single body in charge of Wikipedia.
• Elected bodies do not create policy, only recommend that it be
created.
• The Wikimedia Foundation occasionally sets policies to do with
legal issues, but is not involved in content.
• Decisions are reached through consensus based on the
engaged parties, not through voting.
• Almost all rules are subject to change, just like the rest of
Wikipedia.

25. Policies, Guidelines and Essays
• Policies are strict rules that must be followed.
• Most are created by the community.
• They formalize current practice.
• Policies are created when required.
• For example: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons.
• Guidelines are strong recommendations. They can be ignored,
but rarely.
• For example: Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers.
• Essays are opinions.
• For example: Wikipedia:Candor.

26. Five Pillars
Wikipedia is free
Wikipedia is written
Wikipedia is an content that anyone
from a neutral point
encyclopedia can edit, use, modify
of view
and distribute
Editors should
interact with each Wikipedia does not
other in a respectful have firm rules
manner

27. Policies and Guidelines
Wikipedia is an
encyclopedia
Not News
No Original Research
Spam and
Usernames
Notability Guidelines

28. Policies and Guidelines
Wikipedia is written
from a neutral point
of view
Verifiability
Biographies of Living
People
Reliable Sources
Conflicts of Interest

29. Policies and Guidelines
Wikipedia is free
content that anyone
can edit, use, modify
and distribute
Non-Free Content
Three Revert Rule
Copyright
Page Protection

30. Policies and Guidelines
Editors should
interact with each
other in a respectful
manner
No Personal Attacks
One account
Three Revert Rule
Etiquette

31. Policies and Guidelines
Wikipedia does not
have firm rules
Not Bureaucracy

32. How to Edit Wikipedia.

33. What Can You Do?
• Expand articles.
• Correct/Copyedit articles.
• Add photos and media.
• Add categories.
• Provide advice.
• Help with sources.
• Revert vandalism.
• New page patrol.

34. Contributors
• 772,426 contributors
• 33,372 active contributors (more than 5 changes per month)
• 3,483 very active contributors (more than 100 changes per month)
• Ages vary from 10 up.
• Spikes around the early 20’s.
• Young editors tend to focus more on anti-vandalism.
• Qualifications vary from yet to complete high school to PhDs.
• Gender is strongly biased in favour of men
• Figures on female editors sit around 9-19%.
• Generally, the overall number of editors has been falling since
a high in 2007.

35. Who Can Contribute?
• There are three main levels of access:
• Unregistered Users
• Don’t have accounts.
• Can be identified by IP address.
• Can edit any page that hasn’t been protected.
• Looked on with some suspicion.
• New Users
• Identified by a username.
• Have watch lists.
• Autoconfirmed Users
• Account is over four days old and has made more than 10 edits.
• Can edit any semi-protected page.
• Can upload media.
• Can create new pages.

36. Editing Articles
• To edit an article, click on “Edit” either at the top of the page or
at the top of a section.

37. Editing Articles
Edit page as a whole

38. Editing Articles
Edit section

39. Editing Articles

40. Editing Articles
Edit box

41. Editing Articles
Edit summary

42. Editing Articles
Edit preview

43. Editing Articles
Preview button

44. Editing Articles
Save button

45. Wiki Markup
• Currently, Wikipedia does not have a “WYSIWYG” editor.
• They’re working on it.
• Instead you need to use tags to format text.
• You can experiment in the sandbox:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox

46. Wiki Markup
Purpose Tag Effect
Bold text '''text''' text
Italic ''text'' text
Indent :text text
Major heading ==text== text
Sub heading ===text=== text
Dot point # text • text
Internal link [[link]] link
External link [http://…/ text] text
Reference <ref>text<ref> [1]
Reference list {{reflist}} 1. text
Image [File:Image]

47. Creating a Page
• Given the policies, it can be best to do minor edits before
creating a new page.
• Ensure that it meets the notability guidelines.
• Must be discussed by multiple independent reliable sources.
• Create a page in your sandbox.
• Create a link from your userpage to a version of the article:
• [[User:Bilby/New article]]
• Always include references.
• Follow the instructions at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_wizard
• Submit your article for review.

48. Where to Seek Help

49. Wikipedia Teahouse
• New concept, only been running for a few months.
• Employs selected hosts, unlike most of Wikipedia which is
open to anyone.
• Open to any questions regarding Wikipedia, from anyone.
• No one will be told to read the archives, or simply pointed to other
sources.
• You are encouraged to leave a message there.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse

50. Discussion
• Each article has a discussion/talk page.

51. Discussion
Discussion page

52. Discussion
• Concerns can be raised there.
• Needs to remain focused on the article, not the topic.

53. Asking for Help
• WikiProjects exist to bring together and coordinate people with
common editing interests.
• WikiProject Adelaide
• WikiProject Australia
• WikiProject Public Art
• WikiProject Children’s Literature
• WikiProject Cooperation
• If the WikiProject is active, it can be a good place to ask for
advice.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject
• Beware canvasing: requests for help need to be neutrally
worded and broadly targeted.

54. Bold Revert Discuss Cycle
Bold
Discuss Revert
• Be bold and make changes, but discuss them if someone
disagrees.
• Beware the Bold – Revert – Revert – Revert cycle!

55. Dispute Resolution
Third Request for Arbitration
Discussion Noticeboards Mediation
Opinion Comment Committee

56. Noticeboards
• The noticeboards exist to bring community attention to
problems.
• Include:
• Biographies of Living Persons noticeboard
• Reliable sources noticeboard
• Conflict of interest noticeboard
• Neutral Point of View noticeboard
• Dispute resolution noticeboard

57. Wikipedia Enforcement
• Wikipedia Administrators are contributors who are trusted to
enforce policies. Elected by the community.
• Administrator’s noticeboard
• Administrator’s noticeboard/Incidents
• The Arbitration Committee is an elected body (by the
community) responsible for deciding certain disputes.

58. Volunteer Response Team
• Handle questions privately over email.
• Good for problems that may involve libel or require privacy.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Volunteer_Response_Tea
m

59. General Support
• Wikimedia Australia
• http://www.wikimedia.org.au
• Wiki meetups

60. Other Projects.

61. Wikimedia Foundation Projects
• Wikimania
• Wikibooks
• Meta
• Wikiquote
• Wikispecies
• MediaWiki
• Incubator
• Wikiversity
• Wiktionariy
• Wikinews
• Wikisource
• Wikimedia
Commons
• Wikipedia

62. Wikimedia Foundation Projects
• All projects ascribe to the same Creative Commons license.
• Scope varies between projects.
• Creating an account on one project allows access to all
projects.

63. Wikimedia Commons
• Used to store media in one place.
• Easily added to any Wikimedia Foundation project.
• Currently has over 14 million media files.
• More restrictive than Wikipedia:
• Free media only (Creative Commons By Attribution Sharealike or
equivalent)

64. References
• Meta contributors, "List of Wikipedias," Meta, discussion about Wikimedia projects,
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Wikipedias&oldid=4136366 (accessed
September 24, 2012).
• “Wikipedia Statistics English”, Wikimedia Statistics,
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm (accessed September 24, 2012).
• “Wikipedia.org”, Alexa, http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org (accessed September
24, 2012).
• Wikipedia contributors, "Emu War," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emu_War&oldid=513962402 (accessed
September 24, 2012).