Wikimedia for Civil
Servants
Scottish Government, 8th December 2016

Wikimedia
Foundation
Imagine a world in which every
single human being can freely share
in the sum of all knowledge.
That’s our commitment.

Not just Wikipedia

More than meets the eye
★ Quality & ratings scale
★ Vandalism picked up quickly
★ Wikipedia is more accurate than you think
★ Study by Nature in 2005, found Wiki nearly as
accurate as Britannica (2.92 errors per article comp to
3.86 on Wikipedia.)
★ Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2010 found Wiki as
accurate as Physician Data Query.
★ Ease of editing reflects ongoing debate

Wiki has a gender problem

Pillars of
Wikipedia
An encyclopedia
Neutral point of view
Free content that anyone
can use, reuse or
distribute
Respect & civility
No firm rules
By Thermos (Thermos) (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.5
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Core content
policies
Topics should meet Wiki’s
standard of notability
Avoid conflict of interest
(maintain neutrality)
No personal
interpretation (aka “no
original research”)

Verifiability
“...anyone using the encyclopedia
can check that the information
comes from a reliable source.”

What’s a reliable source?
If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources.
Other reliable sources include
university-level textbooks
books published by respected publishing houses
magazines
journals
mainstream newspapers

“Wikipedia is the single
greatest open
educational tool the
world has ever known”
Jim Groom, #OER16

Politics & PR fails

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/anon
ymous-wikipedia-edits-linked-to-queensland-
government-networks-wikiwatchdog-reveals-
20161027-gsci5j.html

Conflict of
interest can
be apparent
as well as
actual
https://www.theguardian.com/polit
ics/2016/jul/06/andrea-leadsom-
faces-questions-over-wikipedia-
profile-edits

https://www.revealnews.org/blog/wikipedia-users-
are-revolting-against-donald-trumps-inner-circle/

@parliamentedits

C
@WhitehallEdits

This can lead to a
siege mentality

Protected & semi protected pages

As civil servants, how do
we contribute?

The talk page
Ensuring accuracy
Managing COI

● Create an account
● Be open about CoI
● Don’t try & game the system
● Be authentic in your desire to
contribute

Sara Thomas
@lirazelf
sa.thomas@live.com
[[user:lirazelf]]