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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Kirill Lokshin (talk | contribs) at 01:16, 23 July 2010 (+cat). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Introduction to Wikipedia for the Smithsonian Modified from the original "Introduction to Wikipedia" by User:DGG, July 7, 2009 version, at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:DGG/NYPL as well as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DG/PTS

For a guide to Wikipedia, check out Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual


Reading and using Wikipedia

Wikipedia and other sources

How reliable is Wikipedia as a source?

  1. recognized (within limits)
  2. reputation
  3. credentials of authors
  4. Controls for quality
  5. Format and medium: online, print, etc.
  6. Technical quality
  7. Degree of detail
  8. Freedom from bias
  9. Currency of information
  10. Confirmation by other known reliable sources
  11. Sources given for information
    1. Reliability of sources
    2. Appropriateness of sources
    3. Currency of sources

positive factors affecting reliability

  1. Large number of contributors
  2. Varied background of contributors
    1. Education
    2. Interest
    3. Geography
    4. Language knowledge
  3. Specialist contributors
  4. WikiProjects and Workgroups
  5. Screening of contributions
    1. Recent changes
    2. Watchlists
    3. New Page feed
    4. Login to start pages
    5. Edit filters
    6. New Pages
    7. Patrolled pages for Biography of Living people (forthcoming)
    8. Quality ratings: featured articles
    9. Deletion
    10. Blocking
  6. Policy: Reliable Sources
  7. Policy: Not Censored
  8. Edit histories
  9. OTRS

Negative factors affecting reliability

  1. Concentration of editors on popular topics
  2. Anonymity
  3. Impermanence
  4. Pressure groups & cabals
  5. Cultural bias
    1. Recentist
    2. Anglocentric
    3. Political inclinations
    4. Philosophical inclinations
  6. Taboos


Wikipedia's coverage

  • What are the problems?:
  • Accuracy; updating; stability; edit wars/WP:OWNership
  • Fairness; WP:COI
  • Poorly covered areas : History, Traditional Humanities fields
  • Uneven depth in even fairly well covered areas
  • Spam
  • Where is it strong:
  • Classic literature and drama
  • History and Religion
  • Africa, most of Asia, Latin America
  • Where it is too difficult for most people?:
  • Mathematics, Linguistics, ...

How to use Wikipedia (Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia)

  • Searching
  • Wikipedia Search box
  • Google and other search engines
  • Evaluating an article
  • Sourcing (Wikipedia:Verifiability; WP:RS); External links (WP:EL)
  • Article history (sometimes an old version contains useful information that has been dropped)
  • Talk page - Wikiprojects rate their own articles; discussion of article improvement
  • Examples:
  • Other parts of the system than articles
  • Commons: Pictures and media Files
  • Wikitionary; WikiSource (& related projects elsewhere, such as Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive)
  • other language Wikipedias
  • Discussing an article; Wikiquette; Consensus
  • Correcting/expanding an article; WP:CITE; WP:MOS
  • Writing a new article WP:FIRST
  • Researching an article with library and other resources

Writing for Wikipedia

  1. Finding an article; disambiguation pages; finding stubs
  1. [an account]; usernames
  1. Copy editing (common typo: "occured" instead of "occurred"); grammar changes: WP:MOS; click "minor" edits?; edit summary; Category:Wikify
  1. Content editing: Category:Stub-Class Smithsonian Institution-related articles
A. Look over article before editing - The information may already be there
B. Look at recent discussions on Talk page
C. Get research information and bibliographic reference to source; WP:V; WP:RS; WP:NOR. See, e.g., Google?
D. Edit this page tab; Editing sections; Write using your own words - (copyright/plagiarism)
E. Formatting your citation; WP:CITE; Reflist
F. Provide an edit summary; describe purpose of change on Talk page (sign with four tildes: ~~~~ ); WP:NPOV; WP:CIVIL; WP:CONSENSUS;
G. Show preview; when satisfied, save page. SELECT ALL and copy before saving in case of software problem
H. Wikify; pipes; Wikipedia:Tutorial; Wikipedia:Cheatsheet
I. History tab - see record of previous edits
J. Categories; External links; See also
K. Assessment - Stub; GA; FA - Look to Featured articles for good examples; Wikipedia:Article development
L. Examples


  1. Wikipedia:Starting an article
A. Wikipedia:Naming conventions; Make sure that article does not already exist under different name (Use search)
B. WP:Notability; WP:COI; WP:NOT
C. Redirects
D. Searching and bluelinking your article's name in existing articles
E. Wikipedia:Layout

Getting Help

Other internal sources

Follow-up

  • If you need help, contact the Smithsonian Institution project at WP:GLAM/SI
  • The teachers of the class can be contacted at User talk:Sadads ...... (Add more)
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