User:Jordan Girardin/Wikipedia and Academia:an Impossible Love?

University of St Andrews, 4 November 2013.

Organised by the Postgraduate Forum in Early Modern & Modern History (link) and supported by Wikimedia UK (documentation and freebies provided).

Using Wikipedia for academic purposes can be seen by our peers as a risky decision which can lead to bumpy consequences. Here's 7 points and tips in order to make the use of Wikipedia legitimate AND useful for the sake of research.

Accepting AND fixing three clichés

Anyone can edit anything on Wikipedia

TRUE. And that is the amazing fact about all Wiki projects. Bad news: false information, vandalism, and silly things can happen. Great news: policies and guidelines are issued, content is constantly discussed, WikiProjects emerge.

Wikipedia just cannot be used a source

Technically TRUE. We will never use Wikipedia in footnotes or endnotes (unless Wikipedia is your topic and therefore you are using it as a primary source).

Why? Because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia based itself on sources. And those sources should be displayed through the <ref></ref> tool. And you can request particular articles to display more references.

Remember to use Wikipedia like a piece of academic work. Each entry can be criticised, improved, and you can comment on it.

There is a high number of small, incomplete articles

TRUE indeed, and this is probably where we postgrads and researchers can help the most. Moderators and admins point out on a daily basis articles which could be improved. Do not hesitate to contribute on topics that you're the expert on.

Four ways to get involved further

Edit yourself!

All you need to do is set up an account/username (will help to legitimise your work).

Climb up the Wikipedia ladder

Venture through the community portal, get involved in discussions about articles, keep editing, initiate wiki projects.

Get involved in other Wiki projects

There is so much more than Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation is the organisation managing many other projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, Wikimedia Incubator...

Spread the Wiki message

You can of course join Wikimedia UK, but as academics there are many other ways to get involved. For example, groups of 2-3 can edit one given article on one topic, with appropriate references and wiki format.

Conclusion

The current problem in the relationship between Wikipedia and Academia is that there is a gap between newcomers/beginners/trolls and a range of very competent/confident editors. By continuing to spread the message throughout academia, we can reduce this gap. Wikipedia will therefore cease to be a scary place.

Don't think of Wikipedia as one big encyclopedia, nor a big website with 6,919,560 articles. Think of it as a group of dozens of clusters, categories, projects, portals. Some of them will appeal to you. Each of them features specialists, researchers, keen amateurs, geeky map editors, professional experts, curious readers. There is definitely space to join.

Don't forget that Wikipedia is available in other languages: if you are fluent in more than one language, your contribution would be even more precious.

Links

Useful documentation from Wikimedia Outreach
Official wiki of Wikimedia UK
Open Letter for Free Access to Wikipedia
A peak at EduWiki Conference 2013 (1-2 November, Cardiff)
Most vandalised pages
"The Funniest Acts of Wikipedia Vandalism" on The Huffington Post, 16 January 2011.
'Citation Needed' (tumblr on "the best of Wikipedia's worst writing, mentioned during the talk)
Deletion policy

Webpage of the PG Forum