Motivation edit
Recently, a librarian asked me how best to go about creating an account on Wikipedia, in order to better understand Wikipedia's practices, especially in relation to its reliability as a source.
I was able to answer most of their questions, but not as concisely or authoritatively as I would have liked. Here is a better set of answers, in FAQ form, linking to the relevant policies or guidelines.
Account creation and choosing a username edit
- Q: Should it be an account for my institution?
A: No.
- Q: Should it be for my role within my institution?
A: No.
- Q: Is it OK to use my institution's name within my username at all?
A: Yes, as long as this is not purely to promote the institution
- Q: Is it OK to have more than one account?
A: Only under specific circumstances.
- Q: Should I use my real name?
A: Up to you.
- Potential benefits to Wikipedia: increased transparency & accountability.
- Potential benefits to you: be acknowledged in real life for your contributions to Wikipedia.
- Potential disadvantages to you: increased risk of harassment, sadly.
- Q: Should I use a pseudonym that I use on other websites?
A: Up to you. As long as it does not violate username policy, this is fine.
- Potential benefits to you: be acknowledged on other websites for your contributions to Wikipedia, and vice versa.
- Potential disadvantages to you: increased risk of harassment, sadly, depending upon those other websites.
- Q: Should I use a pseudonym that I don't use anywhere else?
A: Up to you. As long as it does not violate username policy, this is fine.
- Potential benefits to you: decreased risk of harassment.
- Potential disadvantages to you: reduced likelihood you will be acknowledged in real life for your contributions to Wikipedia.
What to edit edit
- Q: Is it OK to create or edit an article for my institution?
A: Probably not, on two counts:
- your institution may not be notable enough to have an article; and
- even if it is notable enough to have one, as an employee, you have a conflict of interest.
- Q: Then what should I edit?
A: Once you have followed Getting Started and/or The Wikipedia Adventure, a good place to go might be Citation Hunt. This will present you with unsourced claims, in the hope that you will be able to provide reliable sources. You can filter by category, e.g. by your field of expertise. As a librarian, you have unparalleled access to reliable sources, and this makes you ideally placed to improve the verifiability of Wikipedia. Also, using Citation Hunt for categories within your field of expertise will give you insight into the nature and accuracy of unsourced claims being made in Wikipedia articles in that field, which will help you to form a judgement about Wikipedia's reliability in that area.
N.B. Wikipedia is uncensored, and is also occasionally vandalised. If the Citation Hunt tool shows you anything you find distasteful, click "Next". (Credit to Charles Matthews for making this point, and for reminding me about the existence of the Citation Hunt tool, at his recent training session.)
- Q: That helps me find unreferenced material, but is there a more general to-do list?
A: Wikipedia's Task Center suggests tasks with which editors can usefully assist.
GLAM professionals and Wikipedia edit
- Q: Does Wikipedia offer any advice aimed at GLAM professionals?
A: Yes!
- Q: Does the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its local chapters offer any advice aimed at GLAM professionals?
A: Yes!
- Q: Are Wikipedians in Residence subject to specific rules, distinct from other GLAM professionals?
A: Yes.
Wikipedia's reliability edit
- Q: Is Wikipedia reliable?
A: There is no simple answer to this question. Some articles' claims are extremely well sourced; others less so. Some editors are extremely scrupulous; others may be slapdash or even malicious. Echoing Charles Matthews, I would say: learn Wikipedia editing to develop an understanding of what a good article should look like, and learn to use article and contribution histories to inform your judgements about individual articles and editors.
- Q: Should I advise my clients to use Wikipedia?
A: They almost certainly already do. Rather than dismissing or endorsing Wikipedia out of hand, help your clients to appreciate the point above. Guide them to Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia for advice.
Anything else? edit
Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia, by Magnus Manske, et al., is concise yet surprisingly comprehensive.