This page contains resources for the University of Idaho's Wikipedia Workshop and Edit-a-Thon on October 23, 2013, part of the library's Open Access Week.
Getting started
editLearning all of Wikipedia's rules* would take more than a day. But you really only need to know a few basics to be a good contributor:
- Neutral point of view (NPOV) – Avoid biased statements and opinions. Cite your sources, and prefer reliable, independent sources.
- No original research (OR) – If you can't cite a source for a statement, you probably shouldn't add it. The standard is verifiability, not truth.
- Biographies of living persons (BLP) – Be especially careful when editing these.
- Ignore all rules (IAR) – If a rule prevents you from improving Wikipedia, ignore it! (But don't ignore the first three rules.)
- Be bold – Jump in and give it a try!
Important pages
edit- Wikipedia:Five pillars – The core principles of Wikipedia
- Help:Cheatsheet – Some formatting basics, like italics, bolding, and references
- Wikipedia:Sandbox – Test out editing here if you're not ready to start editing articles
- Wikipedia:Citing sources – The full, official guide on how to cite your sources. Or save some time and check out my quick guide.
Practice
edit- User:Alex Kyrios/sandbox – I've copied the beginning of the Idaho article, adding a few errors and requests for citations. Let's see if we can fix it.
Finding articles
edit- Category:WikiProject Idaho articles – A list of all articles tagged as relevant to Idaho. A WikiProject is a group of Wikipedia users focused on improving Wikipedia's coverage of a certain topic; this one is dedicated to Idaho.
- Category:Eastern Washington task force articles – Here you'll find some articles relevant to the other side of the Palouse, the Spokane area, and the Inland Northwest generally.
- Special:Random – If you're feeling lucky, you can go to a random article, but keep in mind that Wikipedia is not censored...