Have you ever edited Wikipedia? Why or why not?

[crow-queen]

I am curious what kind of experiences others have had with editing Wikipedia.

"TL;DR: I want to edit it more because I feel concerned about gender bias causing misrepresentation of certain topics, but feel nervous because I feel others are more qualified."

I recently created an account to edit Wikipedia because I saw that somebody had been editing the wikipedia page for a fashion style that is my main interest right now in a way that was not accurately representing the fashion style, and it upset me that it might be misrepresenting my fashion style to people for whom it was their first google result.
I felt really frustrated that a person who seemingly didn't really understand the style had been the main editor for the page for a little while, and wondered why there was so little interest within the fashion's community for updating these kinds of spaces. But while looking through some of the information on Wikipedia, I discovered that 90% of wikipedia editors identify as male. This is a huge gender bias and doesn't make for a lot of representation within a fashion style where wearing it appeals largely to people who are not male. When speaking to others in this community about the Wikipedia page for the fashion, it seems that for most people it would never even occur to them to edit it, despite knowing that the page isn't a very good source of information. Going forwards I would like to continue editing the page, but I am nervous to be the main person editing the page because despite being fairly knowledgeable about it, I don't see myself as an expert in the subject when compared to other community members, and I'm not university educated so I worry about making mistakes with sourcing or tone.

[close]

And so I was wondering whether others edit wikipedia, and if so, what kind of pages do you edit, and what prompted you to? if not, why not?

[nuclearblues]

when I was in high school, I edited science fiction and 20th century history pages super often. I didn't have a whole lot going on in most of my classes and wikipedia was one of the few websites that wasn't blocked on school wifi. I highly encourage people to try editing even if they don't feel they are the most qualified; if you can read an article, report, or book about a topic, you are as qualified as any other wikipedia editor. the point is not to do independent research or even to know absolutely everything about the topic, it is simply to fill in gaps in the encyclopedia's database. plenty of topics are not covered in nearly as much depth as you might assume. additionally, grammar review is absolutely imperative. formatting and grammar issues are all over the site outside of the most visited pages, and fixing them is a great way to quickly improve the quality of the encyclopedia.

[Tommie ΘΔ]

I actually have! Or at least tried to. For a few months, my edit of the Sacrophilus Laniarius and Moorneasis page was active. I had wanted to add a photo of each extinct Sacrophilus to their respective pages, but due to copyright restrictions I couldnt :(

Pretty lame that someone decided to copyright the only photo of a proper Laniarius taxidermy, but I suppose thats the way of the world. The photo of Moorneasis teeth is free use, I believe, but I wasnt able to upload it to wikiphotos at the time because of how difficult it was to find it.

Not as important, or meaningful in any sense of the matter, but I also edited a random wiki page in 6th grade and replaced random words with "Dora" for some reason. Not my finest work by far

[di]

I have quite a bit of experience with Wikipedia! I've created pages, made extensive edits to pages, uploaded photos to Commons, all in varying degrees over the past decade

Since you sound passionate about it, I would encourage you to sign up and edit that page too. You don't have to be an expert, the world deserves better knowledge about that topic if you know something about it, and as you said, Wikipedia desperately needs a less male-dominated perspective

When you write on Wikipedia, what you need to do is to cite your claims with reliable sources. This is what they name as reliable sources:

• Academic and peer-reviewed publications
• University-level textbooks
• Books published by respected publishing houses
• Mainstream (non-fringe) magazines, including specialty ones
• Reputable newspapers

So, I want to warn you, if a lot of your knowledge comes from more folksy areas like social media, YouTube, and personal blogs, it might be hard to argue for those being used as reliable sources.

Sometimes you can get away with that. Other times, Wikipedia can be more finicky about it. One time, I tried to use a direct quote from a game developer posted on their verified Twitter account as a source, but even that didn't meet their criteria!

Wikipedia tries to be very objective. Objectivity is helpful for articles about science and basic facts, but it isn't as easy if you're discussing a cultural phenomenon or a small subculture that hasn't already been extensively studied by academics.

I don't say this to discourage you, but wanted you to know this in case you do decide to contribute, and then somebody challenges or removes your edit. This happens to everyone who edits Wikipedia, eventually; it's nothing personal.

If this worries you, keep in mind that Wikipedia is not the end all be all of the internet. You could always share your knowledge on your own web page and use any source you want without fear of getting called out. I trust that you probably know a lot about it, and I'd be happy to read it.

But I also know that Wikipedia is one the major stops on the internet when people are looking for information, and it makes sense to want to hop on and contribute! To that I say, go for it! 

Lastly, don't be afraid about "not being qualified." Wikipedia has a rule about assuming people are editing in good faith, so don't be afraid to try! I think that's the best way to understand and learn more about the editing process.

*EDIT*

Oh and by the way, if you're not sure you're ready to make edits yet, you can also go to the article's Talk page and post questions, concerns, and critiques there. Hopefully, the other editors should see it and engage with you.


**ANOTHER EDIT lol sorry I'm a blabbermouth lol**

Another thing to do if you're too nervous to edit the main article is to get involved in Wikimedia Commons. Commons a sister project where people upload photos to the public domain. Those photos can then be added to Wikipedia articles (and other websites/educational material too.) You can either find public domain photos, or take them yourself. You can even upload photos of yourself wearing that style, if you're comfortable with that. Just keep in mind it's public domain.

In my experience, contributing photos often feels like a nice, low-stakes way to contribute to the Wikipedia project. It can help you build up the courage to edit by getting used to Wikipedia formatting and standards, and it can help establish you as someone who knows about that subculture. You might be surprised at how much mileage the photos can get around the internet, too.

[candycanearter07]

I've been tempted to, especially for pages I'm interested in but are a lot shorter like the USENET page or ss13, but I always feel too nervous to and change my mind.. and thats the same for almost every wiki. The only exception is the wiki here bc I already have an account tho :D

[bees]

I can't say I have. I feel there's just not much I can contribute and the editor seems kind of daunting to me! There aren't all that many topics I know a lot about that need to be more detailed on Wikipedia, as far as I can tell.

[Paprika]

I've tried to contribute once and corrected some sentences on an article but it got cancelled since it was considered as vandalized. Never touched ever again.

[2010]

i am a major fan of the series wedding peach !! i did a very minor edit on the english page for it since it had 0 mention of the pc-98 visual novel game :O n it annoyed me >:[i wouldn't be surprised if one of these days i edit it more X"D  i could always go n see what's missing compared to the japanese page....  the jp page of course has much more info to offer !!

[soju]

I haven't edited in a few years, but I used to read a lot of articles and would always go out of my way to correct obvious typos or grammatical errors. I'm a big history nerd, and on a lot of history-related pages, there is usually a lot of unverified claims, so I'd often remove those or ask for citations as well. I stopped doing it because I don't look at Wikipedia often anymore

[coolio]

I used to vandalize Wikipedia. I'm probably part of the reason you have to be vetted to do it anymore lol. :p
Nothing malicious, just goofy stuff in random articles when I was bored. My edits would stay up for days at a time, which was awesome. I'd send the links to my brother and we'd have a rioutous laugh hahaha

[sokil]

I used to vandalize Wikipedia. I'm probably part of the reason you have to be vetted to do it anymore lol. :p
Nothing malicious, just goofy stuff in random articles when I was bored. My edits would stay up for days at a time, which was awesome. I'd send the links to my brother and we'd have a rioutous laugh hahaha

i actually used to be a prankster on wikipedia as well xD i'd edit pages of certain musicians or bands just to make a friend of mine laugh. it was pretty fun, i can't lie! most were reverted within minutes but there was occasionally one that'd slip through the cracks and stay up for a few days.

nowadays, i actually do occasionally edit wikipedia pages to correct or update smaller things; i tend to help out with pages surrounding my hometown since there isn't a whole lot of information on them, or things are severely out of date. i'd love to be able to sit down and help add much more info to pages someday so that there's a more "complete" feel to it. it'd really be the perfect project for me. i love to share information and teach others, and wikipedia provides a simple and accessible outlet for doing so :) eventually, once my writing skills have improved enough, i'd like to be able to help translate stuff for pages and build upon them if they're severely lacking information.

[Slix]

I've edited Wikipedia a few times over the years. Most of my edits were small typo fixes or adding a link to another wiki page to link them together better. I think most of the pages were tech related, at least one was from an old computer game company. I do think it would be cool to start some pages for things like music albums I have physical copies of but there aren't any pages and hardly any info about the band out there on Wikipedia. Maybe someday I will!

I have however edited a bunch more on Bulbapedia, a Pokemon wiki, again for mostly small changes, but some pages I started from scratch for online Pokemon games that were timed based during the Christmas seasons a few years ago.

I've never done anything malicious for editing Wikipedia, I know that most bad edits get reverted right away. :P

[ajazz]

i've done a few edits - i hope to do more as i get back into the swing of researching things. i think more people should try it - wikipedia is one of the most important institutions on the internet and it's so important that we protect and maintain it

[tertiaryapocalypse]

i think the only wiki edit i've ever done was to add a bit more information to the page 'stars in fiction' or something of a similar title. i'm a huge fan of the audio drama wolf 359 and while most of the other mentioned medias had short summaries, w359 did not!

[boyrotting]

I did when I was around twelve. I just replaced the stats for some random page with the number 69. Very mature for my age I know. I'm pretty sure it was a page about ancient history or something so I hope no one took that seriously   .