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

[garystu]

me and a mate vandalised Wikipedia for shits and giggles when we were both 14, in the computer lab at school. the edit history is probably still in there, but I'm not gonna be bothered looking. it took mods half an hour to stop us.

my permanent contribution to Wikipedia is like poopoopeepee 20 years ago that got reverted, and that suits me I feel. you can't improve perfection

Nowadays, mods would probably respond quicker, can't have SHIT on modern internet.

[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.

[Misanthropic Monster™]

me and a mate vandalised Wikipedia for shits and giggles when we were both 14, in the computer lab at school. the edit history is probably still in there, but I'm not gonna be bothered looking. it took mods half an hour to stop us.

my permanent contribution to Wikipedia is like poopoopeepee 20 years ago that got reverted, and that suits me I feel. you can't improve perfection

Nowadays, mods would probably respond quicker, can't have SHIT on modern internet.

Hahah I came to this thread to say something similar... I've never seriously edited Wikipedia, but I also vandalised a page (me and a buddy were a bit drunk and messing about online, this was back in like 2004 or something) and I had the stupid idea...

For context, my late-cat of 17 years was called Temüjin (a name my ex partner chose) and for anyone who doesn't realise, Temüjin was the birth name of Genghis Khan.

Now we have context...

In our drunken state, we both thought it would be hilarious to edit the Wiki article for Genghis Khan so all the images were of my cat. Yeah, pretty dumb right? Looking back I dunno how I ever found it funny, but we were in hysterics for hours till the admins caught on and reverted it back, then banned me haha.   

It didn't help that this cat was a very mangled Egyptian Mau who had two crumpled ears (due to bad hematomas) and only three legs.

[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.

[garystu]

Hahah I came to this thread to say something similar... I've never seriously edited Wikipedia, but I also vandalised a page (me and a buddy were a bit drunk and messing about online, this was back in like 2004 or something) and I had the stupid idea...

For context, my late-cat of 17 years was called Temüjin (a name my ex partner chose) and for anyone who doesn't realise, Temüjin was the birth name of Genghis Khan.

Now we have context...

In our drunken state, we both thought it would be hilarious to edit the Wiki article for Genghis Khan so all the images were of my cat. Yeah, pretty dumb right? Looking back I dunno how I ever found it funny, but we were in hysterics for hours till the admins caught on and reverted it back, then banned me haha.   

It didn't help that this cat was a very mangled Egyptian Mau who had two crumpled ears (due to bad hematomas) and only three legs.

Nah mate, that is funny. There's nothing in the world funnier than an obnoxious fucking drunk stupid in-joke.

I hope the cat pictures are still buried deep in the depths of Wikimedia Commons somewhere. That would be wild.

[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

[Misanthropic Monster™]

Nah mate, that is funny. There's nothing in the world funnier than an obnoxious fucking drunk stupid in-joke.

I hope the cat pictures are still buried deep in the depths of Wikimedia Commons somewhere. That would be wild.

I'm so glad someone appreciated that haha! It would be hilarious if the cat pics were stored somewhere on the internet archive or something lol

[TheFrugalGamer]

I've fixed a few typos and grammatical errors a few times, but never had anything important enough that I thought would meet standards.

@garystu your story reminds me of a page that I swear I found once that was dedicated to letting people know they should not add pictures of their pets to various pet articles, but I went searching for it and found this one instead:
List_of_really,_really,_really_stupid_article_ideas_that_you_really,_really,_really_should_not_create

Which probably isn't encouraging to anyone wanting to jump in, but I wouldn't take it too seriously. It's good to know Wikipedians have a sense of humor.

[kzuich]

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