Editing 101

Visit Event Dashboard

Make a Wikipedia Account

Unless you already have a Wikipedia account (in which case, you can log-in), click Request an account.

For privacy reasons - consider choosing an anonymous username different from your given or chosen name and your other online usernames – edits you make will all be traced back to your username.

Hang tight while your account is approved by the Event Organizer, and jump to Step 3 to read about Wikipedia’s Core Content Policies, or the “code of ethics” behind creating Wikipedia content.

Understand Wikipedia’s Core Content Policies, or Best Practices for Editing Wikipedia

Neutrality | All content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing significant views fairly, proportionately, and without bias. We write about people, places, and things without inserting our personal views and opinions of them or their lives. We also rewrite biased articles.

Maintain Verifiability | On Wikipedia, verifiability means that people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that information comes from a reliable, published source. You should see citations at the bottom of every article, and if you don't, that's a problem. You'll need to add citations to articles from mainstream newspapers, magazines, books, etc. to keep them from being deleted. 

No Original Research | Wikipedia does not publish original thought or original research: you must cite an independent, reliable, published sources for every claim you make. A new analysis of the material that advances a position not proven by the sources is not allowed.

Conflict of Interest | Sometimes being messy is fun, but not in the world of documentation. If you think you have a Conflict Of Interest (COI), don't create or edit an article. Instead, post that someone else should build it on the article talk page or a related talk page. Talk pages are places where editors discuss/argue about an article's content. Editors should never write articles about themselves, their loved ones, or about where they work, for example. Other Wikipedians delete articles and content when it is clear that they were written by their subject, even if the person meets notability standards.

Use Reliable Sources | If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are considered the most reliable. Other reliable sources include university-level textbooks, books published by respected publishing houses, magazines, journals, and mainstream newspapers. You must make use of reliable sources to build the content of an article. Of course, you need to paraphrase or rewrite the source material using your own words, so you're not plagiarizing.

Notability | The notability criterion on Wikipedia means that if the subject of an article hasn't received significant coverage by reliable third-party sources, then most likely, it will not be considered notable enough to have its page or exist on the platform at all. There are specific guidelines for artist biographies, events, books, organizations, etc.  We emphasize the words 'respected' and 'reliable' because so much of history has excluded women, indigenous, Black and brown people, queer and trans folks, etc. We want to be clear that just because Wikipedia's rules say something or someone isn't notable, does not mean it's not noteworthy.

Log-in and Start Exploring

After you’ve been approved and have logged in, open up any Wikipedia article and behold your newfound powers (Step 5 will help you understand them).

Understand the Anatomy of a Wikipedia Page

• Once you are logged in to your new Wikipedia account, you will see the "Talk", "Read", "Edit", "Edit Source," and "View History" sections of a Wikipedia page.
• Note in the "Talk" tab: Talk pages are Wikipedia's version of peer review. More information: Wikipedia:Tutorial/Talk pages

Interesting example: bell hooks talk page includes a section debating how to address the lack of capitalization of her name.

• Note in the "View History" tab: Every page edit is publicly visible. You can scroll through every edit ever made to a page and expand and compare these edits.
• Note in the "View History" tab: Every page edit you make is traceable to your user account.

Add Your User Page

Click your user icon and then the Edit (or Edit Source) tab. If your tab says “Edit Source,” use the pencil icon to toggle to the “Visual Editor” option which will change the tab to “Edit” which is a simpler mode of Wikipedia editing, better suited to beginners.

Now you can add a tiny bit of information about your editing work to your User Page - remember this is traceable to your edit history. 

Editing Basics: Visit Your Sandbox and Start Playing

This is a page where you can begin to try core functions of editing such as:

• Enter text.
• Citing a source at the end of a sentence you have written (click “Cite” and use the “Automatic” feature to try creating a citation link to any website.)
• Insert a References List. (Insert > References List. You can also type “References” above it and highlight that text and format it as a “Heading” under the “Paragraph” dropdown.
• Link topics within your text to Wikipedia pages by highlighting the text, clicking the “Link” icon and selecting the Wikipedia article.
• Get in the habit of when you “Publish Changes” adding a brief description of the changes you made - this is what shows up in the Edit History of an article at a quick browse view and shows others at a glance what you changed. You can also check “minor change.”