My First Wikipedia Article
March 9th, 2007,I did my first Wikipedia article yesterday. I’m a fan of this open-source encyclopedia, and I’m also a nerdly character who earned a living writing articles for West Publishing’s Encyclopedia of American Law. So it was bound to happen that I’d graduate from correcting typos and adding research sources on Wikipedia to creating a new article or entry.
The entry itself is only a “stub” - a short beginning article - on the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program, a great program of the U.S. federal government that will give over $20 million dollars to four U.S. cities or counties - Marin County, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Columbia, Missouri; and Sheboygan County, Wisconsin - to increase participation in nonmotorized transportation and improve infrastructure for that purpose.
This Wikipedia work is addictive stuff: adding to a collective store of knowledge, putting something you’re interested in out there so others can make it better, working with a cool interface and system that thousands of people have helped to perfect. If I weren’t so busy or if it paid, I’d do this a lot more. As it is, I’ll cool it for now and get back to other things.
For those who’d like to contribute to Wikipedia, I’d suggest going the route that I did: start by correcting typos or grammar in entries, go on to add some suggestions for “further reading,” then try a stub or add a new paragraph or sub-topic to an existing article. It may be difficult to find an article that hasn’t already been done, but be patient and you’ll find something.
One thing that helped me to more quickly create my entry was learning to copy the code that others had used for their contributions. Hit “edit” when looking at an entry and you’ll see what I mean. So, for example, I added the nice graphic and footer material at the bottom of the new article by copying and pasting material from a related article.
Note: As of today, there are nearly 1.7 million articles in the English version of Wikipedia.
March 14th, 2007 at 10:07 am
I revised the post for some clarity. Instead of adding “references,” which are sources used to write the Wikipedia article, I’ve added items for “further reading” to articles that I have not otherwise contributed to. Be sure that the suggested “further reading” you are adding is substantial and worth adding.
I edited the post above to reflect these facts.
Of course if you make more substantial edits to an article and add new information or create a new article, you’ll want to add references and notes that indicate where you obtained the information.