How Wikipedia Works: And how You Can be a Part of it 9781593271763, 159327176X

Table of contents :
Introduction
Inside This Book
What You Should Know Going In
Using This Book
Our Approach to Understanding Wikipedia
It’s Everyone’s Encyclopedia: Be Bold!
Wikisyntax Cheatsheet
Part I: Content
1: What’s in Wikipedia?
Types of Articles
Article and Content Inclusion Policies
Core Policies: V, NOR, and NPOV
Understanding the Policies
Other Guidelines
What Wikipedia Is Not
Non-article Content
Types of Non-article Pages
Namespaces
Summary and What to Read Next
2: The World Gets a Free Encyclopedia
Wikipedia’s Mission
Wikipedia’s Roots
Ancient Greece to Today: Encyclopedias
Late 17th Century: The Modern Encyclopedia
Wikipedia as an Encyclopedia
The 1960s and 1970s: Unix, Networks, and Personal Computers
The 1980s: Free Software Movement
1995: Ward’s Wiki
1997: Open Source Communities
2000: Online Community Dynamics
2001: Wikipedia Goes Live
Wikipedia Today
Unfinished Business
The Wikipedia Model Debated
Misinformation: The Seigenthaler Scandal
Amateur Contributors, Authority, and Academia
Summary
3: Finding Wikipedia’s Content
Searching Wikipedia
Basic Searching
External Search Engines
Ways into Wikipedia
Welcome to the Main Page
The Omnipresent Sidebar
Joys of Hypertext
A Hypertext Primer
Three Types of Links
Browsing by Topic
Browsing by Categories
Browsing by Page Type
Summary
4: Understanding and Evaluating an Article
Anatomy of an Article
The Article Text
Backlinks
Article History
Talk Pages
Evaluating Articles
Misinformation, Missing Information, and Mistakes
D-R-E-W-S
Summary
Final Thoughts for Part I
Part II: Editing
5: Basic Editing
Editing a Page
Understanding the Edit Window
Major vs. Minor Edits
Handling Major Editing Tasks
Fixing Mistakes and Other Reasons to Revert
Who Can Edit What?
Syntax
Fundamentals of Text Markup
Internal and External Links
Sections and Headings
Removing Formatting and Hiding Comments
Summary
6: Good Writing and Research
Starting New Articles
Deciding What to Write About
Before Starting a New Article
Avoiding Treacherous Topics
Starting the Article
Drafting the Article
Don’t Forget
Writing Well
Consulting the Manual of Style
Introduction and Topic Sentence
Comprehensiveness and Appropriate Length
Structure
Readability
Audience
Use of Language
Graphics
Apply Basic Content Policies
Reviews
Quality and the Good Stub
Researching Articles
Good Wikipedia Research
Doing Research
Reliable Sources
Referencing Styles
Editing Alongside Others
Changing What Others Write
Will Your Own Edits Be Kept?
Edit Summaries
No Ownership
Summary
7: Cleanup, Projects, and Processes
Cleanup
Flagging Articles
Cleanup Categories
Cleanup Tasks
Rewriting
Expanding Stubs
Wikification
Fact-Checking and Referencing
Vandalism Patrolling
Cleanup Editing Tools
Projects: Working to Improve Content
WikiProjects
Wikiportals
Writing Collaborations
Processes
What Processes Cover
Deleting Articles
Featured Articles
Summary
8: Make and Mend Wikipedia’s Web
Redirect and Disambiguate
Redirects
Disambiguation Pages
Merge, Split, and Move
Merging Articles
Splitting Articles
Moving Pages
Categorize
Categorizing Basics
Categories and Content Policy
Creating New Categories
Subcategories
Categorization Projects
Housekeeping
When a Page Move Is Blocked
Default Meanings
Avoiding Disambiguation Pages
Controlling Category Sorting
Categories and Templates for Redirects
Process-Style Resolutions
Summary
9: Images, Templates, and Special Characters
Images and Media Files
Finding and Adding Images
Using Images
Using Multimedia Files
Templates
Using Templates
Using Parameters
How Templates Work
Varieties of Templates
How to Build Templates
Laying Out Articles
Tables
Formatting Columns
Special Syntax
HTML and CSS
Mathematical Formulas
Variables and Magic Words
Summary
10: The Life Cycle of an Article
Birth of an Article
Deletion
Maintenance Tagging
Editing Improvements
Potential Merge
Discussion and Content Tags
Categories
Bots Arrive
Incoming Wikilinks
Artie Is Moved
In Good Times
In Bad Times
Bad Times, and a True Story
Search Engines Find the Article
New Relatives
Getting the Picture
Good Article
Summary
Conclusion to Part II
Part III: Community
11: Becoming a Wikipedian
On Arrival
Registering an Account
Setting Your Preferences
User Pages, Watchlists, and Edit Count
User Page Content
Watchlists
RSS Notification
Contribution History and Counting Edits
Users and Administrators
User Levels
Administrators
Requesting Help from an Administrator
Becoming an Administrator
Summary
12: Community and Communication
Wikipedia’s Culture
Assumptions on Arrival
Random Acts of Kindness
The Open Door
Soft Security
Communicating with Other Editors
Wikiphilosophies
Funny Business
Who Writes This Thing Anyway?
Demographics
Systemic Bias
Wikipedians on Wikipedia
Operational Analysis: Raul’s Laws
Practical Values, Process, and Policy
More Research Required
Summary
13: Policy and Your Input
The Spirit of Wikipedia
The Five Pillars
Ignore All Rules and Be Bold
Assume Good Faith
What Is Policy?
Official Policy
Policies and Guidelines
How Policies Are Created and Developed
How Policies Evolve
How to Interpret Policies and Guidelines
Letter of the Law
List of Policies
List of Guidelines
Seven Policies to Study
Summary
14: Disputes, Blocks, and Bans
Content Disputes and Edit Wars
Coming to Consensus
Resolving a Dispute: Discussion
More Steps for Resolving a Content Dispute
Ineffective Solutions
Causes of Content Disputes
Case Study: Gdansk
Resolving Disputes Between Editors
Dispute Resolution Processes
The Nature of Formal Evidence
Arbitration Committee
Blocks and Bans
Short Blocks
Longer Blocks
Bans
Summary
Conclusion to Part III
Part IV: Other Projects
15: 200 Languages and Counting
Languages and Scripts
The Long Tail of Languages
Getting Involved in Other Languages
Script Support
Links Between Languages
English in Global Focus
Summary
16: Wikimedia Commons and Other Sister Projects
Wikimedia Commons
Searching and Browsing Commons
Using Commons Material in Wikipedia
Participating in Commons
Other Sister Projects
Wiktionary
Wikinews
Wikibooks
Wikiquote
Wikisource
Wikispecies
Wikiversity
Linking Between Projects and Copying Content
How to Link
Moving Content Between Projects
Other Wikis
Starting Your Own Wiki
Wiki Software
Summary
17: The Foundation and Project Coordination
The Foundation: Mission and Structure
Infrastructure and the Board
Foundation-Level Policy
Fundraisers and Donations
Wikimedia Chapters and Outreach
MediaWiki
The Meta-Wiki
Project Coordination
Translation
New Projects
Communication
Looking Back and Going Forward
Early Days
Continued Values
Summary
Conclusion to Part IV
A:
Reusing Wikimedia Content
Guidelines for Reuse
Examples of Reuse
B:
Wikipedia for Teachers
Wikipedia as a Classroom Reference Resource
Guiding Student Use of Wikipedia
Assigning Wikipedia Editing
C:
Edit Summaries Jargon
Common Edit Summaries
Deletion and Maintenance Summaries
Automatically Added Edit Summaries
D: Glossary
E: History
GNU Free Documentation License
Index
Updates