Bored? Write something.

[reddragdiva]

(Just posted over there.)

English Wikipedia may have two million articles, but it's so far off finished it's ridiculous.

We had a quite notable recent classroom experiment in assigning students missing Wikipedia articles to write. Dig this first edit!

Writing a new article that will stick really isn't hard: a few paragraphs, some references and some indication that there's a reason to care will do the trick. (Go on, stretch yourself beyond web comics.) Anyone with an hour or two can produce something well worth keeping with Google Scholar. If you have access to a university library, it's ridiculously easy.

Rather than just telling your students "go write something," set them loose on a list of red links, requested articles, missing articles or the missing articles project. Discussion on WikiEN-L suggested Gaelic footballers, Indian and South African politicians (indeed, politicians from anywhere that isn't the US or Europe), biographies from before the twentieth century (check any public domain biographical dictionary, particularly ones not in English), every scientist in a prominent national academy ...

(Don't forget to tell the school and university projects list.)

Also: add red links as you potter about the wiki. Red links encourage contributors. We're now saying so expressly at FAC. And pathological red link haters can always be dealt with.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

What a lot of red links beginning with electron- you have got. I will amass round tuits. There are a lot of things in my life I have to sort out first...

[reddragdiva]

And if you ever have too many stupid idiot problems at Wikipedia, there's always the opportunity to have stupid expert problems at Citizendium.

[outerego.livejournal.com]

The student idea is a great one, especially giving them a direction to focus on - for example expanding on local history or notable figures in local history (or relevant to, say, a class project)*.

It looks like a great way to engage a generation in researching and taking pride in their work and, hopefully, teaching the responsibility required in making that information and research publicly available. The downside, of course, is that detractors will point to the "uber-amateur" and "parochial" nature of such contributions but I believe even the exercise of trying to contribute would be great lesson in itself - responsibility of the quality of information we present...what do you think?

*Although some of these kind of topics might not seem particularly notable or relevant, it's the kind of information one might find in a gazeteer of a region, and I've found some gems of articles of this type which were very informative...

[reddragdiva]

A lot of it just requires actual work as opposed to pure play. Classes told "go write something" frequently produce a lot of complete rubbish. But filling in lists of red links is productive, useful, likely to stay and assessable.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

In a small field, I can spit in their coffee ;)

[outerego.livejournal.com]

I don't have any kids of my own* but it's well tested strategy not to ask _too_ opened-ended questions to children, it gives them too much scope and may lend to confusion in the short term (uhh - I dunno!) - it sounds condascending om one level but focus and a locus of interest count for a lot.

*but I'm a great uncle**, honest!
(uncle=getting with murder with a knowing wink)

**and at the end of the day we can hand hand them back to their parents and say, "all yours!" [but I'm not sure if a frown or smiley should go here]

[kake]

I posted on my livejournal a while ago offering my services to people who have pet projects, because I'm always asking people to do things for RGL and I'd like to give something back, and hardly anyone took me up on it. I've also offered to take photos of food items for Wikimedia commons, if someone will give me a list of things that need photographing. The thing is, although I'm happy to give up some time to doing something, I don't have time to also look around and decide what to do. You all know your projects better than I do.

I've found that when I give people a list of OpenGuides reviews that could do with some love, I get a much better response than when I just say "please contribute to the Open Guide to X!", so I suspect I'm not alone here.

Specific to Wikipedia, I don't understand what I'm allowed to contribute. I know there's a huge amount of documentation and policy statements and so on, but as an outsider it all feels rather overwhelming. I'm not sure what things in my head people might be interested in knowing, and I'm not sure how I can add something that I just know without falling foul of "no original research".

Hope that helps.