Book description
Myxomatosis. The Order of Canada. Noble gas. Catherine de' Medici. The History of Superman? Whether you're doing serious research on the Web or just settling an argument, it's easy to get caught up in Wikipedia's two million articles. And that's not such a bad thing. But how'd all the information get there in the first place? And how can you tell if it's reliable?
Or say you want to become a part of Wikipedia and make your own contributions. Where do you begin?
In How Wikipedia Works, you'll learn the skills required to use and contribute to the world's largest reference work-like what constitutes good writing and research and how to work with images and templates.
With insight, anecdotes, and tips from three Wikipedia veterans, you'll learn how to:
Find information and evaluate the quality and reliability of articles
Contribute to existing articles by copyediting, writing new material, and fact-checking
Add new articles that conform to Wikipedia's guidelines and best practices-so that your hard work won't be deleted
Communicate with other Wikipedians through Talk pages, discussion forums, direct messaging, and more
Understand Wikipedia's policies and procedures and how they're created and enforced
Resolve content disputes and deal with vandals and other malicious editors
Wikipedia is made up of people just like you: students, professors, and everyday experts and fans. With about 10,000 articles added to Wikipedia each week, there are plenty of opportunities to join this global community. How Wikipedia Works explains how you can make the Web's go-to source for information even better. Instead of wondering where to begin, the question will be "How far will you go?"
Table of contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
-
I. Content
- 1. What’s in Wikipedia?
-
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: The 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
- Summary
- 3. Finding Wikipedia’s Content
- 4. Understanding and Evaluating an Article
-
II. Editing
- 5. Basic Editing
- 6. Good Writing and Research
- 7. Cleanup, Projects, and Processes
- 8. Make and Mend Wikipedia’s Web
- 9. Images, Templates, and Special Characters
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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
-
III. Community
- 11. Becoming a Wikipedian
- 12. Community and Communication
- 13. Policy and Your Input
- 14. Disputes, Blocks, and Bans
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IV. Other Projects
- 15. 200 Languages and Counting
- 16. Wikimedia Commons and Other Sister Projects
- 17. The Foundation and Project Coordination
- A. Reusing Wikimedia Content
- B. Wikipedia for Teachers
- C. Edit Summaries Jargon
- D. Glossary
- E. History
- F. GNU Free Documentation License
- Index
- About the Authors
- Colophon
- Copyright
Product information
- Title: How Wikipedia Works
- Author(s):
- Release date: September 2008
- Publisher(s): No Starch Press
- ISBN: 9781593271763
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