User:DGG/talks/NYPL

Introduction to Wikipedia , This page will be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=User:DGG/NYPL this version, July 7, 2009

Reading and using Wikipedia

• Wikipedia and other sources

• What is distinctive about Wikipedia (Wikipedia:Five pillars, Wikipedia:Simplified ruleset)

• A free encyclopedia, free to read and to use, free of copyright (except for some Fair Use material)
• A comprehensive modern encyclopedia, with world-wide coverage, and at least some information about almost anything a person might look for in an encyclopedia; larger than print encyclopedias; extensively hyperlinked and categorized; lists; images & other media; watchlists and other software tools
• Verifiable, with references for the information, to check for accuracy and to find more material
• Open content: anyone can contribute – widest range of interests and knowledge; numerous contributors; Wikiprojects encourage collaboration
• Neutral and factual: all major points of view are covered in proportion, with sources for them (Wikipedia:Neutral point of view)
• Uncensored: with respect to sex, politics, and other difficult topics
• Open community: self-governing, with minimal structure; everyone is a volunteer

• Comparison with Other free web sources

• ask.com for quick basic information
• IMDb.com for detailed information on movies
• WorldCat for comprehensive information about books
• Google News Search: for current events and Google News Archive for earlier ones.
• Wikia for details on games and hobbies
• PubMed+ for medical information from the National Library of Medicine

• Comparison with Library web sources (NYPL, available remotely with a Library card

• Biography Resource Center, Literature Reference Center
• Newspapers: National Newspaper Index, New York State Newspapers, Newspaper Source, Custom Newspapers (Gale)

English Wikipedia contributors by country (2007)

Size of English Wikipedia by subject (2007)

• Wikipedia's coverage

• What are the problems?:

• Accuracy; updating; stability; edit wars/WP:OWNership
• Fairness; WP:COI
• Poorly covered areas
• Uneven depth in even fairly well covered areas
• Spam

• Where is it strong:

• Popular culture: TV, movies, games
• Computers; Medicine; Sports; Politics
• United States, Great Britain
• WP:Featured Topics, WP:Featured Articles, WP:Good Articles

• Where it is weak or erratic (Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias)

• Classic literature and drama
• History and Religion
• Africa, most of Asia, Latin America

• Where it is too difficult for most people?:

• Mathematics, Linguistics, ...

• How to use Wikipedia (Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia)

• Searching

• Wikipedia Search box
• Google and other search engines

• Browsing Portal:Contents

• Wikipedia Portals of broad subjects Portal:Contents/Portals
• Wikipedia Categories & Complete A-Z list of categories, Outlines, and Lists; Timelines,Complete A-Z Index
• Links in articles

• Evaluating an article

• Sourcing (Wikipedia:Verifiability; WP:RS); External links (WP:EL)
• Article history (sometimes an old version contains useful information that has been dropped)
• Talk page - Wikiprojects rate their own articles; discussion of article improvement

• Quality and priority designations (Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment)
• Problem designations: Cleanup, PovCheck, Unreferenced, Tone, Advert, Disputed, Update

• Examples:

• The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009 film) (and at IMDB). Compare H.M.S. Pinafore (19th century topic easier to illustrate) and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
• Malcolm X compared with Bill Clinton
• Fairy tale
• Macintosh
• Metal umlaut (video on article evolution)

• Other parts of the system than articles

• Commons: Pictures and media Files
• Wikitionary; WikiSource (& related projects elsewhere, such as Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive)
• other language Wikipedias

• Getting started (Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia)

• Discussing an article; Wikiquette; Consensus
• Correcting/expanding an article; WP:CITE; WP:MOS
• Writing a new article WP:FIRST
• Researching an article with library and other resources

Writing for Wikipedia

• 1. Finding an article; disambiguation pages; finding stubs
• 2. Registering an account; usernames
• 3. Copy editing (common typo: "occured" instead of "occurred"); grammar changes: WP:MOS; click "minor" edits?; edit summary
• 4. Content editing: Category:New York City stubs, Recent deaths

A. Look over article before editing - The information may already be there

B. Look at recent discussions on Talk page

C. Get research information and bibliographic reference to source; WP:V; WP:RS; WP:NOR. See, e.g., Newsday? Google?

D. Edit this page tab; Editing sections; Write using your own words - (copyright/plagiarism)

E. Formatting your citation; WP:CITE; Reflist

F. Provide an edit summary; describe purpose of change on Talk page (sign with four tildes: ~~~~ ); WP:NPOV; WP:CIVIL; WP:CONSENSUS; try commenting about University Village, New York at Wikipedia:Peer review/University Village, New York/archive1

G. Show preview; when satisfied, save page. SELECT ALL and copy before saving in case of software problem

H. Wikify; pipes; Wikipedia:Tutorial; Wikipedia:Cheatsheet

I. History tab - see record of previous edits

J. Categories; External links; See also

K. Assessment - Stub; GA; FA - Look to Featured articles for good examples; Wikipedia:Article development

L. Examples

Recent deaths list:

• Anna Karen Morrow
• Béla Király
• Bill Kelso
• Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye
• Charles N. Brown
• Christopher Nolan (author)
• Dorothy Layton
• Hortensia Bussi
• Hui Ki On
• James F. McNulty, Jr.
• Molly Bee
• Robert W. Scott
• Si Frumkin
• Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
• Victor Smorgon

• 5. Wikipedia:Starting an article

A. Wikipedia:Naming conventions; Make sure that article does not already exist under different name (Use search)

B. WP:Notability; WP:COI; WP:NOT

C. Redirects

D. Searching and bluelinking your article's name in existing articles

E. Wikipedia:Layout

• 6. Uploading images
• 7. Wikipedia:Five pillars
• 8. Wikipedia:WikiProject - Discussion page will show you what projects cover your article. You can join. from:Ssilvers (talk) 19:12, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Example Stubs to add to

• Recent deaths list (see above)
• Category:New York City stubs

Getting Help

• Reader’s Guide to Wikipedia from The Missing Manual by John Broughton.
• How Wikipedia Works by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates
• Wikipedia:Glossary -- our own jargon; Wikipedia:Cheatsheet

Follow-up

• For the results of the Recent deaths articles experiment, see User talk:DGG/NYPL.
• All participants are invited to Wiki-Conference New York on the weekend of July 25-26 at NYU.
• The teachers of the class can be contacted at User talk:DGG, User talk:Pharos and User talk:Ssilvers, and will be glad to answer your questions.