After reading Rose Afriyle's post on Wikipedia's Gender Gap and the ensuing comments, I thought I'd post a basic intro to editing WP (Wikipedia). I've accumulated this knowledge over the four years I've been editing, and I hope it will help any of you who are interested.
Anyone can edit WP. As you might guess, this can lead to disputes. When two or more editors disagree on an edit, they discuss it until a consensus is reached. This is where policies come in. Policies are meant to be used as discussion points in consensus-building conversations, not rigid rules. Policies can be looked up just like any other article. For instance, the WP:CONS article describes the policy on building consensus.
Three of the most important policies are verifiability (WP:V), neutral point of view (WP:NPOV), and no original research (WP:NOR). Verifiability means that any fact that could be debated should cite a reliable source. Neutral point of view means that the article should balance all significant points of view on a given topic. No original research means that WP is a secondary source; even if you know something is true, you can't add it to WP until it has been published in another primary source.
Every article has a corresponding "discussion" page that you can see by clicking the tab towards the top of the page. Discussion pages are where all the consensus-building discussions take place, and one of the best ways to get started with WP editing is by following the discussion pages of articles you are interested in.
If you are logged into your WP account, you can click the "watch" tab at the top of any article or discussion page to add it to your "watchlist". Then, when you click "my watchlist" in the upper right, it will show you any recent changes to pages you are watching. You can click "diff" to see what changed, or "hist" to see a list of all changes to that article.
To edit a page or leave a comment in a discussion, you can click the "edit" tab at the top, or the "edit" link next to any section header. When leaving a comment on the discussion page, you should end it with four tildes (~~~~) which will sign the comment with the time and your name. Also, when you are responding to someone, you should use one or more colons (:) to indent your comments. When editing, you can always preview how a change will appear before you submit it.
Changes to WP follow the "bold, revert, discuss" cycle (WP:CYCLE). That means if you want to make a change, be bold and add it. But, if someone reverts it, don't add it back until you've discussed it on the talk page and reached a consensus.
In reality, people don't always follow the policies on WP, and sometimes a group of editors just can't reach a decision. Two ways to resolve a deadlocked dispute are to get a third opinion (WP:3) or to go to mediation (WP:mediation).
My own recommendation for handling disputes is to break them down into the smallest pieces possible, and discuss them one at a time, and focus on policy rather than content. Sometimes this will lead to people figuring out exactly why they disagree, and reaching a compromise. Other times, it leads to one editor trying to derail the conversation, which makes it obvious who is trying to reach consensus and who isn't.
That's really all you need to know to begin editing Wikipedia. The best way to get started is to follow some articles and their talk pages. Reverting vandalism to the articles will gain you respect from other editors, and reading discussions will familiarize you with how disputes are handled. Of course, WP can sometimes be hostile to newcomers, so be prepared and try to go into it with a thick skin. Also, if any other editors out there have additions, please feel free to add them in the comments.
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FGJ, You rock. Thank you for this. I really wish more Feministing posts were along the lines of "here is help with a problem".
Although I hate that a huge portion of the population can no longer tell the difference between Wikipedia and an actual (cite-able) source, I love the idea of people working out disagreements in this way.
Yeah, I've seen the wikipedia model work incredibly well at times, and fail miserably at other times. It really depends on whether people are following the spirit of the policies rather than using them as tools to force their point of view on others.
I'm wondering if feministing community members who are wiki contributers/editors could leave links to their user pages? It seems like a lot of us who left comments on the main article want to dive in and help, but it might be easier if we could be connected with each other for encouragement and support on wiki. Or maybe it would just get us all in trouble, and brand us as a roving band of feminist wiki-rogues. What do you think?
Bad idea. It'll just attract trolls and well-intentioned-but-still-frowned-upon meatpuppets.
I agree with katemoore, it would probably be looked on unfavorably and cause some problems.
On the other hand, there may be feminist category for users to find other feminists on wp.
User categories revealing any sort of political affiliation are generally banned, because there's no Neutral Point of View oriented reason for wanting to find editors of a given bias.
A category Users interested in Feminism probably does exist. (In fact, it's here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_interested_in_feminism ) But interest may go both ways, and it probably contains editors who are anti-feminist or whatnot.
But in general, editing as a group supporting each other coming from an external forum is just buying a ticket to ban-town.
The on-wiki shortcuts such as WP:NPOV are rather obscure for someone completely new to Wikipedia.
Basically, if you go to Wikipedia and type "WP:NPOV" into the site's search box, you will be taken to the appropriate policy page.
Or you can do it the hard way, by making the actual URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV