Contents in Detail

Introduction...... xvii Inside This Book ...... xviii What You Should Know Going In ...... xix Using This Book ...... xix Our Approach to Understanding ...... xx It’s Everyone’s Encyclopedia: Be Bold! ...... xxi Wikisyntax Cheatsheet...... xxiii

Part I: Content

Chapter 1: What’s in Wikipedia?...... 3 Types of Articles...... 7 Article and Content Inclusion Policies...... 11 Core Policies: V, NOR, and NPOV ...... 12 Understanding the Policies...... 13 Other Guidelines...... 18 What Wikipedia Is Not...... 22 Non-article Content...... 25 Types of Non-article Pages ...... 25 Namespaces...... 26 Summary and What to Read Next...... 30

Chapter 2: The World Gets a Free Encyclopedia ...... 31 Wikipedia’s Mission ...... 32 Wikipedia’s Roots...... 33 Ancient Greece to Today: Encyclopedias ...... 33 Late 17th Century: The Modern Encyclopedia...... 35 Wikipedia as an Encyclopedia...... 36 The 1960s and 1970s: Unix, Networks, and Personal Computers ...... 37 The 1980s: The Free Software Movement...... 38 1995: Ward’s ...... 41 1997: Open Source Communities...... 42 2000: Online Community Dynamics ...... 44 2001: Wikipedia Goes Live ...... 46 Wikipedia Today...... 47 Unfinished Business ...... 49 The Wikipedia Model Debated...... 51 Misinformation: The Seigenthaler Scandal...... 51 Amateur Contributors, Authority, and Academia...... 53 Summary...... 58

Chapter 3: Finding Wikipedia’s Content...... 59 Searching Wikipedia...... 60 Basic Searching...... 60 External Search Engines...... 65

How Wikipedia Works (C) 2008 by Phoebe Ayers, Ben Yates, and Charles Matthews Ways into Wikipedia ...... 68 Welcome to the Main Page...... 68 The Omnipresent Sidebar...... 73 Joys of Hypertext ...... 80 A Hypertext Primer...... 81 Three Types of Links...... 82 Browsing by Topic ...... 83 Browsing by Categories...... 88 Browsing by Page Type ...... 93 Summary...... 97

Chapter 4: Understanding and Evaluating an Article...... 99 Anatomy of an Article...... 100 The Article Text...... 101 Backlinks ...... 104 Article History ...... 105 Talk Pages...... 113 Evaluating Articles ...... 117 Misinformation, Missing Information, and Mistakes...... 117 D-R-E-W-S ...... 120 Summary...... 126 Final Thoughts for Part I...... 127

Part II: Editing

Chapter 5: Basic Editing ...... 131 Editing a Page...... 132 Understanding the Edit Window...... 133 Major vs. Minor Edits ...... 138 Handling Major Editing Tasks ...... 138 Fixing Mistakes and Other Reasons to Revert...... 140 Who Can Edit What?...... 143 Syntax ...... 144 Fundamentals of Text Markup ...... 145 Internal and External Links...... 149 Sections and Headings...... 155 Removing Formatting and Hiding Comments ...... 157 Summary...... 159

Chapter 6: Good Writing and Research ...... 161 Starting New Articles...... 162 Deciding What to Write About...... 162 Before Starting a New Article...... 163 Avoiding Treacherous Topics...... 165 Starting the Article...... 166 Drafting the Article ...... 169 Don’t Forget...... 170

x | Contents in Detail How Wikipedia Works (C) 2008 by Phoebe Ayers, Ben Yates, and Charles Matthews Writing Well ...... 171 Consulting the Manual of Style...... 172 Introduction and Topic Sentence...... 173 Comprehensiveness and Appropriate Length...... 174 Structure...... 174 Readability...... 175 Audience ...... 176 Use of Language...... 176 Graphics ...... 178 Applying Basic Content Policies...... 179 Reviews ...... 180 Quality and the Good Stub...... 181 Researching Articles ...... 182 Good Wikipedia Research...... 182 Doing Research...... 183 Reliable Sources ...... 186 Referencing Styles...... 188 Editing Alongside Others ...... 194 Changing What Others Write ...... 194 Will Your Own Edits Be Kept? ...... 195 Edit Summaries...... 196 No Ownership...... 197 Summary...... 198

Chapter 7: Cleanup, Projects, and Processes ...... 199 Cleanup ...... 200 Flagging Articles ...... 201 Cleanup Categories ...... 202 Cleanup Tasks...... 202 Rewriting ...... 203 Expanding Stubs ...... 204 Wikification...... 204 Fact-Checking and Referencing...... 205 Vandalism Patrolling...... 209 Cleanup Editing Tools...... 210 Projects: Working to Improve Content...... 212 ...... 213 Wikiportals ...... 215 Writing Collaborations ...... 215 Processes...... 216 What Processes Cover ...... 218 Deleting Articles...... 218 Featured Articles...... 227 Summary...... 229

Contents in Detail | xi How Wikipedia Works (C) 2008 by Phoebe Ayers, Ben Yates, and Charles Matthews Chapter 8: Make and Mend Wikipedia’s Web ...... 231 Redirect and Disambiguate...... 232 Redirects...... 232 Disambiguation Pages...... 236 Merge, Split, and Move ...... 240 Merging Articles...... 240 Splitting Articles...... 243 Moving Pages ...... 244 Categorize...... 246 Categorizing Basics...... 248 Categories and Content Policy...... 249 Creating New Categories...... 250 Subcategories...... 250 Categorization Projects...... 252 Housekeeping ...... 252 When a Page Move Is Blocked ...... 252 Default Meanings ...... 253 Avoiding Disambiguation Pages ...... 253 Controlling Category Sorting...... 254 Categories and Templates for Redirects...... 257 Process-Style Resolutions ...... 257 Summary...... 259

Chapter 9: Images, Templates, and Special Characters ...... 261 Images and Media Files...... 262 Finding and Adding Images ...... 262 Using Images...... 267 Using Multimedia Files ...... 268 Templates...... 270 Using Templates ...... 270 Using Parameters ...... 271 How Templates Work...... 272 Varieties of Templates...... 273 How to Build Templates...... 275 Laying Out Articles ...... 278 Tables...... 278 Formatting Columns ...... 280 Special Syntax...... 281 HTML and CSS...... 281 Mathematical Formulas ...... 282 Variables and Magic Words...... 284 Summary...... 286

Chapter 10: The Life Cycle of an Article ...... 287 Birth of an Article ...... 288 Deletion ...... 288

xii | Contents in Detail How Wikipedia Works (C) 2008 by Phoebe Ayers, Ben Yates, and Charles Matthews Maintenance Tagging...... 289 Editing Improvements ...... 289 Potential Merge...... 290 Discussion and Content Tags ...... 290 Categories...... 290 Bots Arrive...... 291 Incoming Wikilinks ...... 291 Artie Is Moved ...... 292 In Good Times ...... 292 In Bad Times ...... 293 Bad Times, and a True Story ...... 293 Search Engines Find the Article ...... 296 New Relatives ...... 296 Getting the Picture ...... 296 Good Article ...... 297 Summary...... 297 Conclusion to Part II...... 298

Part III: Community

Chapter 11: Becoming a Wikipedian...... 301 On Arrival ...... 302 Registering an Account ...... 302 Setting Your Preferences...... 308 User Pages, Watchlists, and ...... 315 User Page Content ...... 315 Watchlists ...... 319 RSS Notification...... 322 Contribution History and Counting Edits ...... 322 Users and Administrators...... 325 User Levels...... 325 Administrators ...... 327 Requesting Help from an Administrator ...... 328 Becoming an Administrator ...... 329 Summary...... 330

Chapter 12: Community and Communication...... 331 Wikipedia’s Culture...... 332 Assumptions on Arrival...... 332 Random Acts of Kindness ...... 333 The Open Door...... 334 Soft Security...... 335 Communicating with Other Editors...... 336 Wikiphilosophies ...... 349 Funny Business ...... 350

Contents in Detail | xiii How Wikipedia Works (C) 2008 by Phoebe Ayers, Ben Yates, and Charles Matthews Who Writes This Thing Anyway? ...... 353 Demographics ...... 353 Systemic Bias...... 355 Wikipedians on Wikipedia ...... 356 Operational Analysis: Raul’s Laws ...... 359 Practical Values, Process, and Policy ...... 359 More Research Required ...... 360 Summary...... 362

Chapter 13: Policy and Your Input ...... 363 The Spirit of Wikipedia...... 364 The Five Pillars ...... 364 and Be Bold ...... 364 Assume Good Faith ...... 366 What Is Policy?...... 367 Official Policy ...... 368 Policies and Guidelines...... 368 How Policies Are Created and Developed...... 369 How Policies Evolve...... 371 How to Interpret Policies and Guidelines...... 371 Letter of the Law...... 373 List of Policies...... 373 List of Guidelines...... 378 Seven Policies to Study...... 380 Summary...... 381

Chapter 14: Disputes, Blocks, and Bans...... 383 Content Disputes and Edit Wars...... 384 Coming to Consensus...... 385 Resolving a Dispute: Discussion...... 387 More Steps for Resolving a Content Dispute ...... 388 Ineffective Solutions ...... 390 Causes of Content Disputes ...... 391 Case Study: Gdan ´ sk...... 394 Resolving Disputes Between Editors...... 397 Dispute Resolution Processes ...... 397 The Nature of Formal Evidence...... 398 ...... 398 Blocks and Bans...... 401 Short Blocks ...... 402 Longer Blocks ...... 403 Bans...... 403 Summary...... 404 Conclusion to Part III...... 404

xiv | Contents in Detail How Wikipedia Works (C) 2008 by Phoebe Ayers, Ben Yates, and Charles Matthews Part IV: Other Projects

Chapter 15: 200 Languages and Counting...... 407 Languages and Scripts ...... 408 The Long Tail of Languages ...... 408 Getting Involved in Other Languages ...... 411 Script Support...... 412 Links Between Languages ...... 414 English in Global Focus...... 417 Summary...... 418

Chapter 16: Wikimedia Commons and Other Sister Projects...... 419 Wikimedia Commons ...... 421 Searching and Browsing Commons...... 422 Using Commons Material in Wikipedia ...... 423 Participating in Commons...... 423 Other Sister Projects...... 427 Wiktionary ...... 427 Wikinews...... 430 Wikibooks...... 432 Wikiquote ...... 434 Wikisource...... 435 Wikispecies ...... 436 Wikiversity ...... 438 Linking Between Projects and Copying Content...... 439 How to Link...... 440 Moving Content Between Projects...... 442 Other ...... 443 Starting Your Own Wiki...... 444 Wiki Software...... 444 Summary...... 445

Chapter 17: The Foundation and Project Coordination...... 447 The Foundation: Mission and Structure...... 448 Infrastructure and the Board...... 449 Foundation-Level Policy ...... 450 Fundraisers and Donations ...... 451 Wikimedia Chapters and Outreach ...... 451 MediaWiki...... 452 The Meta-Wiki ...... 453 Project Coordination...... 454 Translation...... 454 New Projects ...... 455 Communication ...... 455

Contents in Detail | xv How Wikipedia Works (C) 2008 by Phoebe Ayers, Ben Yates, and Charles Matthews Looking Back and Going Forward ...... 456 Early Days ...... 456 Continued Values ...... 457 Summary...... 457 Conclusion to Part IV ...... 458

Appendix A: Reusing Wikimedia Content...... 459 Guidelines for Reuse ...... 460 Examples of Reuse...... 461

Appendix B: Wikipedia for Teachers ...... 463 Wikipedia as a Classroom Reference Resource ...... 464 Guiding Student Use of Wikipedia ...... 464 Assigning Wikipedia Editing ...... 465

Appendix C: Edit Summaries Jargon...... 467 Common Edit Summaries ...... 468 Deletion and Maintenance Summaries ...... 468 Automatically Added Edit Summaries ...... 469

Appendix D: Glossary ...... 471 Appendix E: History (List of Wikipedia Pages Referenced in This Work) ...... 477

GNU Free Documentation License...... 491

Index ...... 499

xvi | Contents in Detail How Wikipedia Works (C) 2008 by Phoebe Ayers, Ben Yates, and Charles Matthews