User:DGG/talks/NYCTC

Librarians' approach to Wikipedia
Based on a presentation at the New York City College of Technology, Mar 16, 2010.

WP:Meetup/NYC next on Sunday March 21, 2010 at Columbia University  

Introduction

 * Statistics
 * Comparisons


 * Unregistered Logon -- Registration

How reliable is Wikipedia as a source?

 * 1) recognized (within limits)
 * 2) reputation
 * 3) credentials of authors
 * 4) Controls for quality
 * 5) Format and medium: online, print, etc.
 * 6) Technical quality
 * 7) Degree of detail
 * 8) Freedom from bias
 * 9) Currency of information
 * 10) Confirmation by other known reliable sources
 * 11) Sources given for information
 * 12) Reliability of sources
 * 13) Appropriateness of sources
 * 14) Currency of sources

positive factors affecting reliability

 * 1) Large number of contributors
 * 2) Varied background of contributors
 * 3) Education
 * 4) Interest
 * 5) Geography
 * 6) Language knowledge
 * 7) Specialist contributors
 * 8) WikiProjects and Workgroups
 * 9) Screening of contributions
 * 10) Recent Changes
 * 11) Edit filters
 * 12) New Pages
 * 13) Patrolled pages for Biography of Living people (forthcoming)
 * 14) Quality ratings: featured articles,...
 * 15) Blocking
 * 16) Policy on sourcing
 * 17) Policy: Not Censored
 * 18) Edit histories
 * 19) OTRS

Negative factors affecting reliability

 * 1) Concentration of editors on popular topics
 * 2) Anonymity
 * 3) Impermanence
 * 4) Pressure groups & cabals
 * 5) Cultural bias
 * 6) Recentist
 * 7) Anglocentric
 * 8) Political inclinations
 * 9) Philosophical inclinations
 * 10) Taboos

Getting Started

 * First Step: Find an article, Look at its history., Look at its talk page.
 * Second Step: Edit an article, such as JoAnne Stubbe
 * Third step: Start an article: example: Masayasu Nomura, from List of members of the National Academy of Sciences (Biochemistry))


 * Contributing to Wikipedia, WP:FIRST, WP:MARKUP, Manual of Style, WP:CITE
 * Search, WP:SEARCH
 * Userpages: for example, User:LaraLove. User:GlassCobra, .. WP:USER
 * User Contributions, All Logs, Watchlist
 * Preferences

Rules

 * WP:SIMPLE, WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:N, WP:RS, WP:NOT, WP:COI
 * WP:COPYRIGHT
 * WP:GLOSSARY

Organization

 * Category:Books. WP:CATEGORY,  List of biology topics, WP:LIST
 * WP:REDIRECT
 * WP:WIKIPROJECT, WP:LIBRARIANS
 * WP:PORTAL, for example, Portal:Narnia, Portal:China

Quality

 * WP:DEL, WP:CSD,
 * (Administrator Login WP:ADMIN)
 * Category:CSD, WP:PRODSUM, WP:AFD, WP:DELREV
 * Becoming an administrator WP:AFD,
 * Further Layers WP:Bureaucrat, WP:CHECKUSER, WP:OVERSIGHT,WP:ARBCOM, WP:STEWARDS, WP:WMF, WP:JIMBO


 * WP:DISPUTE, WP:ANI, WP:BLOCK, WP:PROTECT
 * Enforcement: [|User messages]
 * Policies: WP:NPA, WP:BOLD, WP:IAR
 * Special WP:NEWPAGES,WP:New pages patrol WP:New pages patrol/patrolled pages-- All Pages, Users, Recent Changes
 * Top edits
 * WP:BFAQ (guide to corporate contributors) and Conflict of interest/Noticeboard and WT:SPAM
 * Wayback Machine archive

Good things

 * WikiProject Classroom coordination
 * WikiProject Resource Exchange
 * Reference Desk
 * Category:Wikipedia resources for researchers
 * Category:Wikipedia Wikipediology

What librarians can do at Wikipedia

 * Librarians wikiproject: WP:LIBRARIANS

Helping people find and cite references

 * WikiProject Resource Exchange
 * Category:Wikipedia resources for researchers


 * WP:CITE
 * WP:RS (Reliable sources)
 * WP:Copyright


 * Key Free resources for Wikipedia
 * Google, Google News Archive, Google Scholar, Google Books
 * WorldCat
 * PubMed
 * Key non-free Library Resources for Wikipedians
 * JSTOR
 * Project MUSE
 * Web of Science
 * Scopus
 * Ulrich's
 * Readers' Guide and other Wilson indexes (or Ebsco or Gale, or Proquest, etc.

Reference work

 * Reference Desk
 * individual articles
 * individuals when they ask, cf. User Talk:DGG

Helping teachers

 * WikiProject Classroom coordination
 * WP:BFAQ (guide to corporate contributors), WP:COI, WP:Copyright

Writing Articles

 * Writing Contributing to Wikipedia, WP:FIRST, WP:MARKUP, Manual of Style,
 * Needed topics:
 * Libraries, see List of Libraries, for example Michigan State University Libraries,
 * Biographies, see List of librarians
 * Reference books, eg. Biological Abstracts
 * WikiProject Academic Journals
 * WikiProject Books

Editing as you see problems

 * WP:Cleanup

key resources

 * the free online version of How Wikipedia Works by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates (also available in print)
 * the free online version of Wikipedia: The Missing Manual by John Broughton (also available in print)
 * books about Wikipedia

and
 * WP:Wikipedia Signpost, Tutorial series
 * Virtual Classroom
 * WP:Meetup/NYC next on Sunday March 21, 2010 at Columbia University  

Other Projects

 * Wiktionary
 * Wikipedias in other Languages
 * Veropedia
 * Citizendium