Wikipedia:Expert help

Many Wikipedians/articles require the help of an expert on a specific subject area. This page documents how such help can be requested, found and offered.

Background
Experts are people with a significantly high level of knowledge or expertise. They aren't necessarily professionals. The specific subject area of their expertise may range from topics in philosophy or economics to programming languages or any kind of inner workings of Wikipedia.

Professors might assign their students to edit Wikipedia for course credit in a well-managed fashion, and others could abstain from advocacy to fulfill Wikipedia's mission.

Articles in need of expert help
A similar list of images is at c:Category:Disputed diagrams
 * – these articles need sorting into categories based on what type of expert is needed
 * – these articles need sorting into categories based on what type of expert is needed
 * – these articles need sorting into categories based on what type of expert is needed

There are also several lists of fully missing articles, organised by topic at WP:Requested articles and

Requesting expert help
The need for expert help can be noted for a specific articles using the Expert needed template.

Experts on Wikipedia
Many Wikipedians have already implicitly or explicitly declared their area of expertise. They can be found by the following categories:
 * Category:Wikipedians by profession
 * Category:Wikipedians by skill
 * Category:Wikipedians by interest
 * Category:Wikipedians by membership
 * Category:Wikipedians by Wikipedia collaboration

Relevant editors may also be found by:
 * inspecting the page histories of articles on similar topics
 * Contacting a relevant WikiProject

Identifying experts of the specific subject area
The most straight-forward way to finding experts on a specific subject area would be to search the Web for them. While the most prolific experts on a specific subject usually have less time it is also useful to ask the help of less prolific people engaged in the specific subject area. There are many ways such people may be found. This ranges from academic publications to Internet posts and publicized lists of members of organizations.
 * Search scholarly databases using key phrases to find recent publications (e.g. G-Scholar, Pubmed, Scopus)
 * Search by field or keyword in Publons
 * Search by abstract or key phrases in JANE database.

Asking for help
There are two main possible routes to take:
 * 1) To ask them to edit the page directly
 * 2) To ask them to provide feedback on the talkpage

Typically the best way to ask for help by individuals is by email, clarifying:
 * The Wikipedia article(s) or article sections
 * Why the help is needed (the specific issues)
 * What the current state of the article and stance of the community is
 * Whether you are asking them to edit the page, provide comments or write a full review of the article
 * Proved relevant links on how to get started
 * Policies (e.g. referencing guidelines, neutrality, and avoidance of self-promotion
 * Advice articles (e.g. Help:Wikipedia editing for non-academic experts or Help:Wikipedia editing for researchers, scholars, and academics
 * General editing (e.g. Help:introduction)
 * (Optional) Emphasise the daily pageviews of the article and hence why ensuring its accuracy is a high priority.
 * (Optional) Indicate why they might be interested in helping out on Wikipedia, since experts might not see a direct professional benefit (e.g. Wikipedia community, Online participation).

Some Wikipedians think professors should become Wikipedians before they start assigning Wikipedia; see Assignments for student editors.

Public requests on external websites
It is also possible to post a public request for expert on relevant websites. Websites well suited for such requests are the most relevant subpages on reddit, so called "subreddits", for the specific subject area or Internet forums with own categories for the subject area. Before posting such a request please make sure that the website in question allows such to be posted (which is usually the case) and that it won't result in canvassing.

Offering expert help
Experts can offer their help implicitly by adding relevant categories to their userpages so that people who look for help using the categories listed in may find them. Or explicitly by responding to requests they get notified about by joining WikiProjects, by monitoring articles within the scope of their area of expertise or by browsing or monitoring additions to the category/ies of their expertise within Category:Articles needing expert attention.

Ways to improve the help requester<->expert interface

 * Implement subcategories for Category:Wikipedia requests for comment
 * Make this page better known to editors who might need such help and who have already requested such
 * Get more people to set and make use of user-categories that declare their area of expertise
 * Implement ways of contacting multiple Wikipedians who implicitly or explicitly declared their area of expertise at once
 * Make it easier for experts to contribute
 * Provide more incentives for experts to contribute such as offering certifications for useful contributions
 * Get more experts to use Category:Articles needing expert attention
 * Implement a way for monitoring additions to just a specific category or a specific set of categories (especially useful for subcategories of Category:Articles needing expert attention)
 * Consider asking experts for their input to a peer review via email that they are willing to release under CC-BY or CC-BY-SA before the article becomes a featured article candidate.
 * Some Wikipedians are working on getting articles published in journals, to address this concern.