Wikipedia:Western New York Library Resources Council/February 2017

This is the course page for a four-week online Wikipedia lecture series for staff and friends of the Western New York Library Resources Council.


 * Thursday, February 16, 2017 (12-1pm EST)
 * Thursday, February 23, 2017 (12-1pm EST)
 * Thursday, March 2, 2017 (12-1pm EST)
 * Thursday, March 9, 2017 (12-1pm EST)

Remember, classes occur ONLINE every Thursday at 12pm EST and will last 1 hour.

Click here to join


 * WNYLRC Webinar: Online Wikipedia Lecture Series (Week 4)
 * Thursday, March 9, 2017
 * 11:45 am login opens (webinar begins at noon) | Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT-05:00)  |  1 hour duration


 * Meeting number: 801 662 790
 * Meeting password: wikiweek4
 * Meeting link: https://wnylrc.webex.com/wnylrc/j.php?MTID=m4aab3186f4941cff151d364b15c4b11f


 * Audio connection:
 * 1-408-792-6300 Call-in toll number (US/Canada)
 * Access code: 801 662 790

About this training
This training is a project from Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports is a United States nonprofit organization which seeks to share information with consumers so that they can make informed purchase decisions. Friends of Consumer Reports may include anyone who wishes to share information about consumer choices. Should you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact Lane (user:bluerasberry) at lrasberry@consumer.com

Week one - Tour of Wikipedia's health information
We will look at Wikipedia's coverage of health topics and consider the following questions:
 * slides
 * 1) How many health articles does Wikipedia have?
 * 2) Who reads them?
 * 3) How detailed is Wikipedia's coverage of health content?
 * 4) Who writes this content?
 * 5) What is the quality control process?

We will also consider medical coverage as a model for the development of Wikipedia content on any subject.


 * Assignment
 * 1) Register account
 * 2) If you do not have one already, create a Wikipedia account
 * 3) While logged into your Wikipedia account, please register as a participant in this online class series
 * 4) Set up your user profile page
 * 5) write 1-3 sentences on your profile page.
 * 6) Identify yourself by naming any interest you have. "Hello, I like to drink coffee and am interested in (any topic)"
 * 7) Offer some kind of support by saying, "Feel free to ask me for comment on (any topic)"
 * 8) Draft information to share in your own "sandbox", or private editing space
 * 9) Identify an academic research paper which is interesting
 * 10) Consider whether it meets Wikipedia's standard for quality described at Identifying reliable sources
 * 11) Go to Special:Mypage/sandbox
 * 12) write a sentence there
 * 13) cite the research paper where you got the information.
 * 14) Click save
 * 15) Think about copy/pasting your sentence and citation from here to a live article
 * 16) Optional
 * 17) If you wish, take Wikipedia's own guided introductory tour at The Wikipedia Adventure.
 * 18) Watch the guide video for new editors by clicking the video to the right

Week two - Editing Wikipedia

 * slides

We will talk about editing Wikipedia. This talk will not cover the technical process of editing, but instead, will go through the rules of editing and the editorial flow of submitted text as the Wikimedia community processes. We will discuss the culture of editing Wikipedia.

Here is a preview of the inside story-
 * 1) Wikipedia is a summary of what is already published
 * 2) When information is added to Wikipedia, that information should be followed with a citation to the published source from which it is derived
 * 3) The quality of Wikipedia depends on volunteers' ability to identify the best sources. Then they summarize the information in those sources and cite them.


 * Assignment
 * 1) Do live editing
 * 2) Go to any Wikipedia article
 * 3) Click "edit" at the top
 * 4) Try to add a sentence presenting a fact from a source which you have
 * 5) Be sure to add a citation

Week three - Quality control and the Wikimedia community

 * slides

Every work role which exists in any major publishing house also exists in Wikipedia. We will visit some of the work divisions in Wikipedia, consider their labor processes, and talk about how administration and infrastructure development supports front-end content publishing.


 * Assignment
 * 1) Edit Wikipedia more. One sentence is great, 3 is better, and feel free to delete, rearrange, or copy edit.
 * 2) Identify your classmate's Wikipedia accounts
 * 3) Say hello to a classmate
 * 4) *classmate names here
 * 5) Identify the Wikipedia article they edited and what they edited
 * 6) Click "contribs" above to see a log of their contributions
 * 7) Perhaps go from here to the wiki article they edited, click "history" at the top, then click "prev" in the log to see difference between their edit and the article was it was before.
 * 8) The point is to review their changes
 * 9) Post a comment either confirming or criticizing any aspect of your classmate's edits on either the discussion page of the article they edited or their own talk page
 * 10) Feel free to say, "I saw that you added a statement about ... and cited ... That seems reasonable to me."
 * 11) Think about how you could check the cited source. Would reading the abstract be enough, or is this deeper? Does it seem plausible enough that you feel comfortable accepting it without reading the original paper?
 * 12) Ask any question about any aspect of Wikipedia in a community forum
 * 13) Choose a forum - perhaps WP:Teahouse, any of the suggested places at Questions, or a specialized WikiProject forum like Medicine, Military history, Women, Copy Editors, or any other
 * 14) Post a question
 * 15) Come back after a day, and see what kind of response you got
 * 1) Feel free to say, "I saw that you added a statement about ... and cited ... That seems reasonable to me."
 * 2) Think about how you could check the cited source. Would reading the abstract be enough, or is this deeper? Does it seem plausible enough that you feel comfortable accepting it without reading the original paper?
 * 3) Ask any question about any aspect of Wikipedia in a community forum
 * 4) Choose a forum - perhaps WP:Teahouse, any of the suggested places at Questions, or a specialized WikiProject forum like Medicine, Military history, Women, Copy Editors, or any other
 * 5) Post a question
 * 6) Come back after a day, and see what kind of response you got

Week four - Tour of Wikimedia projects broadly
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and it contains reference text. Other parts of the Wikimedia network of media projects include Wikimedia Commons, the non-text media file repository, Wikisource the document archive, Wikidata the database, and other projects. We will consider how these projects complement each other.
 * slides


 * Assignment
 * 1) Continue to edit Wikipedia as in previous weeks
 * 2) Visit a WikiProject, like WikiProject Medicine, WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Women, WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors, or any other
 * 3) Introduce yourself on the talk page
 * 4) Ask for comments on your submission
 * 5) Comment in any of the current controversial discussions there in an attempt to resolve the issue