Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Society for Marine Mammalogy/Marine Mammal WikiSprint (Fall 2015)

Overview
Wikipedia is viewed over 5 billion times a day and is the 7th most visited site on the internet globally, behind Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo!, Baidu (Chinese search engine), and Amazon. In most searches, Wikipedia is the #1 result returned for most marine mammal common and latin binomial names, and for the term marine mammal. As a result the public accesses content on Wikipedia about diverse topics from Whaling to the effects of climate change on marine mammals on a daily basis. For example, the article on blue whales is view over 50,000 times a month!

A common complaint of many scientists is that Wikipedia is not a well-grounded reference for information. Nonetheless, the people; including students, the media, and government officials; accesses information about marine mammal behavior, species facts, conservation issues, and taxonomy online every day. This issue is that contemporary knowledge about marine mammal species and conservation issues in the primary research literature is disparate, difficult to read and access, and not always free or open access.

As the premier international society for understanding marine mammals and their interactions with their environment and humans, the Society for Marine Mammalogy is committed to providing the most up-to-date information about these species to the public.

Several times a year, experts from around the world undertake week-long “sprints” to edit, update, correct, and reference Wikipedia’s pages relating to marine mammals. The goal is to increase public access to accurate information about marine mammal species, their habitat, and the conservation issues; while linking this first access point to the deeper literature.

We are building a community of passionate experts who believe that everyone should have access to up-to-date information about the species with which we work and the Society is looking for your help in making this a success.

The Society for Marine Mammalogy hosts the WikiSprints and we invite you to edit and advance the content of Wikipedia's pages relating to marine mammals, their habitat, and their conservation. Help us contribute to increasing public access to information about marine mammal species.

Who Can Participate?
You do not need to be a member of the Society to participate in an SMM WikiSprint If you work with or study marine mammals, you can take part. REGARDLESS of your expertise or experience with editing Wikipedia. We are looking for professors, graduate students, trainers, managers, and enthusiasts to help share current knowledge of marine mammals.

What you need to do to Participate

 * 1) Get a Wikipedia account: Create Account
 * 2) Make sure to &quot;Join Course&quot; on the left side box of this page - NOTE: you must be logged into Wikipedia for this to work
 * 3) Take the Wikipedia Tutorial
 * 4) Make sure to &quot;ADD ARTICLE&quot; beside your username in the student table below before editing each article or we will not be able to track your contributions to the WikiSprint.
 * 5) Start Editing - it's that simple

Key Goals
While you are free to contribute to the articles in which you are most interested, keep in mind the Marine Mammal WikiSprints key goals:


 * Create a community of expert editors who are passionate about public access to science
 * Give focus to referencing statements so that Wikipedia can act as a portal to primary literature
 * Produce accurate and up-to-date species articles
 * Have fun!

Key Tasks to undertake
There are some key additions that the Society for Marine Mammalogy has identified and if you're interested in contributing to the development of those pages please find the list below.


 * Create species articles for all missing species in the SMM’s taxonomical listing found at List of marine mammal species. NOTE: The new ORDER Cetartiodactyla which replaces the Cetacea with Mysticeti and Odontoceti as suborders.
 * Include details about all subspecies in articles about the species.
 * Update IUCN red list of threatened species conservation status to species articles.
 * Ensure taxonomical accuracy based on the List of marine mammal species which is based on The Socitey for Marine Mammalogy's List of Marine Mammal Species &amp; Subspecies.
 * The SMM-WikiED workshop at the 2015 conference highlighted some key issues to address in Wikipedia articles. Consider addressing these during the WikiSprint. Content gap analysis

Examplar Species Articles
Wiki Education Foundation Content Expert Ian Ramjohn has developed a template for species pages with examples.

Featured articles
Excellent articles for examples - but confirm taxonomy * Blue whale * Fin whale * Orca * Pinniped * Sea Otter

Good articles
To use as examples - but confirm taxonomy * Sperm whale * Polar Bear * Walrus * Dugong * Bottlenose dolphin * California sea lion Related pages which need attention - Particularly stronger referencing * Cetartiodactyla - clarify it is now the accepted order including the cetaceans * Cetacea - to highlight it is unranked and no longer the Order * Mysticeti - to highlight it is unranked * Odontoceti - to highlight it is unranked * The effects of climate change on marine mammals * Whale vocalization * List of cetaceans * Marine mammals as food * Whaling * Cetacean intelligence * Subspecies * Look at the Things to Do section of the Portal:Cetaceans * See here for other articles listed under the Category of Marine Mammals

Edit conflicts
It is possible with many of us focusing on marine mammal articles that two editors are working on the same article at the same time. This could lead to conflicting edits. Consider if, person A and B are editing the same page but A saves first. Then when B saves they are trying to save their edits within an outdated version of the article. In this case, Wikipedia will respond with an &quot;edit conflict&quot; page, because the software can't independently reconcile the differing edits made by A and B's to the article. The conflict page gives B an opportunity to adjust their edits to the differences A made). Good rules of thumb to minimize edit conflicts:


 * Edit the smallest portion of the article necessary at one time by using the [edit] buttons for a given section and not the edit tab for the entire article
 * Wikipedia also has an in use notice if you intend on conducting a major edit a given article for over a longer time period. Simply put on an article before proceeding with a major edit, and remove the template when the editing is complete.
 * To learn more about how Wikipedia deals with these conflicts read here: Edit Conflicts

Need Help?

 * Search through the Wikipedia Help Section
 * Contact ShaneGero on his talk page and create a &quot;New Section&quot;
 * Tweet @undefinedMarinemammalogy

SMM Workshop

 * Sign in to workshop