Wikipedia:Workshop/Vanderbilt University

The purpose of this workshop is to acquaint new editors with the overall scope of Wikipedia, its policies and practices. We'll also explore handy links to its most useful features and resources, as well as do exercises to give you a taste of actual editing. Thus you will feel more comfortable when you start editing on your own. Don't worry if you do not finish all the exercises, you can always come back and do them later.

Logistics

 * 1) We're meeting at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 23 in the 4th Floor Electronic Classroom (418A) of the Central Library at Vanderbilt University. We'll conclude the workshop at 3:30 p.m.
 * 2) Please create a user account before the workshop. You may create a user account on this page. Please contact Yunccha92 if you need assistance.

Trainers

 * 1) Clifford Anderson (talk) 19:29, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 2) Yunccha92 (talk) 19:30, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 3) Warga1 (talk) 21:19, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 4) Pharos (talk) 13:41, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 5) EVula (talk) 19:03, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Participants

 * 1) Sarabyrd (talk) 21:33, 21 October 2013 (UTC)sarabyrd
 * 2) Jgamb (talk) 14:26, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 3) Chrisbenda (talk) 15:28, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 4) Cindy Franco (talk) 16:14, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 5) Shuyf (talk) 02:46, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 6) Carbandos (talk) 17:08, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 7) You Tao (talk) 17:21, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 8) Stardustnrust (talk) 12:47, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 9) Poulterd (talk) 18:57, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Principles and policies of Wikipedia

 * 1) Review principles, i.e., the Five pillars
 * 2) Review  What Wikipedia is not and discuss becoming a "Wikipedia first" editor in relation to "advocacy" on any subject. (See Advocacy and associated links.)

Navigating Wikipedia
Navigation provides details of navigation in Wikipedia. Clicking on the various links helps you learn their functions.

Exercise #1

 * 1) Review the side bar to the left of every page. Click on each link, or at least the ones you do not understand.
 * 2) Every article or project page has the following tabs on top: Talk - Read - Edit - View History - Star (check to watch page) - Move (hidden beneath arrow). Every talk page has a tab for the article or project page, the Edit, Read, View History and Watch Tabs, plus an additional New Section tab which is an alternate way to create subsections of the article or project.
 * 3) Registered users have a "personal portlet block" on the top right of every page that includes: UserName - My talk - My sandbox - My preferences - My watchlist - My contributions - Log out
 * 4) Click on the article Glacier. Click on each tab on article or project and talk pages.
 * 5) When you click on history, first look at all the "External tools." Then review what each section of each line of an edit summary is for.

Core content policies
Core Content Policies are: Note that there are special rules to study for Biographies of living persons and  Article titles.
 * 1) Neutral point of view
 * 2) Verifiablity
 * 3) No original research

Editing basics
Some useful links for self-teaching are:
 * 1) Annotated article which shows you many of the main features of an article such as the lead, table of contents, section headers, images, external links, etc.
 * 2) Tutorial on html editing and formatting, linking, citing sources, using talk pages, etc. For future study, see How to edit a page and Manual of Style.
 * 3) Help:Contents/Getting started  and Help:Contents which link to a variety of pages explaining these topics.

Exercise #2

 * 1) Find a sandbox. If not registered, go to Sandbox. If registered, create one at the "New Section" tab on your talk page.
 * 2) Go to the  Save an edit  exercise and copy it to a sandbox; do this for every exercise.
 * 3) Note the editing tool bar that helps insert various wiki markup functions such as bold, images, signature, etc.
 * 4) Go to and do the  Apply bold and italics  exercise.
 * 5) Go to and do the  Create section headers  exercise.

Linking in Wikipedia
There are four types of links, explained in detail in Tutorial/Wikipedia links.
 * 1) Internal "Wikilinks" that link from a word or phrase in an article to another article, just like most of the links in this workshop outline.
 * 2) Category links that some times appear in articles or talk pages, but usually are at the bottom of an article to put the article in a category listing.
 * 3) ''InterWikimedia links create short links between different projects, like Wikipedia and Wikitionary.
 * 4) External links to websites outside of Wikipedia. Tutorial/Citing sources shows how to make external links which are both for citing sources and any "External links" section of an article.

Exercise #3
Go to and do the Wikipedia article links  exercises.

Collaboration with other editors

 * 1)  Assume Good Faith - assumption that editors' edits and comments are made in good faith, even if the views look slanted or erroneous.
 * 2) Consensus means that editors on an article use the Talk page to try to reach agreement on structure, content, references, balance of ideas, etc. in an article. If one disagrees with how other editors on the articles are editing, one can seek opinions and consensus from the broader community through a variety of Noticeboards.
 * 3) Review  Wikipedia's BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Review Revert. Note that it is considered Edit warring when one does not follow these policies.
 * 4) Civility means no personal attacks, harassment, legal threats, etc. And no Vandalism, be it out of anger and frustration or just for fun. Editors can be blocked from editing for short or long periods of time for bad behavior.
 * 5) Dispute resolution is an important page to visit for guidance whenever you have a dispute. It lists the best sources for advice, asking for assistance or other opinions, and reporting behavior that clearly violates policies.
 * 6) Noticeboards are used to seek advice about issues and resolve conflicts, or to deal with problematic behavior by other editors.
 * Wikipedia Wikiprojects allow you to work with editors worldwide on articles of common interest, seek advice and solve problems. There are Wikiprojects covering the broadest issues: science, humanities, arts, etc.; and ones covering narrow issues: specific animal species, individual countries, music genres, etc. However, avoid Canvassing, which is asking a number of individual editors, especially those who have never edited the article in question, to support you on an issue.

Exercise #4
Go to and do the Editing talk pages  exercise.

More editing exercises
For those who quickly finish earlier exercises, want more advanced exercises or want to practice after the workshop.
 * 1)  Go to and do the  Article Clean Up  exercise.
 * 2)  Add one or more Wikilinks to an existing article.
 * 3)  Go to the side panel and click "What links here." If you need more information read Backlinks.
 * 4)  Find and re-write a poorly written paragraph of an existing article, using existing sources.
 * 5)  Correct an incompletely formatted reference in an existing article.
 * 6)  Add a sentence or two of information to an article, using existing references which you have studied or new references you have found.
 * 7)  Add a relevant category to an article. (Hint: Look at articles on similar topics for ideas of categories that might be added.)
 * 8)  Look for Wikiprojects you might be interested in at WikiProject Council/Directory.
 * 9)  Check out the Typo Team and the WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors as easy places to start editing.
 * 10)  Attempt to de-orphan an article at WikiProject Orphanage
 * 11)  Adopt a typo on the Lists of common misspellings page.

More training opportunities

 * 1) Learning by doing will be your primary method of learning to edit Wikipedia. Think of it as a Wikipedia Adventure!
 * 2) Explore various other outreach and training modules as linked from Workshop training resources section.
 * 3) Join an active  Wikipedia Wikiproject to work with others on articles of interest.
 * 4) Find any local Wikipedia Meetup at Meetup or the Wikimedia Meetup listing. (If there isn't a group, find some local active editors and start one.)
 * 5) Join a local Wikipedia chapter. Many have training and working and social events and meetups.
 * 6) Organize your own "self-help" workshop with others who are interested in editing Wikipedia.
 * 7) As editors become more experienced, have an "edit-a-thon" where editors edit articles of their choosing or all edit articles on a specific topic or improve one article together. (See Collaborations.) Have a social event later to make it a more fun day.

Wrap up
Share your experiences about the training and your thoughts on continuing to learn to edit in the future.