Wikipedia: Contributing to Wikipedia
From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.
I'd like to contribute to Wikipedia. What should I do?
Make a list of everything you know. Strike through the things that are not verifiable or not supposed to be covered by Wikipedia. Then, find the proper places to write about the items remaining on the list. Use the go button, the search, or just navigate by following links. Click the "What links here" link on pages you visit.
Do some research. You may know a lot about a topic, but the best references in a field usually have more. Try to find good online and print resources, both books and journal articles. Using good references is a way of improving the credibility of Wikipedia, which will be increasingly important as Wikipedia grows and becomes more and more relevant. Then cite your sources. By citing sources you avoid copyright violations and plagiarism as long as you use only acceptable portions of other works. Doing research also makes it easier to think of material to add and allows you to improve any article, even one you didn't know much about.
Make improvements to the articles that already exist. Fill in the gaps by creating new articles on aspects of the topic that have not been covered yet. When creating new pages, please consider first if there will be enough material for a whole article. For instance, there might not be a lot to say about a character or place in a fictional universe, in which case the subject in question could be better covered in an existing article about the work of fiction, or in a new "aggregation article" such as Dark Lord that gives a sentence or two to each of many related subjects, and is linked to from redirects. If an entry in the aggregation article gets really long, you can split it out into its own article then.
When writing about controversial subjects, please write from the neutral point of view. In this way, people with different beliefs can work together productively.
Pick your favorite city and build and expand pages about its best attractions. Find a big topic like World War II or Chinese history you enjoy and add more content to flesh it out. Write summaries of your favorite books. Pick your favorite actor and write articles for all of his or her movies.
Visit a random page. Improve that page, or find a link to an article on that page that hasn't been written yet. Links to non-existent pages are by default displayed in red (e.g. I don't exist). Click on the link, and add something about that topic. No, not this one!
Write about something you don't know about. Use this as an excuse to research a new topic. As you learn about it, write what you are learning here on Wikipedia. This is actually a good study aid because it forces you to take notes, to organize information, and to put what you've learned into your own words. You can take how to write a great article as a guide.
Don't be surprised if other people edit "your" pages to adapt them to our policies. It's OK to learn as you go along.
Find something from a public domain resource, update it, add links to it, and put it here (but make sure it really isn't copyrighted—see Wikipedia copyrights).
You don't have to start new pages or make additions to contribute. There are also lots of maintenance tasks that need carrying out on a regular basis. Edit pages for spelling and grammatical errors. Remove nonsense when you see it. Correct false or misleading claims. Wikify words (turn them into links). Find pages containing basically the same information and combine them into one. Even asking questions on talk pages can contribute to making articles better.
For more basic information on contributing to Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:How to add content with minimal effort, how to start a page and our page-editing instructions.
See also
- Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ
- Wikipedia:Guide to improving articles
- Wikipedia:FAQ
- Wikipedia:Style and How-to Directory
Your contributions are welcome in these areas
|
|
Here are some Open Tasks :
|
- Collaboration of the week : to help create Featured articles every week
- Maintenance tasks
- Village pump : to contribute to discussions on policies, other users, technology, and other miscellaneous concerns.
- Help desk : to answer questions that our visitors have about the site
- Reference desk : to answer questions of a more general nature (think of it as the Wikipedia version of Google Answers)
ja:Wikipedia:ウィキペディアに寄稿する
