Wikipedia Editing Tips
Why
11 of 13 “notable economists” and both pictures on Wikipedia’s “Economist” page are men. Donna Strickland, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics last year, didn’t have a Wikipedia page. 18% of biographies on Wikipedia are about women. 87% of Wikipedia editors are men. Lots more details in this Nature article.^[This event is inspired by 500 Women Scientists' Edit-A-Thon.]
If you’re new to Wikipedia editing^[Thanks to Frank Pinter for lots of helpful Wikipedia information.]
- Create a Wikipedia account (email, username and password)
- Note: you will be able to edit pages straight away, but you won’t be able to create a new page until you have had an account for about 4 days and have made at least 10 edits. So start with edits to existing pages!
Where to start? Some options
Broadly, you can focus on three different areas:
- Add detail to existing economists’ pages. They are very often lacking explanations of their research, particularly descriptions of what it finds or argues. If you’re an economist who knows the research, you have a comparative advantage in doing this!
- Add detail to topic pages. Pick a topic you’re interested in, and add relevant information about the research of women who have worked on those topics (you could start with this list of important publications in economics)
- Create new pages for women economists without a page.
Unless you’re a seasoned Wikipedia editor, it’s much easier to add info to existing pages than to make new ones (and note that you can’t make a new page at all if you’ve just started).
Editing an existing page: tips
A lot of economists have quite detailed biographies but little information about the contributions made in their work. This is a place where we can have a big value add – by listing their major works and explaining the key contributions of each. Note that these should be factual – stick to “this is the paper, this is the question it asked, and this is what it found” – rather than making more sweeping statements about its importance or contribution. If you want to make a statement about the importance or contribution, you need to back it up with a source.
Not sure who to add detail to? Almost all economists’ research sections lack detail, so pick your favorite economists and start there. Or, this page lists all stub articles for economists, which are very short articles that need more detail.
Creating a new page
Creating a new page is a much more involved process than editing an existing page. Wikipedia has guidelines for writing your first article: check them out first. One particular challenge is making sure the person you are writing about meets the notability test – see these guidelines.
Not sure who doesn’t have a Wikipedia page? WikiProject Women in Red maintains a list which could get you started. There are also some suggestions on these Tweet threads (here, here).
Get your page the attention it deserves
It’s not just about improving or creating a page, but making sure that others see it too! The best way to do this is to link in and out of your page. Start by going to “what links here” (left menu) and see if there are pages that already link to your page. Add more! This will ensure more people find and read it. Some easy places to start are pages for their advisors, advisees and co-authors. Also just search for their name in Wikipedia: you’ll probably find places which reference their work already and can link it in.
Staying engaged
Want to keep editing? Check out WikiProject Economics and WikiProject Women in Red.