Tell me about writing for Wikipedia

The PETA beloved elephant sanctuary in Tennesse has an article, but Riddle’s doesn’t.
Do I need permission to write about Riddles? Will some fan of the Hohenwald TN sanctuary trash my article?

I doubt anyone would contest the inclusion of an article on that, but unless you can write many paragraphs of information with citations from third-party source, then really, I’d say do the world a favor and don’t create yet another short, meaningless, unverified, uncited, unimportant Wikipedia “article” of no serious use.

???

An article cribbed out of the sanctuary cite and personal knowledge would be perfectly appropriate.

Throw in some links, to the sanctuary, whatever elephant sanctuary organization it may belong to, a link to The Roll Of Nelephant Ksanctuaries (TRUNK), whatever.

Isn’t that sort of article the entire point of wikipedia? It’s not the Britainnica, and not meant to be.

Personal knowledge is expressly forbidden on Wikipedia. To more or less paraphrase the concerned organization’s website on a “neutral”, “reference-quality” work is self-defeating. Working from the site itself is also borderline on original research, which is again expressly forbidden; Wikipedia is a tertiary source, to be summarizing the research of others on topics, and definitely not a secondary source itself. If you can’t write from secondary sources which can be cited, don’t… you’re not helping accomplish Wikipedia’s goal, which is:

Wikipedia was created to be a Britannica-quality work covering approximately the same topics to be distributed to impoverished regions of the world to function approximately like Britannica.

Then if I am writing or editing an article on, say, the Denver Zoo, and I write, “The Denver Zoo’s lion exhibit is spectacular and attractive for visitors,” I can’t?

Then I have always and completely misunderstood the purpose, and I would appreciate a link.

Except on major topics, the Britannica is not going to have the breadth or depth of articles as wikipedia makes possible. I cannot begin to tell you how often I have followed a link to an article on a town, and found only census data. Should a resident of that town wish to fill in some history, attractions, and current events, and cannot provide links, my impression of what you are saying is that they should not. Am I misunderstanding?

Bear in mind that the fact that you aren’t personally interested in a subject doesn’t mean the subject is of no interest to anyone else.

I think you’ve misinterpreted these principles. Obviously everything in Wkipedia is based on personal knowledge - what other kind of knowledge is there? Some of this knowledge was acquired by direct observation although most of it was acquired by second-hand reports.

Suppose I was writing an article on a well-known bridge and I wrote that it was painted red. If I was questioned as to a cite and I wrote that I lived a mile from the bridge and drove over to see what color it was, would my information be suspect? Would it somehow be more trustworthy if I found a website from some other guy who drove over the bridge and mentioned in his blog that the bridge was red because now I have a “cite”? Suppose I have a blog of my own and I was the guy that posted the bridge was red - could I then officially cite my own blog for my information on the Wikipedia article?

First time I’ve heard this. (At the risk of sounding like a parody - do you have a cite?) From what I’ve read, the creators behind Wikipedia are proud of the fact that Wikipedia has grown far beyond Britannica or other print encyclopedias.

I hope I haven’t seemed offensive, but I’m saddened by the number of people who seem to believe they’re doing something useful at Wikipedia by setting limits on it.

I’ve seen books, television programs, newspaper articles, and journal articles cited, as well as webpages that are associated with the topic. If a source is considered questionable, someone will likely come along and say something about it. I’ve done that before, when I felt a citation wasn’t up to snuff.

“Official” webpages and things of that nature are used as sources all the time. There will often be some sort of cautionary notation if it appears the article is strongly slanted to a particular viewpoint, but if you’re simply citing the official webpage as a basic outline of information on the topic, I don’t think many would have a problem with that.

And ultimately, that’s all that matters with Wikipedia. Since it’s self policing, anything that’s accepted by the community of editors is, well, accepted.

A cursory examination of the Wikipedia article suggests that is what the author of the author of the Hohenwald article did. :slight_smile:

From the Hohenwald web site:

The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee, is the nation’s largest natural-habitat refuge developed specifically to meet the needs of endangered elephants. It is a non-profit organization, licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, designed specifically for old, sick or needy elephants who have been retired from zoos and circuses. Utilizing more than 2700 acres, it provides three separate and protected, natural-habitat environments for Asian and African elephants. Our residents are not required to perform or entertain for the public; instead, they are encouraged to live like elephants.

From the Wikipedia article:

The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee, is the nation’s largest natural-habitat refuge developed specifically to meet the needs of endangered elephants. It was founded in 1995 as the United States’ first elephant refuge, it is a non-profit organization, licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, designed specifically for old, sick or needy elephants who have been retired from zoos and circuses. These female elephants neither breed nor do they perform or entertain the public. Utilizing more than 2700 acres, the Sanctuary provides three separate and protected, natural habitat environments for Asian and African elephants.
Is there any way to determine the author of the Wikipedia article?

And, dang it,

carnivorousplant, I didn’t mean to spoil your thread by debating Wikipedia.

To address the details on this, the objections so far given are actually at odds with Wikipedia’s policies. (But, by the way, I don’t edit Wikipedia.)

No, “personal knowledge” on Wikipedia is that which comes from editors themselves, and as such is original research, and consequently unverifiable.

If it’s a bridge such as the Golden Gate Bridge, sufficient photos exist that it’s obvious. If it’s some backwater bridge and you can provide no proof that it’s red, then why should the rest of the world take your word on it, O mighty 12.34.56.789 or assymcgeerulez?

Wikipedia is fundamentally tied to the idea that in producing encyclopedias there are two kinds of trust: trust of the author, and trust of verifiablity. In reading Britannica you trust that the authors and editors are experts in their field. In Wikipedia, contributors are anonymous and one can have no such trust. Thus Wikipedia is keen on attaining trust through verifiability and correct methods–in other words, “we know you can’t take our word for it since you don’t know who we are, but you needn’t–here is where we found our information, here is the edit button, in a perfect world this article will increase to perfection.”

It seems some people come in and want to write all kinds of articles as though they’re an “editor” in a fuller sense of the word and all, but that’s not how it works–contributors are anonymous keyboard monkeys who summarize people who actually are trusted, and it’s by neutral summarization of these people that Wikipedia becomes useful.

On that drive-by cite: “The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. “Verifiable” in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or it may be removed.”

If you can’t prove it, it doesn’t exist. Wikipedia is not concerned with what color that bridge is, only what color verifiable information reports it as being. Contributors have no business arguing facts.

I like the vibe I’m feeling on my being an ogre who wants to crush posters who aren’t quick with references and all that. :smiley: Last I read the lists, there were two camps in Wikipedia: one is “it won’t ever be an encyclopedia, but it’s pretty good at pop culture stuff, so just relax and use it for what it is”; and the other is “we could actually make this an encyclopedia if we didn’t tolerate such a low standard of editing.”

They should, but only if it’s verifiable and notable.

For the goal, I don’t really know from where I can give you a cite on that. Wikipedia’s “Wikipedia” article has the quote from Wales: “an effort to create and distribute a multi-lingual free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language”, and if you look into the Wikimedia Foundation that should make the overall framework clearer. If you read the old lists, it’s mentioned time and again that Wikipedia is to be a “Britannica-quality” (an oft-repeated phrase) encyclopedia for use in impoverished regions, there was never any doubt whatsoever about that and Wales was very clear on the fact that he began it for the sake of people in third-world countries. That’s still nominally a goal nominally being worked towards with “Wikipedia 1.0”, I think.

On the last, from an old interview with Jimmy Wales:

"I have always viewed the mission of Wikipedia to be much bigger than just creating a killer website. We’re doing that of course, and having a lot of fun doing it, but a big part of what motivates us is our larger mission to affect the world in a positive way.

It is my intention to get a copy of Wikipedia to every single person on the planet in their own language. It is my intention that free textbooks from our wikibooks project will be used to revolutionize education in developing countries by radically cutting the cost of content."

“That money could be used to fund books and media centers in the developing world. Some of it could be used to purchase additional hardware, some could be used to support the development of free software that we use in our mission. The question that we may have to ask ourselves, from the comfort of our relatively wealthy Internet-connected world, is whether our discomfort and distaste for advertising intruding on the purity of Wikipedia is more important than that mission.”

Can you clarify this statement?

I have contributed to one article based on knowledge gained from being employed in a particular trade in a particular environment. Quite a bit of the information I supplied was based on knowledge gained from experience. I suppose that there is a remote chance that if I ransacked several libraries, laboriously reading every book that remotely touched on the topic, I might be able to find an author that threw out one or two lines that supported my information, but it is just as likely that I could not. As a Wikipedia participant, are you saying that I have an obligation to remove that (quite accurate) information, thus leaving a void in the article, simply because I did not borrow it from another source?

Bingo, that sort of thing will get removed or tagged (depending on who is editing) as soon as one of the more experienced editors wanders along and sees it. Expressing personal opinions in Wikipedia articles is very very frowned upon.

Not to sound like one of those people who goes around saying “the problem with Wikipedia is…”

But…the problem (that I see) with Wikipedia is that it’s being written by hundreds or thousands of different people, with only a relative few who are knowledgeable about, agreeable with and/or up to discussing the philosophy and purpose behind the site.

Newspapers, as an example, attract a variety of kinds of writers. You’ve got police reporters, court reporters, business reporters, sports reporters, political reporters, events reporters, education reporters, general columnists, sports columnists, politics columnists, editorial writers, etc. etc. etc. However, most of those people have likely had at least basic journalism training, and know the basic principles of journalism.

There is no such requirement on Wikipedia. Anyone can edit. That’s the draw, and that’s why there’s such a disconnect on what it’s for. Sure, anyone can look at the principles and guidelines for editing before they edit, but how many people do that versus how many get a link to their hometown or university or favorite sports team, and decide to call them “the best ever”?

I’ve got over 500 edits (mostly removing vandalism, but some article contribution as well). I find it a sometimes-fun way to write on topics I enjoy and contribute information to something bigger. If I wrote about my hometown, for instance, on a blog, only a few people would see it. On Wikipedia…well, only a few see it as my town isn’t all that popular. But if someone WANTED to know about my town, they’d be a lot more likely to stumble across the article on Wikipedia than on my blog.

Regarding what belongs, writing from personal experience, and so on, I’ll use an example I wrote: Steak 'n Shake. If you look at the original article I penned over two years ago, you’ll find it’s factual, though parts were written from personal experience. The other source is Steak 'n Shake’s corporate website, which I cited. The personal experience parts are mainly the description of cooking a basic Steakburger (easily verifiable by anyone sitting at the Steak 'n Shake bar) and the description of the “restaurant atmosphere.” The current article, though under a slightly different name, leaves a little of my original article intact.

Garfield226 - you worded this far better than I did, as this was the same concept I was trying to get across before. The stated policies of Wikipedia are one thing. What will actually make it through, on the other hand, is something different. It’s the ultimate democratic process and as a result of that the community who will be reading and editing articles matters far more than ideals.

To the OP, I’d suggest making a stub on the Riddles’s Elephant and Wildlife Sanctuary with some very basic information that can be proven by cites you provide. Express any concerns you have or information you’d like citations on in the discussion for your stub. Chances are if someone has any issue with what you wrote, they’ll say so there first before they alter your entry. Yes, there are people who abuse Wikipedia and might trash your article for some reason, but the larger community of editors dedicated to the site generally don’t. If you did write an article that was completely inappropriate for Wikipedia and was entirely written from personal observation, then eventually someone would come along and fix it. Or, at the very least, they’d mark it as questionable and let you know what was wrong with it.

Sure, there’s the chance for vandalism, but in general most people who edit Wikipedia are more interested in making sure it’s factual than pushing any particular agenda across. Back up what you have to say, word it well and you have little to worry about.

That’s the error I feel you’re making. Not all personal knowledge is original research or unverifiable. Anyone that wants to can go look at the bridge and see what color it is. It’s neither original research or unverifiable. But it is personal knowledge. And it’s personal knowledge regardless of whether I was the guy who went and looked at it or some guy who wrote “The Complete Guide to Bridge Colors of North America” went and looked at it - but of us got our information the same way.

I once got into a dispute with another Wikipedia poster. I had written something and he wanted to remove it. But the amazing thing was that he agreed that what I had written was factually correct. But he didn’t think that I was sufficent authority to state the fact and also felt that he wasn’t either. So he insisted I find some third party who wasn’t posting on Wikipedia who had also stated this same fact so that there would be a cite for something that we both already agreed was true. I, on the other hand, thought it illustrated how it’s possible to rely too much on appeals to authority. I don’t understand the premise that posting on Wikipedia somehow causes a person to lose their credibility.

Again, I think your view is mistaken. Wikipedia may in the past have sought to reach Britannica standards but it has since passed that level and I’ve never seen anyone express a desire to regress back to it. I also think you’ve misubderstood the Wikipedia 1.0 project - I believe it’s intended as a useful offline version of Wikipedia but not as a “goal”. Certainly not in the sense of implying Wikipedia is a finished project and all useful knowledge is contained within it.

I don’t think folks have an obligation to do that.

If you work in real estate for instance and make a statement that a real estate brokers in the US charge anywhere from 3%-6% on sales which is compensation for the time and cost of advertising a property, I don’t know that anone is going to question you.

But if you offer something up about Realtors in the US making property transactions much easier than in other countries, then you have to cite that. If its your statement is based on having worked in real estate in both France and the US, then you’ll have to find someone who has done independent and credible research to support that statement.

People who write these articles just think that they can stop by and toss any little bit of information that they heard into an article. My dad told me that he thinks OSU Coach Jim Tressel is popular enough to run for governor. So should I toss into the Tressel article that “Some people feel that Coach Tressel would be a successful politician based on his popularity.” Fuck no.

Of course one thing I don’t care for on Wikipedia is those idiotic tags that people slap all over articles. If you think something needs a cite, then you find it your damn self. If you don’t think the author can find anything then delete it and let the author find support for it before it goes back in. Tossing a tag out there puts no impetus on the author to take any action.

If so, there should be no articles in it at all.

Everything written there is based on personal knowledge. After all, if you don’t know about something, you can’t write about it, can you?

If personal knowldege were banned, the only people who could write about Riddles are those who have never heard of it.

An excellent series of points, marred only by the fact that they were addressed in subsequent posts further along the thread.

Why hasn’t someone jumped on the guy who authored the Elephant Sanctuary article for largely copying the Hohenwald web site?