Well, someone has to start them (or edit them!), and since there are so many people here with such diverse interests and real knowledge on such a wide variety of topics, it stands to reason that some of us are responsible for some of the articles on Wikipedia.
I’ve also contributed heavily to the Wikipedia articles on the Lee-Enfield Rifles, Webley Revolvers, and Webley & Scott, but there’s more work to be done on the Webley Revolvers entry… it’s all a matter of getting the time!
Of course, Wikipedia being what it is, the articles have been subtly edited and re-edited by several people (most of whom are very knowledgeable, fortunately!), but most of my contributions (95%) are still recognisably in those articles.
So, what about everyone else here? Share your Wiki contributions with the SDMB, so that we might also find out who is an expert on particular subjects!
I’ve lately chimed in on a pet subject or two: the Star Trek novel The Price of the Phoenix, and several articles about Jack Vance’s Demon Princes quintet: Star King, The Killing Machine, the Oikumene, the Beyond, Sarkoy, Sarkovy, the Rigel Concourse… with some more to follow. Also in browsing through the descriptions of some Star Trek: TOS episodes, I made a minor edit or two, most notably to “The Omega Glory” to correct a reference that said “Kirk does not have the Constitution down pat” to “Cloud William pronounces the Constitution so poorly that Kirk does not recognise it”. This is fun!
I am banned right now because I am going through the Saudi portal, a source of much vandalism.
I used to be very active, on all militaryoperations and nuclear testing pages.
I also started the Italian Unabomber page (I wanted to learn more about him), and the notable drug-related death list, which is I think the only such list on the net. I am very proud of that.
I ran across my high school’s page, which prompted me to learn how to edit. I put in some good information, making it into a real article. I also put in a coupla little jokes. One is just a true fact about students and teachers using the computers for FPS games during class, and the other was true in a way but subjective. I did it all in impeccable English with appropriate links. The second one was removed in a few days but the first is still there. I emphasize that it’s true, though. The page has expanded and I’ve kept watch on it.
I created another school page, and pages for the submarine games Gato and Wolfpack. Other than that it’s minor stuff. A lot of it has been nostalgic things for me.
I make changes as appropriate to articles I read. I put one up for deletion and that prompted it to be improved. I had no knowledge myself that was relevant.
When you create a page or add much to it you have to link it to other articles. When I do that I run across others I can change, and sometimes I have to change several articles at once to make things fit together.
I more-or-less completely rewrote the entry on survival knives. The earlier article was pure bullshit. On reading to link to this post, I see that somebody has added a bit of additional text and a few links.
Most of my contributions have been minor edits (adding appearances in other media to comic book characters, cleaning up spelling and grammar, etc.). I update the current Amazing Race articles fairly frequently. I expanded pretty much from nothing the article on Bravo’s Boy Meets Boy and created an article on a former friend of mine who used to be a porn star (no link because of subject matter).
I have also provided some siginificant contrbutions to the Guinness advertising section. I have made plenty of minor and small edits in many other articles.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator article before and after I started working on it. I tried to make it as factual and objective as possible and gave it attention for around four months, but now i’m so busy with college that I don’t have much time for Wikipedia. A brief glance at it looks like the skeptics have taken over - ah well
Wow, looks like I accumulated around 3000 edits total I think my favorite contribution is this panorama I took that has been made the header of the Graffiti article, which is on the first page of results for a Google search for graffiti.
I wrote the articles on the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary and the Marine Otter, and I try to keep an eye on the articles about some marine mammals and National Parks in California, but mostly I make minor edits to those.
I contributed the tsunami, post-tsunami, and other data on Koh Phi Phi, and started the article and wrote the original plot summary for the novel The Boy Who Followed Ripley. Have removed a bit of vandalism too. That’s about it. I’m not really a huge authority on much.
Done. As far as me contributing. I’ve made many changes before. Usually to firearms and ammunition-related topics, but this thread has inspired me to finally register. So now I can keep track of what I’ve done. Once I figure out how to do so.
