I came across a wiki article a while ago that is just plain wrong. Reading it and thinking about it, I think I know why the author came to the conclusion he did, but still, wrong.
I’ve been thinking about doing a complete re-work of that particular article, even to the point of changing its name.
Is there any etiquette about doing a major re-write that I should be aware of before I do that? So far on wiki, I’ve just made a couple minor corrections and additions here and there on different articles, but nothing really substantial, so I don’t know if there’s anything I should be aware of.
My suggestion is to make several small changes, so that when people go through the history, they can easily see what you did. For example, make changes to this paragraph, and save it. Then make changes to another paragraph, and save it. And again. Finally, resequence the paragraphs without changing any text.
If you simply rewrite the whole thing, people will wonder what you left out, and what you put in. Incremental changes solves that.
If you have a serious complaint about an article, rather than wanting to fix a few typos, it’s better to start off by clicking on the “Discussion” tab at the start of the article, and state your criticisms there. Who knows, perhaps someone else thinks the same as you, and you only need to add “I agree with this criticism.” Alternately, there was a dispute about the issue a few years ago, and there was consensus to leave the article in it’s current state. But, in any case, it’s best to see if the issue has been discussed, and add your 2 cents’ worth to the discussion, rather than make substantial changes that could lead to an edit war.
I checked the discussion page and there’s never been any discussion since the page was added a year ago. no-one else has edited it - just the one post by the original author. Is there a way to contact the original author directly? I’ve not found a PM function on wiki, or an e-mail address on his user-page.
just to give a bit of background, he’s an American lawyer writing about an issue of colonial law, and this seems to be an example where the American legal perspective on colonial law differs from the Commonwealth legal perspective, but he doesn’t seem to appreciate that difference.
As far as I know, the only way to send a message to a person on Wikipedia is to go to their user page (click on their name in the history page for the article), then add a comment to their Talk page (click on the “Discussion” tab on their user page, then click on “edit this page”).
Be Bold. Edit the page and add the appropriate citations. Editing the original contributor’s user page is a good idea as well, but editing the article is the primary concern here.
thanks for the comments, everyone. I’ve started making some more substantial edits here and there, partly just to learn the coding on Wiki. I’ll take the “Be Bold!” advice, when I have time to do a proper job of that particular page, and have a better feel for the coding.
This isn’t really an issue. Anybody can compare revisions with a few clicks, and Wikipedia will highlight exactly what changed, what was deleted, and what was added – automatically. It doesn’t matter if you make those changes with ten small submissions or one big one.
Just wanted to second the “add the appropriate citations” comment. If you’re not an established Wikipedia editor, the Wikipolice might mistaken your edits as vandalism – especially if they substantially change an article – and revert them. Provide solid citations and this should be less of an issue.
It sounds like this isn’t a particularly contentious article to begin with, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe. And references are always good for people who use the article later or who want to fact-check it.