Wikipedia is an extremely valuable web resource that can be utilized to gather resourceful reference information and can be used to provide reference information.  We will cover our current top 10 Wikipedia Tips.  If you know additional tips, please leave us a comment and if your tip is better than ours, we’ll bump our tips and load your in to the top 10 list with a link back to your site!

1. Get Your Facts Straight! - Always do your homework and make sure your entries into Wikipedia are factual.
2. Build Up Your Wiki-Credibility - Building off our last point, you need to build up your Wikipedia credibility so that your entries will remain complete while they remain correct.  Facts and circumstances for an encyclopedia entry do change over time.
3. Make Updates - The facts do change and evolve over time so go back in and make updates regularly to the indexes that you start or edit.
4. Can’t find it? Make an Entry - Many writers and bloggers will check Wikipedia to see if any reference information is available as they write up an article.  If you do not find an index listing in Wikipedia, consider building one and linking to it in your new article.  Requirement, make sure you follow point 1 first!
5. Follow the standard Wiki formats - Wikipedia has its own subculture of personalities and styles.  There is no point in being abrasive or rocking the boat.  Follow the standardized formats and your work will be more readily accepted.
6. Pictures, Pictures, Pictures - Upload a relevant picture and make sure that its copyright safe.  Just like in blogging, pictures speak a thousand words and will make your reference stand out.  Upload pictures where they are allowed and cite sources accurately.
7. Reference links - In your write ups provide great links to internal references as well as external references.  Many topics in Wikipedia are covered, if you are covering a tangent link into the the parent topics, and link to external topics as well.
8. Editing tangential indexes with links - If you write up a topic that is tangential to a parent topic, go into the parent topic and submit a footnote or section to describe the tangent and internal Wikipedia link so that people can find further information on the topic.
9. Don’t fight the wicked Wiki Wars - If someone edits up your entry, try to avoid going to war with them.  Most editors have good reasons for making changes and corrections.  Don’t take it personal, just keep working and improving your game.  Every now and then someone will scam the system or snarf over your work.  Fix it where you can as they probably won’t come back for a second round of snarfing and scamming, if they do report them and then let it go. 
10. Blog about it! - After you write up an entry in Wikipedia promote it just a bit and blog about it.  You did the work, take some credit for it!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 9:52 am and is filed under Web Resources, Wiki, wiki, Wikis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.