Editing Wikipedia (in lieu of class Nov. 25)

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So, this week I’m asking you to give up just a little of your cognitive surplus (sometimes spent on sleeping, working out, rowing, working, and watching Netflix) in order to edit Wikipedia. Completing an edit and a blog post here (along with filling out your OMET and sending me a screenshot of the completion screen) will mean you were “present” in class on Nov. 25. Please post by classtime on Dec. 2–BUT DO THE WIKIPEDIA EDIT EARLIER. You’ll want a little time to see if your edit “sticks” so you can write about it here.

Here’s what I’d like you to do: Make a substantive edit (e.g., not just fixing grammar) to a Wikipedia page related to your public issue, or start a new page if one doesn’t exist. You do not need to start an account with Wikipedia in order to do this, but you are welcome to. You may want to add references (for example, from your white paper), new information, or correct misinformation on a page. Make sure that you read the “talk” page before you edit, and review some of the history of the page. Check back the next day, or a few days later to see if your edit “sticks!”

How do you edit Wikipedia? Wikipedia uses its own form of markup, which isn’t html. If you look at a page, then look at its edit page, you can figure out how the syntax of this markup works. For example, Pet Adoption:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_adoption & http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pet_adoption&action=edit

You can get help by clicking on “help” on an edit page, or by going to the Wikipedia Editing Tutorial here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial/Editing

Your edit does not have to “stick” to get credit for the activity, but you have to have tried to make a good edit. Please post to the blog what you’ve edited (give a before and after screenshot or a link to the original entry and your edit) and describe what your experiences editing Wikipedia were like (~250 words). On Dec 2, we’ll discuss your experiences editing Wikipedia.

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