I’ve been an occasional user of Wikipedia for as long as it’s been around. Seven years ago I went as far as creating a user account but aside from correcting the odd spelling mistake or typo, I’ve never really done much with it.
In the past few years I’ve begun to realise Wikipedia’s true value in the world. It’s a platform that probably wouldn’t be created today and it’s one we should cherish and support. For the last few years I’ve been making a modest financial contribution to Wikipedia each year and I’d encourage anyone else who uses it and values it to do the same.
Last week I decided I’d like to learn to create and edit Wikipedia pages. Since doing is often the best way to learn, I decided to draft my first ever article. I chose an area of interest, live music, chose a band I’ve seen who aren’t too well known, and set out to show they are notable enough to warrant their own page!
This first draft was submitted for approval on 9th of May. The process is likely to take a few weeks but submitting articles for others to approve seems to be the best way to become a credible contributor to the site. Once I’ve had 5 or 6 articles approved I should then be able to publish them directly.
Since submitting this first draft, I now have 4 others, each at different stages. I’ve also stumbled across a simple process for creating articles. First, I do some research on Gemini, checking and double checking its sources. The purpose here is to establish notability, and as I do this research, I save URLs with a note on what the web page confirms. Once I’m happy with the copy I transfer it to the Wikipedia editor and lay the page out correctly adding an infobox and images as required. After saving the page I then read through it and add citations where they are needed. Finally having checked each citation justifies the statement in the copy, I save the final version of the page.
I’m curious to see if my first article gets approved and whether it does or not, I’d like to learn more about Wikipedia. Hopefully this will be the first article of many.
