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.

A few weeks ago I decided to play the Minimalism Game. I chose a pared-down version lasting fourteen rather than thirty days. This was partly due to time constraints and partly a way of dipping my toe in the water.

I completed the game, getting rid of a whopping 105 items in two weeks. One thing on day one, two things on day two and so on until I got rid of fourteen things on day fourteen. What struck me about the experiment was that many of the items of which I could easily rid myself were tech accessories. From old USB drives to charging cables, from travel adaptors to phone cases.

Co-incidentally, today I was reviewing my Ten Ideas Every Day note, an occasional habit whereby I try to write down ten new ideas every day. James Altucher recommends this exercise as a way of getting more creative. And I have to agree that it works. Ninety-nine out of one hundred ideas I come up with are terrible but one isn’t. If I did the exercise every day for a year I’d have thirty-six great ideas!

One of the ideas I’d captured was to limit my collection of tech accessories to what I can carry in one rucksack. I’m not sure what prompted me to come up with this but since doing the Minimalism Game it’s an idea I’d like to take further.

In the next few weeks I will be going through all of my possessions that can be considered tech accessories and trying to reduce how many I have. It strikes me that if I can’t carry the items in one rucksack when am I ever going to use them. Of course I have to exclude non-portable items, but everything else I own that can be classified as a tech accessory has to be able to fit in my rucksack, or it’s history!

More act, less think
More create, less consume
More laugh, less worry
More kind, less right
More important, less urgent
More read, less watch
More progress, less perfection
More talk, less email
More do, less plan
More present, less distraction
More invest, less spend
More family, less friend
More friend, less stranger
More fit, less fat
More application, less app