Wikipedia is becoming a massive influence on the business and educational spheres globally. It is regarded as one of the most credible encyclopedias of all time that has a virtual existence. Wikipedia is equally popular among professionals and laymen as it has secured a place where everyone looks up to it for their needs for factual information about all types of subjects and topics. Wikipedia is used by a huge user body, and that makes the site very powerful. The site can have a positive or negative impact on the reputation of different famous individuals or businesses; it can help new businesses acquire recognition, it can influence the perception of a particular audience, and so on.
The power of Wikipedia is limitless as its influence echoes throughout the global, which mean that becoming an active contributor to the site can benefit an individual immensely. Knowing how to use a powerful tool can be a strong defence for you and so, this article is going to convey how to become an active contributor to the site. Wikipedia allows all of its users to volunteer and adds information to the site. Moreover, becoming an expert Wikipedia editor or Wikipedia consultant can be a great career path for those who want to mould their research or writing career into research writing for online clients.
Lets read on to explore a step by step guideline for becoming a successful Wikipedia contributor.
Make an Account
The first step to have an official Wikipedia account with your original identity that you use on different other social media and freelancing sites. Do not make any changes in the information that you provide while making your account. All your credentials should be correct. That is because Wikipedia account gets immediately blocked if there is any misinformation along with the IP addresses that it uses. So make sure your provided information is true.
Research Skills
Wikipedia’s content is based on facts and demands evidence sources and proofs for everything stated in them. This demand of Wikipedia writing is the reason why contributors to Wikipedia need to have extraordinary research skills. They need to know how to find relevant and credible proofs for their content and so; anyone who wants to become Wikipedia contributor or editor has to learn how to conduct academic research for different subjects. Also, they should have the ability to understand different subjects and topics so that they will be able to draw correct results from their researches.
Writing style
Wikipedia articles have a specific style of writing, and all the contributors of Wikipedia must follow that style. The site does not accept content that does not follow the writing style that is followed on Wikipedia. The writing style of Wikipedia articles is simple and yet, complex because the articles need to be written for the public and yet, it has to cover every aspect because it is going to be a part of an encyclopedia. Learning to write in such a way is a bit difficult at first, as the writer needs to eliminate all kind of creative attributes from the writing and follow a straightforward style of writing. However, practicing and reading a lot of Wikipedia articles can be a great help.
Formatting and Structure
Wikipedia writings follow a certain structure and format that the writers need to follow. Wikipedia consultant advice writers to place the information in an orderly manner and keep check of relevancy while working on a Wikipedia article’s structure. Not following the specified Wikipedia formatting rules and official structure efficiently can lead to disapproval. Even if an article gets successfully published while having structural or formatting flaws, there is a huge chance of the page to be taken down either immediately or in a while.
Editing and Proofreading
Wikipedia demands a lot from the writers, and thus, each article that is written for Wikipedia takes up excessive effort and energy. From the point of choosing the topic for writing to finally formatting the content, a lot of time and intellectual investment is consumed. All of this can be go to vain if a writer does not pay attention to one of the most crucial steps. A Wikipedia writer should never procrastinate when it comes to proofreading and editing a piece of writing. Always make sure that your articles are proofread and edited before submission. If you are too tired to do that, find someone who has the capability to do this job efficiently.
Monitoring
Wikipedia articles do not get approved easily and that yet, when they do get approved, the chance of their disappearance or deletion remains open. Thousands of people visit the pages on the site on a daily basis, and all of the users or visitors of the site have the right to make changes to the pages and to mark them as irrelevant or unfitting for the site. So your page can be edited or tagged for deletion by anyone who comes across it. This is the reason why Wikipedia contributors need to monitor their works at least for a few months after their approval. So that they can respond to any editing on their page instantly and watch out for any tags.
Backup Plan
The procedure of deletion of a page on Wikipedia begins from the tagging from any Wikipedia editor who claims that the page is not appropriate for Wikipedia. After that, Wikipedia editors vote for the page, and their votes decide whether the page will stay or not. To save your page or articles in such situations, the Wikipedia editors need to have good relations with at least a few Wikipedia editors who they regularly come across. If a writer has some Wikipedia editors who know him through this medium, they will vote for the page if it gets tagged because they would know that you are a credible person.
