Contributing content on Wikipedia

Wikipedia has become an important free resource for all of us who use the Internet on a regular basis.

We use it to learn about anything in the world, and can also find source articles to verify where facts were found.

As a platform run on voluntary contributions, Wikipedia has impressive accuracy when compared to traditional encyclopaedias.

The critical difference with Wikipedia is that anyone can edit almost any of the content on the platform.

How Wikipedia works

It’s quite simple. Wikipedia is a wiki, which is a platform that enables people to contribute articles, edit other peoples’ articles, and have conversations about articles.

In short, it’s a content creation community that can check its own work.

Start by signing up for an account on Wikipedia or learning more about how wikis work.

Authenticating content

A big question everyone asks is: How is Wikipedia able to tell if information is false?

The answer lies, once again, in the community that contributes to it. Since there are large numbers of contributors, content that is most likely false is quickly flagged or corrected.

In addition, Wikipedia puts some controls in place to ensure that people who have a lot of contribution and editing experience get more access to seeding new content.

Read more:

• Wikipedia
• Wikimedia Foundation
• The ascent of Wikipedia (via Science Mag)

Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash