Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Become a Wikiactivist

Pip Wilson | 07.09.2004 04:14 | Education

How Wikipedia can become part of social change

Wikipedia  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page , the free online encyclopaedia, is a great favourite of mine, and I have been visiting it and using it since not long after its inauguration.

Wikipedia began in a conversation between two old Internet friends, Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief of Nupedia, and Ben Kovitz, a computer programmer, on January 2, 2001. The idea was to have an encyclopaedia that was not only free to users, but which could actually be created by the general community. It might even be said that it is a very good example of anarchism at work.

When I first found Wikipedia there weren't a lot of articles but it has grown fantastically so that today there are more than 340,000 articles. It is a true Internet success story and a credit to the vision of its founders.

Planting memes and pulling up weeds at Wikipedia:

Wikipedia affords a great opportunity for people with progressive ideas and a commitment to justice, peace and our natural environment to influence ideas. Anyone may initiate and edit articles, or add input to the 'Discussion' section at the head of each and every Wikipedia article. Ideas that you plant, and the rooting out of falsehoods and reactionary ideas, can influence the course of events and people's thinking in many ways.

Here are a few suggestions, just off the top of my head:

Start articles on people who have made a difference, such as activists and writers. There are already articles on movie celebrities and sports people, so let's up the ante with more inspiring people like R Buckminster Fuller, EF Schumacher, Petra Kelly, Jane Addams and Mahatma Gandhi. Together we can change the concept of celebrity;

Add useful internal and external links to existing articles. It's easy to learn how to make amendments and additions to any Wikipedia article, and most of the time no one will amend your amendments. It will happen sometimes, but you are allowed to debate it, and anyway, it won't be possible for cranky people to oppose everything you do, and you can invite some friends to join the debate -- that's what democracy is all about;

Help give Wikipedia more global awareness and responsibility. If an article says something like "In 1972 the first movie about artichokes was screened", and you know that in your country there was one earlier, add the words "in the USA" ... this is necessary because Wikipedia is very Americocentric despite a policy in favour of internationalism. If an article says "Vice-President Schlemburger", it might be appropriate to add "of the USA". The authors often assume there is only one country -- we all know that there will be no peace until globalism (rather than globalization) spreads;

You can bring some brain-food to articles that reveal the author's lack of thinking about what's important. For example, an article like 'F/A-22 Raptor' really needs a section that is critical of expensive death machines, and discussion about what this machinery does, i.e., kills men, women and children. There are obviously a lot of fairly unconscious people posting stuff without a view to the bigger picture, so take your monkeywrench to any article and fix it. There might be specific information you can bring to an article from your own reading, or you can search for info elsewhere. Most things have a political context and if no one points it out, Wikipedia users will be the poorer for it. Remember, if nothing changes, nothing changes;

The beauty of this is that it won't cost you a penny and you might influence thousands of people over the years. Think of all the schoolteachers and schoolkids who might get a much-needed alternative view because you took the time to assert good values where none previously existed. True, someone might edit your editing, but it's very democratic and even slightly progressive at Wikipedia, and you won't find yourself alone.

At Wikipedia you will also find links to Wikisource (where you can post source documents), Wikiquote (your choice of quotations to upload -- and the authors of those quotes -- can be influential in themselves), and Wikibooks.

If you think it is a good idea for progressive people to influence the world's knowledge bank in this free and easy way, I invite you to pass this on to as many people as you can.

Have fun being a Wikiactivist!

Permalink of this post:  http://wilsonsalmanac.blogspot.com/2004_09_05_wilsonsalmanac_archive.html#109452664088992262

Pip Wilson
- Homepage: http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. distorted — ...
  2. Then fix it! — PhillC
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech