Wikipedia is one of the most popular sites on the Internet, and is one of the major sources of information for Americans online. In a few years, it is likely to be one of the most important sources of information in any form.
I have been a Wikipedian for a very long time, since near the beginning. I'm choosing not to reveal my Wikipedia username at this time.
This diary includes a bit about how Wikipedia works, and about how you can make both Wikipedia and the progressive movement better. I then give a little coverage to the article about the Democratic Party, and invite Kossacks to comment on ways to improve it, or to just plain improve it themselves.
I'm currently considering writing occasional reviews of Wikipedia from a progressive perspective. Please let me know if you think this is useful. I'm going to assume you already know what Wikipedia is. If not, go to
http://en.wikipedia.org for the homepage of the English version.
It is not my intent that people leave dailykos and go ruin a good Wikipedia article. So, I will begin with a few basics.
NPOV = "Neutral Point of View" - this is a very important acronym
All Wikipedia content must be from a neutral point of view. It will not help our cause to make a neutral article less neutral, even if that makes the article more damning for the Repubs. Perhaps the most important reason is purely pragmatic - a Republican will probably notice the biased article and correct it, likely skewing it in the other direction.
In order to write from a NPOV, all information must be cited to a reputable source, such as a newspaper, book or journal. Wikipedia is NOT a place for breaking news of scandals - that's something DailyKos does very well, no need to replicate it on Wikipedia.
How do you cite a source? Well, there are lots of ways. As long as someone reading can figure out what the source is without too much difficult, it doesn't really matter. Someone may eventually make the source citation fancier, but that's okay. You can always put an external link in single brackets after the claim (e.g. you could write "George Bush was called the dumbest president in history by historian John Q. Public.[http://dumbpeople.presidents.com]").
Remember that reality is sufficiently damaging for the Republicans. Describe the facts as best you can. A neutral Wikipedia article will make it very obvious that the talking points are bullshit, and because it has the appearance of neutrality, voters will trust it to represent the debate fairly.
In conclusion (of this part), it is in the best interests of everyone in the country that Wikipedia presents neutral, true, well-cited and easy-to-read information. How can DailyKos readers/diarists/lurkers/trolls get involved? First of all, you can add content, citing your sources as I described. You can also participate in discussions on an article's talk page (to get there, click on "discuss this page", you can edit a talk page just the same as you edit an article, just click the link that says "edit this page" - leave new talk comments at the bottom, not the top). Most discussions are relatively minor and revolve around whether or not a particular sentence is well-worded, some notes on how to improve the article, an occasional complaint or off-topic convo. There's also a lot of discussion, argument, flaming, trolling and other unsavoriness.
Don't bother voting. One of Wikipedia's mottos is that voting is evil. Wikipedia works by consensus, meaning that difficult issues are discussed until an agreement is reached that all sides can agree with. Voting is viewed as evil because it forces a polarization of views and pushes out people that don't completely identify with one side. Some aspects of Wikipedia procedure look like voting - deciding if an article should be deleted, for example - but they're not. They look like voting because only a few options are even theoretically available (delete or not, basically) and it makes it easier to determine consensus when the discussion looks like a vote.
I'm telling you not to "vote" in such discussions because your vote won't be counted, and will probably lead people to believe your side is wrong. Usually, when a mass of non-Wikipedians try to vote in an article being nominated for deletion (just to name one of the most common circumstances), it's painfully obvious that they're a small number of people voting several times because a post on a forum somewhere told them to. They don't know Wikipedia's policies, can't defend their "votes" and don't understand why the issue is important.
I had originally planned at looking at a few articles to see if/how the DailyKos community might be able to help. This intro got a lot longer than I had expected though, so I'll only look at one article. It's official title is "Democratic Party (United States)" - at http://en.wikipedia.org/..._(United_States) (go to http://en.wikipedia.org/... to see all the non-American "Democratic Parties").
The first couple paragraphs is the lead. It's not bad, but it could use some work. This is the kind of thing Kossacks could do well - all the details are probably cited elsewhere, and all we need are 3-5 paragraphs explaining everything about the Democratic Party. What it stands for, who its candidates are, its internal structure and funding, its history, etc
Then an "ideological base" section that's disjointed and skewed towards history, spending more time on the early 20th century than the current time. That's a common Wikipedia problem - we have many history buffs who could care less about the present.
The current stances sections seem okay, if disorganized. And the bulk of the article is "history". Again, doesn't look bad even if it is bloated - the proper Wikipedia thing to do would be to create a smaller summary of the section and remove the long bit that's there to its own article, "History of the Democratic Party (United States)".
The sections on the various factions is interesting and seems pretty well-done, but is without citations. If you know of facts that support these issues, please add them. If you're still uncertain about how to do so, you can always just leave a note at the bottom of the talk page giving a link or description of the source and what claim it supports. Someone will put it in the article itself soon.
The structure and composition section is okay. No mention of the 50 state strategy though. The symbols section is nice, and pretty interesting (if also uncited).
So, my conclusion:
*Wikipedia is a Good Thing for progressives and others
*The better Wikipedia is, the better it is for progressives, because the truth is on our side, and anything that makes the truth free-er, is good for us.
*You can make Wikipedia better, with no commitment of time, money or anything else. (You can also donate - I know this is a bad time to ask for donations here, but remember that Wikipedia is one of the biggest websites in the world, and it's strictly volunteer-based - volunteer funding is what enabled the Wikimedia Foundation to refuse to bow down to Chinese censorship, so please help support it!)
*The article on the Democratic Party is in pretty good shape, but needs some work looking over it to make sure our recent developments, platform and strategies are adequately covered.
I think having a Kossack "Collaboration of the Week" could be great, if people are willing to put in just a little time, and are willing and able to abide by Wikipedia policies regarding neutrality and citing sources.
If you see anything else relevant to Kossacks, leave a note in the comments. Also, please leave a comment if you actually do some work on an article because of this diary, so I can see if this has a real effect. And finally, if you have any questions about Wikipedia (or the other Wikimedia projects), feel free to ask, I'll hang around and answer.
Pre-posting update: I can't seem to make a link to the Wikipedia article titled "Democratic Party (United States)", though I can link to just "Democratic Party". Is it the parentheses? Sorry, I'm new to being a Kossack.