#How to write on Wikipedia

[digitalmarketingph]

SEO: Wikipedia Writing and Publication

SEOs and Digital Marketers know that getting a Wikipedia page and backlink is a very juicy digital achievement. The link juice is the primary aim for it, plus the kind of branding/online presence it establishes as well.

WRITING

It's not so easy to get published on Wikipedia. The approving Wiki editors are very strict. Aside from grammar, the content has to be unbiased. It won't get published if it sounds like PR content. Here's an example between PR sounding and objective/unbiased:

PR - "The BlahBlah Company is the best digital agency founded in 2018 by John BlahBlah, a multi-awarded SEO guru with over 2M followers on social media."

Objective / Unbiased - "The BlahBlah Company is a digital agency founded by John BlahBlah in 2018."

Avoid superlatives and other statements that don't have supporting published written articles/links from credible sites (like famous news sites, organizations, etc) for such claims.

CITATIONS

Now that you know the difference between sentence formulations, next would be backup links/resources to support your statement/s.

Like I said, every statement to be written must have a supporting backlink. The screenshot below shows that there are "citation links" as to why such statements were written and approved by Wiki editor/s.

When you go down to the bottom of every Wikipedia article, there's a list of citation links to show proof that the statements in the article are correct/valid.

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE / CMS

Formatting the content such as bold, italic, hyperlinking, and so on is different compared to your standard HTML. There would be a bit of a learning curve for this but they have a guide for formatting. You are allowed to preview your work before submitting/publishing it in their CMS.

THE SANDWICH METHOD

To seem like I was an objective/unbiased contributor in Wiki, I had to mask myself virtually. I didn't sign up using my work email (e.g. jane@blahblahcompany.com) and I used my home/mobile hotspot Internet connection (IP address). Then, the content needed to have a bit of dirt on the article's subject to really be unbiased, but tried to make it short and light.

The sandwich method is writing a paragraph that doesn't shade the subject in the intro and latter parts of the whole article and putting the shade in the middle. That is if such dirt content exists. Adding this truly gives you an objective / unbiased rapport as a Wiki contributor.

MY SAMPLE WORK

I used to work for a famous Southeast Asian E-commerce company back in 2013-2015. Back then, the Lazada Wiki article was published but needed to be updated/edited. Since leaving the company, it underwent many changes so the Wiki article has also gone through many changes too. It used to be separated into different countries (Lazada Philippines, Lazada Malaysia, Lazada Indonesia, etc) but the Wiki editors might have decided to consolidate everything into one link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazada

But the localized version still exists which I wrote: https://tl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazada_Philippines

It's the exact content of my English version (but now was changed and merged into the currently existing article version). When you check "View History" of a Wiki article, you get to see when it went a change and who made the change.

When you see the very bottom/start of the editing history, that's me with the username "TheSentenceFormulator"

By now, I've forgotten the login details for it since it was just a secondary task for my SEO duties back then. We were busy with ongoing On-Page optimizations and Off-Page optimizations (a growing e-commerce company meant a growing number of category, product, promo, and sale web pages).

When your boss or client wants a juicy backlink like Wikipedia, share this article to them so they know that they need to start investing in having their company being published/recognized elsewhere first.

[professorsparklepants]

Sorry I'm not over the framing of Hadestown as a cyclical story. This is an old, old song, but we're gonna sing it again. We've been singing it for hundreds, probably thousands of years. It is the oldest surviving opera, the second ever written. It is, I cannot express this enough, the most common opera adaptation of all time. As soon as this story existed we were putting it to music and on a stage. This is an old, old song. And we're gonna sing it again. Because we love to sing. And because we love.

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

So did any of YOU guys know that someone wrote a reverse!AU Jeeves fanfic in 1953, and Wodehouse liked it?

[chessb0r3d]

i cracked the code.

[not-poignant]

Potentially an odd question, but is there a specific site or method you use for research for your writings? Researching medical/legal/similar procedures is the bane of my existence because I can never seem to find an explanation I understand well enough to then write about.

I recently caught up to Stain, and while reading it struck me how you put a lot of detail into a wide variety of topics (the medical part of Alex’s injury at the start, therapy, Alex’s eye examination, Sebastian talking about his boss trying to underpay him, among other topics) (HUGE kudos about that by the way, it adds another layer of realism) and it feels like there’s no way one person can have firsthand experience/knowledge in ALL these things unless you’ve lived an extremely varied life.

I was just hoping you might have some pointers about how to go about researching basically anything because I feel like I’ve GOT to be missing something.

No worries if you can’t/don’t want to/don’t have an answer, I just thought shooting an ask your way is worth a shot haha.

Hi anon,

Researching is its own skillset, like writing or editing, there's no one specific site to go to, to make it easier, it's more like...taking the time to learn the constellation of ever-changing sites, books, and more in order to best learn how to learn. Because that's really what it is about: Learning how to learn.

On learning how to learn (I should say, I'm not very good at teaching, so some of this stuff might not be helpful to you, please ignore it if it isn't!):

But I do have some things that I do which might help. And some that might not.

The first thing that won't really help is I have led a varied life in a way that is convenient for the content I write, lol. The medical part of Alex's injury - I've been badly injured. The eye examination - I have astigmatism and was diagnosed late and blamed for my own eyesight issues which I didn't realise were eyesight issues. I've seen over 19 therapists in over 25 years. I've talked to bosses about pay and I've had lots of friends that have too.

Tbh the things I've had to research the most in Stardew Valley have been:

The intersection of astigmatism/myopia/dyslexia treatment and the best order in which these things should happen.

Stardew Valley - literally the calendar, the schedule, liked gifts, disliked gifts, favourite meals etc. Some I know off by heart, others I don't really remember at all.

The best way to clean a house (though my mother was a professional cleaner for most of my childhood, I just wanted to revise and see if anything had changed since then)

Cleaning standards for home laboratories

The colours that sweetpea flowers come in etc.

It's always random stuff. And to be honest, a lot of this doesn't happen in much detail in the story. The colour of sweetpea flowers was for the bouquet, and I think it was one line. The best way to clean a house has accounted for very little actual writing.

Now for actual helpful stuff:

Wikipedia is your friend. My browser search bar goes straight to Wikipedia, not google. It's amazing how much Wikipedia will explain a ton of different things these days. It's true some concepts might be hard to understand, you might need to spend more time Wiki-ing / googling / using a dictionary to start understanding those concepts.

When it comes to writing trauma, for example, I've read upwards of 20+ academic books (i.e. the kind psychologists study at university or after university in postgrad) about trauma. I wouldn't expect other people to go that deep, but other folks aren't writing trauma like I am in every single story, and it's a special interest of mine. But it kind oh illustrates that I'm not going to a single site about something.

But you could get a deeper understanding by just looking at the PTSD and C-PTSD and trauma articles on Wikipedia, and slowly reading them.

The second is that medical sites can also be your friend.

The third is that Reddit is amazing for lived experiences, with a grain of salt that some people are lying for clout. But 'what treatments helped best with your dyslexia reddit' as a search phrase is going to be way more helpful than whatever AI bullshit the google search line will give you otherwise. Deep diving into reddit threads can be super helpful for stuff that I used to find out previously on personal blogs (it's amazing how much 'what's life on an oil rig like blog' used to turn up a ton of lived experiences from firsthand encounters for example). I don't use my Reddit account for anything other than research, lmao. It's a hidden gem for lived experience and human interpretation of complex issues. It can be especially helpful for legal / economic matters, but honestly, I mostly just handwave legal stuff with caveats/disclaimers. You can do an undergraduate degree in law, and a lawyer is still going to painstakingly point out all the ways you're wrong about something. It's just better to tell the lawyers in advance that you know you can't compete with their knowledge base lmao.

(Though it can be worth looking up regional differences, because if I see another Australian writing Australian legal procedures into US law (or vice versa) I will scream - like no, Aussies, we do not have BOLOs here, we have KL04, LOTBKF and BOLF depending on your state).

A good way to start learning how to learn is to actually start outside of your stories and start with things you already love. Plug your favourite movie into Wikipedia and learn about how it was made, or what the production was like. And when you find something mildly interesting, say, about film lighting, open up those Wiki articles or plug 'film lighting process for (insert movie here)' on google, and have a look at some of the results. Learn how to learn, how to go deeper, what seems to be helpful, and what isn't. Consider making a list of articles you really enjoy - I love a website that aggregates all the different odours and flavours in the world and their chemical compounds which has been incredibly helpful for Palmarosa. The website is a bit hard to navigate, but if you plug something like 'spearmint' into the search, it'll help.

If you don't already have it, put Wikipedia on your phone. It's free / ad-free. I have my own personal server on Discord that I use to house a lot of resources (for everything, from my business, to health records, to writing resources). If you use Discord already, I highly recommend the 'private server' as a great way to aggregate everything together.

If the article formatting of online articles doesn't feel good, you can do text-to-speech, or use the little 'reader' symbol to make it more reader-friendly.

Books are also not to be underestimated for how helpful they can be (I find too many people are website focused these days, but actually, not everything can be found on websites, a lot of the best niche knowledge is still in books when it's not in lived experience tellings). Find out about your local and online libraries. A lot of people (especially younger folks) don't realise just how much information they can get access to, for free. Librarians themselves are gifts from god, who will literally help you find the books you need for whatever subject you want to learn more about, and if they don't know, they will often personally take it upon themselves to look further for you. 'I want to learn more about German composers' is - for many librarians - a very exciting question that they will want to help you with.

Outside of that, niche websites (like the odours one I mentioned), sometimes just finding sites where asking research questions gets answered. For example the free blogging site (with no ads), Dreamwidth, has a community called little_details where you can ask your niche question and people will answer and say what their expertise is in that subject. It's incredible and active enough to be super helpful. In some cases it's completely changed the course of a story.

Over time you'll also learn what's less helpful. Some articles are clearly ChatGPT written or written for ads and not accurate - so if you can get the same information corroborated at multiple sources, that will help.

And don't forget the value of just listening to people online and irl regarding their experiences. As a writer, I feel like an 'experience collector.' I like asking friends, strangers, family, etc. all kinds of questions because I think a part of my brain is always aware that something they're sharing could be a vitally grounding element in a story and it's also just interesting and people like sharing about their lives. Whether I'm asking my roommate about the process of getting a government evaluation approved, my architect friend about drug use in Australian architecture, or a friend from Bali what sort of foods he grew up with and what his comfort meal was when he felt sick, etc. Writers collect experiences, not just their own, but those of others. The greatest tools a writer can have in their toolbelt are knowing how to listen, learning how to learn (and how to love learning), and knowing what the right questions are.

None of those things can be gained with one or two websites. But they can be gained with time and curiosity, and well, that helps with your whole entire life, and not just writing. :D

[pvposeur]

Useful F2U Programs (and 1 F2U Website) For Writers

Can't afford Microsoft Office?? No problem, just download LibreOffice or OpenOffice, both in which are not-for-profit + open source, and you're good to go.

Need a dictionary to use when you're offline and have no internet or just need to know what something means + synonyms/antonyms?? No problem, just download WordWeb and you're good to go.

Need to create some fictitious deities for your fictitious race?? No problem, just go to Chaotic Shiny Productions, press CTRL + F, and type in Pantheon Generator Portable. Once downloaded, you're good to go.

Need to know how many words you need to write a day to reach your monthly goal of _____ number of words?? No problem, just go to Chaotic Shiny Productions, press CTRL + F, and type in NaNoWriMo Calendar. Once downloaded, you're good to go.

Want something that's better than Notepad because it auto-backups every-so-often and has a countdown word counter?? No problem, just download yEdit2 and you're good to go.

Need a program that allows you to do a scene-by-scene play for your works?? No problem, just download yWriter7 and you're good to go.

Want to be able to use ProWritingAid Pro without needing to purchase it?? No problem, just head to The ProWritingAid Team Trial Signup, get a Temporary Email (almost any of them will suffice), and create a new account every seven (7) days which will lead to an infinite number of #7DayTrails. You'll also need to download ProWritingAid and you're good to go.

Want to create your own Wikipedia?? No problem, just download this Wikipedia HTML-CSS-JS Template from HTML5 Templates, create an account on Neocities, and download Brackets to edit said Wikipedia Template. Once finished, you're good to go.

[anna-scribbles]

h-how do you ever finish any of your work? genuine question because you seem to be productive despite your agreste syndrome and I need to learn your ways. but also how do you ever finish any of your work

unclear. last night i stayed up and finished a report worth 25% of my grade at about 5am, arrived on time for my 9am lecture, and spent about half of it zoned out while thinking about seventeen year old emilie agreste. and i was one of the most active participants in the class discussion

[pokeberry5]

more rita except the first one is non-canon (<- lol what canon) bc i was an idiot and set this fake isekai in the fake early 1800s

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Advisor has called my thesis topic and attempt "difficult", and that I need to try and relax and enjoy the process, and that that will help me stop writing like I'm writing the publishable article that comes from synthetizing an honors thesis. He compared it with someone attempting to juggle 9 items with one hand before they have completely mastered two-hand, five-item juggling. In that sense he also said my writing might profit from my writing for myself all those simpler intermediate stages (for example, just writing summary-commentaries of the chapters I'm using from MacIntyre's work).

So, I might bore you all with posts about those.

[sacchiri]

Hellsing 2002 calendar illustration.

Ein wunderliche und erschröckliche Hystori von einem großen Wüttrich genant Dracole wayda Der do so ganz unkristenliche marrter hat angelegt die mensche, als mit spissen als auch die leut zu Tod geslyffen

A wondrous and frightening story about a great berserk called Dracula the voivode who inflicted such unchristian tortures such as with stakes and also dragged people to death

[autumnoakes]

okay but like here's the thing with chatgpt. outside of the negative environmental impact chatGPT and similar programs have, there is also a high chance that whatever you have it do for you is wrong. sometimes it is something small and inconsequential, but it can also be dangerously wrong. because what it does is it's looking on the internet for a source, and it will give you whatever source it finds (seemingly at random? i'm not 100% sure how chatGPT works but it seems very much like it's just picking something and spitting it out). i'm not even that old and i'm still an average college age but i remember commercials and ads telling people to not trust things you see on the internet because you don't know what is or isn't true. you might come across something that seems entirely legit, but is complete and total bullshit. that is something to keep in mind when using chatGPT that i think people don't consider. it may be wrong. it very likely is wrong. you won't be certain that it's wrong unless you ask it for its sources and examine them yourself which at that point you may as well just be doing your own research without AI anyways.

[employee052]

idk, crowsx3 design??? sdkjfh

the heads are all made of porcelain, and can rotate like that one horror short film with kevan brighting voicing in it

[kndll-art]

Grevillea banksii

210 x 135 mm / watercolour

instagram

and to send off 2024 i leave you with this fun fact about these plants

[luuxxart]

royal college trio 🍂🍁

[fictionadventurer]

I run beneath the winter's icy skies while taking care to note the lovely scene so often it becomes a common sight and has no more enchantment for my eyes. Wrapped up within the veils of dull routine, to heaven's joy's I've given up the right. Yet when it seems my inattention bars my eyes from noting miracles unseen I stop to take a glimpse into the night and lose my breath to find the stars So bright

[beastsovrevelation]

Where 👏🏻 is 👏🏻 Akilah's 👏🏻 last 👏🏻 name?