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Tuesday
28Jul2009

Taking Advantage of Wikipedia

DateTuesday, July 28, 2009 at 04:28PM | by AuthorAllyson Kapin

Global Warming! Health Care Reform! Immigration! These are all hot button issues that are at the core of several nonprofit organizations’ missions. When the public Googles these search terms (and many other nonprofit related search terms), guess what pops up as one of the first few results? A Wikipedia entry.

Just recently the National Institute of Health launched a new initiative to encourage their scientists to edit or start new Wikipedia entries on their area of expertise to ensure that the correct information on health issues is cited. “Wikipedia articles (there are more than 2.9 million of them in English) can be initiated and edited by anyone who can access the website. Quality is informally monitored by fellow users, who can make corrections and change the text freely. All information that is posted is supposed to include citations so a reader can check the primary sources of the data,” a Washington Post article stated.

This got me thinking. How many nonprofits encourage their own staff to regularly edit and start new entries on Wikipedia about the issues they work on? I suspect not too many. Nonprofits should view Wikipedia as an excellent educational outlet to cite key facts about issues. By editing and starting an entry, your nonprofit staff gets to help frame the issues for Wikipedia readers and educate them. Note, when editing entries make sure you include accurate citations. If the edit is considered "controversial" consider tagging it with "request edit" to encourage Wikipedia users to review it. It's also important to remember that the community frowns up entries that are used to "get the word out" or may appear promotional or propaganda like.

Through education your organization can create a more informed populous informed by facts that may have been omitted from previous entries.  

Comment7 Comments | by

Reader Comments (7)

I agree with Allyson about contributing to Wikipedia, but have also experienced some challenges. At a non-profit where I was director of communications, my entry was refused because I worked for the organization and was not considered unbiased or objective.

Wikipedia has an array of "undercover" editors who are difficult to reach, but I finally connected with "Mike," after in-depth research about the rejection of my entry, and efforts to improved it. I also signed in using my organization's name as part of my username, which was rejected because it was not a "human being."

Mike made it clear than no one affiliated with the organization in anyway could contribute a listing, in a a very detailed, non-nonsense e-mail.

I believe each editor has some leeway in how they enforce Wikipedia's standards. At another non-profit where I worked, also as director of communications, I edited an existing entry about the organization, and it was accepted without question.
July 29, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterGeorgiana Bloom
Someone created an entry for our organization long ago. Our experience is that any edits to our own organization page by staff from our organization are not well received. So our Wikipedia entry is indeed a top search result, but our ability to frame our own organization is definitely limited. I do agree that non-profits contributing to Wikipedia pages is a important part of a social media strategy. Ironically, in the Wiki culture, your own organization page is pretty much off limits.
July 29, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterPaul
I think your giving some very dangerous, and ill informed, advice. The general rule is that you should NEVER edit an article covering a topic you're associated. If caught the least that will happen is that you'll be called out in the talk pages and your edits reversed. The worst is that it will create a media firestorm, main stream media, as it has for so many other companies and politicians who have violated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest

In my opinion organizations should do the exact opposite of what you're suggesting here.
July 29, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterDangerous Advice
The main focus of this post is about nonprofits who are experts in their area getting more involved in Wikipedia to make sure that the information that relates to their orgs issues is accurate. Also, if your ED or staff is a known expert in the field and publishes studies then I think it’s worth mentioning and hopefully it will not be flagged. Obviously you should not go overboard and it’s not an invitation to significantly promote yourself. But I think that Wikipedia is still a channel nonprofits should think about taking advantage of.

Also, I would encourage folks interested in this debate to read the Washington Post article that highlights the National Institute of Health's initiatives to edit and contribute entries on health. http://bit.ly/uEPDb

Wikipedia definitely has its own culture but if NIH staff can successfully use Wikipedia to edit and contribute entries using their expertise so can nonprofits.
July 29, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterAllyson Kapin
Wikipedia definitely has its own culture, style and even internal politics, something that most people don't realize because it's frequently portrayed as "the encyclopedia anyone can edit." As others have pointed out, if you run afoul of that culture or violate any of the many unspoken "rules", it's quite possible that your attempts to influence public opinion will backfire. I imagine that government agencies or entities regarded as neutral and without an agenda could be welcomed into the community with open arms (depending on which mod is on duty at any given time), but I don't know that the same would be true for other organizations that are perceived as having a bias or agenda (and don't we all, to some degree?).

I've seen well-meaning but overzealous people get run out of Wikipedia on a rail, and they never had a clue what they did wrong. My advice if you want to make changes that could be seen as the least bit controversial in any way (e.g., making "corrections" beyond grammar issues or adding citations for existing facts) is to do so on the Talk pages, not the entry itself. If the community agrees, they'll make the edit for you, thus lending more legitimacy to your POV.
July 30, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterMelanie Phung
Most people are taking the advice the wrong way. Probably because many nonprofits are interested in getting their organization listed on Wikipedia; but that's not what this post is about. This post is about having your organizations experts act as experts and contribute to Wikipedia, so your organization helps frame and presents intelligent sources on the issue.

This isn't about self-promotion; as much as contributing to a body of work and furthering expertise. Step out of organization promotion mode, and step into we want to educate the public broadly and wisely mode. If education is a component of your work, and you consider your organization an expert in the field of your work, then contributing to Wikipedia to grow the body of knowledge around your issue is or should be part of your work to some degree.
July 30, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterallgood2
Mahalo for mentioning the huge/important potentials for nonprofits in the creation/care/use of wikipedia posts...at an arts & culture nonprofit in Hilo, Hawaii, looking to update and maximize this venue for education, promotion, preservation of Hawaiian arts & culture

www.youtube.com/easthawaiiculture
www.twitter.com/easthawaiiarts
July 30, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterA. Smith

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