About a dozen grad students from Mercyhurst recently became Wikipedians and contributed articles, some of which were highly rated by Wiki editors. I'm presently trying to find out if the school is obliged (or if it would be somehow advantageous) to participate in WikiProject Classroom Coordination. It sounds to me like coordination is voluntary and mainly designed to keep large groups of kids in a computer lab from suddenly descending on Wikipedia. It does provide statistics to Wiki and the school, so maybe it would be useful.
When I find that a topic has no associated article at Wikipedia, I find my topic mentioned in an existing article (or add it) and create an internal link right there. That creates a red-letter link, meaning it's a dead link, doesn't go anywhere. I click the link and compose my article. When I'm done, I check Wiki for other instances of the term and create more internal links to my new article. Someone told me recently that this process requires collaboration. I'm not sure how that would work. Maybe I am supposed to go to the pertinent WikiProject page and suggest the idea? Most times I've been told to just go ahead and write it, so I don't ask anymore. When I'm off-base, and that's happened more than once, the editors flock to my errant article and quickly correct it.
In Wiki-world, cooperation calls for you to assume good faith and to try to work things out when there is disagreement. I've come up against some editors lately who are overly controlling and poor ambassadors of Wiki principles. Such struggles can test your patience. One senior editor I invited to intercede in a dispute had to step away to lick his wounds after slipping into an editing war with the offender. Fighting fire with fire isn't recommended procedure at Wiki. Calm, cool, and collected aren't all co- words in Wiki-world, but they should be.
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It's too bad wikipedia can't develop some requirement for editors to take an online test to prove their knowledge of the fundamentals of the wiki.
The test turns out to be how they behave online. Some fail to live up to the standards, but most have fun participating. The biggest hurdle seems to be control of the product. Those who think they own the material and try to protect it from the editing of others seem to have the hardest time coping with Wiki. The Five Pillars, some of the first guidance received by new Wikipedians, warns of this culture shock. "Recognize that articles can be changed by anyone and no individual controls any specific article; therefore, any writing you contribute can be mercilessly edited and redistributed at will by the community."
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