Wikipedia as community service
In many schools, community service hours are a required part of student work. If you are in this situation, and fortunate enough to be able to choose your project, consider Wikipedia as a way to give back to the global community.
Disclaimer: It is unlikely that you will be able to count Wikipedia as community service in the context of serving a criminal sentence.
The Pitch
[edit]You will likely have to convince your teacher/instructor of the merit of this project. This may be difficult given the untraditional nature of this community service and lack of understanding about what Wikipedia is. A few recommendations/talking points:
- Show them Wikipedia, live.
- Explain to them what Wikipedia is and how it works:
- A collaborative encyclopedia
- One of the top 50 sites on the Internet (!)
- Run by a non-profit organization, supported largely by user donations.
- Freely accessible
- Follows the principles of open source software.
- Licensed so that it can be freely copied, modified and redistributed in any form.
- Make a plan of what you want to focus on contributing (next section).
Tips
[edit]- Have everyone involved register an account so their contributions can be tracked.
- Use one person's User Talk page as a coordination point for the group. List articles you are working on, etc.
Ways to Contribute
[edit]- Articles on topics of local interest.
- Articles on topics relating to your course work.
- If you are fluent with a language other than English, there is no shortage of work for you. Wikipedia is availible in over 200 different langauges, many of them are a fair bit smaller than the English version.
- Photography. You are free to take a picture of something, upload it, and add it to an article.
- Remember Wikipedia's sister projects, Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikinews etc.
- Wikipedia:Community Portal always has ideas for tasks to be done.
Possible Problems
[edit]Your teacher may want proof of your contributions. While there is no way to prove exactly how much time you spent, your User Contributions page can give a good idea of what you've done.