Wikipedia is the first source many people use to find out about a topic. Unfortunately, women walking artists remain underrepresented on Wikipedia. Where entries do exist they are often sparse or inaccurate. One of the goals of WALKING WOMEN is to rewrite the canon, and adding women into the wiki-record is one step in accomplishing that goal.
Wikipedia looks to provide accurate, straight forward summaries of information collected from variety of sources. Anyone can add new pages or edit existing ones. As part of WALKING WOMEN we hope to add a number of women walking artists to Wiki. To do that we need you as an editor! Look below for a quick how to, or add a comment to the page with any questions or suggestions. We hope you join us, but be warned, it is an addictive process.
We have created a public document that lists women walking artists we would like to see added to Wikipedia. Please add anyone to the list we might have missed, and log any entries you make, or discoveries along the way.
The WALKING WOMEN spreadsheet can be found here: http://bit.ly/29IkTi2
Wikipedia Cheat Sheet
Create a login
To create a login follow these steps:
- Go to www.wikipedia.org.
- Click on the create login in the top right corner of the page.
- Select a login and password. Make sure that these are easy for you to remember or write them down.
- Follow the instructions on the screen for security check and click Create your account.
Add an article
Before adding an article use Search in Wikipedia in case the article on that subject already exists. In order to search Wikipedia, go to the top right corner of main page and type the subject the search bar.
If your article doesn’t already exist, you will see the following statement:
‘You may create the page “WALKING WOMEN“, but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered.’
Click on the hyperlink, and the visual editor will load. Always make sure to save your changes by pressing the blue button at the top of the screen (more on that below).
Edit an article
To edit an article search for the page in Wikipedia and click on the link. Click Edit source which is at the top of the page to the left of the search bar.
This will take you to the HTML version of the page. In order to open the visual editor, click on the small grey pen, in the right top corner of the text box.
When done editing, click on save page in the top right corner. Record what you changed in the prompt. If you are editing the source code, you will find the save button at the bottom of the page.
Add a citation
Place the cursor where the reference should be inserted.
Go to the top of the page and click on Cite.
It will give you three options:
Automatic (the best option)
Insert the URL of a website (such as amazon, or google books), or the DOI of an article, and hit generate.
This will bring up a screen showing the citation. Click insert and you are done. If the auto-generated reference was not correct, click on the hyperlink and hit edit, where you can make necessary adjustments.
Manual
This allows you to fill in the references manually; if you want to add more categories, search for them at the bottom of the reference screen. After filling in the details click generate, and then click insert.
Re-Use
This allows you to cite an already existing reference. Click on the reference you want to cite, and click insert.
Things to consider
Notability
Wikipedia requires that a subject be notable and worthy of entry. This is best demonstrated through citations from a variety of secondary sources, such as books, journals or newspaper articles. If the article draws too much from self-published texts, or the artists website, it will get flagged for deletion. Make sure to include all of your citations before you save a new page, otherwise it will be flagged immediately. It is best to write a new page in a Word Document, before pasting it into Wikipedia and adding reference. If you are unable to find enough information on an artist from secondary sources, consider working on a different entry, and create a note in the google document.
Plagiarism
Wikipedia follows strict rules concerning plagiarism, and work that is found to be directly copied without being properly cited will be deleted. Overall, Wikipedia prefers that its authors do not rely on direct quotes, which should be used sparingly. Instead, authors should focus on creating an original page that synthesises information from a variety of sources and cites those sources.
Category
We are trying to fill out the Walking Art category on Wikipedia, created during our first edit-a-thon. If you add a new page you can also add it to the Walking Art category. To do this open the source editor and scroll down to the bottom of the text box. As the last line of the code add [[Walking art]]. Hit save right below the box. Make sure to click the minor edit button and add the reason ‘category:walking art’.