| Laura is right that you don't just start writing articles on Wikipedia. You have to understand the structure, the requirement of references and notes, etc. And that is learned (and you obtain some credibility) by making small changes like typo-fixing to existing pages.
You don't need a huge framework before you start. 90 % I know about origami and might like to write about, is not history. It is everything else, like how to produce paper, Kawasaki's theorem, etc. Even within history, you can write about small topics, like Onna Chohoki (Illustrated Handbook on Daily Life of Women, 1st edition 1629) which contains a section on noshi and other ceremonial models folded from paper - combined with the collection origata tehon (1697) which contains many similar models. The chronology and contents is framework enough. If you want to extend with e.g. its part in the culture of the time, you need more historical anchoring, but for at start that is not needed.
One more point: You'll want pictures, but often they are only available at museums and they have copyrights to the photos, so you need to obtain rights to use photos. That is grunt work and can be done with no framework as well. I hope you already know that you cannot lift a photo from Wikipedia and use it without checking its terms of permissions?
As more articles on origami emerge, you may begin consider the overall, polished framework.
That is much like you already see it in The Fold: many articles on origami as a subject, including history, exists, all written without being put into a common framework. And on David Mitchell's valuable History of Origami pages, where observation after observation are added, with references. Each page, each reference, does not require a historical framework. Over time patterns may emerge, leading to restructuring or even splitting up pages, but you don't need, actually cannot know in advance, the complete framework.
I'll repeat myself: To make an encyclopedia on origami requires grunt work, in writing, researching, references, permissions, ... This regardless if you make your own page (like David Mitchell - all respect to his putting in the effort) or add to Wikipedia.
I guess most of us writing in this thread, myself included, are not too much inclined to add to Wikipedia. If we were, we would have done so already. We all have preexisting projects. But it would be great if someone would.
Finally, the existing origami entry may have faulty details, yes. Calling origami the Japanese art of paperfolding is more inaccurate than it is wrong, though. Yes, when I give talks, I am careful to spell out the concurrent development in many parts of the world, but origami is more associated with Japan than any other single country. If you see errors in the article, fix them (including references to support your case). This helps everyone.
By the way, have you ever taken a renowned encyclopedia, read articles on subjects you know in depth, just to discover they contain errors, and then wondered how many errors are in articles on other subjects? In general, Wikipedia is in the better end as the hive mind beats most experts most of the time.
Which is, of course, an argument for writing articles on Wikipedia. Another advantage is that Wikepedia is likely more longlived, certainly more than individual pages like Origami Heaven, but likely also more than in this context smaller organisations' pages like The Fold (even if I have high expectations of that one).
Regards, Hans
Hans Dybkjær http://papirfoldning.dk Society: http://foldning.dk The first step, in my opinion, is to drastically increase the presence of origami on Wikipedia, in terms of "entries" (creators and associations and concepts / practices / techniques / materials / ...), rather than refining the few existing pages (which may be imprecise or one-sided, but improving them is a more delicate matter and requires our discussion and agreement).
Naturally, creating all these new entries requires willpower and time. Unfortunately, I don't have the time, and the only thing I can do is write to the associations, and to some creators, advocating the "Wikipedia cause."
Question: do the creators reading this list want to create an autobiographical page on Wikipedia? If you can answer... so we can understand the moral and feasibility.
Lorenzo
Lorenzo Lucioni Duesseldorf - Germany Manuel wrote The journey is made by walking Maybe the walk can begin with a modest edit in Wikipedia expanding the knowledge of Origami’s root beginning in China, albeit Origami being formalized and coded in the Japanese culture. From: Origami [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Manuel Sirgo Álvarez via Origami
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2026 4:16 PM
To: Lorenzo; The Origami Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Origami] Wikipedia origami update I completely agree with Lorenzo. I think that making so many preliminary considerations, as Laura suggests, makes it almost impossible to start the project. It's paralysis by overanalysis, as they say in Quality. The journey is made by walking. I think many of us know we want it to appear on Wikipedia. The specialized discussions on different aspects should be a product of that journey, something that emerges little by little, with errors and disagreements, but with the project underway and not thinking "ad infinitum" about how the project can be done. This is a fascinating topic, and I hope we can all continue to contribute to the development of Wikipedia. Many thanks to Viviane for starting the discussion. I completely agree with Hans, and I firmly believe that contributing to Wikipedia is our duty and that we should start doing so the moment we spot a gap or an omission. I firmly believe in the value of Wikipedia for a number of important reasons: - it is free and does not require registration or the creation of user accounts or profiles; - it's open and transparent; - it is democratically run and somehow decentralised; - It is NOT controlled by any small group of people; - It is NOT sectarian or elitist; it does NOT serve the interests of a select few; It is up to us, and us alone, to enrich Wikipedia. So, to move on to some concrete proposals, I suggest that those of us who have the time and inclination should take the initiative to: - encourage each creator to write a page about themselves, even if it’s just a basic one; - encourage other organisations to do the same, passionately arguing the importance of contributing to the world’s largest encyclopaedia; - start compiling a list of "entries" relating to origami (as well as people and organisations) that we would like to see on Wikipedia We can carry out the first two points mentioned above ‘privately’ by contacting creators and organisations. As for the third point, I’m not sure whether we should be flooding this mailing list with messages. But perhaps we should. Hi Viviane, Dianne, Hans, Manuel and everyone else! I agree that the perfect can be the enemy of the good, and I’m glad to see a critical mass beginning to take an interest in the history of origami. But when I refer to a historiographical framework, I mean that we first need some agreement about what exactly we are trying to study or write about, and how we intend to approach it. It is true that anyone can write on Wikipedia. However, it is generally not advisable for someone who has never edited there before to begin by writing an article or making extensive paragraph-level revisions. The usual recommendation is to start Wikipedia as an editor making small corrections (typos, across different articles) which helps build a record of reliability. Only after some time do Wikipedia editors typically move toward more substantial contributions. The entry on origami already exists and contains numerous errors. Still, it can be frustrating to make corrections only to have an “editor of editors” come along and delete everything you wrote, or worse, block you. One requirement that is often enforced is the use of sources. We may know a great deal about a particular origami artist, but if we cannot point to sources that can be cited and linked, that biography will very likely be challenged. A few years ago I had a long conversation with Ilan Garibi. At the time, I was the one insisting on the need to improve the Wikipedia page on the history of origami. Ilan was more inclined to develop a history of origami on the CFC website. I argued that only people already devoted to origami would ever check a website, while a Wikipedia page is seen by everyone. Time passed and we ended up doing neither. In the meantime, I devoted myself to thinking about how the question on the history of paperfolding should be approached. People outside of the origami community know little about the subject or have rather confused ideas about it, I mean, even people who should know, such as some museum curators, art historians, etc., they don’t know much. Why is it that museum curators often do not know what origami actually is, or think of it simply as paper boats? I think one of the reasons is because origami is not a subject being studied in Art History courses or Art History careers. There are no university textbook that devote an entire chapter (not just a side box or an insert) to the subject. It is not studied at the bachelor’s or master’s level, so we cannot really blame young art historians for not knowing much about it. There are, of course, a few specialized niches—for example, some universities offer courses dealing with the mathematics of folding—but that is not the history of origami. It is a specialized technical subject. So we have a good starting point for building the basis of that kind of information. However, there are some caveats. While those of us in the origami community know a great deal and could contribute substantially, we cannot turn a Wikipedia article into an origami bazaar. That would only add to the confusion. When I say that we need to think about a historical framework, what I mean is that we should first think about the structure: the house that will eventually be inhabited. It is much harder to fill a house with all kinds of furniture and then start throwing things out the window once we realize that we actually needed a different kind of house. I honestly believe that the level of knowledge we have today is not the same as it was ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, and that we are now in a position to aim for a serious consensus. What happens if we do not do this? The problem is that people do not always mean the same thing when they talk about origami. Nor is everyone satisfied with the usual answers about its “origins.” We could tell the story through biographies of the main practitioners, through the objects, or through a guiding thread—the fold itself—which historians of origami often refer to as the “technical gesture.” But it would be difficult to approach the history of origami through all of these frameworks at the same time. Cutting, carving, weaving, or molding are all examples of technical gestures. They are called gestures because they involve a physical, bodily effort when working a substrate. Paperfolders tend to recognize historical continuity on the basis of the persistence of the same gesture, that is the fold. If we agree that this is the history thread we want to tell—the history of the gesture “fold"—then that is one possible approach. But it carries risks. One of those risks is the temptation to interpret different developments as part of a linear historical evolution (event A leads to event B leads to event C). This is precisely what Hatori Koshiro is pointing to when he writes, “We can see no relationship between Japanese religion and the origin of origami.” And, being Japanese, it is all more striking that he argues: "Origami is not a Japanese art” (the Wikipedia entry begins by sayind “Origami is the Japanese art of paperfolding”. Who’s going to change this and will the “editor of editors” accept the change?) I will not pursue this point further here, since I do not want to extend the discussion too much, but these are all important issues to consider before undertaking such a challenging article. All of this opens up a series of considerations that, in my view, should be thought through before attempting to write an article on the history of origami, wheter it is for Wikipedia, for the CFC, or wherever, even if that article can always be revised later. Conceptual issues are harder to revise, and they tend to remain in the collective imagination much longer. Thank you for reading this far, and apologies for the length of this email. Laura Rozenberg
On Mar 15, 2026, at 2:02 PM, Manuel Sirgo Álvarez via Origami <[email protected]> wrote: I completely agree with Viviane. I think Wikipedia can be gradually expanded with different contributions. The first contributions might not be entirely accurate, or better contributions might be offered later, but for me, the important thing is to start. Perhaps one way to do this is with short biographies of authors, folders, or creators, both current and deceased, but of whom we fortunately have fond memories and documentation. We also have experts in the history of origami in various associations, both from local history and from other countries, and we could ask them to contribute. Even the recently created website, Everything Origami, could be managed by someone or a team to handle these contributions.
Best regards
Manuel Sirgo
El 14 mar 2026, a las 23:21, KDianne Stephens via Origami <[email protected]> escribió:
Viviane said This was my little idea of the day. (Wikipedia)
Wonderful idea, and long overdue
Orifun to all
Dianne
-----Original Message-----
From: Origami [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Viviane Berty via Origami
Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2026 2:43 PM
To: The Origami Mailing List
Subject: [Origami] Wikipedia origami update
Dear origami Friends,
Forgive my stupid question : does anyone know why there is so few
Information on Wikipedia about origami ? With the aim of spreading the
origami knowledge, is there a team working to to add a complete and
reliable information into the largest encyclopedia ever ? How wonderful
it would be to contribute to the general art culture, don't you think ?
I have heard that Wikipedia is no AI, is free, and it works
democratically, is it true ?
I am terrible at computers things... (Moreover my English style is so
ugly... ! I do apologize.)
This was my little idea of the day.
Yours,
Viviane.
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