I'm not sure if you all know, but this week, thanks primarily to the hard work
of User:Ocaasi, the first tranche of free HighBeam memberships were given out
to active Wikimedians - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:HighBeam
I applied and got one. I've been noodling around with the database finding
sources for all sorts of things. One thing that stands out: the huge quantity
of local newspaper sources, and the huge deficit of sources in Wikipedia
articles about British schools.
Our school articles are basically a holding pan for vandalism, often of the
tediously oversightable sort ("such and such in class 9D is gay and here's his
mobile number"), but they also often have almost no sources and say nothing
even vaguely interesting: usually they cite their OFSTED report, the official
school page, and perhaps a page on a central government or LEA website.
Due to a lack of sourcing, we have no reason to trust changes that are made on
the articles: on school articles I've watched, head teachers have changed, even
the name of the school has changed, and we haven't the sources to really
justify or revert those changes.
With access to some decent sources, we can actually fix lots of these articles.
While they may still continue to be the target of vandalism and unsourced
changes, there can at least be a decent well-sourced core of useful information.
If you are a UK Wikipedian and have just been given access to HighBeam, go find
your old (or current) school or the schools near where you live and fix up the
sources! Same for any other community institution: libraries, pubs, scout
troops, churches etc.
--
Tom Morris
<http://tommorris.org/>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
[email protected]
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
