Contributing to wikipedia

[Bon Echo]

This is something I've long thought about doing and wondered if other waymarks do. We do a lot of research to create waymarks. How often in researching a location have you been surprised to see nothing on wikipeida? Just now I was looking up a "sea stack" or "flower pot" ("a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, formed by wave erosion" - from wikipeida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_%28geology%29). The stack that I visited has been waymarked http://www.Waymarking.com/waymarks/WM1VW_DEVILS_MONUMENT_LOOKOUT_Ontario_CANADA but it's not included in the wikipedia list of stacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sea_stacks#Canada.

 

So do you contribute to wikipedia, yes or no? Why or why not? It seems we do rely a good deal on materials from that site. So why not also contribute. Just curious. Thanks for your responses.

[+T0SHEA]

 

So do you contribute to wikipedia, yes or no? Why or why not? It seems we do rely a good deal on materials from that site. So why not also contribute. Just curious. Thanks for your responses.

 

I have actually considered it, but a serious caveat has reared its ugly head. As you may or may not know I do a lot of historic things. If it's old I'm interested. If it's old and Waymarkable, I'm even more interested. One downside to this is that very often such sites are little documented online, requiring a lot of digging to find even the slightest hint of useful information. Those who are afraid of spending a bit of time (like a whole afternoon, or even a day or more) on a Waymark or a series of Waymarks, then pounding the keys for awhile, would probably prefer to do other things.

 

The real bugaboo, though, is finding conflicting information, such as "1786" on a plaque and "1784" in a historical document. I have found this to be a very common occurrence - two articles written on an old church, published 100 years apart, may disagree on nearly every pertinent bit of information. If I were to then write a Wiki article on that church, which information should I choose to follow?

 

And, BTW, WIKI itself will often disagree with other published, and scholarly, articles on the subject. Did Wiki get it right, or not?

 

The upshot is that, for the most part, I never feel completely certain of the accuracy of the information I have at hand, so repeating it in WIKI generally seems ill advised. I will, however, post it on Waymarking, with caveats when there is definite doubt as to its accuracy. Waymarking, after all, is not looked to as a primary source of historical information - I hope. ;^)

 

Truth be told, WIKI shouldn't, either.

 

Keith

 

PS - I guess that posting a WIKI article on a site for which I also have photos would give me a nearly free WIKI Waymark, wouldn't it? Further, it might even give me a second Waymark, a Lucky 7, if it happened to provide a seventh department!

Edited August 15, 2016 by BK-Hunters

[+fi67]

I have many fields of interest, but I am not an expert in any of them. At least not on a level to create Wikipedia articles.

 

So I not contribute on article level, but I do minor changes like adding items to lists and correct obvious mistakes.

 

And I have uploaded hundreds of pictures during "Wikipedia Loves Monuments" contests. So when a Wikipedia article hase the same picture as one of my waymarks, it was not stolen. It was uploaded by me and it was on Waymarking first.