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;Using Wikipedia to open up science
;What does Fraser Hobday tell us about notability on Wikipedia?


[[File:Description-of-a-new-BrazilianParaportanus-and-key-to-the-species-of-the-genus-(Insecta-Hemiptera-ZooKeys-242-019-g001.jpg|thumb|right|220px|A description of a new species of Brazilian Paraportanus, uploaded by Open Access Media Importer]]  
[[File:Hobday_vs_Fraserbrough_United_2014-08-04_15-02.jpg|thumb|right|160px|Fraser Hobday in action for his club]]  


''This post was written by Dr Martin Poulter, Wikimedia UK volunteer and Wikipedian''
There has been [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2811267/A-new-football-superstar-Player-Wikipedia-entry-big-Gary-Lineker-s-shame-plays-semi-professional-Scottish-Highland-League.html an interesting story circulating on the internet this week] about a young Scottish amateur footballer, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_Hobday Fraser Hobday], who had a longer Wikipedia article than Brazilian World Cup star [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neymar Neymar]. The article has since been nominated for deletion by the Wikipedia community and this case raises some interesting questions.


As part of [http://www.openaccessweek.org/ Open Access Week], I’d like to explore some overlaps between Open Access and what we do in Wikimedia, and end with an announcement that I’m very excited about.
How do you decide what goes into an encyclopedia? It’s a tricky question and one Wikipedia and its millions of editors have debated since the site was created in 2001. What they settled on was the concept that to be included, a topic had to be ‘notable’. In short, a subject needs to “have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time”.


We who write Wikipedia do not expect readers to believe something just because Wikipedia says so. We cite our sources and hope that readers will follow the links and check for themselves. This is a kind of continuous quality control: if readers verify Wikipedia’s sources, then bias and misrepresentation will be winnowed out. However, we do not yet live in that ideal world. A huge amount of research is still hidden behind “paywalls” that charge startlingly high amounts per paper.
In many cases ‘notability’ is clear cut. Leaders of countries should obviously be included in an encyclopedia and will have innumerable people writing about them. The chances are your next door neighbour doesn’t have this kind of coverage. What happens when opinions differ on a subject’s ‘notability’? A discussion is opened, and Wikipedia’s writers voice their opinions.


Here in the UK, a lot of progress is being made in opening up research, thanks to the policies of major funding bodies including Research Councils UK and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. This is a difficult cultural change for many researchers, but Wikipedia and its sister sites show that a totally open-access publishing system can work. These sites also provide platforms that give that greatest exposure and reuse for open access materials.
We hope that by teaching people how to edit we can lessen the cases in which new editors find their articles deleted. Sometimes articles which should be included are deleted because an inexperienced editor is not fully aware of how ‘notability’ is measured. What Wikipedia looks for is independent third-party sources. Newspaper articles and books are great examples.
 
<span class="plainlinks">[https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2014/10/what-does-fraser-hobday-tell-us-about-notability-on-wikipedia/<nowiki>[</nowiki>Read the full post here...<nowiki>]</nowiki>]</span>
'''Open Access in the Broadest Sense'''
 
There is much more to open access than being able to read papers without paying. The OA agenda is about getting the full benefits of research, removing technical or legal barriers that restrict progress. You may sometimes hear about “Budapest” OA, referring to the 2002 [http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read declaration of the Budapest Open Access Initiative] which said that open access would “accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge.”
<span class="plainlinks">[https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2014/10/using-wikipedia-to-open-up-science/<nowiki>[</nowiki>Read the full post here...<nowiki>]</nowiki>]</span>


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Revision as of 16:27, 29 October 2014

Cymraeg | English

Wikimedia UK

Open knowledge for all

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If you'd like to see what Wikimedia UK is working on, our website is the best place for our community of volunteers, donors and members to stay up to date.

About Wikimedia UK

The Wikimedia projects are special: they are written and curated by thousands of volunteers. They are also supported by voluntary donations, through Wikimedia UK, the Wikimedia Foundation and other international chapters.

Wikimedia UK is a charity registered in England and Wales that supports and promotes Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects such as Wikimedia Commons. Our mission is to help people and organisations create and preserve open knowledge, and to help provide easy access for all. We do this by supporting volunteer editors and contributors ('Wikimedians'), by working in partnership with cultural and educational institutions, by hosting training sessions and editing events, and by acting to advocate the benefits of open knowledge generally.

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