Wikipedia:GLAM/Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa/The whole GLAM package/Create articles
 | How to use this manual · Set up your project · Select your topic · Select images · Make Wikidata edits · Upload images · Create and edit articles · Review and promote · Project checklist |
Once your images are on Wikimedia Commons, it’s time to add them to some articles! You’ll need to figure out which articles you want to improve, get your references sorted to add them as citations in the articles, edit and write the articles, and insert the images.
Scoping up articles[edit]
Checklist task: Scope article content and structure
Even when you know which articles you’re going to work on, you still have to make some decisions about what they’ll look like.
Perhaps you want to improve current Stub articles to Start class, or create all-new Start or C-class articles. Remember that any improvement is a win, and when the project’s done you (or other people) can come back and keep making these articles better.
The best guide is to look at what others have already done, and compare that to the information you have available. Many topics have templates or manuals already. For example, if you’re writing about plant species these will help you out:
You’ll also find it helpful to find articles for similar topics to use as models. Look for articles that are the same kind and quality rating of the article you are hoping to write. You can find them by turning on this function in your Wikipedia profile preferences.
When logged in, go to your Preferences and then Gadgets. Under Appearance, tick the box for “Display an assessment of an article’s quality in its page header”.
Articles will then show a statement of the article’s quality under the main heading.
With a template or example in hand, you can decide on the structure and content of your articles. Then when you’ve done one, it’ll be so much easier to do the rest!
_-_The_Noun_Project.svg){kind=small} | Example The Myosotis species Wikipedia articles aim to provide a “one stop shop” for research and information from published papers and other resources for each species. The articles are structured around summary paragraph, a filled in {{Taxobox}} template, and the main headings “Taxonomy and etymology”, “Phylogeny”, “Description”, “Distribution and habitat”, and “Conservation status”. Te Papa images of plants and specimens – and others available on Wikimedia Commons - are used for the TaxoBox as well as in other areas of the article. |
Get your reference material ready[edit]
Checklist task: Prepare reference material
Wikipedia is all about verifiable information, so you want to be able to provide a citation for any statement you put in an article.
It will save you (and other people) time in the long run if you make sure they are in Wikidata first – it’s so much easier to cite something that has a Wikidata QID.
You can just make sure the basics are there, but the possibilities of Wikidata and Wikipedia are endless and there are all sorts of information you could add, like mātauranga Māori, references, images, and data in other languages. Just don’t get sidetracked too far from your project goals!
How-to guides
Useful tools
- Author Disambiguator: find publications by certain authors
- Source Metadata: automatically populate new Wikidata items for scholarly papers using DOIs
Writing and editing articles[edit]
Checklist task: Start writing process
If you’re not already a Wikipedia editor, check out the main Help page and these resources to learn the fundamentals:
 | Tip Write articles in your sandbox – include everything except the categories. Once you’re happy with it, copy and paste it into the new article or the existing article, and add the categories at the end before publishing it. |
Citing your own work? There are rules around potential conflicts of interest, so give those a read and you should be good to go.
| Example Te Papa staff using Wiki platforms for work have a templated statement covering what they will and won’t do, and our Myosotis project subject matter expert also has a section about creating articles in her area of expertise. |
Remember that you’re part of a community, and that community can help you out in all kinds of ways. Take a look at the Adopt-a-user and Meetup pages for some leads, or look for Telegram groups like the one for WikiProject Biodiversity.
Look at the history of pages you like or in WikiProjects to find an experienced editor who may be able to provide advice and feedback. Ask questions on WikiProject or user talk pages – and of course be polite.
If you have time, hooking into campaigns or events like #1lib1ref, Women in Red, and edit-a-thons will give you valuable experience and more contacts. Attend some local meetups and use what you learn there to start an informal regular session at your organisation.
| Example Te Papa has a loose lunchtime session every fortnight for anyone interested in discussion, getting signed up and started, or just finding out what it’s all about. We’ve had anywhere from two to a dozen people, and it’s led to new signups, problem-solving and upskilling, and making progress on a new project. |
| Tip Whenever you’re not sure how to do something, jump into the edit view of an article and copy copy copy. |
Unlike loading all your images at once, writing articles is likely to happen one at a time, and you might only do a few during the project itself. With your list of articles to work on, examples, references, and a few completed pages, you can set up a plan for gradually getting the rest done.
| Example Te Papa’s subject matter expert started editing Myosotis articles well before the project even started, and had finished about 40 when the project ended. The other 25 were done as time allowed, and the list was finished in August the following year. Because they were all species pages, she was able to follow a pattern and reuse references, so it got faster each time. |
Add images to articles[edit]
Checklist task: Add images to articles
Images can be displayed on articles a few different ways, including next to related paragraphs, as part of infoboxes, and as sets in galleries.
Take a look at Adding images to articles, but as always a great way to learn is to take what someone else has done and try it out yourself.
Check the source code on another article – if adding the images to an infobox make sure you’re copying from the same infobox template.
The best place for an image is in the infobox, because it lives right at the top of the page and shows up in other places, including link previews from other articles. Use the best depiction of the subject in this spot. If you have more photos that show different subjects, views, close-ups and so on, add them to the body of the article or add a gallery near the end.
Next up: Review and promote