Going Stir-Crazy at Home?
3 benefits of editing Wikipedia for the common good when you are stuck at home.
So many people around the world right now are working from home — or unfortunately not working from home — that it can be easy to go a little stir-crazy.
I mean, how much television, games, or social media can we really do before we run out of things to say?
Days pass seamlessly into days, weeks into weeks, and at times it can feel we are not accomplishing much.
Or at least not accomplishing much of value, that is.
Given this bending of time we experience during stay-at-home due to COVID, there is no better moment than the present to make an impact on society in a way that will not cost us a cent.
Yes . . .
Now is the best time to edit Wikipedia.
There are three reasons that editing Wikipedia is among the best things we can do during this period:
- We have knowledge and expertise.
- Our expertise can help society at large.
- Making the world a better place is good karma
Let’s consider these a bit more.
We Have Knowledge and Expertise
Each of us is a well-spring of knowledge and expertise.
We all know something in depth. Regardless of your personal or professional life, chances are that you have various levels of information about a range of topics in ways that others do not.
In fact, you still have a LOT to say.
Let’s say you work in higher education, food service, accounting, or even outdoor environmental care. There are articles on all of those areas on Wikipedia (which by the way has over 6 million articles alone in English!), along with articles on those who are thought leaders in the field, historical pieces, and even current issues that are being discussed.
Anybody can edit Wikipedia, and while lots of people also monitor and revert vandalism on a regular basis, it is surprisingly accurate.
Take a look at some of the Wikipedia topics you already know something about, and see what is missing.
There is your opportunity to add it!
It is only best practice to make sure the sources you use to support your claims are reliable ones, but if you already know a topic in depth, chances are you can recognize those right away!
Our Expertise can Freely Help Society
Is all that knowledge you have in your mind, from your experiences, and through what you have already learned doing you a load of good sitting at home right now?
Lots of us know an awful lot about many things, but what good does that do for anybody if we do not share it?
Sharing what we know is the essence of open knowledge, and in the same way, we go to Wikipedia when we know nothing about a topic seek to learn something new, this is our opportunity to make sure that those articles have the benefit of representing the accurate knowledge we know about these topics.
Now is the best time for us to share a little of our knowledge, freely, in an open system that is then shared freely with everybody else.
Making the World a Better Place is Good Karma
You use Wikipedia, right?
Last month, there were 27 billion page views on English language Wikipedia alone.
Yeah, I bet a bunch of them were yours!
You didn’t pay for any of that stuff you learned. You also did not see any ads on the pages, either. It is all free to use, and is only there because literally millions of people before you freely shared what they knew.
Now is the best time to share something back, as this is good karma we can send back into the world.
What could be easier than sharing some of your knowledge, especially something that does not cost anything to do AND nobody will make money from your efforts, yet has enormous benefits for others when compounded?
This is volunteering in community if anything is!
Use Knowledge for Good
There is no better time than the present to use some of our knowledge for some good of society, and why not? Even a recent article on CBS Sunday Morning talks about how all this works, especially related to medical information.
I have edited Wikipedia for about three years now as a volunteer member of our global community, and as knowledge is only as good as the sources people use and the multiple voices people share it from, I encourage you to try to share with you know.
One of the hidden benefits is it helps us write within a wide community of other writers trying to express ideas within a guiding structure, and who knows where that may lead!!
Perhaps you may just add a fact or expand some information today that is critical to somebody’s new knowledge, and steps, they will gain tomorrow?
I am really eager to hear how this goes for you, too, so please share how you have made this your own!
