User:Volker E. (WMF)/sandbox/ED2020
What is Earth Day?[edit]
Earth Day is an annual event celebrated around the world on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection, climate change and global warming. Celebrated for over 50 years, it includes events coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network Organization in more than 190 countries.
How can I participate in Earth Day?[edit]
Given the current circumstances with COVID-19, Earth Day has been updated to a digital-first strategy that leverages the global power of digital platforms to mobilize millions in a collective call for transformative action for our planet.
In alignment with this digital focus, Sustainability Consortium is hosting an Earth Day online editathon as an opportunity to volunteer during the staff holiday!
What is an editathon?[edit]
An editathon is a gathering of contributors to Wikimedia projects, usually with a high ratio of new contributors, that is hosted by an organization in order to encourage editing on a particular theme. Editathons typically include snacks, an identified editing topic, training for new contributors, and one on one mentoring for contributors who get stuck.
By the end of the editathon, you should feel like you know how to edit and have contributed to Wikipedia. "Anyone can edit" means anyone can edit -- but the movement finds that it's easier to get started if you do it with someone else at an activity like an editathon :)
What is our theme?[edit]
Since it's Earth Day and this event is being hosted by the Sustainability Consortium, we are going to be focused on climate change and sustainability in the face of the changing world we live in. For some ideas on where to contribute, check out the sections below.
Of course, like any editathon, folks will contribute to off-topic stuff as well -- so if you want to work on your project that's fine too :)
What can I do to get prepared?[edit]
You can do a few things to get prepared:
- If you have never edited Wikipedia before, and you want to learn a bit more about it, we will share some information to get you started here (note: each language wiki is a little bit different in terms of practices and culture)
- If you want to translate articles in your language, try using the Content Translation tool (enwiki). (Note: if you have a new account, you can’t translate content from another language into English Wikipedia). You can learn more on using this tool at Mediawiki.
- Explore the actions below and figure out what you want to contribute to. A lot of editors find that they are more productive if they do some research before hand: pick a few reliable sources (i.e. respectable newspapers, publications like the IPCC Reports or National Academies of Sciences reports, or from other organizations with a reputation for publishing reliable information).
What are we asking you to do?[edit]
Your goal for the editathon is to make several edits to Wikipedia. The most valuable contributions are frequently small ones: adding a citation, sentence or paragraph about climate change is hugely valuable! Remember that you don't need to write 100% of the content in one go. Wikis are powered by small contributions building on each other.
Add references or information about climate change[edit]
The easiest way to start is to add a citation to an existing article. If you are looking for good places to start, we recommend the “citation hunt” tool. Citation hunt suggests articles with content that are lacking a citation.
- Citation Hunt for Climate Change Articles on English Wikipedia
- Citation Hunt for Environment articles on English Wikipedia
- Citation Hunt for Environmental Activists on English Wikipedia
How to add a citation?
- Let the Citation Hunt links above suggest a citation needed statements for you, and find one that you think you can research
- Go to the article, find the statement
- Click edit in the section header
- Add the source using the Cite button
- Remove the "Citation needed" template (highlight and backspace in Visual Editor, or remove the template which adds that tag (it looks like {{citation needed}} ))
- Save the page.
Note: for climate change, these citations can sometimes be very technical. Skip the articles that you don’t think you can fix.
Cite the IPCC reports or NASEM reports[edit]
The IPCC publishes the authoritative summary of climate change’s impacts on the world. It is a systematic review of the best scholarship on climate change. If you haven’t tried reading the reports, they are very easy to read. However, citing the reports is a bit complicated. If you need help, there are preformatted citations on English Wikipedia.
Additionally, Wikimedia DC recently ran an editathon with the National Academies of Sciences in the United States. You can find a list of suggested edits from some of their reports at the editathon page.
Write about climate change in your city or other region[edit]
A lot more people read the articles about specific geographies than the general articles about climate change. By adding more contextually relevant information you can help connect climate change, which can be an abstract concept, with people’s sense of place.
For example, the article about Miami doesn’t mention global warming at all (nor Miami Beach, nor Miami Dade County). Yet, a quick google search shows that Miami is one of the most vulnerable cities in the United States, and the Wikipedia article is extensive. The Miami article should summarize this information and connect with the article about climate change in Florida.
Steps for contributing:
- Find your local community’s Wikipedia article.
- Search within the article for the concept of “Climate Change” or “Global Warming” (Ctrl+F Windows, Linux / Command+F macOS).
- If there is no mention, go to the “climate” or “geography” section of the article.
- In a separate tab, search DuckDuckGo, Google or Google news, and search for articles describing the impact of climate change.
- Read the piece about how your local community will be affected by climate change, and add a summary to the article
- Make sure to cite the source by clicking “Cite” in the visual editor, and generating a citation.
- Click Save!
Contribute to a “climate change” by geography article[edit]
Moreover, different countries, regions and geographies are going to be affected by climate change differently. Working to expand the articles listed in Climate Change by Country or Region is a really valuable task.
This is an intermediate editing activity, and may be harder than just adding citations or expanding your local article.
Note: on English Wikipedia many countries or geographies don’t have articles yet about the effects of climate change in that region. Starting an article is a slightly more complicated activity. If you want to do this, ask a helper on the
Write a Biography about Women Environmentalists
If you are up for a challenge, or are an experienced editor you might try creating a full Wikipedia article. There are several lists of environmentalists and climate change:
[edit]
Use the WMF Research piloted “Gap Finder” to find Global Warming-related articles into your language. Below we have seeded links that should help you find translations.
Here are some links to get you started:
[edit]
The global environmental movement and climate science have a number of notable women leaders. Want to help translate articles about these women? WMF research extended the gap finder tool to help the community doing the WikiGap Challenge to find Women biography articles to translate.
Here are some links to get you started: