What Kenny Klein can teach Pagans . . . about Wikipedia

My work to encourage more Pagans to edit Wikipedia has stalled, probably because I tried to organize it into a series of tedious tutorials.  But when the Kenny Klein story broke, I added his Wikipedia entry to my watchlist, and realized that this one obscure article contains a wealth of lessons.  Here are a few:

Wikipedia 101: sources, sources, sources

The exciting news that there’s going to be a peer-reviewed reconstructionist magazine got me thinking about Wikipedia for Pagans again. “Air n-Aithesc:  Our Message is a peer-reviewed magazine that hopes to offer well researched material for Celtic Reconstructionists and others who value the role of academics as much as they value the role of the

Wikipedia 101: watching articles

The best — perhaps only — reason I’d like to see more Pagans create Wikipedia accounts is so they can keep an eye on articles of interest to the Pagan community.  The process is literally called watching articles, and it’s done using the watchlist.  Simple enough? Once you log in to your account, this is your Wikipedia

Wikipedia 101: creating an account

It’s easy to create an account on Wikipedia, but why should you bother?  They don’t require registration to read or edit the online encyclopedia, so is there any good reason to bother? Yes.It is true that the site is free to use, both as a reader and as an editor, but many of the handier

Wikipedia 101: the sandbox

The place to experiment with editing Wikipedia is called the sandbox.  It’s aptly named, because the letters you write in this sand will get written over by other users; periodically, like a big wave, a program script comes along and wipes the whole thing clean.  It’s also a good place to start because it’s a reminder