Behind the scenes of Wikipedia: editing, accuracy, and notability, with Jonathan Rick
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Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty, and I'm here today with Jonathan Rick because he is a Wikipedia expert. He does all kinds of ghostwriting and business writing. His work has appeared in all the big publications, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, all the big ones.

But what interests me about what he does is that he helps people write their Wikipedia pages. And that is such a specific niche. I just think it's fascinating. Jonathan Rick, welcome to the Grammar Girl podcast. It is a true pleasure to be here. Thanks so much, Mignon.

You bet. So, you know, when I heard about this, it made me ponder Wikipedia and how, you know, when I was in school, we were told not to use it, that it was not a reliable source. And it seems like suddenly in this world of AI and misinformation and disinformation online, that suddenly Wikipedia is like the last resort.

refuge of truth. I mean, that's what I am hearing more and more. And I'm wondering, are you seeing that? Or did you actually always know that? Oh, no, listen, when I went to school, it was verboten, you know, and even actually, so I've been a professor at the University of Maryland for almost 12 years. And certainly, I think was among those when I started, who were

Wikipedia from student sources, that is to say, don't use it. And this was, you know, sort of the, the,

prevailing opinion for quite a while. But then things started to change. I think about maybe as early as 2004, academics were pointing out that Wikipedia was roughly as accurate as competing reference books, if not necessarily as well-written. And then today, you have scholarly studies that find that Wikipedia has

continued to sharpen its sourcing standards and has, I guess, marginalized editors known for their fringe views. There was an article, I think, in Bloomberg Businessweek that sort of concluded that while mistakes happen, you know, we're all human, the site is self-correcting. And the kind of viral misinformation that spreads endlessly on Facebook and what's now called X is

tends to be removed instantly. So I, I'm not sure that I would cite it necessarily, but I use it in what I call the, the, the bartender scenario. If you are having a drink with somebody and you want to glean information, you want to, you want to get information quickly in plain language, you Google it, Wikipedia comes up and you can pretty much take that to the bank. And not only that, you'll understand it because Wikipedia is, is a rule written in plain language.

Right. And, you know, I think another thing, you know, I don't think that I cite Wikipedia, but I do go there often and check what references they're using on a page. If I'm interested in something, I'll go and I'll see what they've said, and then I'll go to the original sources that they are citing on a Wikipedia page to check it for myself. That's fantastic. I love that you do this. This was sort of how I was...

educated in college that you got, especially when writing my senior thesis, you've got to check the original sources. And my advisor, who I won't mention, criticized me for not speaking Arabic because I wrote my senior thesis on the Iraq war. And he said, well, you really need to read the primary sources.

And as much as I argued with him then, today I can tell you that he was right. So I applaud the fact that you are checking the primary sources. And that is actually one of the pillars. I think one of the most important parts of Wikipedia. Everything is verifiable. So if you say something, you must footnote it so that others, as you just said, can verify the truth of what you claim. That's a critical point. You don't take things for granted. Yeah.

Yeah. So I want to talk about your work, helping people get themselves on Wikipedia or update their pages. But, you know, that that doesn't apply to most of our audience, probably. But I think that what will be interesting to the audience, too, is understanding the the

elements of coming up with good, credible citations. Like that's something that you can carry into other parts of your writing as well. And then I think, you know, we need people contributing to these resources like Wikipedia. So if you're interested in contributing, I'm hoping this will be useful too. So in your work, getting people on or updated on Wikipedia, like what are, what are you doing? Like, what are you looking for? What are the challenges?

That's a great question. Sourcing is the be all end all of Wikipedia. In a nutshell, Wikipedia wants sources that are reliable. I'm going to give you an acronym because I believe that we remember things best that way. The acronym is SUR.

S I R. So when you, when you, when you look at an article, not all articles are created equal. Um, I would encourage you to ask yourself three things. Um, S let's begin with S. So is the coverage of you in the given article significant, you know, and we're talking really about notability. Uh,

I'm going to give you more information than you need because there's notability and which is the bar to create a page. And then there's a separate discussion. Once you have a page, if you want to add facts, update information, that's a separate but related conversation. Let's just talk now about creating a page.

In terms of the sourcing, the coverage of you in the given article, S, should be significant. You should be the focus of the article. Being mentioned, even being quoted a couple times is insufficient. Basically, you're looking for a full-fledged profile.

I, independent. Is the publication completely independent from you? That rules out things like sponsored content, articles that you wrote yourself, op-eds even in the New York Times, and most importantly, anything that involves a Q&A interview. Now, interestingly, this excludes...

The Today Show. Let's say you went on Good Morning America. That's basically a Q&A. And the logic here is when you go on TV or a podcast, you can make all sorts of claims. You are effectively given free reign to opine, maybe to pontificate. If I say I'm a serial entrepreneur, yes.

Mignon, you're not going to question me as you would if you were a reporter. You're not going to say, well, how many companies have you founded? And show me their tax records. And how many employees do you have? And are they W-2 or W-9 folks? So the interviewee is effectively given carte blanche to say whatever they want. In Wikipedia's view, that's tantamount to a press release. It's not reported. It's not fact-checked. So is the publication independent from you? That's I.

And then the R in the SIR acronym, is the publication reliable? Does it have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy? Does it employ editors? Does it disclose conflicts of interest? Does it issue corrections when it makes mistakes?

So if you want to assess the validity of a source, in a nutshell, if you want to ascertain whether it is reliable, ask yourself, is it, sir? Is the coverage of you significant in the given article? Is the publication independent? And then is the publication reliable?

Yeah. You know, this is so fascinating because we were talking about this, you know, we were talking offline before the interview and, you know, you asked me, what are the things that I, I told you that I've been frustrated with my Wikipedia page. I have one, but it's, I feel like it's very out of date. And you asked what I wish were on there. And I told you, I wish that it had that I was on the Today Show twice. And I wish that it had that I'm in the

I'm in the podcast hall of fame. Like those seem like big things to me and, you know, they seem notable and significant. And you told me essentially, no, they aren't. And maybe explain why. I think people will be interested to understand, like as I was, why those things aren't actually necessarily relevant

good enough to be on a Wikipedia page. I actually, the reason I mentioned, I think, was it, were you on the Today Show or Good Morning America? I forget. The Today Show. The Today Show. Twice. Twice, I know. Yes, I mentioned that to a client this morning. I had a call with a

a new client, basically a consultation. They weren't notable. So I said, listen, let me, you know, hire me for a consult. I'll spend an hour with you detailing exactly what needs to happen, both the problems and the solution. And I said, I have this interview later today. And I didn't mention any, you know, specifying, identifying details. But let me talk about awards and lists. And I think the first thing to just get out of the way, congrats. Wow.

Landing on the Today Show once is a big deal. Twice, that's awesome. These are prestigious media. And you should be justly, you should be proud of that fact. But Wikipedia doesn't care. But Wikipedia editors frown upon these sort of distinctions. Here's the short explanation. And I'm going to quote the relevant page because I just love this. I might be getting the wording a little incorrect because it's my memory problem.

So most industry awards exist as an excuse for a night out on your expense account.

and they have zero impact outside your industry. That's the sort of short explanation. And I think there's some truth to that. The long, more serious answer comes in four parts. There are four reasons why Wikipedia editors frown upon awards and lists. So number one, the overwhelming majority are more subjective than scientific.

That is to say the exact criteria aren't always transparent.

Number two, too many are pay to play. There are only so many ego-driven lists that you can produce from the vantage point of a publication to shake down vendors to congratulate their clients. Number three, most are more important to the awardee than they are to the Wikipedia reader. And that's a key one. You always have to ask yourself,

Does the reader, the person who's reading this in Botswana really care about this, you know, best of list that I was named to along with 16 other people. And then number four, lists are a dime a dozen. Now, to be sure, there are exceptions. Forbes list of billionaires, fortunes list of the best companies to work for, times list of the 100 most influential people. But

But most awards don't rise to this level. And so by citing them, we run the risk of offending Wikipedia's admittedly delicate sensibilities. Yeah. And I mean, you're right. The Podcast Hall of Fame, it is a subjective award. But if someone were in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I imagine that would rise to the level of significance. So what I need is for the podcasting industry to grow and become as important as the music industry. Yeah.

Definitely. Yes. And the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, that is that's a list, I think, that would be Chubby Checker, I think, was recently inducted. I want to say it wasn't the Rock and Roll. Maybe it was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There's an article in The New York Times about this a few days ago, maybe a week ago. And he had been petitioning to be in and he finally got admitted. He finally was admitted.

I don't remember if it was the Hall of Fame, but it was something of similar stature. That's a big deal. That's noteworthy. Yeah. Well, the other thing that was interesting is as I was trying to look it up, I realized that the videos, all proof of the fact that I was on the Today Show is gone from the Internet as well. So I imagine it also would not meet that criteria of being sort of independently verifiable or available online at this point. Yeah.

That's tough. Yeah. If, if, um, I, I'm the shortest short flip answer is to paraphrase Bob Marley, no link, no love, um, for the reason you point out, you know, um, if another person can't independently verify it, oh, you know, I could have made it up. Um,

But there are a variety of workarounds. So at a certain level, once a Wikipedia editor reaches a certain level of prominence, they get access to paywall journalism, a Wikipedia database. There's always LexisNexis. There are other workarounds, but nothing succeeds like the primary source.

Are you still quoting 30-year-old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now. It pays to discover. Learn more at discover.com slash credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson Report.

Wow. So you just dropped this little tidbit of information that I didn't know that's fascinating. So if you reach a certain level of prominence as a Wikipedia editor, you get access to databases? Yeah, this is a little known fact. So editors who need a certain level of activity have access to paywall journalism through the Wikipedia library.

That's amazing. That's great incentive and also gives you more confidence that they're checking their sources. That's wonderful. Yeah, yeah. Listen, I've been helping folks navigate Wikipedia for 20 years and every day I learn something new.

The site is so vast that it really, and you know, I do this for a living. You can imagine other people who just volunteer their time. There's so much to learn. And the beauty of all this, I will say, is that everything is out there. It's Wikipedia prides itself on transparency. And so editors will often, you know, say, check out the help book because it's public. And if you really want to go down a rabbit hole in a good way,

You can read all about this. When a client comes to me who wants to edit or improve an article that already exists, one of the examples I show them comes from a company you may have heard of, Airbnb. Mm-hmm.

They tried to, in the right way, edit their own page in an above word way. And they were sort of slapped on their wrist for what most people might consider to be a fairly small violation. They didn't request their edits in the right format. That is to say, we'd like to change X format.

It's got to be very specific. But bottom line, everything is accessible. It's written in plain language. And I mean, that's how I learn for the most part by reading. I mean, I offer a workshop. Other people here and there offer seminars. I would say most people in my business, most Wikipedia consultants are self-taught. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there are just people with wonderful expertise in the audience. And it would make me very happy to know that they, you know, contributed to Wikipedia, that they started editing pages or adding information to pages. But, you know, I didn't even know, I did not even know that you could edit your own page. I thought that was absolutely forbidden. So how does Airbnb get around that? Yeah.

Fascinating subject. So I love this prism, short answer, long answer. So short answer, it's perfectly okay. Long answer is you got to follow certain criteria. You got to jump through certain hoops. It is not okay to make edits directly to your own page or to a page in which you have some sort of vested or financial interest that violates the COI, conflict of interest rules, right?

And I want to be very clear about that. There's a right way and a wrong way to navigate Wikipedia. The wrong way is the black hat way to not disclose your conflict. The right way is to request your edits. Submit them as requests to the community so that independent volunteer editors can review them and see if they are kosher. So

To summarize, it is perfectly okay that the rules encourage people with a conflict to edit, make changes, but you can't do so directly. You have to submit requests and declare your conflict of interest and then, you know, follow other, jump through other certain hoops. It's a little bit of a pain, but the transparency is what Wikipedia prizes.

Oh, that's interesting. Would I be considered having a conflict of interest if I wanted to work on pages that are generally about grammar? No, no. As a matter of fact, if you want to edit the page for that, one of our shared favorite subjects, the serial or Oxford comma, as long as you're not, you know...

inserting a link to your course on this subject, then that's perfectly okay. It's only when you start using Wikipedia in a self-promotional way rather than in a way that benefits a knowledge that this is a problem.

We've talked a little bit about Wikipedia editors, and I have to say, like, they frighten me. So I've heard, I've heard, you know, I've heard they're mean. I've heard the Wikipedia editors are mean. And so maybe you can dispel, maybe that's a myth and maybe you can dispel it or maybe it's true. Why don't you set me straight? I would love to disabuse you of this notion. Unfortunately, there's truth to what you said. In fact, there's a policy called don't bite the newbies. Wikipedia is

It's nothing if not fun with naming. There's a policy called Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. There's a policy called there's no deadline. There's a policy called don't bite the newbies. And that's because Wikipedia editors in many ways are their own worst enemy. They are sometimes, even vis-a-vis experienced editors, curt, hostile, unfriendly, unforgiving, and that...

creates all sorts of perverse incentives. But yes, Wikipedia editors are known to, I guess, if we step back, you know, the sort of demographic profile is, I think, a white middle-aged male who tends to

work in like a, uh, a technical field like computer science or, or research. And so they tend to be of the, the, just the facts, uh, school of thought. And, uh, whether this is right or wrong, um, I'll leave for somebody else to, to opine on.

You are right that collectively Wikipedia editors have given themselves a bad reputation. And it's terrible because it dissuades folks from yourself from making the community, from making the encyclopedia better, from enriching knowledge. Unfortunately, the best we can do is...

smile and act with kindness, you know, say, don't take anything personally, don't respond in kind, take a deep breath, respond after a couple days, and you know, tempers have cooled, and just focus on the facts rather than saying, well, that's ridiculous.

Or, you know, something, I mean, what we're really thinking is something that I won't say, you know, it's not, it's ridiculous. This is like crazy. What are you talking about? This makes zero sense. But you sort of have to, you know, refrain from those personal attacks and just...

concentrate on the relevant policies. That's the key thing. If you hew to the policies and pillars of Wikipedia without hurling forth insults, to that extent, you will succeed. Okay. So let's say there is a boat builder or a pilot or a chemistry teacher in the audience and they want to start contributing to Wikipedia. We haven't scared them away at this point. Right.

What is a good way? Is there a good way to get started? Are there certain kinds of articles that are best to start with? Obviously, you read the rules. They have a style guide. They have guidelines. Read those. But other than that, what is a good way to get started? It's a great question. So I'm going to articulate my answer as I think about it. Get started with what interests you.

If you like grammar, start editing grammar pages. If you like baseball as, was it Brendan? Brennan? Brennan. Brennan. He should get started by editing the team that he does not support, the New York, I'm just kidding, the Yankees. If you like gardening or lobster or, you know, whatever your passion is, the subject about which you know the most, start with those. And Wikipedia, yeah.

editors frown upon copy edits or going in and changing, you know, adding commas. There is a place for that. And if you feel it's necessary to get your feet wet, start by making stylistic edits as long as they adhere to the style guide. But if you want to, you know, after that, the next step is to make substantive edits to say, well, let's talk about the serial comma. The serial comma was

It's also called the Oxford. I'm just making this up. It's also called the Oxford comma because it originated in the UK and it got its name from Oxford University. Oxford University. Yes. And 1602. I'm just making this up. And then at a source that corroborates that claim. And

Most likely, you will do something wrong as you are starting out. And that's okay. That's perfectly okay. We learn by making mistakes and stuff can be reverted very quickly. It's all out there in the open so other people can see. Start small. Start with subjects that you know best or your knowledge is at its peak. And don't be afraid. There's a policy, another one. I like its name. It's called Be Bold.

Have the courage of your convictions because Wikipedia is known as the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It's sort of the people's, you know, encyclopedia. And you are encouraged to

To make changes when you see fit. I was visiting my brother-in-law last year and we were talking. I won't embarrass him by naming this specific incident, but he had read something in the news while on an airplane from, I guess, Europe to California. And he Googled it. And the first thing that came up was the Wikipedia article and he just edited it.

And I looked at it and I Googled it and I said, yeah, Jason, I see your edits. I see exactly what you did. And I applaud you because you did this in the exact right way. You remove something because it was given what's called too much weight or in the Wikipedia, Wikipedia lands do weight. So the article mentioned something too much.

So the article is 500 pages. This particular incident incident was was maybe given 200 words. That's too much. That violates the policy of do wait. And he didn't know that specific term, but he knew the concept. And so he removed it. And in his edits, he said, seems like we're mentioning this too much.

That's great. You don't have to be, you know, conversant with the vernacular. You just sort of have to apply sometimes common sense, which often aligns with Wikipedia, Wikipedia policies. So if you do something wrong and then it gets it gets reverted and you can see that that's happened. So then what?

do you just, you know, hang your head in shame and walk away never to use Wikipedia again? Or like, what's the next step? Definitely. I told my brother-in-law that he was banned. Um, I blacklisted his IP address outed. I outed him by name and you know, I, no, I sent the Wikipedia, uh, uh, Wikimedia foundation, um, to his house. No, no. I mean, uh, uh, you might receive a notice polite notice is the wrong word. Uh,

an editor might comment on your talk page. Hey, welcome to Wikipedia. We're delighted to have you here. I noticed you made your first edit. It was reverted. Here are some links to helpful tips and tricks. That is sort of the general standard. When there's a newbie, you get a message welcoming you. When you make an edit that is reverted, someone comments on your talk page explaining what they did. It actually, I mean, to me,

sort of neutralize my earlier comment, Wikipedia can be hospitable and welcoming in many ways. Editors are eager to help you if they see that you are honest and making a sincere effort. It's sort of like, you know, if you go to

I don't know, Italy. My wife's from Italy. If you go to Italy and you don't speak Italian, but you're trying, people appreciate that and they'll help you. If you just start speaking English with no regard for the native tongue, that may be a little off-putting. So you're certainly not banned. Your name won't be, you know, you won't be doxed. You might get a helpful tip and as a result, become a better editor yourself.

Great. And I imagine it's probably best not to start with a controversial topic. You know, maybe find a sleepy little page that you can work on first. Not only. Yes, absolutely. And not only that, but the most controversial topics, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, they're actually locked.

there are different stages of locking, but the big ones like the Israeli Palestinian war, um, you have to have certain level of, of, uh, privileges in order to even edit those. So there are different level levels that accrue to you after you pass certain thresholds because Wikipedia does take those controversial pages seriously. They don't want, you know, people trolling them, vandalizing them, uh, and, uh,

I think to your earlier point, this is one of many ways in which the encyclopedia protects its integrity.

Wonderful. Well, Jonathan, Rick, thank you so much for educating us about Wikipedia. It would make me so happy if listeners started contributing. We need good quality information in the world. And I know all of you have great knowledge to share with the world. Jonathan, where can people find you if they'd like to, you know, employ you to fix their page or just learn more about what you have to say about Wikipedia?

thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. So I'm going to give you a short URL that I have created. It's wikipediahelp.com. And if I were an advertiser, I would say that's wikipediahelp.com. I'd repeat it like three times, but that's my way. It refreshes to my website, jonathanrick.com slash Wikipedia tells you more about my process, outlines my services and links to my white paper on the six rules of Wikipedia sourcing. Well,

Well, thank you so much. If you're a regular listener, this is the end of the show. But if you're a Grammarpalooza supporter who supports the show and we appreciate you so much, you're going to get a bonus segment in your feed. So look for that. Jonathan and I are going to talk about some of the most interesting things that he's seen happen on Wikipedia. Hopefully we'll get some great anecdotes. And then, of course, he's going to share his three book recommendations today.

So to the regular listeners, thank you for joining us. To the Grammarpalusians, thank you for your support and look for the bonus segment.