Why write on Wikipedia

This article was first just intended to be used private as a help for me when I had an oral test in English. My subject was "Why write on Wikipedia". My teacher liked the subject, and after the test I promised him that I would publish it on my blog. I do not get any mark on this article, but I publish it with a purpose: To get more people into the wikipedia-writing.

Why write on Wikipedia

Link to a "Wiki-love"-picture (to not violate the copywright)

Wikipedia is a great encyclopedia containing a lot more than an ordinary encyclopedia. It has over 400 000 articles in the Swedish part (3.800.000 in English speaking wikipedia).

Some people complain and says they sometimes may see things not correct. That might be so, and the answer to them is often from the people writing on wiki: “Well, why do you not correct it? But do not forget to add valid sources-unless it is something misspelled”

By working like that the English speaking Wikipedia has got a rate of mistakes in the articles just slightly more than British encyclopedia, but with the difference that Wikipedia is more up to date and has a whole more of small subject articles.

How do I know this?

I am an administrator on the Swedish Wikipedia. That is an honor title, but gives me also some extra tools to help Wikipedia become better. You may get it by your way of contribute and if you gain the community's respect.

I started by testing how it worked. I thought it was easy to contribute, but it was first when I started to study medicine I noticed it's potentials. By reading on the Swedish Wikipedia about the different issues I had to learn I got a pretty good knowledge, after that I read the English article. I could have stopped there, but knowing my way of learning I translated the English article, by looking at it's sources and use them to make the Swedish article better. This improved my English, I learned the subject, and my colleges know they could trust the articles I had contributed to.

My purpose by telling you this is to try to make more people to start writing about their favorite subjects so that Wikipedia will get even better.

Another purpose is to make more people be aware who makes the job. It is not a company or a government whom you dislike and wants to destroy. It is ordinary people, like you and me, writing with love for education, freedom of speech. They know that a lot of the subjects would be banned in a dictatorship. On Wikipedia the dictators can't erase. It is a project for democracy.