Working with Wikipedia articles

Hypothesis is exploring the use of on-line annotation to provide review and enhancement of Wikipedia articles. The Neuroscience Wiki Project encourages the neuroscience community to improve the accuracy and robustness of neuroscience articles by directly editing Wikipedia.  While that approach is still best, many researchers may not have time or be unsure of proper protocols for adding or changing information directly on Wikipedia.  

With Hypothesis, you can add suggestions and additions as an overlay on current content easily and quickly.  For example, you can provide proper citations or additional information on a topic, note grammatical errors or factual inaccuracies. Experienced Wikipedia editors can then follow up and work with you to add your recommendations to the article.  All contributions will be acknowledged on the contributors page.

As an incentive for neuroscientists attending the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago to provide feedback to Wikipedians via Hypothesis, we are offering the chance to win an Apple Watch in exchange for annotating a Wikipedia article on neuroscience.  Simply register for the contest and stop by the Neuroscience Information Framework booth #2115.

While you can choose any topic of your choice, Wikipedia has created an editorial page that ranks neuroscience articles by quality and importance.  We think that articles currently rated GA or B are good targets for review via annotation.  The goal is to elevate some of these to “Featured Article Status”.  Featured articles are exceptionally well written and complete.   So as you read through these articles, you can provide highlight specific statements to provide feedback on accuracy, clarity and completeness.  Articles ranked as Stubs are generally substantially incomplete and probably require more work than can be done by an editorial review using annotation.  But feel free to work on the article of your choice.

To get started, simply install our browser plug-in or paste a link to a page you want to annotate at our homepage.