1064. Is Wikipedia the last refuge on online truth? With AI-generated content and misinformation spreading online, Wikipedia is growing in esteem, but who decides what gets published? How does Wikipedia determine things like credibility and notability? Wikipedia consultant Jonathan Rick gives us the inside scoop on Wikipedia’s strict sourcing rules, why some pages get deleted, and how YOU can become an editor.
1064. Is Wikipedia the last refuge on online truth? With AI-generated content and misinformation spreading online, Wikipedia is growing in esteem, but who decides what gets published? How does Wikipedia determine things like credibility and notability? Wikipedia consultant Jonathan Rick gives us the inside scoop on Wikipedia’s strict sourcing rules, why some pages get deleted, and how you can become an editor.
Jonathan Rick helps people make sense of — and profit from — business communication. Whether through ghostwriting, speaking, or marketing, he helps clients engender buzz, shape public opinion, and become thought leaders.
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MIGNON: 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.
JONATHAN: It is a true pleasure to be here. Thanks so much, Mignon.
MIGNON: You bet. When I heard about this, it made me ponder Wikipedia and how, 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 refuge of truth.
That's what I am hearing more and more. And I'm wondering, are you seeing that? Or did you actually always know that?
JONATHAN: Oh no, listen, when I went to school, it was verboten, and so I've been a professor at the University of Maryland for almost 12 years, and certainly I think I was among those, when I started, who excluded Wikipedia from student sources; that is to say, “Don't use it.” And this was 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 marginalized editors known for their fringe views.
There was an article, I think in Bloomberg Businessweek, that concluded that while mistakes happen—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 tends to be removed instantly. So I'm not sure that I would cite it necessarily, but I use it in what I call the bartender scenario: If you are having a drink with somebody, and you want to glean information, if 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, as a rule, written in plain language.
MIGNON: And I think another thing—I don't know 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.
JONATHAN: That's fantastic. I love that you do this. This was how I was educated in college; especially when writing my senior thesis, you got to check the original sources. And my advisor, whom I won't mention, criticized me for not speaking Arabic because I wrote my senior thesis on the Iraq War.
And he said, “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 is that 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.
MIGNON: Yeah. So I want to talk about your work helping people get themselves on Wikipedia or update their pages. 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 elements of Wikipedia, coming up with good, credible citations—that's something that you can carry into other parts of your writing as well. And then I think 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 you doing?
What are you looking for? What are the challenges?
JONATHAN: That's a great question. Sourcing is the be-all and 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 SIR—S, I, R. So when you look at an article, not all articles are created equal.
I would encourage you to ask yourself three things. S—let's begin with S. So is the coverage of you in the given article significant? And we're talking really about notability. I'm going to give you more information than you need because there's notability, 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 or 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 of 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. 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, Mignon, you're not going to question me as you would if you were a reporter.
You're not going to say, “How many companies have you founded? Show me their tax records, and how many employees do you have? 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?
MIGNON: Yeah. This is so fascinating because, and we were talking about this, we were talking offline before the interview, and 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 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 Podcast Hall of Fame. Those seem like big things to me, and 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, as I was, why those things aren't actually necessarily good enough to be on a Wikipedia page.
JONATHAN: I actually—the reason I mentioned, I think it was, you were going to the Today Show or Good Morning America.
MIGNON: The Today Show.
JONATHAN: The Today Show.
MIGNON: Twice.
JONATHAN: That’s twice. I know. Yes. I mentioned that to a client this morning. I had a call with a new client, basically a consultation. They weren't notable.
So I said, “Listen, let me—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 specifying identifying details, but let me talk about awards and lists. I think the first thing to just get out of the way is congrats. Landing on the Today Show once is a big deal. Twice? That's awesome. These are prestigious media, and you should be proud of that fact.
MIGNON: But Wikipedia doesn't care.
JONATHAN: But with—editors, Wikipedia editors frown upon these sorts 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; this is from my memory. 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, does the person who's reading this in Botswana, really care about this 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' lists of billionaires, Fortune's list of the best companies to work for, Time's list of the 100 most influential people. 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.
MIGNON: Yeah, and you're right. The Podcast Hall of Fame 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.
JONATHAN: Definitely. Yes. And the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, that is, that's a list I think that would be—who is it? Chubby Checker, I think, was recently inducted. 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 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.
MIGNON: Yeah. 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—are gone from the internet as well. So I imagine it also would not meet that criteria of being independently verifiable or available online at this point.
JONATHAN: That's tough. Yeah. If I'm the shortest short flip answer, it's to paraphrase Bob Marley: No link, no love. For the reason you point out, if another person can't independently verify it all, I could have made it up. 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 through a Wikipedia database.
There's always LexisNexis. There are other ways to—there are other workarounds, but nothing succeeds like the primary source.
MIGNON: 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.
JONATHAN: Yeah, this is a little-known fact. Editors who need a certain level of activity have access to paywall journalism through the Wikipedia library.
MIGNON: That's amazing. That's a great incentive. And it also gives you more confidence that they're checking their sources. That's wonderful.
JONATHAN: Yeah, listen, I've been editing; I've been helping folks navigate Wikipedia for 20 years, and there's probably, every day, I learn something new. The site is so vast, and I do this for a living. You can imagine other people who just volunteer their time.
There's so much to learn. And if you—the beauty of all this, I will say—is that everything is out there. Wikipedia prides itself on transparency, and editors will often say, “Check out the help book,” because it's there, 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. They tried to, in the right way, edit their own page in an above-board way.
And they were slapped on their wrists 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 to Y.” It's got to be very specific. But everything—bottom line, everything—is accessible.
It's written in plain language. And that's how I learned for the most part, by reading. There's no—I offer a workshop; other people here and there offer seminars. But a lot of, I would say most people in my business, most Wikipedia consultants are self-taught.
MIGNON: Yeah, I’m sure there are just people with wonderful expertise in the audience, and it would make me very happy to know that they contributed to Wikipedia, that they started editing pages or adding information to pages. I didn't even know, I did not even know that you could edit your own page.
I thought that was absolutely forbidden. How does Airbnb get around that?
JONATHAN: Fascinating subject. 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.
And you want to be, 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 and make changes, but you can't do so directly. You have to submit requests and declare your conflict of interest and then jump through other certain hoops.
It's a little bit of a pain, but the transparency is what Wikipedia prizes.
MIGNON: Oh, that's interesting. Would I be considered to have a conflict of interest if I wanted to work on pages that are generally about grammar?
JONATHAN: 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 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 knowledge that this is a problem.
MIGNON: And now, we've talked a little bit about Wikipedia editors, and I have to say, they frighten me. I've heard they're mean. I've heard that Wikipedia editors are mean. And maybe you can dispel, maybe that's a myth, and maybe you can dispel it, or maybe it's true.
Why don't you, why don't you set me straight? Okay. Okay.
JONATHAN: 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 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, in many ways, or Wikipedia editors, in many ways, are their own worst enemy. They are sometimes, even vis-à-vis experienced editors, curt, hostile, unfriendly, and unforgiving. And that creates all sorts of perverse incentives. But yes, Wikipedia editors are known to— I guess if we step back, the sort of demographic profile is a white middle-aged male who tends to work in a technical field like computer science or research.
And so they tend to be of the "just the facts" school of thought. And whether this is right or wrong, I'll leave for somebody else to opine on. You are right that, collectively, Wikipedia editors have given themselves a bad reputation. And it's terrible because it dissuades folks like 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, say, "Don't take anything personally, don't respond in kind, take a deep breath, respond after a couple of days when tempers have cooled, and just focus on the facts" rather than saying, "Well, that's ridiculous," or what we're really thinking is something that I won't say. It's not that it's ridiculous. This is like crazy. What are you talking about? This makes zero sense. But you have to 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.
MIGNON: Okay, so let's say there is a boat builder, 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. 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?
Or, 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?
JONATHAN: 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 Brannan? 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 whatever your passion is, the subject about which you know the most, start with those. And Wikipedia editors frown upon copy edits or going in and changing, adding commas; there is a place for that. 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, after that, the next step is to make substantive edits to, say, 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.
MIGNON: Oxford University.
JONATHAN: Oxford University.
Yes. And in 1602—I'm just making this up—and then add a source that corroborates that claim. 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.
But start small. Smart. Did I just say small-ly? Boy.
MIGNON: Haha.
Start small.
JONATHAN: Start small. Start with subjects that you know best, where 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.
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 Europe to California, and he Googled it.
And the first thing that came up was the Wikipedia article, and he just edited it. 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 removed something because it was given what's called too much weight, or in Wikipedia lingo, due weight.”
So the article mentioned something too much. If the article is 500 pages, this particular incident was maybe given 200 words. That's too much; that violates the policy of due weight. He didn't know that specific term, but he knew the concept, and so he removed it. In his edits, he said, “Seems like we're mentioning this too much.”
That's great. You don't have to be conversant with the vernacular; you just have to apply, sometimes, common sense, which often aligns with Wikipedia policies.
MIGNON: So if you do something wrong and then it gets reverted, and you can see that's happened, do you just hang your head in shame and walk away, never to use Wikipedia again, or what's the next step?
JONATHAN: Definitely. I told my brother-in-law that he was banned. I blacklisted his IP address; I outed him by name, and I—no, I sent the Wikimedia Foundation to his house. No, you might receive a notice, a polite notice—the wrong word; 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 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 neutralizes 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 like 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. You're certainly not banned. Your name won't be, you won't be doxxed. You might get a helpful tip. And as a result, become a better editor yourself.
MIGNON: Great. And I imagine it's probably best not to start with a controversial topic. Maybe find a sleepy little page that you can work on first.
JONATHAN: 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, you have to have a certain level of privileges in order to even edit those.
So there are different levels that accrue to you after you pass certain thresholds. Because Wikipedia does take those controversial pages seriously. They don't want people trolling them, vandalizing them. And there's, I think, to your earlier point, this is one of many ways in which the encyclopedia protects its integrity.
MIGNON: Wonderful. 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 employ you to fix their page or just learn more about what you have to say about Wikipedia?
JONATHAN: 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 web. It refreshes to my website. Jonathanrick.com/Wikipedia will tell you more about my process, outline my services, and link to my white paper on the six rules of Wikipedia sourcing.
MIGNON: Great. Thank you so much.
JONATHAN: Thank you. It was a pleasure.
MIGNON: Oh, you know what? I messed up the outro again because I have to set up the Grammarpalooza segment. So let's see. I said, I'll say, okay, thank you so much. If you're a regular listener, this is the end of the show, but if you're a Grammarpaloozian, 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. So to the regular listeners, thank you for joining us. To the Grammarpaloozians, thank you for your support, and look for the bonus segment.