Nurturing New Editors: A High-Touch Approach
Training new Wikipedia editors is more than just teaching someone how to edit a page; it’s about cultivating curiosity, patience, and a deep understanding of Wikipedia's unique culture and norms. Over the course of several weeks, I guided eight editors in crafting eight distinct articles, with each editor bringing their own rich perspectives. This training went beyond basic Wikipedia literacy—it empowered these editors to see themselves as contributors to a global knowledge repository.
The approach? Teaching through themes and games rather than focusing solely on skills and rules. We used hands-on exercises and playful immersion, turning Wikipedia into a vast landscape for exploration. Editing became a fun challenge—a series of questions and discoveries rather than a checklist of instructions.
The Themes That Guide Us
Rather than following a rote syllabus, we framed the experience as a set of mini-games where editors learned by tackling real-world Wikipedia challenges. Each stage was built around concepts that gradually expanded their understanding of the platform and empowered them to engage meaningfully with it.
1. Belonging & Community
Wikipedia can feel like a massive, sprawling space. To help each editor feel grounded, we started with belonging—creating their user pages, watchlists, and discussing how each of their contributions is part of a larger ecosystem. Wikipedia isn’t just a website; it’s a living community. By focusing on their presence in this space, the editors began to understand the importance of collaboration and shared responsibility. Their first small victory was signaling their presence in the Wikipedia community through contributions to talk pages and the creation of their user profiles. This foundation set the stage for more complex tasks to come.
2. Curiosity & Neutrality
Curiosity was the driving force behind our next step. We explored how Wikipedia demands both exploration and restraint. Every edit must be backed by neutral, verifiable information. This theme was central in their work on articles such as Jodie Ginsberg and Yiying Lu, where neutrality had to be balanced with their personal excitement about these subjects. Instead of simply giving them rules on neutrality, we turned it into a game—how can you express the richness of a person or subject without injecting your own bias? The editors quickly discovered that the answer lay in letting reliable sources speak for themselves.
3. Representation & Bias
Next came the challenge of representation. This was particularly significant when we worked on topics that focused on culture and underrepresented histories, such as Calle 24 and the Hijab Emoji. We discussed systemic bias on Wikipedia, both in terms of coverage and perspective, and how our work as editors could help address those gaps. The mini-game here was a subtle one: finding sources and crafting narratives that gave weight to voices and subjects often overlooked. We weren't just adding information; we were contributing to a broader effort to document the diverse, complex world around us.
4. Discovery & Notability
One of the trickiest concepts for new editors is understanding notability. Why is someone or something important enough to deserve a Wikipedia page? This theme ran through articles like Jada Yuan and Chloe Misseldine. Editors learned that notability isn’t about personal interest or even seeming importance—it’s about significant coverage from reliable, independent sources. To make this concept engaging, we turned it into a research game: could they find enough high-quality sources to meet Wikipedia’s strict notability guidelines? This was a particularly rewarding moment, as editors learned that it’s not always easy to craft a compelling article even when the subject feels important to them.
5. Expression & Structure
Writing an article like Practical Aesthetics or Time Is a Mother involves a lot more than just summarizing facts. Editors need to think about how information is expressed—the structure, tone, and flow of the article. Wikipedia articles aren’t blog posts or essays; they’re encyclopedic entries, meaning clarity and conciseness are key. Here, the mini-game was about format and readability. Could the editors structure their articles in a way that not only met Wikipedia’s guidelines but was clear and easy to navigate for readers? This theme helped editors learn to balance depth of content with accessibility.
More Than Just Articles
By grounding our sessions in themes and games rather than technical skills and instructions, each editor was able to approach their topic with a fresh perspective. Wikipedia editing became a series of puzzles to solve, rather than a syllabus to follow. This playful, immersive style allowed the editors to grow not just as contributors, but as critical thinkers and researchers.
The real win was not just the eight articles we created—it was the sense of ownership, curiosity, and responsibility each editor took away from the process. The articles themselves are living proof of the power of thematic, high-touch learning, and they’ll serve as a foundation for these editors’ future contributions to Wikipedia’s ever-growing body of knowledge.
If you’re curious to explore the results of our high-touch approach, dive into the articles above—and perhaps you’ll be inspired to start your own Wikipedia journey. Reach out anytime at WikiBlueprint.com.
