O’Reilly Media releases ‘Wikipedia: The Missing Manual’
Posted by Dave Merten 
Jan 24, 2008 at 12:42pm
Want to be part of the largest multilingual, free content, everyone-can-chip-in encyclopedia project in human history? O’Reilly Media’s new release—Wikipedia: The Missing Manual ($29.99) by John Broughton—can show you how.
In his timely new book, Broughton offers straightforward, fun-to-read instructions about how to join the diverse cadre of volunteers, citizen journalists, and scholars from around the planet who regularly edit articles and contribute to the online encyclopedia.
“Wikipedia is immensely popular as a source of information,” says Broughton, a registered editor at Wikipedia since 2005 with more than 15,000 edits under his belt. “But it needs many more active editors than it has now, because it is so incomplete. Wikipedia also needs many more editors who are experts in a particular subject matter.”
In addition, Broughton says, “My book can also help those who have done some editing in Wikipedia, but want to expand or improve what they’re doing.”
Indeed Broughton’s deep knowledge of Wikipedia combined with his appealing writing style made him a perfect addition to the Missing Manual roster of authors. Founded by New York Times technology columnist David Pogue, O’Reilly’s Missing Manual series specializes in producing beautifully written manuals for popular consumer software and hardware products—the book that should have been in the box.
Between the covers of Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, you’ll find easy-to-follow, practical advice for creating articles and collaborating with fellow editors, improving existing articles, and working with the Wikipedia community to review new articles, mediate disputes, and maintain the site.
The book covers:
• Basic editing techniques, including the right and wrong ways to edit
• How to pinpoint advice about which types of articles do and do not belong on Wikipedia
• Tips on using Wikipedia page histories and reversing inaccurate edits
• Ways to learn from other editors and communicate with them via the site’s talk pages
• How to find specific articles in Wikipedia that you’re particularly interested in editing as well as other editors with the same interests
• Recommended procedures for fighting spam and vandalism
• Guidance on adding citations, links, and images to your articles
“I find the sheer volume of transactions at Wikipedia to be astonishing. There’s 100 million article views per day and more than a quarter of a million edits per day. And several thousand new articles added every day,” says Broughton. “There are also more than a thousand articles deleted every day, more than 7,000 new registered user accounts every day. And that’s just for the English language Wikipedia. The other 250 plus non-English language versions combined are more than three times the size of the English Wikipedia.”
So if you’re ready to jump on board, Wikipedia: The Missing Manual is your first-class ticket. With the tips in this book, you’ll quickly learn how to get more out of—and put more into—this valuable online resource.
MacOSG members get a 35% discount off all O’reilly Media books. To get your discount code, just go here. Also, listen to the MacOSG Podcast, and if your member name is drawn, you can receive this book free! (see official rules) If you’re not a member yet, you can join here.
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Dave Merten
Dave was one of the founding guides at ‘The Mining Company,’ now known as About.com, in February 1998. Dave was their ‘Focus on Mac Support’ guide. In 2004 he started ‘G5 Owners Support Group,’ and in 2005, renamed it ‘Mac Owners Support Group.’ In 2006, he started the ‘MacOSG Support Corner’ column here at Macsimum News.
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