CZ:How to convert Wikipedia articles to Citizendium articles

We can use Wikipedia articles as places to start our articles here on the Citizendium. But we should bear in mind that the Citizendium is a different project, for which we are creating a new culture.

Should you really upload that Wikipedia article to Citizendium?

Maybe, maybe not. Your answers to the following questions should all be "Yes":

• Is the Wikipedia article reasonably good? In other words, to create an expert-approvable article, in your judgment, it should be more efficient to edit the article than start over from scratch.

• Do you actually intend to do significant work on the article sometime in the next hour (or week at least)? If you do not, don't upload it until you actually want to start working on it (significant work means, at a minimum, to put your article into the context of other Citizendium articles by the subpages system, particularly the definitions and Related Articles. We are not creating a mirror of Wikipedia.

Should you check (tick) the "Content is from Wikipedia?" box?

First save the copy from Wikipedia without making any changes. This will allow others to see how many changes you've made, when they look at the page history.

Then, check the "Content is from Wikipedia?" box, which appears just below the edit summary unless

1. if you copy only what you personally wrote. If you are the sole author of the version of the article that you are importing, then you need not check the "Content is from Wikipedia?" box. In that case, please place the WPauthor template at the top of the talk page (see also WPauthor2 template).
2. if the Wikipedia material is a completely unchanged copy from some third source (like Encyclopedia Britannica 11th edition (1911); make sure you cite the third source; Wikipedia does not get any credit.

Improving article accuracy

If you are thinking about importing content from Wikipedia, do some fact-checking to ensure that the content is reliable. General reference works such as the Encyclopedia Britannica are a good way to check basic facts about a subject. Specialized reference works are better, though. The standard reference works of a discipline are what experts themselves consult, and tend to reflect current scholarship much better than general works.

Improving articles stylistically

When you rewrite Wikipedia articles:

• Make sure that the articles are well-written and unified, following a coherent, well-organized narrative, not grab-bags of unintegrated facts.

• Craft your sentences using engaging language, not the sleep-inducing prose that some people seem to think is required for encyclopedia articles. Avoid stilted or hackneyed expressions.

• Generally, keep your audience in mind. Our goal is to express, not merely impress. Bear in mind that articles on the Citizendium are written first and foremost for the educated person who needs an introduction to the topic--and not for the author to catalog very impressively everything he knows on the topic. More particularly, bear in mind that your audience is university-level, unless your topic itself absolutely requires a higher-level treatment (cannot be understood "at the undergraduate level").

Also see Differences in style, approach and tone

Improving article mechanics

While we follow many of Wikipedia's conventions of mechanics, such as bolding titles--we are stripping down many others. In particular, we are removing many templates, virtually all categories, and all interwiki links.

Templates

Templates should "pay their own way" by actually helping the user rather than distracting the user from important information.

Delete many template messages--particularly the ones that are for contributors and are self-referential. This includes timing-related messages, expansion requests, and all Wikimedia sister projects.

Other templates to delete include: requesting sources, deletion, disputes and warnings, maintenance, cleanup, and lists. Presumably, we will want to rewrite our own such templates--if we have any at all--and place them on talk pages, not on the articles themselves.

If you do retain a template in an article you're working on, for an infobox for example, then be sure to upload the template from Wikipedia. We will not be uploading the entire Wikipedia template namespace.

Many infobox templates and navigational templates need to be completely revisited. Many are useful, but many are not.

Categories

Delete all categories not specifically added for the Citizendium.

Interwiki links

Delete all of these. On the other hand, internal links to other articles in English should remain.

Images

Please upload all usable images from Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons. But note that some are not usable. Make sure that you also upload all licensing information as well!

In particular, do not upload images (and delete links to these) that were created by someone who on Wikipedia was evidently using a pseudonym. We must be able to locate the original uploader of all media, and a real name is a minimum requirement for this. You might be able to get the person to reveal his or her name for our use here on Citizendium; you can attempt to contact the person on Wikipedia.

Also, do not upload images that do not have clear licensing data. And again, copy that licensing data.

See also

• We aren't Wikipedia
• Introduction to CZ for Wikipedians

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