Hello all,

It has come to the attention of the Wikimedia Ghana user group that people are still charging for the creation of articles after we issued our first alert somewhere last year advising against this. As such we have decided to embark on a full scale campaign through social media and channels we get by engaging our community, partners and the public about not charging for articles on Wikipedia.

A social media campaign has also been launched through the hashtag #DontPay4WikipediaEdits which we entreat all members to engage with to help create the awareness. We have been informed of a possible support on radio tomorrow on the tech and social media trends segment of the #CitiCBS by our colleague Sandister Tei.

Find below our official statement on why people should not pay for Wikipedia Articles. Please do well to share widely so everyone know about it and engage the hashtag as well.

Thank You.

 

Do not pay for a Wikipedia article

Wikipedia is a free and open knowledge based website and as such you do not have to pay for an article to be created or edited for you.

There are rules governing how articles are created, the most important one is “NOTABILITY”.

If a person, place, event, phenomenon, organisation or topic meets this criteria, the next step is for a Wikipedia editor who has interest in that section of editing to pick it up and volunteer to work on it since all editors are of diverse interest. Moreover it's not a rule of thumb that when you meet or something meets the notability rule that definitely has to be picked up by an editor. Wikipedia editing is a voluntary work you don’t have to pay for an article to be created for you, provided your notability is traceable online and easily verifiable.

Please note that once an article is created it becomes subject to vetting by other Wikipedia editors across the globe and based on its quality, an article could be allowed to stay or be removed per Wikipedia guidelines.

Paying for an article doesn't guarantee it will stay on the wiki. 

Spread the news. 

                                                           

For more info follow the hashtag  #DontPay4WikipediaEdits or contact the community of Wikipedia editors in Ghana. 

Facebook: Wikimedia Ghana User Group 

Twitter: @WikimediaGH  

Email: community@wmgh.org