I'm not sure if you all know, but this week, thanks primarily to the hard work of
User:Ocaasi, the first tranche of free HighBeam memberships were given out to active
Wikimedians - see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:HighBeam
I applied and got one. I've been noodling around with the database finding sources for
all sorts of things. One thing that stands out: the huge quantity of local newspaper
sources, and the huge deficit of sources in Wikipedia articles about British schools.
Our school articles are basically a holding pan for vandalism, often of the tediously
oversightable sort ("such and such in class 9D is gay and here's his mobile
number"), but they also often have almost no sources and say nothing even vaguely
interesting: usually they cite their OFSTED report, the official school page, and perhaps
a page on a central government or LEA website.
Due to a lack of sourcing, we have no reason to trust changes that are made on the
articles: on school articles I've watched, head teachers have changed, even the name
of the school has changed, and we haven't the sources to really justify or revert
those changes.
With access to some decent sources, we can actually fix lots of these articles. While they
may still continue to be the target of vandalism and unsourced changes, there can at least
be a decent well-sourced core of useful information.
If you are a UK Wikipedian and have just been given access to HighBeam, go find your old
(or current) school or the schools near where you live and fix up the sources! Same for
any other community institution: libraries, pubs, scout troops, churches etc.
--
Tom Morris
<http://tommorris.org/>