Extra Credit

There are several possibilities for extra credit, all of which entail some form of contribution to Wikipedia beyond and apart from regular coursework. "Contribution" can be interpreted loosely to include assisting with tasks/projects/processes behind the scenes, adding photos to the Commons, and so on. Two assignments are explained below, but if you have an idea for another extra credit project, I'm very open to talking about it; let's talk before/after class ASAP.

The only extra credit points that will be awarded which are not tied to work on Wikipedia are the 5 points for perfect attendance.

You may complete as many extra credit assignments as you like, but the cap on extra credit is 10 points.

10 points tacked onto your final grade is a substantial boost, but be forewarned these tasks require a lot of work.

All extra credit other than the Good Article assignment is due the last day we meet, Friday, April 26 by the start of class. Good Articles will be graded at the same time as the group articles, May 8 at 8:00am. No partial credit for late extra credit work. No exceptions (get it in as early as you can).

(More) Good Articles

The parameters of this assignment are essentially the same as those for the group project: create a new article or expand a stub and develop it such that it achieves Good Article status.

You can work individually or as a group, but each article you work on will be worth a total of up to 5 points.
- In other words, if you work on an article with a partner you would each be eligible for 2.5 points; conversely, the two of you would probably be better able than an individual to complete more than one article.

Encyclopedic History

Similar to the encyclopedia comparisons assignment from earlier in the semester, for this option you can again compare a topic across encyclopedias. This time, however, the parameters are a bit different.

I'm using "encyclopedic history" to mean a way of understanding history through encyclopedias. The focus is not on which encyclopedia is better or where the strengths and weaknesses are of one article vs. another but on the topic itself and what you can learn about its history from these sources.

The product of this assignment is a five-page paper evaluating the articles in terms of the social, cultural, historical, and political contexts and implications.

The paper should not consist of mere descriptions of the articles. Assume that I or whoever is reading your paper has access to your sources. Simply stating that "x had a much longer History section than z" or "the references x were more authoritative than those in z" doesn't say anything about the topic itself. This is not about the features of one encyclopedia over another as though we are choosing an authority, but about how we understand the history of a particular subject by looking to encyclopedias as representations of knowledge, beliefs, values, traditions, events, and norms of the time.

The topic you choose does not have to be something you have expertise on.

The topic you choose should not be one you have used for any other assignment in this course and should not be one someone used for their encyclopedia comparison assignment (see the page for a list of those articles).

The topic you choose should have some social or political relevance.

Interpret this very loosely. All I mean is something with significance beyond entertainment or trivia. This is more about the perspective you take than the article title.

Choose four encyclopedias to compare (three in addition to Wikipedia).

Two (three including Wikipedia) must be general knowledge encyclopedias.
One must be a specialist encyclopedia.
- If no specialist encyclopedia exists at the library (unlikely for most topics), use another general encyclopedia.
None of the encyclopedias, including Wikipedia, should have a publication date within 15 years of any other.
- Since Wikipedia's publication date is effectively 2013, no other source should have been published between 1998-2013.
Unlike the previous assignment, sources being in print or online makes no difference. With the above constraint on publication dates, it's unlikely you'll find much by way of online encyclopedias from the 90s, but there are many older works that have been digitized and made available for free.

This assignment is worth up to 2.5 points added to your final grade.

Please email if you have any questions or are unsure about any part of this.

To submit this paper, either create a subpage under User:RM395/Course and email the link to me or email a .doc, .docx, .pdf, or .odt file to me directly.

Photo "Scavenger Hunt"

An assignment inspired by the Wikipedia Takes (Your City) project and the suggestions articulated in Wikipedia:Photograph your hometown.

In this class we're not actually having a photo scavenger hunt in the sense of a time-specific competition, but this assignment consists in more or less the same activity: Go out and take a whole lot of pictures related to a particular topic of your choosing.

In short, the goal is to find pages within a particular category that would benefit from one or more images and to provide those images via your own photography.

Rules for Topic and Subject Selection

Talk to me to go over your target category and game plan before beginning (and to make sure people don't duplicate each other's work)
You must have a clearly defined category which does not have to but almost certainly will correspond to a category on Wikipedia or the Commons.
- You are pursuing one category. 5 images for one category, 3 for another, 4 for a third is not what this is about.
- Looking through the categories may help to generate ideas
  - You can also search for categories. In the search box, just begin with "Category:" followed by your search term. If you just type "Category:Computers" and hit enter, it will bring you to Category:Computers rather than a list of categories about computers, but if you type "Category:Computers" into the search bar and wait for the drop-down to appear, you'll see at the bottom is an option for "containing category:computers" which returns 2698 hits.
Every photo you take should correspond to one or more specific articles.
- The goal is effectively to fill gaps: to upload images where there are few or none. If your topic is forest birds of the eastern United States (or forest birds, or birds of the eastern United States, or even just birds, which would be fine), the Northern Cardinal, which has several images on its article page and an additional 20 or so on its Commons page, is in no need of help (except, you may notice, there are no images of a cardinal in flight) whereas the Cerulean Warbler could use all the help it can get. If you're out getting your shot of the Cerulean Warbler and you happen to get a great shot of a stationary cardinal, by all means still upload it for the benefit of Wikipedia Commons, but the goal here is to improve encyclopedia articles.

The amount of extra credit will vary depending on the amount of work required.

What You Will Need

digital camera or really good camera in your phone
little bits of paper, index cards, a little white board...something for reference shots (see below)
time

Reference Photos

Pictures of every subject must be accompanied by a reference photo of that subject.

Before you take a picture of something, write down what it is on a little piece of paper or index card and take a picture holding it up in front of the subject. Different photos of the same subject do not need their own reference unless separated in sequence from the original or if the perspective is so drastically different it becomes unclear we're looking at the same thing.

This is standard practice for these hunts and serves a number of purposes. In addition to obvious organizational purposes for yourself (you might be taking several pictures of similar subjects, for example) it also plays it safe by ensuring the uploader is both the credited photographer and the rights holder.

Examples (some of these people are using a letter-number code used for the purposes of the scavenger hunt; for our purposes, please do not use a code):

Submitting

First, upload everything to the Commons.

See links at the bottom for some guidelines.
Be as clear, precise, and descriptive as possible.
Upload your reference photos, too, but label them as such and don't tag them in the same way (an image of the White House with a piece of paper in front of it is of no use to the article for the White House)

Then create a new page. You can do so by creating a subpage at User:RM395/Course/Galleries/Yourusername, but you may prefer to use your own user page. Making a contribution like this is something to be proud of. Add it to your user page or create a subpage just like you do via User:RM395.

If you host it on your own userpage, email a link to me.

On the new page create a gallery of all the images you uploaded. This is most easily accomplished through the <gallery> tag. Simply begin with <gallery>, then on subsequent lines just list the images with the File: or Image: prefix. When you're done, close the gallery with </gallery>. Edit the section above to see it in action, or check out the Wikipedia:Picture tutorial for more detailed instructions.

Useful Tutorials and Information

commons:Commons:How to take pictures for Wikimedia Commons - photography basics, but also a little bit on naming conventions and editing.
commons:Commons:Image guidelines - a whole lot of details, technical and otherwise, dealing with what makes for the ideal Wikipedia Commons image. Just as there are Featured Articles, so there are Featured Pictures.
commons:Commons:Contributing your own work
Wikipedia:Picture tutorial - this is about using pictures on a page, not shooting or uploading them
Example Scavenger Hunts: (more for inspiration than instruction)
- Wiki Loves Monuments is scavenger hunt that has taken place every September since 2010. Last year was exceptionally popular: 15,000 people submitted more than 350,000 images of monuments in 33 countries.
- Wikipedia Loves Art was another month-long project executed in collaboration with museums and cultural institutions who agreed to allow their works to be photographed and uploaded (see below for some warnings)
- The Wikipedia takes... category contains links to the images produced by scavenger hunts in dozens of cities (Amsterdam, Boston, Mumbai, Portland, Utrecht...).