“Student Wikipedian Community in Waseda Uni Tokyo” held an online meeting discussing how to write Wikipedia articles about literary works

On June 22, 2022, “Student Wikipedian Community in Waseda Uni Tokyo” held an online meeting, in which we discussed how to write Wikipedia articles about literary works

Lakka26, a member of our group asked how they can write an Wikipedia article about their favorite literary work “Hikarigoke (ひかりごけ)”. Then, Takenari Higuchi and Eugene Ormandy replied to it. This article reports the detail of that meeting and what we learned.

Plot summary

Firstly, we read [[Wikipedia:あらすじの書き方]], Japanese Wikipedia’s guideline about writing plot summaries, and checked the rules, for example “Use present tense” or “Don’t use exaggerated rhetoric”. There were some comments from participants such as “It is the first time for me to think about what a plot summary is” or “That guideline is also an interesting essay”.

Then, Lakka26 expressed a concern that “If I make a plot summary using an original text as a source, would it be original research which Wikipedia prohibit?”. Takenari Higuchi and Eugene Ormandy agreed with it and said “how you pick up the sentence from an original text reflects your originality”. They recommended Lakka26 to refer to a plot summary written in reliable and independent sources.

Evaluation

Next, we discussed how to write “Evaluation” section.

Lakka26 had collected some reviews for “Hikarigoke (ひかりごけ)”, but they wondered how to organize it.

Firstly, Takenari Higuchi replied to it. They introduced a Japanese Wikipedia article [[サンルームにて]] which is the article they had wrote and had been selected as a “Good Article“, and suggested dividing “Evaluation” section into sub sections such as “Response (反響)” or “Influence (影響)” like that.

In contrast, Eugene Ormandy suggested classifying reviews based on who had written it. They introduced a Japanese Wikipedia article [[アルトゥル・ニキシュ]] which is a “Good Article” they had wrote. In this article, “Evaluation” section is divided into 4 sub sections, “Evaluation by composer”, “Evaluation by conductor”, “Evaluation by instrument players” and “Evaluation by critics”. Each sub section contains various reviews.

Useful references

Lakka26 pointed out that magazine articles are more useful references than books such as author’s biography to write Wikipedia articles about literary works, especially unfamous works.

In response to this, Eugene Ormandy, who writes Japanese cafe articles such as [[名曲喫茶クラシック]] using magazines said that “Web OYA-bunko”, a database of Japanese magazine library “Oya Soichi Library” is very useful to search magazine articles.

What we learned

Through this meeting, we learned that there are various ways to write an article and discussion help us create ideas. In this meeting, we could share each opinion and technique.

After this meeting, Lakka26 edited [[Hikarigoke (ひかりごけ)]] and added many topics. We are very happy that we can encourage Wikipedian’s growth. We will continue to hold meetings or editathons to support Wikipedians and make Wikipedia better.