Wikipedia:Guide for h2g2 Researchers

Welcome to Wikipedia, Researcher! Like h2g2, Wikipedia is a collaborative online encyclopedia project. However, there are some major differences between the two, so this guide has been put together to help you. Our general Help and FAQ pages are also at your disposal.

Table of contents 1 Cultural differences 2 Moving content from h2g2 to Wikipedia 2.1 Legal issues 2.2 Changes to Make 3 Moving content from Wikipedia to h2g2 4 Final Words

Cultural differences

Wikipedia is entirely focused on making an encyclopedia. Unlike h2g2, there's not a lot of unrelated socializing; almost all of Wikipedia's chat is about improving specific articles or the project as a whole.

Anyone can edit any article here. Your contributions will be edited, rearranged, re-worded and expanded, and you shouldn't be shy about doing the same to other people's work. Be bold in updating pages!

Wikipedia is self-moderated to an even greater extent than h2g2's current Peer Moderation Pilot Project. Most Wikipedians try to avoid personal attacks. If you say something you regret, apologise and delete it. If someone offends you, we have some advice on staying cool when the editing gets hot.

Moving content from h2g2 to Wikipedia

Please copy your good encyclopedic content from h2g2 to wikipedia! Don't forget to search for related Wikipedia content first -- if Wikipedia already has an article on the subject, just merge your own content into it: be bold!

Legal issues

When you contributed to h2g2, you retained the copyright to those contributions - the BBC are simply granted non-exclusive license to use them as they see fit. You can, therefore, move any unedited entries that you have personally written on h2g2 to Wikipedia. Mention on the Wikipedia article's talk page (click "Discuss this page") that you originally wrote the material for h2g2 and give your Researcher Number (U-number), so that nobody thinks you're plagiarising material. For collaborative unedited entries, or entries you did not write, you will need the permission of all major contributors (see Wikipedia:Copyright).

The major exception to this is entries that are Edited or Recommended. The BBC claims that they own the "overall copyright" to all Edited Entries, and so they cannot be moved to any other site, including Wikipedia, without permission. This is supposedly because every Edited Entry on h2g2 has been checked (and possibly altered) by an in-house Editor working for the BBC. [1] (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/DontPanic-Legal#5). Thus, you can't contribute any edited Guide entries that you've written. However, you can contribute your 'unedited' version. Of course, you could ask the BBC for permission by contacting h2g2's Editor, although it's not known how successful such a request would be. Since the BBC takes the right to sub-license your contributions, they have the final say, but it would be polite to contact any other major contibutors, such as the sub-ed.

Any contributions you make to Wikipedia are released under the GNU Free Documentation License. However, you retain the copyright to your own work and are free to re-use and re-license it in any way you wish.

Changes to Make

Content needs to be converted from GuideML to wiki markup. Generally it's easiest to copy and paste the text and add markup rather than copying the GuideML. Wikipedia titles are generally shorter, so phrases like "a short guide to" should be removed, and most titles should be uncapitalised. See the naming conventions for all the details.

Wikipedia has a different manual of style from h2g2. However, if your article doesn't match that style, someone will change it so it does, so don't panic. Also, Wikipedia has a much higher proportion of links per article than h2g2. It's easy to link something by putting it in [[square brackets]]. Don't forget to add links from other articles to yours, where it's appropriate.

On h2g2 you can sometimes use devices like "this Researcher thinks" or quotes to add opinions expressed by Researchers. On Wikipedia we try to quote opinions from people who are influential, or have some special expertise, and the best people for that generally won't be Wikipedians. We have a policy called the neutral point of view (NPOV). It is similiar to h2g2's requirements for balance in Edited Entries on controversial subjects, but here are subtle differences in the two policies. It may take you a little time to get used to the Wikipedia approach, but don't worry too much about it. Anyone can fix your mistakes while you're getting the hang of things.

Moving content from Wikipedia to h2g2

Moving articles from Wikipedia to h2g2 is tricky because of certain conditions required by the BBC. While you are welcome to copy and reuse any Wikipedia article, the requirements of the BBC are not compatible with the GNU Free Documentation Licence.

The BBC requires that all content is your own, original material, or it may not be submitted, and so it seems you can't submit collaboratively edited material even if all the participants give you permission.

Basically, you can only move Wikipedia articles to h2g2 in the event that you are the 'only' person who has worked on that article. The best course of action would be to save a local copy of your Wikipedia article on your computer before anyone else edits it. Another option is to pull your original version out of the article's history; click the "Page history" link.

Final Words

We hope you find working on Wikipedia to be fun and rewarding. If you have questions that you can't find the answers to, drop by the Wikipedia:Village pump and ask away. Chances are a friendly Wikipedian or three will have some answers for you.

There is also a Wikipedia:Guide for Everything2 noders.