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wintersweet
Joined: 18 Jan 2005
Posts: 345
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
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 Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 1:27 am Post subject: Bored? How about updating Wikipedia's entry for your town? |
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Without getting into "Is Wikipedia the Devil?" discussion that I just got into on a TESOL ML  I'd like to encourage anyone who's bored to check out the Wikipedia page for wherever you live in Japan. You can usually get there by typing
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| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townname |
(e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himeji)
Smaller towns and prefectures that are off the tourist-beaten path are sorely neglected for the most part. When I'm researching jobs, though, Wikipedia is often the only other English source besides the town's or prefecture's website, if there is one. Sometimes I get lucky and I can tell that a fluent native or a well-informed foreign visitor/resident has added lots of interesting details to the page.
I didn't spend long enough in any one town in Japan to be able to add a lot (though I did fix up my husband's small southern American hometown's entry!).
Wiki markup is actually very easy; you don't even have to log in, just hit "Edit" for the right section. You can just refer to the Quick Guide
if you like, or read the official policies.
If you spot a nicely formatted entry, you can use Edit to view and then borrow their formatting. But you don't have to worry about that--it's better to just add more and more accurate information than to have lovely formatting, because someone else can always fix that later. Leave a note mentioning what you added, and you're all done! Millions of anonymous visitors will be very grateful. 
(If you are REALLY bored, there's WikiProject Japan.) |
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kdynamic
Joined: 05 Nov 2005
Posts: 562
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 6:44 am Post subject: |
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| I did that a while ago!! Now my tiny nothing town has a disproportionately detailed entry |
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chirp
Joined: 03 Dec 2005
Posts: 148
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| Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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What a great idea! Can you add photos too?
kdynamic, what sort of details did you add? What do you think might be helpful to visitors? |
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seanmcginty
Joined: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 203
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| Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 3:33 pm Post subject: Re: Bored? How about updating Wikipedia's entry for your tow |
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| wintersweet wrote: |
Without getting into "Is Wikipedia the Devil?" discussion that I just got into on a TESOL ML I'd like to encourage anyone who's bored to check out the Wikipedia page for wherever you live in Japan. You can usually get there by typing
| Code: |
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townname |
(e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himeji)
Smaller towns and prefectures that are off the tourist-beaten path are sorely neglected for the most part. When I'm researching jobs, though, Wikipedia is often the only other English source besides the town's or prefecture's website, if there is one. Sometimes I get lucky and I can tell that a fluent native or a well-informed foreign visitor/resident has added lots of interesting details to the page.
I didn't spend long enough in any one town in Japan to be able to add a lot (though I did fix up my husband's small southern American hometown's entry!).
Wiki markup is actually very easy; you don't even have to log in, just hit "Edit" for the right section. You can just refer to the Quick Guide
if you like, or read the official policies.
If you spot a nicely formatted entry, you can use Edit to view and then borrow their formatting. But you don't have to worry about that--it's better to just add more and more accurate information than to have lovely formatting, because someone else can always fix that later. Leave a note mentioning what you added, and you're all done! Millions of anonymous visitors will be very grateful.
(If you are REALLY bored, there's WikiProject Japan.) |
Its funny that you put Himeji as the example because that is the city I used to live in and I've been thinking of adding to the Wikipedia page but I keep putting it off because all my Himeji "literature" is in storage! |
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wintersweet
Joined: 18 Jan 2005
Posts: 345
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
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| Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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| chirp wrote: |
What a great idea! Can you add photos too?
kdynamic, what sort of details did you add? What do you think might be helpful to visitors? |
Yes, you can. They have to be your photos or photos that are free to use, though. 
Personally, I like to see all kinds of stuff, whether it's your favorite ramen joint, an especially peaceful park, an odd bit of local history, etc. Train information and in-town transit is good to know about too.
| seanmcginty wrote: |
| Its funny that you put Himeji as the example because that is the city I used to live in and I've been thinking of adding to the Wikipedia page but I keep putting it off because all my Himeji "literature" is in storage! |
Well, it could use some expansion! I've only been to Himeji once (and they'd just closed the Musashi temporary exhibition, dammit) so I don't have much to add.
| kydynamic wrote: |
| I did that a while ago!! Now my tiny nothing town has a disproportionately detailed entry |
My favorite kind.  If you don't want to post the location, will you PM me with it so I can go take a look?[/quote] |
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