Despite the fact that it’s open to anybody, I was always too intimidated to actually do anything to Wikipedia.
Recently, however, we created a wiki for a project at work and I was put in charge of managing it. It’s a technical documentation wiki, so my primary task is to try to bring some structure to what the tech staff puts in there, plus trying to figure out how our users will eventually want to use the site and adding a bit of marketing spin to the front page. At any rate, now that I’ve actually been using a wiki, I finally felt comfortable enough to actually touch Wikipedia.
To start out, I removed a factually inaccurate statement from one article, and then corrected a spelling error in another. Not very thrilling contributions, to be sure, but at least I’m not intimidated anymore.
Actually, if I ever get the time at work, I think it would abe a good idea to rewrite Wikipedia’s entry on my employer. That, however, presents an intersting question. Is it considered appropriate for a company to substantially re-write their own entry? If you remained consistant to the Wikipedia standards of accuracy and neutrality I don’t see why it would be so bad, but then, I’m still pretty new to wikiland.