English Wikipedia's main page gets over 10 million views most days, and almost all of the content shown there is reviewed content. This encompasses featured articles and pictures, the best material on the encyclopaedia as judged by editors, as well as a did you know? section which highlights both newly-written articles and good articles. There's also in the news and a couple of other things.
Having your work featured on the main page can be a great incentive to write high-quality content and it'll reach far more viewers than the average talk or paper — help inform and inspire an international audience about your scientific interests!
DYK
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Did you know?
DYK is a section on the main page featuring "hooks" that ask a "did you know..." question in order to bring viewers to your article (kind of click-baiting!), there's a competitive side to it where the number of hits your hook received can be recorded in a table at Did you know/Statistics. This is a relatively easy way to have your work featured on the main page and potentially have thousands of visitors reading the article you've worked on. Here's todays DYKs, as you can see the topics covered are pretty varied:
The DYK criteria are slightly complicated, but in summary the article needs to be:
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GA
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Good articles
Good articles (GAs) are well-written, fairly comprehensive and have sufficient references to back up factual claims. Articles reach GA status after being reviewed, normally by a single editor, against the GA criteria. Of course, a GA must abide by standard WP policies like NPOV, V and NOR. At the time of writing there are 6 articles covered by the WikiProject that have attained GA status:
Good articles take some work but the reviewer will often help guide the improvement of your article. It's a great way to learn about writing high-quality articles, WikiProject members may be available to help with the review or give feedback on an article you're thinking of nominating. As scientists, you possess specialised knowledge of niche topics which can be used to bring an existing article up to GA status. Newly promoted GAs are eligible to be added to the DYK section on the main page, putting your topic of interest in front of millions of eyes! |
FA
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Featured articles
Featured content represents "the best that Wikipedia has to offer". To get promoted an article faces a rigourous review by any number of interested parties at Feature Article Review. The criteria are listed here, but promotion is determined via a consensus-forming discussion rather than simply checking the criteria. The WikiProject currently has two FA-class articles in scope, take a look for an idea of the quality required: (Surprisingly their similarity in subject appears to be a coincidence, the articles were developed by different editors and promoted four years apart!) |
ITN
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In the news Wikipedia is not a news source, but articles are listed on ITN as background reading for current issues. This is usually less relevant when editing scientific articles. The only ITN I've been involved with was…
…hmm!
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Peer review
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Peer review
Wikipedia also uses the concept of peer review! Here you can ask for advice on improving an article before a GA or FA nomination, or just for feedback in general. Currently there's a backlog of review requests — you could also help out by reviewing other people's submissions! |