We want our work to make a difference in the world. It also helps if other researchers use our work. Adding to wikipedia does both of these things.

Problems

Some people on Wikipedia have valid concerns about a number of unhelpful practices:

1. Single purpose accounts (e.g., those only used for self-promotion)
2. Undisclosed conflicts of interest
3. Some academics who just plug their paper on every page

So, don't just drop your <ref> on any and every page. Instead...

Options for making valuable edits to existing pages

Option 1) Make sincere edits on stuff you know, not only your papers

You're not going to get flagged for citation spamming or single-purpose accounts if your make a few edits. You're suggestions will be safer and less likely to get flagged if you make contributions to a range of pages.

Option 2) Ask someone else to make edits for you

There are three ways you could do this:

1. Ask someone you know to pop in an edit relevant to your work. This may be win-win, so they’re not just editing their stuff, and you get your work more airtime.

2. Ask someone on Wikipedia. Some pages with a history of controversy require this practice (moderated edits). For example, for Mike to edit the Pregnancy page, I had to 'request' an edit for another Wiki contributor to action. Others just see it as a good way of avoid a conflict of interest. To do this, there's a guide here, but basically...

   1. Go to the page you want to edit

   2. Click the "talk tab"

      

   3. Click "new section"

      

   4. Specify exactly the edits you want and why, for example:

   Requested changes, specifically: Noetel (talk) 00:41, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

   • Add more recent citation [1] to this sentence: women who were regular exercisers before pregnancy and who have uncomplicated pregnancies should be able to engage in high intensity exercise programs.[135][1]
   • Specify the claim "should be able to engage in high intensity exercise programs" with "should be able to engage in high intensity exercise programs [135] without risk of prematurity, lower birth weight, or gestational weight gain [1]. A systematic review found that exercise leads to slightly decreased risk of prematurity [1].
   • Given the maternal benefits, need to hedge this risk with the other risks and benefits: "Physical exercise during pregnancy does appear to decrease the need for C-section [133], but even vigorous exercise carries no significant risks to babies [1] and significant health benefits for mothers [2]"

Option 3) Disclose your conflict of interest

Even if you do all of the above, some argue that academics self-citing should declare their conflicts of interest. I think these are borderline but there's probably little harm in being overly declarative that "I wrote this paper." To thoroughly declare a COI, there are two steps:

• At the top of the talk tab on the page you're editing...
• Go into your personal page...

These steps seem overly cautious to me but in the end I think they are in the spirit of making Wikipedia more trustworthy. There are vigilantes that run around removing edits for conflicts of interest, and overall I think this makes the site what it is, and allows it to have the impact it does: