Is your community radio station on Wikipedia? Here’s how to do it.
There are many reasons to be on Wikipedia. The catalog of knowledge shows up high on search engines, is a primary source to many people, and puts your community radio station in front of a huge audience. But how does your station show up on Wikipedia?
You will want to create a Wikipedia account. You must have an account to add, change or submit pages. Once your account is live, you may want to start small by making minor edits and corrections to pages on subjects you are familiar with. Does your hometown, local team or high school need an edit to pages? This may be a great place to get you started, and make you familiar to the Wikipedia community. More and more efforts unlock Wikipedia functions for you, too.
While you are at this stage, you will want to get familiar with Wiki code, the formatting Wikipedia uses for links, footnotes and more. It is difficult at first, but you will need to have a basic grasp to build your page.
You will need to submit a page about your community radio station to the website. Wikipedia provides a tutorial for creating a page. The first rule is do some research – make sure your station isn’t represented and that you can provide enough supporting materials so your page is not challenged or deleted when it is submitted for review. Understanding the way the submission criteria works is critical.
You’ll also want to start collecting your page’s references and begin composing your Wikipedia submission. Use the neutral voice for your document.
Once submitted, it can take a few days to a few weeks to get approval. You should continue to log in and participate in Wikipedia while you wait.
Wikipedia is a go-to online reference for many people. Your entry can help support your station and those looking for its information and history.
