My proudest moment ;) … Wikipedia editor extraordinaire.

[Captain Scarlet]

For the first time ever I’ve edited Wikipedia.

One of the regular uses for my home-grown “skymap” spreadsheet, aside from using it to learn the heavens and plan observing sessions, is to check out astronomical events when they come up in my reading.

Just now I was reading about Otto Struve in Wikipedia, and apparently in June 1914 Struve made preparations for the upcoming Solar Eclipse of 8^th August 1914. So I automatically checked it out, if for no other reason than to test my spreadsheet’s accuracy. Imagine my surprise when it suggested that there couldn’t possibly have been a solar eclipse on that date. But there was one on 21^st August that year.

I mentioned this to a colleague who said “why don’t you edit it?”. I hadn’t realised that anyone can edit Wikipedia, so I did.

I expect that plenty of people on here are Wikicontributors/editors?

Cheers, Magnus

[Victor Boesen]

I don't edit/add stuff on Wikipedia regularly but I once wrote something about the event horizon of black holes because there wasn't anything about it in Danish. I can still see what I added to this day which is a little fun:)

[Paul M]

46 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

For the first time ever I’ve edited Wikipedia.

One of the regular uses for my home-grown “skymap” spreadsheet, aside from using it to learn the heavens and plan observing sessions, is to check out astronomical events when they come up in my reading.

Just now I was reading about Otto Struve in Wikipedia, and apparently in June 1914 Struve made preparations for the upcoming Solar Eclipse of 8^th August 1914. So I automatically checked it out, if for no other reason than to test my spreadsheet’s accuracy. Imagine my surprise when it suggested that there couldn’t possibly have been a solar eclipse on that date. But there was one on 21^st August that year.

I mentioned this to a colleague who said “why don’t you edit it?”. I hadn’t realised that anyone can edit Wikipedia, so I did.

I expect that plenty of people on here are Wikicontributors/editors?

Cheers, Magnus

Excellent. I wouldn't have the courage to edit a Wikipedia entry for the same reason I never question change given to me in a shop. I'm usually wrong!

[LongJohn54]

Well done Captain Magenta. 😀   Editing Wikipedia can be a challenge as there are people who will quickly undo your edit and claim that the original source of the data is correct.   You may want to provide an accurate source for the eclipse date and update the reference section accordingly.

I've previously used Heavens-above as a source and Wikipedia has kept it.  I've had some page changes reverted and marked as vandalism simply because I've not been able to find an online source to cite.

[Captain Scarlet]

40 minutes ago, LongJohn54 said:

Well done Captain Magenta. 😀   Editing Wikipedia can be a challenge as there are people who will quickly undo your edit and claim that the original source of the data is correct.   You may want to provide an accurate source for the eclipse date and update the reference section accordingly.

I've previously used Heavens-above as a source and Wikipedia has kept it.  I've had some page changes reverted and marked as vandalism simply because I've not been able to find an online source to cite.

Thanks - I'll keep an eye open. Hopefully this is such a simple matter of plain fact it won't come to that...