You can contribute to the ArborWiki project in all kinds of ways, depending on your interests, skills and time.

Ways to Add

Here are some ways to add information to ArborWiki.

Simple Little Edits

  • Correct a misspelled word.  
  • Re-write awkward or unclear wording so that it's smooth and clear.
  • Rewrite  biased or promotional wording so that it is neutral and factual.
  • Fix a dot or a line on a map, even if it's off by only a half a block.

Simple Little Pages

Create a little page (or a big one!) about a topic you know and like.

Pages About People

  • Add a fact to the Timeline section of a person's ArborWiki page. Did you hear or read something in the news about a person? Adding an item to their timeline is a great way to update ArborWiki's information about that person.
  • Add a Timeline section to a person's ArborWiki page. If a person's page doesn't have a Timeline section, make one. Include some dated items. That will allow the page t be updated easily.
  • Add a date of birth to a person's ArborWiki page. 
  • Add links from a person's ArborWiki page to other pages in ArborWiki. Add links that will help readers find answers to obvious questions they might have as they read a person's ArborWiki page. For example, if a person's ArborWiki page states, "... served on the Ann Arbor City Council from 1959 to 1965 ..." then many readers might wonder: Who else served on the city council during that time? So adding a link like this would let readers know they can find the answer to that question by following the link: "...served on the Ann Arbor City Council from 1959 to 1965..." 
  • Add links from a person's ArborWiki page to pages outside of ArborWiki. Add links that will help readers verify that the information on the person's ArborWiki page is accurate. 
  • Create an ArborWiki page for a person who doesn't already have a page! 

Pages About Places

  • Add a fact to the Timeline section of place's ArborWiki page. Did you hear or read something in the news about a place in Ann Arbor? Adding an item to that place's timeline is a great way to update ArborWiki's information about that place.
  • Add a Timeline section to a place's page. If a person's page doesn't have a Timeline section, make one. Include some dated items. That will allow the place's ArborWiki page to be updated easily when something happens.
  • Add links from a place's ArborWiki page to other pages in ArborWiki. Add links  that will help readers verify that the information on the person's ArborWiki page is accurate
  • Add links from a place's ArborWiki page to pages outside of ArborWiki. Add links  that will help readers verify that the information on the place's ArborWiki page is accurate.
  • Add a map to a place's page.
  • Create an ArborWiki page for a place in Ann Arbor that doesn't already have a page!
  • Add history of places (like the "What Was There" page)

Resources for Research

It's easy to make general suggestions like "add a fact" or "add a date of birth" to an ArborWiki page. But where can you find information that will help you actually do that? Here's an incomplete list of online resources.

Working Systematically

ArborWiki will never be finished. That is the nature of the project. But it is possible to break the work into lumps that can be finished.

For example, someone might define a "lump" as ensuring that a complete ArborWiki page exists for every Ann Arbor City Council Member in the 1922-23 edition of the Ann Arbor City Council. That's actually a pretty big lump.

But you can pick a smaller lump. Maybe you'll define your lump as just the three Ward 7 Council Members in the 1922-23 edition of the Ann Arbor City Council. (That's right, back then, Ann Arbor was divided into seven wards with three representatives each!)

If you think in terms of lumps, you wind up finishing a lot of work, even though the work as a whole will never end. 

Lumps also make it easy for you ask for help from other ArborWiki contributors. For example, what if you have an idea for a lump of ArborWiki work that you really want to see finished, but you don't think you can manage it on your own? If you describe it as lump of work, you might find that others will gladly lend a hand.

Just suggesting a lump of ArborWiki work is a contribution to ArborWiki itself!

Lumps of Work 

Please add lumps of work to this list if you'd  like to see them finished. As they're completed, they'll get crossed off the list.

Analyze Things

Create/Populate Membership Tables

Places Along Bus Routes

  • Places along each of AAATA's bus routes should have pages, with map data, and tags for the bus route [This is a mega-lump that should be broken down into one lump per route]
Edit tags