Consider looking for related projects for help or ask at the Teahouse. If you are not currently a project participant and wish to help you may still participate in the project. This status should be changed if collaborative activity resumes.
Welcome to WikiProject Sanitation. We are a group of Wikipedians interested in improving Wikipedia's coverage of sanitation related topics. This project was started in December 2014. The WikiProject Sanitation aims to manage and help in curation of Wikipedia's article that touch on sanitation-related topics. We edit articles and discuss all manner of issues on our talk page.
The WikiProject Sanitation seeks to provide up-to-date information to the general public and to people working in the WASH sector or related sectors. Topics that this project aims to improve relate to sanitation in the broadest sense: they include for example topics in the field of health, infrastructure and international development.
As with all Wikipedia articles we want to provide information to people which they can all read, appreciate, and respect, free of charge.
The project may cover sanitation issues around the world; however special emphasis is given to sanitation issues in developing countries and countries in transition as the need for improvements is greatest there. As can be seen by the list of articles below, articles of interest to this project range from purely sanitation-related topics (like sanitation, toilet) to articles that are more on the public health and medical side (like neglected tropical disease, diarrhea, helminthiasis), articles in the field of natural sciences (like groundwater pollution) and so forth.
The objectives of this WikiProject Sanitation are to:
Improve sanitation related articles on Wikipedia
Add links to sanitation issues into articles where such links are so far omitted (for example article on malnutrition)
Ensure that the lead paragraph of articles are written in basic, clear English such that they are understandable to as wide an audience as possible and can easily be translated into other languages as part of WikiProject Medicine Translation Taskforce
Ensure people working in other sectors (medical, humanitarian organisations, public health, environment, agriculture) can find clear, up to date information about sanitation topics
What is a WikiProject? A WikiProject is a group of contributors who want to work together to improve Wikipedia. These groups often focus on a specific topic area, a specific location or a specific kind of task (for example, checking newly created pages). The English Wikipedia currently has over 2,000 WikiProjects, each with varying levels of activity. A WikiProject's pages are not used for writing encyclopedia articles directly, but as resources to help coordinate and organize the group's efforts at creating and improving articles. Further information on WikiProjects is here.
The table to the right provides an overview of the Wikipedia articles that we deem part of this Wikiproject.
To view the article pages, you need to click on the column headers (top, high, mid, low importance) or row labels (e.g. level B, C, start, stub quality). This takes you to a new page where the articles are listed alphabetically.
Alternatively, you can access the articles with these links, which link you to the talk pages of the articles (from the article's talk page, click at the top left on "article" to then get to the article):
You can access the articles grouped by their degree of completion or quality (from the article's talk page, click at the top left on "article" to then get to the article):
To tag an article as sanitation related you need to add the following code to the talk pages of that article articles (here for the example of class being "start" and importance being "low"): {{WikiProject Sanitation|class=start|importance=low}}. If the talk page has more than two projects already then you should use the collapsed version to save space. {{WikiProjectBannerShell|1={{WikiProject Sanitation|class=B|importance=high}}}}.
Here is another tool that can be used for this purpose: Massviews Analysis
You can run it for all the articles in the category "Sanitation": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Sanitation
(however, this is not identical with the articles tagged with this WikiProject Sanitation)
The table below shows all articles that have been tagged with this WikiProject by thematic area (please do not add a new articles to this table unless you have tagged it with the WikiProject Sanitation on its talk page, except for terms in the last column which are for articles yet to be created):
If you like the idea of this Wiki Project, then please become a member. All you have to do is to add yourself to the end of the list. For example if your user name is Mary13 then you would add the following to the end of the list (use the "edit source" button which you see next to the heading "Members" for this section):
# {{User|IsaacNyameke}}
This will look like this after you have saved your edit:
You can also show your support by adding the Project's "user box" on your user page. If you don't have a Wikipedia login yet, then do create one, as that makes it much easier to discuss articles, ask questions about edits etc.
You can then add this template {{User WikiProject Sanitation}} to your userpage. That code can be pasted in if you use the source editor, not VisualEditor. You can also add the template in VisualEditor by going to the "Insert" menu and inserting a template with that name. When you save the page, the result will look like this:
If you don't like userboxes, you can also add [[:Category:WikiProject Sanitation participants]] to your user page.
Start editing
[edit]A video describing Editing Wikipedia for medical content (WikiProject Medicine)
Would you like to help, but you're not really quite sure what to do? WikiProject sanitation pages will have many opportunities for improvement (even this page, which you can edit). You don't need to be an expert.
Wikipedia is a work in progress, so nearly all articles could use improvement. A list of articles that have been tagged so far as sanitation-related and which could use improvement is provided via the table shown above.
When Wikipedia started it only had the source editor (tab "Edit source"). As of April 2015, a visual editor (tab "Edit") is available by default to users.
If you can't see both tabs then you need to adjust your Wikipedia Preferences by clicking on "Preferences" at the top right, then click on "Editing" and at the pull-down menu next to "Editing mode" select "show me both editor tabs". This will let you choose between the Source Editor ("Edit source") and the Visual Editor ("Edit").
When should I use which editor?
Use the source editor (tab “Edit source”) when you want to:
copy content - including references - from one Wikipedia article to another
have full control about how the page looks
add special things like tags on talk pages (note the talk pages only have the source editor anyhow)
reduce the amount of edit conflicts when working on the article together with another person (as it locks only the section but not the entire page)
enjoy the feeling of working with source code
Use the visual editor (tab “Edit”) when you:
want to correct typos and minor wording changes
want to add images to the article using the Insert > Media button at the top of the page in the edit mode
are working on an article pretty much alone, without other people wanting to edit it at the same time (as the entire page gets locked)
Please consult the Style advice for sanitation-related articles for advice on editing and formatting articles related to sanitation. Giving all sanitation articles a similar, consistent structure and style helps readers to quickly find what they are looking for.
Choose something easy from the list below and see for yourself how easy it is. Pick the low hanging fruit, and just get started.
We have also set up a detailed list of options on how to help on the events page of our Wikipedia edit-a-thon on 19-21 March 2017, see here.
Some topics aren't covered accurately or were written before additional research was available. See what you can do to:
Correct and improve existing content. Is the content accurate? complete? out-dated?
Are there enough references? Wikipedia suggests one reference after the period at the end of each sentence.
Cite reliable references such as journal publications, documents in the SuSanA library, publications by UN bodies, the World Bank or the like. Even newspaper articles may qualify. Open access content is preferable.
Add internal links to existing Wikipedia articles (either as wikilinks in the article itself or in the "See also" section, being careful to follow Wikipedia guidelines).
The content may be fine in terms of accuracy, brevity and clarity. However, if there aren't enough references to back up assertions being made, the article needs your help.
Add citations that will support assertions made.
If you can't find a citation yet think the statement is probably correct, you can add a "citation needed" tag to flag this to other editors. To do so, simply add this to the end of the sentence while editing in the source editor: {{citation needed}}. After you save the change, it looks like this in the article: [citation needed]
Delete text that cannot be backed up from credible sources -- that's part of the job.
Pick an article that you care about and click on any reference to see if it would be considered "reliable". For example, a link to somebody's blog post or to a discussion forum is not reliable in Wikipedia terms.
You could search for and insert a better reference, or insert a "citation needed" note (see Point 5 above for explanation).
The Wikipedia explanation on how to add references (also called citations or sources) to Wikipedia is here: Citing sources. An even better one for beginners it this one: Referencing for beginners.
Click on Edit Source (this shows the source code for the whole page)
At the top of this page is a menu and the furthest option on the right is "Cite"
This then displays a menu on the top-left of templates and then you choose the one you want to use (cite journal, cite web etc)
You then get an additional box where you put in all the information you have about the reference and click insert. The reference should then appear with all the correct information.
If there is any likelihood that the reference may be used more than once in the article, you should give it an optional "refname" in the field "Ref name", for example Smith2013
If your document has an ISBN number or a DOI, then Method 1 is great because you can simply enter the ISBN number or the DOI and click on the search icon (magnifying glass). This will then fill in the other fields automatically in most cases. Another method is to use this template generator.
If you want to copy a reference from one Wikipedia article to another then you need to use the source editor.
The readability of many Wikipedia articles is low, meaning they are difficult to understand. Here are some examples how you can help to improve the situation:
Replace long words with short words whenever possible.
Reduce sentences to 15-20 words. Sometimes it's as simple as turning one long sentence into two short ones.
Reduce paragraphs to 5-6 lines. Readers skim over dense, non-stop text. Paragraph breaks offer white space and give readers a chance to breathe.
Consider converting passive voice to active voice.
A helpful tool is Hemingway App. It highlights long and complex sentences, passive voice verbs, and adverbs (which are often, but not always, unnecessary). It also provides some statistics and a grade-level reading score. It doesn't choke on jargon which is important. If you want to try it, then just copy your text, go to the website, and paste it into the middle of their webpage (as if to replace the description/instructions there).
What Wikipedia calls the "Lead" appears first--just before the table of contents and the first section of every article. Help to improve the lead section of Wikipedia articles.
The lead section (also known as the lead or introduction) of a Wikipedia article is the section before the table of contents and the first heading. The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents. The lead is supposed to summarise the article in four easy-to-understand paragraphs. More information about the lead is here.
Be aware that it's the content of the lead that gets used in digital assistants like Siri or Amazon’s Echo, or indeed Google’s own efforts to provide answers to questions using voice assistants, the Google Knowledge Graph, Google answer boxes and so on (source and more information here).
Some readers only want an overview. A good lead will inspire people to read more.
The lead should:
be like an "executive summary" for the article (similar to an abstract for a journal paper)
have up to 4 paragraphs (each paragraph no longer than 6 lines).
include hyperlinks for key words (so readers will click and go to other Wikipedia pages).
use short clear sentences of no more than 15-20 words.
achieve a Flesch readability score of 60-70.
You can assess the quality of the lead by looking at readability (using Flesch score and this website), the image and image caption used, and comprehensiveness.
An example of a good lead in terms of length is the one for pit latrine (although readability can still be improved!).
The official guide to adding images in Wikipedia is here.
There is also a short video about adding images available here.
A picture is worth a 1000 words. Adding images can greatly increase the value of Wikipedia articles. Many sanitation-related images already exist in Wikimedia Commons which is the image repository for Wikipedia. Here is what you need to know:
Adding an image from Wikimedia Commons to an article is very easy: Go to the article where you want to add an image; then click on "edit" at the top of the page (i.e. use the visual editor, not source editor); then "insert" (at the top, second row), then select "Media" from the drop down menu. You can now select from images that have been found, or add another keyword into the search field to find more images. Click on the image that you have selected, then click on "W - Use this file" at the top middle. Then copy the URL text to your Wikipedia article, e.g. [[File:Pharmaceutical personnel per 1,000 population, OWID.svg|thumb|Pharmaceutical personnel per 1,000 population, OWID]].
To add your own photo to a Wikipedia article, you have to first add it to Wikimedia Commons. To do so, click on "upload file" to the left of an article, then click on "Commons Wizard" in the left column of the table that appears. Follow the prompts from there.
Everything on Wikipedia comes under the open access licence CC BY SA and Wikipedia is very strict about copyright rules. All images have to be under the CC-BY SA or a more open licence, like CC-0.
Therefore, you can only use images that are either your own or those that have been released under this open access licence (CC BY SA). If the image is yet to be released under this licence, it can be done by e-mail to the person who owns the photo: "Are you willing to release this image under the open license CC BY SA? If so please respond yes and we will take care of the rest and make sure you get proper attribution". Once you receive the "yes" by e-mail you forward the e-mail trail to: permissions-commons@wikimedia.org . Another option is to use the online copyright release form which is accessible through the Wikimedia Commons image uploader.
Two more places to find sanitation images:
Choose from SuSanA’s flickr photostream. All of SuSanA's photos are already included in Wikimedia Commons (see here for further background and here). Therefore, you can simply add an image by finding it in Wikimedia Commons, usually by typing in the title of the photos into the search field in Wikimedia Commons.
Your own photos or those of colleagues or friends who have given you permission (see above). You can add them to Wikimedia Commons by clicking on "Upload file" to the left of the article. Alternatively, you can also upload them to Wikimedia Commons here. We recommend that you also add those photos to SuSanA’s flickr photostream because from there, photos are regularly (about once per year) transferred to Wikimedia Commons.
Plenty of people are working on articles in the English Wikipedia. The sanitation community of practice needs more content in other languages. French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi, Indonesian, Odia, Russian, Swahili, Urdu, Yoruba, Twi... all welcome here.
What sanitation-related pages do you want people in your home country to be able to read in their own language? You can see at the left of the article which other language versions already exist for that article.
Be a translator, please. You will make a lasting contribution to sanitation.
Check out this video on using the Wikipedia translator tool here
Another useful page for new translators, including translation guides for different languages, is here.
There are short videos available which explain how to use the translation tool on Wikipedia: Video 1, Video 2, Video in Spanish
It is fairly easy to translate in Wikipedia. After signing up as a user, tick Translation in the Beta Menu, then go in via the Contributions Menu. The program gives you a first draft of the text (which is not very good), but the important thing is that it maintains the links to the bibliography and tries to recreate the wiki links to words.
You can see at the left of the article which other language versions already exist for that article.
If you want to know how many Wikipedia articles exist already in lesser known languages check here.
Help us improve all sanitation-related articles by using the Manual of Style (Sanitation) which is explained here. Using standard headlines on all articles as much as possible makes it much easier for readers to access and absorb information quickly.
Use the Manual of Style for your work editing pages or creating pages.
Select specific articles and gently adapt them to the Manual of Style, particularly in regard to headings used.
If you plan to make major changes to an article, do explain your plans on the talk page of the article first. Then ideally wait a couple of days to see if there are any objections from other editors.
Update country-specific articles on "Water Supply and Sanitation"
Wouldn't it be great if the average user could find information about water supply and sanitation when they look up a country article in Wikipedia?
Add a subsection in "infrastructure" to a country article, where you mention some key fact about water supply and sanitation in that country (with references) and then create a link to the water supply and sanitation country article.
For inspiration check out the examples for Philippines here and China here.
Options for people with slow or intermittent internet access
Make a list of wording changes, citations to add, typos to fix, open sources images to add, etc. Then ask someone you know who has more reliable internet to make the changes on your list.
If you can't find someone to make those changes for you, email your list to posting@forum.susana.org and make the same request.
Another option: Work in WikiFundi which is an offline editable environment that provides a similar experience to editing Wikipedia online.
If you work in a university (or similar) environment consider setting up a student assignment to create or improve articles related to sanitation. Anyone considering using Wikipedia for student assignments would do well to read through the guidance at outreach:Education. There are a lot of resources available as well at the outreach:Education/Resources page, and anyone setting up a programme should make use of the meta:Programs & Events Dashboard to help organise the assignments. Means exist for putting organisers in touch with experienced Wikimedians, either locally or online.
If you put this: Template:Student on the talk page of a new editor who is a student, they get some helpful hints for student editors (set up by the Wikiproject Medicine).
If you are interested in learning more on how to use Wikipedia in teaching, have a look at the example courses listed below.
User Dianaceballos, a research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard University, USA)
Stay in touch. Put this page on your watchlist, and feel free to communicate on the talk page.
Recruit members. Assist in public relations and outreach by recruiting editors interested in medicine to contribute to Wikipedia (m:Wiki Project Med is a non-profit corporation that shares this goal). Invite good editors to join us. Personal messages are best when inviting Wikipedia editors.
Tag the talk pages of sanitation-related articles. Add {{WikiProject Sanitation|class=|importance=}} to the article's talk page and assess the article according to our assessment scale.
The following "work behind the scenes" tasks relate to the WikiProject Medicine and have not yet been adapted to the WikiProject Sanitation:
Writing good sanitation-related articles and trimming poorly cited article content can be hard work! Why not reward someone you've seen do some good work in the area? Any editor may present an award to any person as a reward for and public recognition of good work (we have yet to created awards for the WikiProject Sanitation but in the meantime we can use those of the Wikiproject Medicine).
Example: I could copy this barnstar onto the talk page of another user if that user has done good work on revising the page on sewage sludge.
The following applies to the WikiProject Medicine, but over time we may build up similar points for this project:
You could help with missing articles or redirects. You might even claim the trophy! You could help us come up with technical ideas/solutions for improving Wikipedia content at m:WikiProject Med/Tech
Add high-quality references. Correct and reliable references are vital. Adding references is easy with this tool (which is explained in detail here and also see step 5b of WP:MEDHOW for an alternate method). Just submit the PubMed ID, ISBN, or other identifier, and copy and paste the resulting output (xxxx) into the page between <ref> xxxxx </ref> Alternatively, if you use Internet ExplorerorFirefox (2.0+), then Wouterstomp's bookmarklet can automate this step from the PubMed abstract page.
When an abbreviation or acronym is first used, it should be spelled out and the abbreviation put in brackets behind the long version. For longer articles, a repeat of the long version of the abbreviation every now and again is helfpul.
We are not planning to develop our own glossary of terms for this WikiProject. For technical terms of the sanitation system we point you to the glossary of the Eawag-Sandec "Compendium of sanitation systems and technologies".[1]
The following is taken from WikiProject Medicine which is serving as inspiration for editing sanitation articles:
Guidelines and Policies
An introductory video about how to edit Wikipedia and medicine.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and has a distinct style that may take some time getting used to.
It is important that we use the best sources and that we give them due weight. Setting us apart from scientific papers we prefer secondary sources over primary sources. We'd rather cite a review article than an original trial.
To get you started and to explain why this is important we have a number of guides and guidelines:
[[File:New medical editor.ogv|thumb|thumbtime=2:59|right|320px|Welcome to Wikipedia and [[WP:MED|Wikiproject Medicine]]]] A video that can be transcluded onto the pages of new users.
Barnstar
{{subst:The Sanitation Barnstar|1=message ~~~~}}—awarded to editors who've made significant contributions to Sanitation-related articles.
Categories serve like overviews of groups of articles that are grouped together to find related articles more easily. The link to categories can be added to the end of an article. Relevant categories for this project include:
WikiProject guides
Directories and summaries
Culture and the arts
Geographical
History and society
Science, technology
Wikipedia assistance
