Wikipedia training and development for the National Park Foundation
Challenge
Stakeholders at the National Park Foundation were struggling to understand how Wikipedia works, and felt the article did not accurately or clearly describe the foundation, its programs, or its partners. Overall, the content was out of date, poorly organized, and contained inaccurate information along with excessive details that were not encyclopedic.
Solution
Beutler Ink crafted bespoke training materials to educate stakeholders throughout the foundation on Wikipedia and its core content policies. After this, we worked with the foundation to draft a new version of the article that was reorganized to improve flow, correct inaccuracies, add recent history, and remove extraneous information.
45%
Added hundreds of words on significant programs, projects, and legislative events not previously covered at all for a net change of +45%.
Our Process
Beutler Ink and the National Park Foundation began with a goal of making significant changes to the article, which had become out of date, was missing recent history, and included inaccurate information on some of the organization’s programs along with excessive details on irrelevant topics. Our team began researching opportunities to reorganize and improve the page and quickly discovered a significant obstacle: the foundation’s similar name to the National Park Service resulted in confusing news coverage that did not always clearly identify the subject.
Through careful review, our strategy team was able to find sources to support significant updates and expansions to the article. Once we’d settled on a new draft with the client, we coached a member of their team through the process of suggesting the desired changes on Wikipedia, including providing research and analysis of relevant content policies and guidelines to support their edit requests.
Our efforts were successful, and a volunteer editor gave the National Park Foundation representative an award for the quality of their contributions and commitment to following Wikipedia’s conflict-of-interest rules.
Before & After
Before we reorganized and rewrote this page, the Goals and projects section was all the way at the bottom, yet it contained some of the most interesting history. At the time, the History section was short and uninformative. Through our diligent work, we were able to incorporate details about significant projects into History, including creating a separate section on their work preserving Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s properties.
