The 21st century has brought a wide range of technology that we can use to access the internet far from home or desk. This lets us edit Wikipedia anywhere we are. On the bus. On the train. In the waiting room. By the poolside. Even while away on vacation.
First came the laptop computer. Laptops vary in weight and ease to transport, but regardless, can be moved around between places without hooking and unhooking wires.
Then came the smartphone. All smartphones are easy to transport. But the tiny glass screen is hard to type on, and the ease of editing Wikipedia varies, being impossible on some. But this has improved over time.
And now there are tablet computers, most notably the iPad. Tablet computers have existed for some time, but the iPad has made them popular and provided a screen and keyboard as big as on a small laptop computer, all in a handy lightweight and much-imitated package.
The ability to edit anywhere may have increased Wikipedia editing altogether. The volume of editing has declined as Wikipedia has been more "written" and closer to "complete," but the increase to access in editing may counter this loss. There is no way to know for certain.
Some mobile devices, including most smartphones, allow editing Wikipedia (see Wikipedia:Mobile access for more details). This enables many people to use otherwise wasted time to edit or even compose new articles while on the go. This convenience, however, comes with important limitations, and the edits may not be perfect.
Contents
Limitations
Common limitations include:
- Most devices do not have the copy-paste feature, or only one that works clumsily. This makes it impossible or difficult to place references or templates on a page.
- Many mobile devices do not allow for all types of characters to be inputted.
- While many devices contain cameras, sometimes it can't upload an image onto Wikipedia.
- On mobile devices, since there is no mouse, and some may not have the kind of touch screen interface that allows clicking on toolbar icons. Some formatting may be obtained by entering certain characters known to the editor; others may not be possible.
- Few mobile devices allow multiple windows to be open simultaneously. While many allow back-and-forth navigation, it is impossible to open a second Wikipedia window to perform various functions, like checking for links.
- Frequent use of keyboards on mobile devices can be extremely wearing on the hands. The risk of Blackberry Thumb is high. Therefore, it is recommended to limit such usage, and reserve large editing projects for desktop or laptop computers.
- Some mobile devices do not allow users to sign in, and only IP edits can be made. On such devices, articles cannot be created, and protected pages cannot be edited.
- Reading may also be more difficult, especially long articles or those with charts or other complications.
- You may not be able to see what you're typing.
Edits you may want to do on your mobile device
Although most editing can wait until you are at your regular computer, there are some edits that you may want to do on your mobile device:
- Deletion – if a deletion nomination occurs to an article that you are interested in keeping, you may wish to comment as soon as possible. Because there is a tendency for others to follow the leader and for the earlier comments to strongly influence the outcome, being the "early bird to get the worm" is important.
- Things you may forget – If you remember some small detail while you have your smartphone but will likely forget it later, and the edit is small, this is a good time to make the edit.
Issues
IP editing
Anonymous editing, also known as IP editing, produces a long number tying the edit to other contributions. IP edits make up a significant percentage of edits, but provide no way to know whether the same person made all these edits, especially if some time has passed between them.
An IP editor who "gets around" may produce edits under a lot of different IP addresses and leave no way of tracing them all to a single person. This is especially the case in one who uses wi-fi to connect in many places. For one who uses a 3G connection, all the edits may appear to come from one or two IP ranges.
Of course, this is not a major problem when editing is done in good faith. When it is disruptive, the "mobile vandal" becomes a problem.
Uploading
With the advent of iOS 6, it is now possible to upload an image to Wikipedia with any iOS device (iPhones and iPads). Android devices have long been able to do this. The user must first log-in using the Desktop view, or may use the Commons Upload app.
References
Some smartphones lack the ability to copy-paste (though Apple devices with iOS 3 or newer, and many other devices, can). This makes it hard to include references in an article.
If you make an edit or create an article and plan to add sources later, try to leave a note on the discussion page or in hidden text to let others know of your intentions. This may not be accepted by all, but at least if others know of your plans, your edit may stick.
Slowness
Editing from a phone is slow. Editing text, cut and pasting - even reading what is already on the page is much slower. Do small regular edits to reduce edit conflicts.
Scrolling
Scrolling is common in the edit window. To reduce the amount of scrolling required, log in and enlarge the editing window in your preferences. The setting is found in the 'Editing' tab of 'Preferences', labeled 'Set size of editing window'. Set the number of Rows to a large amount such as 80.
Wikipedia apps
On many devices, apps for Wikipedia are available that enable the reading of the most recent version of any article in the presence of an internet connection. Some of these enable both reading and editing; others reading only.
Wapedia
Wapedia is a version of Wikipedia that appears on mobile devices allowing reading and sometimes editing of articles.