Real name: Dr Martin Poulter
he/him
Email: infobomb gmail.com
Location:
Bristol , UK
I'm a member of
Wikimedia UK We are a group of local Wikimedians helping to create "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge ". Love Wikimedia? Live in the UK?
Donate ,
Volunteer , and
Get Involved !
This user has been editing Wikipedia for more than
15 years (since 2005).
35% This user has been a Wikipedian for 35.4% of their life.
This user contributes to
Wikidata , the free knowledge base.
This user is interested in helping with
GLAM projects.
This user is interested in
open access to research literature.
ANAL 4 This user advocates good grammar usage.
This is why we do this (YouTube video: just fifty seconds) |
And so is this (lots of text if you have the time)
It's important to realise that our mission is not to make a website, but to share knowledge, freely available for reuse.
We need to be kind. This is a higher calling than civility, and entirely compatible with achieving our goals.
All in all, I think what we do actually matters. We change the world. One wiki-edit at a time.
On 9 July 2016 I was named by
Wikimedia UK as
UK Wikimedian of the Year 2016 .
On 10 July 2021 I was made Honourary Member of Wikimedia UK recognising my work for the charity.
Paid editing
From October 2023 onwards, I am doing occasional work for the
Centre for Resilience and Sustainable Development at the University of Cambridge , some of which involves wiki editing.
From August 2021 onwards, I am employed by the scholar
Waqas Ahmed on a project improving articles relating to interdisciplinarity and cognitive flexibility.
From 13 February 2020 onwards, I am employed by the
Khalili Collections /
Khalili Foundation as a Wikimedian In Residence . The project page is at
WP:GLAM/Khalili .
During 2022, I was employed for two days as a Wikipedia consultant by the
Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford which included writing an improved version of their Wikipedia article. I proposed the changes on the Talk page and got permission from a reviewer to implement them.
From 25 October 2016 to 31 October 2019, I was employed as the
Wikimedian In Residence at the University of Oxford , based at the Bodleian Libraries. This was mainly a role that involves training staff within the university and sharing images and data from research projects. The latter part of the project was focused on Wikidata and has a
separate project page .
On 4, 5, and 18 May 2016, I worked with the
Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford on a paid project to improve Wikipedia articles about Voltaire's works. When the edits related to the Foundation directly, I proposed them on Talk pages rather than editing in mainspace.
From April 2015 to March 2016, I was the Wikimedian In Residence at the
Bodleian Libraries, Oxford . The project page is at
Wikipedia:GLAM/Bodleian .
From June 2013 to April 2014, I was the
Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador . I used a separate account,
User:MartinPoulter_Jisc for the bulk of that work.
Qualifications and approach
My main interest is in promoting critical and scientific thinking. I am a logician by background, but since my doctorate I have been expanding my expertise to include
cognitive and
social psychology .
I'm an
Integrationist : one of the reasons WP has millions of articles is that there are sometimes five different articles on the same topic.
Training and outreach
I am an accredited Lead Trainer for Wikimedia UK.
Writing and interviews about Wikipedia
Guest article for Cultural Content Substack:
"Reaching millions of readers through Wikipedia" , 4 April 2024
Blog post:
"Three ways to make links between collections" , 4 May 2023
Podcast interview:
"The open knowledge revolution: contributing to the global commons" for the Research Culture Uncovered podcast, University of Leeds, 29 March 2023
Signpost guest article:
Study examines cultural leanings of Wikimedia projects' visual art coverage , 4 February 2023 (with Waqas Ahmed)
Wiki Playtime Blog:
"Historical people and modern collections: a Wikidata exploration" February 2022
Blog post:
"Manuscripts on Wikidata: the state of the art?" October 2021
"Representation of Non-Western Cultural Knowledge on Wikipedia: The Case of the Visual Arts." Digital Studies 2023 (with Waqas Ahmed) Final version DOI:
https://doi.org/10.16995/dscn.8078 (2021 Preprint DOI
10.20944/preprints202104.0770.v1 )
UKSG Insights
"Wikimedia and universities: contributing to the global commons in the Age of Disinformation" (with Nick Sheppard) DOI 10.1629/uksg.509 , April 2020
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
Welcome Japan Search to the web of Linked Open Data , May 2019
"The hyper-engaged volunteers helping Oxford GLAM" Published on the University of Oxford GLAM Digital Strategy site, May 2019
Wikimedia UK blog:
"A call to action: Wikidata-fy your Commons photos" , March 2019
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"What Wikidata offers Oxford’s GLAM Digital Strategy" , March 2019
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Build your own Digital Bodleian with IIIF and SPARQL" , March 2019
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Making Wikidata visible" , January 2019, republished by Wikimedia France as
"Rendre Wikidata Visible"
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Detailed depictions with IIIF, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons" , December 2018
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Wikidata and GLAM catalogues: another round-up" , October 2018
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"A global collection of astrolabes in linked open data" , August 2018
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Wikidata and GLAM catalogues: a round-up" , July 2018
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Translating a blog post into structured data" , May 2018
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Some ways Wikidata can improve search and discovery" , February 2018
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"A Reconciliation Recipe for Wikidata" , February 2018
Oxford IT Innovation Challenges blog:
"Embedding Innovative use of Wikimedia across the University" , January 2018
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Deletion is not the end: making an academic article stick on Wikipedia" , January 2018
"Bringing the Crowd into the Library" , chapter in DIY digitization: The Informal Uses of Digital Photography in Curating and Researching Special Collections edited by Madsen, Siefring and Wakelin
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Semantic Data and the Stories we're not Telling" , November 2017
Women In German Studies blog:
"Wikimedia Guide: How to Curate Content on Wikimedia" , October 2017
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Creating Wikipedia articles from research data" , October 2017
Oxford Open Access Blog:
"Extending the reach of a journal with Journal-to-Wiki publishing" , October 2017
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Turning a historical book into a data set" , October 2017
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Reconciling database identifiers with Wikidata" , October 2017
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Report from Wikimania" , September 2017
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
"People of the Enlightenment: an opportunity for Wikipedians" , September 2017
Wiki Playtime blog:
"Bridging Real and Fictional Worlds" , September 2017
(I'm quoted extensively in) George Cooban (2017) "Should archivists edit Wikipedia, and if so how?" Archives and Records
DOI:10.1080/23257962.2017.1338561 Open Access version:
DOI:10.5281/zenodo.1092773
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"A step forward in the sharing of open data about theses" , July 2017
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Resource discovery and Wikidata" , June 2017
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
"Wacky Wiki Races!" , June 2017
Short interview in
Work in Progress (podcast), episode 26 , May 2017
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Publicising a historic event in Wikipedia" , May 2017
Bodleian Digital Library blog:
"Wikimedia for Public Engagement" , March 2017
Wiki Playtime blog:
"Wikidata for winners (in Economics)" , March 2017
Guest post for Voltaire Foundation blog:
"If Voltaire had used Wikipedia…" , February 2017
Wiki Playtime blog:
"Historical intellectual connections" , February 2017
Wiki Playtime blog:
"Probing Parliament(s) with Wikidata" , February 2017
Guest post for Oxford University Museums Partnership blog, "Wikidata: the new hub for cultural heritage", January 2017
(Archived)
Guest post for Academic IT Services Blog at University of Oxford:
"Learners as creators: student work on Wikipedia" , December 2016
Interviewed by Wikimedia Blog:
'Histropedia: “The power of data visualisation combined with free knowledge”' , October 2016
Essay for Free Speech Debate :
"Wikipedia at 15: The sum of human knowledge?" , October 2016
Guest post for Bodleian Libraries' 23 Things for Research blog:
"Do try this at home: explorations in Open Knowledge" , February 2016
Article for Economics Network Newsletter ,
"Economics on Wikipedia" , January 2016
Guest post for Open Access at Oxford blog:
Wikipedia and Open Access: making research as useful as it can be , January 2016
Double-page article for CILIP Update
"Shiver-inducing contacts with the past" , November 2015, pp. 42-43 Librarians start here
Interviewed by Ars Technica :
“WikiGate” raises questions about Wikipedia’s commitment to open access , September 2015
Interviewed by Nature News & Comment :
"Wikipedians reach out to academics" , September 2015
Republished in Scientific American :
Wikipedia Editors Woo Scientists to Improve Content Quality
Translated into French for LeDevoir :
"Wikipedia courtise les scientifiques" , September 2015
Adapted into Italian by Rossella Grasso for la Repubblica :
"Il popolo di Wikipedia agli scienziati: 'Aiutateci, saremo più autorevoli'" , September 2015
Adapted into Chinese by Kayue for The News Lens :
維基百科編輯與科學家合作 提升條目質素 ("Wikipedia editors collaborate with scientists to improve article quality") , September 2015
Summarised in Greek for News.gr :
"Η Wikipedia ζητάει από επιστήμονες να μην τη σνομπάρουν" , September 2015
Summarised in Italian by Matteo Acitelli for fanpage.it :
"Wikipedia, gli utenti chiedono supporto agli scienziati" , September 2015
Quoted in Library Journal Info-docket :
"Wikipedians Reach Out to Academics at London Meeting" , September 2015
Adapted by Andrea Ford for Stanford Medicine SCOPE :
"Wikipedia calls for more scientists to participate" , September 2015
Adapted by Yasmin Tayag for Inverse :
"Wikipedia Editors ask Scientists to Factcheck Academic Content" , September 2015
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
Wikipedia and Science: a round-up , August 2015
Guest post for Open Education Working Group blog:
"Wikibooks version of Open Education Handbook" , December 2014
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
Using Wikipedia to open up Science , October 2014
Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador blog:
Lessons learned from the Jisc/ Wikimedia UK partnership , September 2014
Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador blog:
The Jisc/Wikimedia UK partnership in facts and figures , August 2014
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
Wikimedia at the heart of open education (report from OER '14 Conference), July 2014
Guest post for Jisc blog and Wikimedia UK blog:
Lets's get serious about Wikipedia , July 2014
Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador blog:
Publishing scholarly papers with, and on, Wikipedia , March 2014, republished by the LSE Impact Blog
Guest post for
CILIP blog:
3 ways to use Wikipedia as an education tool , March 2014
Article for Jisc Involve :
Ten ways educators can use Wikipedia , March 2014 Educators start here
Jisc infoKit:
Crowdsourcing: the wiki way of working , February 2014 Managers start here
Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador blog:
One sentence on Wikipedia: a microcosm of information literacy , February 2014, republished by Wikimedia UK
Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador blog:
Telling the stories of rural England with Wikipedia , January 2014, republished by Wikimedia UK
Guest post for Jisc Digitisation and Content Programme blog:
What Wikimedia can do for digitised content , December 2013
Guest post for Oxford University's "23 Things for Research" blog:
Wikipedia: learning by sharing knowledge , October 2013
Interview, along with Wikiproject Psychology colleagues, published in The Signpost' s Wikiproject Report as
"Writing on the Frontier"
Interview for Times Higher Education web site (not paper publication) published as
"Wikipedia contributors 'should be proud'" , June 2013
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
Open Educational Resources – Some reflections on OER ’13 , April 2013
Interview for The Psychologist , published as
"Improving Wikipedia articles" , April 2013 (scroll about 3/4 of the way down that page)
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
Researchers: are you Wikipedia-compatible? , March 2013
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
Learning and Teaching in the age of Wikipedia , March 2013
Guest post for LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog:
Writing for Wikipedia has forced me into good scholarly habits and accessible writing , October 2012 Researchers start here
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
Bringing Evidence-Based Medicine to the World , October 2012 Health professionals start here
Interview in Times Higher Education , published as
"Delete the Wiki worries and get close to the edit" , 20 September 2012
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
EduWiki 2012: Wikipedia as an educational resource, now and in the future , June 2012
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
Doctors use, but don't totally rely on, Wikipedia , April 2012
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
Sausages and Scholarship: Wikipedia and Digital Literacy , November 2011
(with Mike Peel) Feature article in Physics World ,
Physics on Wikipedia , September 2011
Now on Wikisource!
Guest post for Wikimedia UK blog:
Six unorthodox ways to use Wikipedia , June 2011 Look! A listicle!
Interview with TheNextWeb.com, published as
"Wikimedia UK to Hire Full-Time Staff, Aims to Increase Content Quality on Wikipedia" , 19 April 2011
Interviewed by The Times for
"Cancer Research UK to edit information on Wikipedia" ,
(archive link) published as part of
a feature article about the public’s use of Wikipedia and other online sources to learn about cancer , 4 April 2011
A guest post on the Intute blog from when I was just starting to "get" Wikipedia:
Voluntary work for an obscure educational charity , December 2009. Intute (RIP) was a publicly-funded web portal for academic research, teaching and learning.
Areas of activity
I only rarely create new articles, usually in an attempt to counter systemic bias:
Human bias and error (Psychology)
Confirmation bias : This article was actually misleading in August 2009, when I began a total rewrite. I took it to Featured Article status (and the Wikipedia front page) in July 2010.
Heuristics in judgment and decision making : A high-importance new article, on a topic that's central to behavioral economics and to a lot of psychology, that I'm going to take as far up the quality scale as I can.
Illusion of control : I've done some rewording here but there is a lot more that could be done.
Articles created:
Introspection illusion ,
Adaptive unconscious ,
Mistakes were made (but not by me) (non-fiction book),
Attribute substitution ,
Illusory superiority (since rewritten by a student project),
The Halo Effect (business book) ,
Set (psychology)
Biographies of living persons:
Elliot Aronson ,
Carol Tavris ,
Daniel Wegner : added multiple reliable third-party refs to fix sourcing problems
Perception : major overhaul of this centrally important article, which was in a dire state.
Relevant WikiProject:
WP:PSYCHOLOGY
(Talk)
Scientology/Dianetics
I run a site/ media archive about Scientology, from a critical perspective, which I won't link here because it contains potential
WP:COPYVIO material. My opinions about the topic, I keep to my own site. Here on WP, I'm interested in raising the quality of certain articles:
Purification Rundown and
New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project : two interlinked articles that I've taken from quite a dire status to being hopefully quite complete. On 4 March 2011, the latter was promoted to Good Article.
Xenu : I was very active in making improvements to this article when it was put up for Featured Article Review, which it passed on 5 December 2008.
Disconnection : A large proportion of the content of this page is due to me. At the moment it's a large unstructured stream of instances, which could benefit from better structure.
Scientology in the United Kingdom : total rewrite, expanding it from 6K to 66K. Not yet a comprehensive article, but more to come
I helped the
L. Ron Hubbard article through the candidacy process to get to Featured Article status, which it passed on 5 March 2011.
Non-fiction book:
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health : I've expanded this article and added in a variety of sources.
Non-fiction book:
Bare-faced Messiah : I was a major contributor to this article which, after further major improvements by
User:Prioryman , passed Good Article review.
Relevant WikiProject:
Scientology
(Talk)
Reviewing
I've been
GA Reviewer or Peer Reviewer for:
Nobel Prize ,
A Journey ,
Homosexuals Anonymous ,
Body schema ,
Peter Hitchens ,
Requiem for a Species ,
Social loafing ,
Stereotype threat
Reviewed for
DYK :
Shandilya Upanishad ,
Thomas Gilovich ,
Ismail al-Atrash ,
Yoko Kawahara ,
Anna Rügerin ,
William Smith (antiquary) /
The Annals of University College (double nomination),
Angélique Duchemin ,
Sato Project ,
Lucien Sève ,
The Lincoln Project ,
Meine engen Grenzen ,
Man Down (Holby City) ,
Pippa Wicks ,
Robert Lee Durham ,
Origins of the Hermit Brothers of the Order of Saint Augustine and Their True Establishment Before the Great Lateran Council ,
Dawa Dem ,
Joseph Clark (painter) ,
Antoinette Dinga Dzondo ,
If We Must Die ,
Open university ,
John W. Tyler ,
Special motion to strike ,
Arden Warner ,
Apple worker organizations ,
Jaz Brisack ,
WEMG (Tennessee) ,
Lynching of Deborah Yakubu ,
Kamikaze Hearts (film) ,
Fionula Brennan ,
Joseph (art model) ,
Phoenician sanctuary of Kharayeb ,
Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount ,
Al Qarara Cultural Museum ,
Sophia, a Person of Quality ,
Waste Siege
Barnstars
Awarded
The Real Life Barnstar to
User:Steve virgin ,
User:HenryScow ,
User:Jukesie ,
User:Panyd ,
User:RexxS ,
User:HJ Mitchell ,
User:Sharkli ,
User:EdSaperia ,
User:Fnorman-london , and
User:Stellawisdom .
The
Psychology Barnstar to
User:Lova Falk ,
User:Fainites ,
User:Psy3330 W10 ,
User:Jacobisq ,
User:Morton Shumway ,
User:Psyc3330 Prof ,
User:Psyc3330 w11 ,
User:Penbat and
User:Haley love .
The Original Barnstar to
User:Helatrobus .
Received
The
Xenu Barnstar
For your amazing work on the
Xenu article. Thank you for helping to keep it at the highest quality rating on the English Wikipedia -
Featured Article quality status.
Cirt (
talk ) 03:00, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
The Original Barnstar
Well done with your successful work on
confirmation bias .
hamiltonstone (
talk ) 11:42, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the article on Khalili Collection of Japanese Art, lovely job! †
Encyclopædius 09:54, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
The Editor's Barnstar
I, --
Cirt (
talk ), award The Editor's Barnstar to MartinPoulter, for excellent efforts contributing to bringing the article
L. Ron Hubbard to
Featured Article quality status . Well done! Wikipedia is enhanced and the community benefits from your successful efforts to improve the quality of articles on this project. Cheers, --
Cirt (
talk ) 16:35, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
The Featured Article Medal
By the authority vested in me by myself it gives me great pleasure to present you with this special, very exclusive award created just for we few, we happy few, this band of brothers, who have shed sweat, tears and probably blood, in order to be able to proudly claim "I too have taken an article to Featured status".
Gog the Mild (
talk ) 10:54, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
The Real-Life Barnstar
For contributions to and organisation of various Wikimedia events in the UK —
Rod
talk 21:14, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, Martin, for doing the great presentation at Worldcon in London. I was nice to meet you there. Sydney Poore/
FloNight
♥♥♥♥ 06:19, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
For doing an excellent job explaining the Wikimedia community at:
https://slack.com/podcast/episode-26 .
Astinson (WMF) (
talk ) 22:29, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
Wikimedia in the UK
Links for Wikipedians interested in content related to the United Kingdom
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GLAM collaborations
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Sub-pages
Refs about calligrapher Amanat Khan Shirazi / ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq Amānat Khān:
Refs about "Heaven on Earth: Art from Islamic Lands" exhibition 2004
Refs about "Power and Protection: Islamic Art And The Supernatural" exhibition 2016
Refs about "Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk" exhibition at V&A museum
Refs about
Katrine Marçal book "Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?"
Refs about Morton book The Importance of being understood
Refs for social perception
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