Wikipedia:Meetup/SDGs/Communication of environment SDGs

Project title: Improving communication of climate change knowledge through Wikipedia

This is the website for a Wikipedia communications project that runs from mid 2022 to mid 2024. The work includes collaborations between Wikipedia editors and content experts from a range of universities and institutions.

The project selects relevant Wikipedia articles dealing with climate change topics that have significant daily pageviews and at the same time require updating and improvement in content and quality. The project team scores the quality of these Wikipedia articles at the start and at the end of the project using ten quality parameters. We also interact with published experts who advise us on necessary content edits. The core project team is made up of academics who have scientific and climate change expertise and also know how to edit Wikipedia.

This project is important because there are gaps between what various stakeholder groups find on the internet and the published scientific work on climate change-related topics. That much of the specialized literature containing critical knowledge is unavailable to the informed public is a handicap in the dissemination of climate change information. Wikipedia articles usually appear at the top of internet search results but are incomplete in many areas. Wikipedia therefore has a key role in helping promote climate change knowledge and the improvement of the key articles making use of available scientific expertise is necessary.

Anyone with an interest in Wikipedia editing on climate change topics is welcome to participate. This project follows the Friendly Space policy and the Code of conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces.

The project is administered by Stockholm Environment Institute and funded by Formas, a Swedish government research council for sustainable development.

The previous Phase 1 of the project (2020 to 2022) had the title "Communication of SDG-related research knowledge in water and sanitation (SDG 6), climate action (SDG 13) and life below water (SDG 14) in Wikipedia while engaging professional networks".

Basic project facts (Phase 2)

Start: 1 Aug 2022
End: 31 July 2024
Project title: "Phase 2 - Communicating current SDG 13 knowledge through Wikipedia - a collaboration between Wikipedia editors and content experts at SEI, IPCC, UNFCCC and other organisations"
Administrating organisation: Stockholm Environment Institute
Funder: Formas - a Swedish government research council for sustainable development and a state authority under the Swedish Ministry of the Environment. Formas also has funds and assignments from the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
Wiki projects in focus: English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons

Team members:

Arno Rosemarin (User:ASRASR): project manager, senior scientist at Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden
Richard Taylor (User:Richarit): researcher at Stockholm Environment Institute
Brenda Ochola (User:Bradextw): communications officer at Stockholm Environment Institute
Selorm Kugbega (User:Selormkobla): communications officer at Stockholm Environment Institute
Elisabeth von Muench (User:EMsmile): freelancer, Germany
Jonathan Lynn (User:Jonathanlynn): freelance consultant in France, formerly IPCC secretariat
David Tetta (User:Dtetta): freelance consultant in the United States, formerly USEPA
Euphemia Uwandu (User:Ptinphusmia), environmental manager and biologist, freelancer, volunteer on this project

Content experts

List of names (Phase 2)

We had the following content experts who helped us with improving the Wikipedia articles in Phase 2:

Darold Batzer, University of Georgia, United States (Wikipedia article: Wetland)
Magnus Benzie, Stockholm Environment Institute, United Kingdom (Climate change adaptation, Climate risk)
Christian Berg (User:Seemountain), Clausthal University of Technology, Germany (Carbon footprint)
Kevin Blanchard, DRR Dynamics (natural disaster)
Derik Broekhoff, Stockholm Environment Institute, United States Carbon accounting, Carbon offsets and credits)
Kristie L. Ebi, University of Washington, United States (Effects of climate change on human health)
Thian Y Gan, University of Alberta, Canada (Effects of climate change on the water cycle)
Michael Gillenwater, Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, United States (Carbon accounting, Carbon offsets and credits)
Elisabeth Gilmore, Carleton University, Canada (economics of climate change)
Michael Grubb, University College London, United Kingdom (carbon tax)
Tim Jickells, University of East Anglia, UK (Ocean, ocean deoxygenation, ocean stratification, ocean temperature, ocean heat content)
Gabriella Kitch, NOAA Ocean Acidification Program, United States (Ocean acidification); together with Abed El Rahman Hassoun (GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel), Richard Feely (NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory), Libby Jewett (NOAA Ocean Acidification program)
Paul O'Hare, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK (disaster risk reduction, natural disaster)
Vivienne Reiner, University of Sydney, Australia (Carbon footprint)
Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research and University of Auckland, New Zealand (effects of climate change, effects of climate change on the water cycle)

Methods of collaboration

The content experts helped us greatly by revising existing texts (sometimes cutting out content or moving content to sub-articles), proposing new content, proposing a new structure, adding new references, proposing new images.

Almost all of the content experts provided their comments either in the form of marked-up Word documents or during video interviews with shared screens. Only very few content experts (two or three) made edits directly in Wikipedia. Two people took up Wikipedia logins which they used to write on talk pages. Only very few experts were able to provide new images to us (often, the requirement of being open access was a problem for them).

Quality scoring system for Phase 2

We have changed our quality scoring system a bit compared to Phase 1. The main changes are:

Reduced number of parameters from 10 to 6. Should make it easier to work with all the data later (was very time consuming in Phase 1 to analyse all 10 parameters for everything).
Trying to stay closer to the Wikipedia quality parameters for Good Articles and Featured Articles.

Small disadvantage: scores for individual parameters can no longer be directly compared between Phase 2 and Phase 1 (except for readability and the parameter about comprehensiveness)

See here our current scoring system.

In a nutshell, for the main text we use these six quality parameters (M is machine assessment, E is expert assessment):

M1 - Reading ease score (determined with Web-FX)
E1 – Comprehensiveness and factual accuracy and due weight for topics (no copyright infrinfements)
E2 – References & Verifiability: quality of references and being up to date and formatted consistently
E3 – Images and other media (quality and quantity)
E4 - Formatting and adherences to style guide and logical structure (not too many quotes, not written like a literature review)
E5 – Appropriate level of focus compared to sub-articles, correct length, interlinking with sub-articles

We also analyse the lead separately and use these four parameters:

L-M1 - Reading ease score (determined with Web-FX)
L-M2 - Length
L-E1 - Quality of summary
L-E2 - Images

Further details is available here

Selection of Wikipedia articles for Phase 2

Criteria for selection of articles (Phase 2)

The criteria for inclusion of Wikipedia articles in this project phase include (in order of importance):

The topic is related to climate change.
The Wikipedia article has high pageview rates (ideally more than 300 views per day).
Preference will be given to those Wikipedia articles that have high view rates and low quality scores.
The quality score is not yet very high (say less than 85); however, in some cases quality scores are high but the climate change content in the article is still quite poor.
- Existence of a maintenance template on an article (if they are there, it’s a good indicator that the article needs some editing to improve it, plus it’s something that readers see so I would include this as a factor that would decrease an articles score and raise its priority.)
The topic is mentioned in the targets and indicators of SDG 13, see List of SDG targets and indicators.

Pageviews

You can check pageviews for groups of articles here.
For our analysis we are using the time period 1 Jan to 30 June 2022 as the baseline for the pageviews.

Lists that were used for inspiration

WikiProject Climate change metrics: top importance (currently 60) and high importance (currently 400) articles
Glossaries of the three IPCC AR6 reports: Working Group I, Working Group II, Working Group III
List of improved articles from Wiki4Climate edit-a-thon: here
WeAdapt website

List of articles for Phase 2

We had 135 articles in our list but 3 of them have been merged ("carbon credit" merged into carbon offsets and credits; "economic impacts of climate change" merged into economic analysis of climate change; "natural hazard" merged into natural disaster). So that means 132 articles remain in our list.

Note: only those articles with a priority of 3 or higher will be tackled in this phase. The priority ratings are average values of seven team members' assessments.

82 articles have a priority of 3.0 to 5.0.
- 42 articles have a priority of 4.0 to 5.0.
- 40 articles have a priority of 3.0 to 3.9.
84 articles have a priority lower than 3.0.
Total number of considered articles: 166

Edit this table

Table 1a: Wikipedia articles for Phase 2 (with improvements scores). Baseline is the article version of 1 August 2022 or just before that date.
#	Article	Daily view rates (avg. for Jan to June 2022)	Main text's quality (at baseline)	Main text's quality (at end)	Improve-ment of main text	Lead's quality score (at baseline)	Lead's quality score (at end)	Improve-ment of lead
1	2022–2023 food crises (now: World food crises (2022–present))	705	64	87	36%	75	90	17%
2	Abrupt climate change	72	67	73	9%	56	52	-10%
3	Aerosol	513	54	64	17%	50	53	5%
4	Afforestation	322	44	67	52%	36	68	86%
5	Albedo	873	79	74	13%	51	72	25%
6	Anthropocene	811	52	82	44%	34	71	76%
7	Anthropogenic hazard (now merged)	474	49			32
8	Arctic methane emissions	71	44	71	60%	52	78	62%
9	Arctic sea ice decline	124	81	100	24%	81	86	4%
10	Atlantic meridional overturning circulation	145	54	96	117%	53	85	43%
11	Atmospheric methane	180	44	95	114%	58	81	24%
12	Biodiversity	1917	36	63	75%	67	79	10%
13	Biodiversity loss	392	54	94	73%	38	75	51%
14	Bioenergy	200	36	74	78%	39	58	65%
15	Biomass (energy)	131	25	51	106%	51	58	14%
16	Blue carbon	94	41	91	123%	31	49	54%
17	Carbon accounting	101	29	78	171%	32	89	175%
18	Carbon budget	43	62	74	19%	52	71	34%
19	Carbon capture and storage	762	37	65	76%	58	77	27%
20	Carbon credit (now merged)	443	35			50
21	Carbon cycle	684	69	70	7%	59	72	30%
22	Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere	439	69	84	22%	56	90	56%
23	Carbon dioxide removal	189	42	83	98%	50	65	21%
24	Carbon emission trading	185	43	67	57%	70	73	1%
25	Carbon farming	60	46	58	28%	51	60	16%
26	Carbon footprint	1222	41	87	113%	45	86	85%
27	Carbon neutrality (now called: net zero emissions)	547	44	87	157%	36	76	105%
28	Carbon offsets and credits	316	34	80	139%	49	81	64%
29	Carbon sequestration	487	57	76	62%	45	69	47%
30	Carbon sink	406	46	70	71%	44	73	63%
31	Carbon tax	312	55	68	70%	58	74	14%
32	Climate change	6523	98	98	0%	100	100	11%
33	Climate change adaptation	208	64	87	37%	58	87	46%
34	Climate change feedback	270	73	99	50%	72	93	25%
35	Climate change in Africa	246	70	71	19%	78	84	7%
36	Climate change mitigation	445	44	97	122%	53	83	51%
37	Climate change scenario	47	31	72	135%	40	51	65%
38	Climate change vulnerability	77	45	66	55%	33	56	95%
39	Climate crisis	226	89	97	16%	56	70	23%
40	Climate engineering	282	26	85	227%	40	42	0%
41	Climate finance	54	41	69	94%	46	64	33%
42	Climate justice	148	74	84	31%	72	71	-2%
43	Climate model	94	36	56	54%	42	70	61%
44	Climate resilience	106	32	65	100%	35	70	120%
45	Climate risk	39	17	69	294%	23	53	117%
46	Climate sensitivity	68	97	87	10%	72	67	5%
47	Climate system	101	89	93	9%	58	64	8%
48	Climate-smart agriculture	40	31	69	125%	39	60	50%
49	Cloud feedback	17	32	89	181%	43	86	96%
50	Coastal flooding	97	80	77	16%	72	73	8%
51	Co-benefits of climate change mitigation (now merged)	8	34			23
52	Cryosphere	86	44	91	165%	52	64	21%
53	Deforestation	1469	47	69	48%	54	90	59%
54	Deforestation and climate change	111	42	71	67%	32	63	90%
55	Desertification	683	49	70	43%	30	48	55%
56	Disaster	1532	55	76	87%	49	72	80%
57	Disaster risk reduction	154	33	57	72%	37	78	105%
58	Drought	1614	80	89	24%	79	81	14%
59	Earth's energy budget	214	72	97	43%	75	83	16%
60	Economic impacts of climate change (now merged)	135	38			58
61	Economics of climate change (now: economic analysis of climate change)	43	31	70	129%	45	74	59%
62	Ecosystem services	342	54	66	51%	38	51	30%
63	Effects of climate change	871	69	95	38%	83	98	15%
64	Effects of climate change on agriculture	103	72	97	35%	81	92	26%
65	Effects of climate change on ecosystems	10	40	75	89%	14	66	337%
66	Effects of climate change on human health	139	66	81	32%	65	84	45%
67	Effects of climate change on small island countries	56	59	77	29%	27	64	84%
68	Effects of climate change on oceans	57	40	88	118%	49	90	80%
69	Effects of climate change on plant biodiversity	51	40	42	21%	43	53	19%
70	Effects of climate change on the water cycle	24	45	64	74%	37	81	116%
71	Efficient energy use	259	53	49	50%	41	44	4%
72	Electrical grid	497	61	65	13%	54	62	11%
73	El Niño (now merged)	1,035	53			57
74	El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)	291	61	95	104%	54	90	87%
75	Energy policy	53	52	55	16%	31	33	4%
76	Energy transition	123	34	77	125%	42	69	29%
77	Extreme weather	277	65	76	24%	61	74	42%
78	Flood	1846	79	87	61%	70	84	17%
79	Flood management	290	44	82	87%	51	64	23%
80	Food security	900	34	89	160%	61	72	17%
81	Global surface temperature	60	25	100	301%	46	85	81%
82	Global warming potential	413	67	85	98%	48	80	62%
83	Green Climate Fund	130	65	65	0%	59	81	37%
84	Greenhouse effect	2293	68	95	79%	69	83	18%
85	Greenhouse gas	1969	57	95	67%	57	90	54%
86	Greenhouse gas emissions	704	72	90	53%	57	84	44%
87	Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture	54	66	76	70%	49	74	45%
88	Hazard	447	49	70	126%	44	77	69%
89	Heat wave	496	64	85	57%	47	60	25%
90	Hydrogen economy	354	47	71	81%	44	81	72%
91	Ice sheet	140	49	80	63%	64	81	24%
92	Ice shelf	86	48	85	77%	72	83	11%
93	Individual action on climate change	100	59	70	43%	59	64	1%
94	Instrumental temperature record (now merged)	118	90			68
95	Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change	682	42	89	132%	81	100	23%
96	IPCC Sixth Assessment Report	159	70	85	26%	79	84	5%
97	Low-carbon economy	234	35	65	85%	32	50	31%
98	Marine heatwave	21	69	82	49%	54	79	73%
99	Nationally Determined Contributions	21	56	77	139%	31	78	147%
100	Natural disaster	2938	71	86	51%	61	70	31%
101	Natural hazard (now merged)	260	39			42
102	Nature-based solutions	80	32	67	109%	61	73	20%
103	Ocean	2765	88	99	13%	91	100	10%
104	Ocean acidification	411	61	93	97%	69	93	35%
105	Ocean deoxygenation	26	53	78	98%	47	85	78%
106	Ocean heat content	40	54	80	47%	57	88	51%
107	Ocean storage of carbon dioxide (now: Direct deep-sea carbon dioxide injection)	52	34	80	173%	34	66	91%
108	Ocean temperature	20	79	85	201%	65	73	29%
109	Paris Agreement	1434	87	96	10%	85	89	2%
110	Permafrost	592	73	83	33%	67	93	36%
111	Radiative forcing	230	69	91	32%	41	81	92%
112	Reforestation	223	40	56	25%	22	30	33%
113	Renewable energy	1961	55	74	81%	51	78	54%
114	Representative Concentration Pathway	354	72	81	13%	61	85	37%
115	Retreat of glaciers since 1850	136	87	96	25%	62	87	34%
116	Sea level rise	624	82	96	33%	90	100	18%
117	Sea surface temperature	161	78	87	12%	69	82	16%
118	Sustainability	1613	68	87	27%	75	89	19%
119	Sustainable development	3375	44	59	51%	47	45	14%
120	Sustainable Development Goal 13	274	68	71	23%	76	79	17%
121	Sustainable Development Goals	4398	72	83	22%	75	80	20%
122	Sustainable energy	1543	89	84	0%	90	93	4%
123	Tipping points in the climate system	201	75	100	41%	72	99	34%
124	Tropical cyclone	1919	86	95	11%	80	88	26%
125	United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change	769	59	84	43%	64	90	34%
126	Urban flooding	15	56	70	25%	52	80	38%
127	Urban heat island	403	57	93	63%	58	88	48%
128	Verified Carbon Standard	62	46	65	72%	24	71	111%
129	Water cycle	1512	63	89	41%	54	73	32%
130	Water resources	1115	74	69	18%	50	55	8%
131	Water scarcity	658	93	98	9%	67	83	20%
132	Water security	290	66	90	36%	72	97	34%
133	Wetland	790	65	82	27%	78	92	15%
134	Wildfire	941	72	87	42%	79	95	21%
135	World energy supply and consumption	428	76	76	30%	70	75	12%

Edit this table

Table 1b: Wikipedia articles for Phase 2 with daily view rates, quality labels and comments. Baseline is the article version of 1 August 2022 or just before that date.
#	Article	Daily view rates (avg. for Jan to June 2022)	WP quality label (at baseline)	Comments
1	2022–2023 food crises (now: World food crises (2022–present))	705	C	High page views for an article that was only created in May 2022; CC is one of the causes
2	Abrupt climate change	72	B
3	Aerosol	513	B
4	Afforestation	322	start
5	Albedo	873	B
6	Anthropocene	811	B
7	Anthropogenic hazard (now merged)	474	Start	Merged into hazard
8	Arctic methane emissions	71	C
9	Arctic sea ice decline	124	C
10	Atlantic meridional overturning circulation	145	C
11	Atmospheric methane	180	C
12	Biodiversity	1917	C
13	Biodiversity loss	392	B
14	Bioenergy	200	C
15	Biomass (energy)	131	C
16	Blue carbon	94	B
17	Carbon accounting	101	C
18	Carbon budget	43	C	low page view but the term is up and coming
19	Carbon capture and storage	762	C
20	Carbon credit (now merged)	443	B	Merged into carbon offsets and credits
21	Carbon cycle	684	B
22	Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere	439	C
23	Carbon dioxide removal	189	B
24	Carbon emission trading	185	B
25	Carbon farming	60	C	low page view but the term is up and coming
26	Carbon footprint	1222	C
27	Carbon neutrality (now called: net zero emissions)	547	C	Changed to net zero emissions in Aug. 2023
28	Carbon offsets and credits	316	C	Carbon credit has been merged into here
29	Carbon sequestration	487	B
30	Carbon sink	406	C
31	Carbon tax	312	C
32	Climate change	6523	FA	Low priority given only because it is already an FA article
33	Climate change adaptation	208	C
34	Climate change feedback	270	C
35	Climate change in Africa	246	B
36	Climate change mitigation	445	B
37	Climate change scenario	47	C
38	Climate change vulnerability	77	C
39	Climate crisis	226	C
40	Climate engineering	282	B
41	Climate finance	54	Start	Not sure if this term is up and coming
42	Climate justice	148	C
43	Climate model	94	C
44	Climate resilience	106	C
45	Climate risk	39	Start
46	Climate sensitivity	68	GA
47	Climate system	101	GA
48	Climate-smart agriculture	40	Start
49	Cloud feedback	17	Start	Pageviews seem to go up (50 per day in Apr 2023)
50	Coastal flooding	97	C
51	Co-benefits of climate change mitigation (now merged)	8	start	Merged to climate change mitigation
52	Cryosphere	86	B
53	Deforestation	1469	B
54	Deforestation and climate change	111	C
55	Desertification	683	C
56	Disaster	1532	Start
57	Disaster risk reduction	154	C
58	Drought	1614	C
59	Earth's energy budget	214	C
60	Economic impacts of climate change (now merged)	135	C	Merged into Economic analysis of climate change in Sept 23
61	Economics of climate change (now: economic analysis of climate change)	43	C
62	Ecosystem services	342	C
63	Effects of climate change	871	B
64	Effects of climate change on agriculture	103	B
65	Effects of climate change on ecosystems	10	C	Merged into effects of climate change on biomes (new article)
66	Effects of climate change on human health	139	B
67	Effects of climate change on small island countries	56	C
68	Effects of climate change on oceans	57	C
69	Effects of climate change on plant biodiversity	51	C
70	Effects of climate change on the water cycle	24	C	This topic is up and coming
71	Efficient energy use	259	C
72	Electrical grid	497	C
73	El Niño (now merged)	1,035	C	Merged into ENSO article
74	El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)	291	C
75	Energy policy	53	C	Should be up and coming
76	Energy transition	123	C
77	Extreme weather	277	C
78	Flood	1846	C
79	Flood management	290	C	Merged flood mitigation into this article
80	Food security	900	C
81	Global surface temperature	60	C	Should be up and coming
82	Global warming potential	413	C
83	Green Climate Fund	130	C
84	Greenhouse effect	2293	C
85	Greenhouse gas	1969	B
86	Greenhouse gas emissions	704	C
87	Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture	54	C	Should be up and coming
88	Hazard	447	C
89	Heat wave	496	C
90	Hydrogen economy	354	B
91	Ice sheet	140	B
92	Ice shelf	86	C
93	Individual action on climate change	100	C
94	Instrumental temperature record (now merged)	118	B	has been merged to global surface temperature
95	Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change	682	B
96	IPCC Sixth Assessment Report	159	C
97	Low-carbon economy	234	C
98	Marine heatwave	21	C	Should be up and coming
99	Nationally Determined Contributions	21	C	Topic is up and coming, pageviews at 100 per day in May 2023
100	Natural disaster	2938	C
101	Natural hazard (now merged)	260	C	has been merged to Natural disaster
102	Nature-based solutions	80	C
103	Ocean	2765	B
104	Ocean acidification	411	B
105	Ocean deoxygenation	26	C	Should be up and coming
106	Ocean heat content	40	C
107	Ocean storage of carbon dioxide (now: Direct deep-sea carbon dioxide injection)	52	B	Article reworked, with new scope and title. The old title redirects to carbon sequestration
108	Ocean temperature	20	start	New article (was created Oct. 2022), topic is up and coming
109	Paris Agreement	1434	GA
110	Permafrost	592	C	A lot of relevant content is in Permafrost carbon cycle but this has low pageviews.
111	Radiative forcing	230	C
112	Reforestation	223	C
113	Renewable energy	1961	B
114	Representative Concentration Pathway	354	C
115	Retreat of glaciers since 1850	136	C
116	Sea level rise	624	GA	Is already GA but needs updating
117	Sea surface temperature	161	GA	Is already GA but needs updating
118	Sustainability	1613	B
119	Sustainable development	3375	C
120	Sustainable Development Goal 13	274	C
121	Sustainable Development Goals	4398	C
122	Sustainable energy	1543	FA	Low priority given only because it is already an FA article
123	Tipping points in the climate system	201	GA
124	Tropical cyclone	1919	FA	Low priority given only because it is already an FA article
125	United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change	769	C
126	Urban flooding	15	C	Topic is up and coming, pageviews at 40 per day in May 2023
127	Urban heat island	403	GA
128	Verified Carbon Standard	62	stub	Pageviews seem to increase, around 100 per day in May 2023 (It is the most common GHG crediting program)
129	Water cycle	1512	C
130	Water resources	1115	B
131	Water scarcity	658	B
132	Water security	290	C
133	Wetland	790	C
134	Wildfire	941	GA	Is already GA but needs updating
135	World energy supply and consumption	428	B

Articles considered but decided against

#	Article	Daily view rates (avg. for Jan to June 2022)	WP quality label (Aug 2022)	Main text's quality (8 July 2022)	Lead's quality score (8 July 2022)	Was in Phase 1?	Content (science or policy)	Reasons
1	Adaptive capacity	21	C	31	12	yes	Policy	Low pageviews
2	Agroforestry	261	C			no	Science	CC content would be small in this article
3	Antarctic ice sheet	200	C				Science
4	Attribution of recent climate change	153	B			no	Science	Ongoing discussion about name change to causes of climate change
5	Biofuel	1000	C			no	Science
6	Biological pump	86	B			no	Science	Low pageviews
7	Carbon leakage	26				no	Policy
8	Carbon price	87	C			no	Policy
9	Climate action	30	list			no	Policy	Low pageviews
10	Climate apocalypse	150	C			no	Policy	Ongoing discussion about name change
11	Climate change and cities	22	Start			no	Science	Low pageviews
12	Climate change and civilizational collapse	60	B			no	Science	(this is a new article, created mid 2023)
13	Climate change and fisheries	19					Science	Article only created in late 2020
14	Climate change and gender	26	C			no	Policy
15	Climate change and indigenous peoples	20	C
16	Climate change and infectious diseases	15	C			no	Science	Low pageviews
17	Climate change and invasive species	23	C			no	Science	Low pageviews
18	Climate change and poverty	43	C			no	Policy
19	Climate change denial	559	B			no	Policy	Far too long, needs culling
20	Climate change in Antartica	100	C			no	Science
21	Climate change in the Arctic	80	B			no	Science
22	Climate change in the United States	116	C			no	Science
23	Climate communication	32	C			no	Policy	Low pageviews
	Climate finance in the United States	5	C			no	Policy	Low pageviews (new article)
24	Climate migrant	11	C			no	Policy	Low pageviews
25	Climate movement	37	Start			no	Policy
26	Coupled Model Intercomparison Project	38	Start			no	Science	Low pageviews
27	Drylands	55	Start			no	Science	Low pageviews
28	Earth	14000	FA			no	Science
29	Eco-economic decoupling	45	C			no	Policy
30	Economics of climate change mitigation	20				no	Policy
31	Ecosystem-based adaptation	17	C			yes	Science	Low pageviews
32	Ecosystem health	25	C			no	Science	Low pageviews
33	Effects of climate change on mental health	28	C	71	65	yes	Science	This topic could be up and coming
34	Effects of climate change on biomes	30	B			no	Science	New article
35	Emissions trading	390				no	Policy	Pageviews are falling, whereas those of carbon emissions trading are rising
36	Energy conservation	675	B			no	Policy
37	Extinction risk from climate change	70				no	Science
38	Forest management
39	Fossil fuel phase-out	120	C			no	Policy
40	General circulation model	83	C			no	Science
41	Global dimming	180	GA			no	Science
42	Global warming controversy	250	B			no	Policy	Ongoing discussion about name change or merger
43	Gold Standard (carbon offset standard)	35	start			no	Policy	Low pageviews
44	Greenhouse gas emissions from wetlands	16	C			no	Science	Low pageviews
45	Greenhouse gas inventory	23	C			no	Policy	Low pageviews, merge with another one?
46	Greenland ice sheet	258	B			no	Science
47	Harmful algal bloom	136	C			no	Science	CC content would be small in this article
48	Heat illness	117	start			no	Science	very cyclical pageviews!
49	History of climate change science	361	C			no	Science
50	History of climate change policy and politics	50	C			no	Policy	new-ish article
51	Invasive species	832	GA			no	Science	CC content would be small in this article
52	Kevin Trenberth	15	C			no	Policy	Low pageviews, and we are not focused on people
53	Kyoto Protocol	1200	B			no	Policy	Surprisingly high pageviews
54	Land cover	49	start			no	Science	Low pageviews
55	Land development	97	start			no	Science	Low pageviews
56	Land use, land-use change, and forestry	80				no	Science	very messy article
57	Low-carbon electricity	55	C			no	Policy
58	Methane emissions	120				no	Science	Should be in Phase 3
59	Media coverage of climate change	60	C			no	Policy
60	Oceanic carbon cycle	51	C			no	Science
61	Ocean stratification	40				no	Science
62	Permafrost carbon cycle	16				no	Science
63	Plant-based diet	545	C			no	Science	CC content would be small in this article
64	Politics of climate change	120				no	Policy
65	Psychological impact of climate change	20	C				Science	Very low pageviews
66	Psychology of climate change denial	30	C			no	Science
67	Public opinion on climate change	80	C			no	Policy
68	Scientific consensus on climate change	400	C			no	Science
69	Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction	82	Start	28	24	yes	Policy	Low pageviews
70	Shared Socioeconomic Pathways	169				no	Science
71	Social cost of carbon	60	C			no	Policy	Low pageviews
72	Solar power	1579	GA			no	Science
73	Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C	69	C			no	Policy
74	Sustainable forest management							now merged to forest management
75	Tropical cyclones and climate change	92	C			no	Science	Pageviews shows some pronounced spikes
76	Wind power	1792	GA			no	Science
77	Zero-carbon city	34	C			no	Policy

Also considered but not included:

Alkalinity, views: 250 (this is much broader than just climate change aspects)
Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage
Cooperative Mechanisms under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, views: 7, class: C
Country articles (ensure they all have something on climate change, possibly a link to sub-article)
Bushfires in Australia, views: 1280, class: C
Climate change in country X articles (category is here) - Most of them are around 50 pageviews per day but there are outliers, e.g. the climate change in South Africa article gets 275 views per day, climate change in India article gets 245 views per day. See all pageviews here.
Climate change in Sweden, views: 25, class: C
Climate Information Service (Climate services)
Developed country, views: 2446, quality scores: 80, 56 (was in Phase 1)
Global citizenship, views: 348
Global citizenship education, views: 61
GHG Protocol - this is part of carbon accounting and does not need its own article for now (we don't have time for it)
Greenhouse gas emissions by country X articles; See category here (6 articles so far: Australia, Brazil, China, Russia, Turkey, UK), the highest is greenhouse gas emissions by China with 59 pageviews per day
Land use, views: 174
Marine ecosystem, views: 294 (was already in Phase 1)
Planetary boundaries (was in Phase 1)
Regenerative agriculture
Soil health
Sustainable Development Goal 7, views: 186 (was in Phase 1)

Small selection of articles in French Wikipedia (test case)

Perhaps these few articles should be improved in the French Wikipedia (to be discussed):

Wikipedia articles that we worked on and their quality score improvements (Phase 1)

The SDG-related Wikipedia articles identified for further improvement are listed below. To sort the list by view rates, click on the arrows in the table headers. The view rate figures are the average number of views each day, for several years up to July 2020. The terms that are shown in red don't have a Wikipedia article yet.

Criteria for selection of articles (Phase 1)

The criteria for inclusion of Wikipedia articles in this project include:

The terms being mentioned in the targets and indicators of the goals, see List of SDG targets and indicators.
A preference on terms with high view rates (ideally more than 200 views per day).
Concepts or technology that are not mentioned in the indicators but which are important to achieve the indicators.
Closely related topics that are of relevance (see also "reader topic relationships" with this tool).

Preference will be given to those Wikipedia articles that have high view rates and low quality scores.

Articles relevant for all SDGs

The selected articles with a relation to all SDGs are: Sustainable Development Goals, Developing countries, Sustainability, International development, Sustainable development. For simplicity reasons, these general articles have been included in the SDG 6 grouping.

SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation)

SDG 6 articles with scores before and after

The selected articles related to SDG 6 are listed below. Note the table also includes (at the end) those terms that are relevant for all three SDGs.

Most of the articles would be of relevance to WikiProject Sanitation and WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography.

Edit this table

Table 1a: Wikipedia articles that are related to SDG 6 and were improved in this project (maximum possible score: 100)
Number	Article	Daily view rates before (1 Jan to 30 June 2020)	Daily view rates after (1 Jan to 30 June 2022)	Quality rating at project start (Sept 2020)	Main text's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	Main text's quality score afterwards (8 July 2022)	The lead's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	The lead's quality score afterwards (8 July 2022)
1	Sustainable Development Goal 6	96	228	C	66	74	44	63
2	Drinking water	810	699	B	72	80	60	67
3	Ecosystem	2188	1930	B	61	72	58	78
4	Hand washing	1230	348	B	77	86	68	64
5	Hygiene	1211	830	C	71	80	56	51
6	Open defecation	553	356	B	78	89	55	59
7	Rainwater harvesting	1166	1391	C	63	73	49	49
8	Reclaimed water	260	168	B	59	66	47	56
9	Sanitation	894	665	B	71	78	61	65
10	Wastewater treatment	677	625	C	64	71	57	71
11	WASH	202	143	B	60	75	44	73
12	Water pollution	3611	2984	B	67	71	69	64
13	Water scarcity	798	658	B	49	89	51	65
14	Water scarcity in Africa	124	94	C	36	53	47	50
15	Water security	84	290	C	48	59	36	65
16	Water supply	311	284	C	55	64	14	52
17	Water resources	831	1115	B	58	70	38	46
18	Freshwater	155	121	C	57	69	52	55
19	Freshwater ecosystem	176	202	Start	39	69	27	56
20	Wetland	984	790	C	56	70	48	73
21	Aquifer	889	697	B	61	66	37	47
22	Groundwater	793	657	C	57	70	61	70
23	Groundwater pollution	232	216	C	63	64	56	67
24	Water issues in developing countries	107	46	C	56	63	36	63
25	Capacity building	368	242	C	34	60	37	51
26	Official development assistance	226	156	Start	49	78	38	52
27	Industrial wastewater treatment	279	300	C	52	62	27	52
28	Sewage	502	428	C	60	76	61	74
29	Sewage treatment	1210	938	B	59	74	62	72
30	Fecal sludge management	116	103	B	65	67	77	80
31	Public health	1165	885	C	61	85	48	61
32	Neglected tropical diseases	363	262	C	57	67	62	65
33	Waterborne diseases	787	476	C	46	55	63	58
34	Dangerous goods	448	230	C	57	61	48	49
35	Sustainable Development Goals	4237	4398	C	57	77	59	67
36	Developing country	2444	2059	C	66	76	58	73
37	Sustainability	1346	1613	B (was demoted from GA in May 2022)	52	72	42	67
38	International development	272	196	C	44	47	30	30
39	Sustainable development	2473	3375	C	55	67	32	39

SDG 6 articles that were selected but not rescored

Table 1b: Wikipedia articles that are related to SDG 6 but whose scores did not change (maximum possible score: 100)
Number	Article	Daily view rates before (1 Jan to 30 June 2020)	Daily view rates after (1 Jan to 30 June 2022)	Quality rating at project start (Sept 2020)	Main text's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	The lead's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	Reasons for not working on this article
40	Wastewater	540	219	B	50	59	This is now a list type article, so cannot be scored in the conventional way
41	Improved sanitation	53	32	Start	57	69	Pageviews very low
42	Improved water source	44	25	Start	55	64	Pageviews very low
43	Integrated water resources management	53	43	Start	25	8	Pageviews very low, and it has been merged into water resources article.
44	Sanitation worker	35	65	C	72	47	Pageviews very low
45	Human right to water and sanitation	105	71	C	53	60	Pageviews very low
46	Public participation	187	169	C	38	30	Pageviews low, relevance for SDG 6 not strong
47	Behaviour change (public health)	148	54	C	39	31	Not enough time and no expert found
48	Diarrhea	2602	2501	B	82	93	Article already had a very high quality score
49	Cholera	4581	2010	B	85	91	Article already had a very high quality score
50	Gastroenteritis	2495	1838	GA (second best)	83	85	Article already had a very high quality score
51	International waters	537	518	C	48	61	Not enough time and no expert found

SDG 13 (Climate action)

SDG 13 articles with scores before and after

The selected articles related to SDG 13 are listed below.

All of the articles would be of relevance to WikiProject Climate change.

Edit this table

Table 2a: Wikipedia articles that are related to SDG 13 and were improved in this project (maximum possible score: 100)
Number	Article	Daily view rates before (1 Jan to 30 June 2020)	Daily view rates after (1 Jan to 30 June 2022)	Quality rating at project start (Sept 2020)	Main text's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	Main text's quality score afterwards (8 July 2022)	The lead's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	The lead's quality score afterwards (8 July 2022)	Comments
1	Sustainable Development Goal 13	0	274	C	64	78	53	67	new article
2	Climate change adaptation	220	208	C	51	77	54	57
3	Climate change mitigation	518	445	B	76	81	64	63
4	Effects of climate change	1963	871	B	76	86	59	80
5	Climate change	10172	6523	FA (best)	92	94	80	97
6	Greenhouse gas	3384	1969	B	77	82	57	55
7	Greenhouse gas emissions	36	704	C	65	84	26	59	new article (spin off)
8	Natural disaster	2450	2938	C	68	75	61	57
9	Sustainable energy	8346	1543	C (promoted to FA in Oct 21)	72	88	53	88	Most of the improvement was made by user:Femke and user:Clayoquot
10	United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change	968	769	C	71	74	41	57
11	Climate resilience	79	106	C	43	55	23	40
12	Disaster risk reduction	188	154	C	33	52	31	40
13	Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction	111	82	Start	16	28	29	24
14	Wildfire	1400	941	GA (second best)	75	82	71	72
15	Drought	1346	1614	C	76	85	54	71
16	Tropical cyclone	2588	1919	FA (best)	73	80	82	81
17	Flood	1728	1846	B	67	77	49	61
18	Paris Agreement	2532	1434	B	70	85	72	79
19	Developed country	3260	2446	B	88	80	46	56
20	Renewable energy	2148	1961	B	71	78	59	61
21	Nationally Determined Contributions	2	21	C	41	67	36	34	new article
22	Efficient energy use	361	259	C	53	54	33	41
23	Climate justice	145	148	C	64	74	45	78
24	Sea level rise	824	624	GA (second best)	84	88	75	83
25	Extreme weather	271	277	C	72	77	50	49
26	Energy policy	72	53	C	34	54	17	25
27	World energy supply and consumption	0	428	B	68	70	61	66	new article (spin off / rename)
28	Sustainable Development Goal 7	0	186	C	63	69	52	59	new article
29	Effects of climate change on oceans	211	57	C	58	74	33	59	article name used to be "Effects of global warming on oceans"
30	Retreat of glaciers since 1850	148	136	FA (best)	80	86	61	63
31	Arctic sea ice decline	166	124	C	76	85	49	69
32	Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change	842	682	B	61	74	70	77
33	Effects of climate change on human health	6	139	C	48	74	24	72
34	Climate change and indigenous peoples	18	31	C	41	60	27	49
35	Effects of climate change on agriculture	1	103	B	51	78	43	73	new article (spin off)
36	Carbon farming	47	60	C	47	63	35	46
37	Climate change in Africa	228	246	B	44	68	43	70
38	Climate change vulnerability	0	77	C	50	60	21	34	new article
39	Carbon sequestration	501	487	B	62	71	30	42
40	Carbon capture and storage	648	762	C	49	68	35	60
41	Instrumental temperature record	412	118	B	71	80	45	63
42	Effects of climate change on mental health	1	28	C	49	71	40	65	new article
	"Climate change in country X" articles Currently there are 63 country articles, see here.
	Average (or median)

SDG 13 articles that were selected but not rescored

Table 2b: Wikipedia articles that are related to SDG 13 but whose scores did not change (maximum possible score: 100)
Number	Article	Daily view rates before (1 Jan to 30 June 2020)	Daily view rates after (1 Jan to 30 June 2022)	Quality rating at project start (Sept 2020)	Main text's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	The lead's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	Reasons for not working on this article
43	Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere	753	439	C	72	59	Ran out of time, comments from expert received but would require a lot of work to do justice; moved to Phase 2
44	Global citizenship	447	348	C	50	29	Ran out of time, relevance to SDG 13 low
45	Global citizenship education	74	61	B	39	35	Low pageviews, relevance to SDG 13 low
46	Regional effects of climate change	0	20	C	66	64	This article was merged into effects of climate change
47	Adaptive capacity	26	21	Start	31	12	Very low pageviews
48	Low-carbon economy	92	234	C	51	31	Low pageviews
49	Green Climate Fund	190	130	B	61	53	Ran out of time, no expert found
50	Effects of climate change on humans	18	169	C	58	46	This article was merged into effects of climate change
51	Education for sustainable development	90	121	Start	28	20	Low pageviews, relevance to SDG 13 low (suggested to merge this into sustainable development)
52	Ocean acidification	509	411	B	85	74	Very important article, have been in touch with content experts from NOAA since August 2021, they have promised to send in comments but it's taking a long time (moved to Phase 2)

SDG 14 (Life below Water)

SDG 14 articles with scores before and after

The selected articles related to SDG 14 are listed below.

Most of the articles are of relevance to WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography.

Edit this table

Table 3a: Wikipedia articles that are related to SDG 14 and were improved in this project (maximum possible score: 100)
Number	Article	Daily view rates before (1 Jan to 30 June 2020)	Daily view rates after (1 Jan to 30 June 2022)	Quality rating at project start (Sept 2020)	Main text's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	Main text's quality score afterwards (8 July 2022)	The lead's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	The lead's quality score afterwards (8 July 2022)	Comments
1	Sustainable Development Goal 14	0	202	C	46	68	45	71	new article
2	Eutrophication	869	898	B	65	77	32	66
3	Least developed countries	456	719	C	60	74	47	49
4	Marine pollution	492	368	B	79	85	62	79
5	Microplastics	474	650	C	63	74	52	70
6	Overfishing	316	270	B	69	75	50	67
7	Sea surface temperature	231	161	GA (second best)	83	88	64	77
8	Ocean fertilization	43	31	C	53	55	18	37
9	Sustainable tourism	347	244	C	39	75	42	45
10	Marine debris	171	120	B	77	82	51	64
11	Nutrient pollution	81	70	C	53	74	35	57
12	Coast	470	336	B	64	78	65	91
13	Marine protected area	89	85	B	65	68	52	65
14	Aquaculture	644	581	B	77	78	39	66
15	Marine plastic pollution	1	69	B	33	84	48	73	new article
16	Aquatic ecosystem	482	568	C	62	68	34	45
17	Fishing industry	175	151	C	63	70	28	40
18	Planetary boundaries	215	286	B	60	74	36	67
19	Marine ecosystem	294	281	C	69	79	47	58
20	Ocean	2313	2765	B	68	87	77	93
21	Sea	1100	837	FA (best)	83	90	80	76
22	Convention on Biological Diversity	485	404	C	52	61	45	54

SDG 14 articles that were selected but not rescored

Table 3b: Wikipedia articles that are related to SDG 14 but whose scores did not change (maximum possible score: 100)
Number	Article	Daily view rates before (1 Jan to 30 June 2020)	Daily view rates after (1 Jan to 30 June 2022)	Quality rating at project start (Sept 2020)	Main text's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	The lead's quality score before (1 Sept 2020)	Reasons for not working on this article
23	Marine habitats	179	119	C	80	74	Quality score already very high
24	Overexploitation	223	245	C	73	44	Ran out of time, no expert found, quality score already quite high
25	Coral reef	1300	1223	B	80	69	Quality score already very high
26	Commercial fishing	164	227	C	67	73	Ran out of time, no expert found, quality score already quite high
27	Artisanal fishing	50	59	Start	52	43	Very low pageviews
28	Sustainable fishery	50	45	C	57	24	Very low pageviews
29	Fisheries management	85	76	C	54	22	Very low pageviews
30	Fishery	269	222	Start	53	48	Ran out of time, no expert found
31	Marine life	445	372	B	84	68	Quality score already very high
32	Law of the sea	148	140	Start	52	45	Ran out of time, no expert found
33	Exclusive economic zone	951	956	B	75	61	Quality score already very high
34	Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing	76	63	C	53	54	Low pageviews
35	Destructive fishing practices	17	23	Start	46	19	Very low pageviews
36	Marine conservation	112	106	C	63	48	Low pageviews
37	Small Island Developing States	126	124	C	55	34	Ran out of time, moved to Phase 2 because of climate change issues
38	United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea	689	680	C	59	66	Ran out of time, no expert found
39	Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission	14	11	C	21	41	Very low pageviews
40	Fish stocks	4	25	Start	53	18	Very low pageviews
41	Fisheries subsidy	5	7	Start	22	21	Very low pageviews
42	Marine technology	18	16	Start	40	36	Very low pageviews
43	Effects of climate change on oceans			C	See under SDG 13
44	International waters			C	See under SDG 6
45	Sustainable development			C	See under SDG 13
46	Ocean acidification			B	See under SDG 13

New articles created

Article title	Created when	Created how	By whom
SDG 7	11 July 2020	From scratch	Shanewatson20
SDG 13	11 July 2020	From scratch	Shanewatson20
SDG 14	11 July 2020	From scratch	Shanewatson20
Greenhouse gas emissions	3 April 2021	Spin off from greenhouse gas	EMsmile (project team member Elisabeth von Münch)
World energy supply and consumption	8 June 2021	"Worldwide energy supply" page and "World energy consumption" page were merged into this article	Chidgk1
Effects of climate change on agriculture	6 March 2022	Spin off from “climate change and agriculture”	Chidgk1 in collaboration with EMsmile
Effects of climate change on mental health	5 April 2022	Spin off from “Psychological impact of climate change”	EMsmile
Marine plastic pollution	13 Sept 2021	Used stub of “plastic soup” as starting point	EMsmile
Climate change vulnerability	26 Dec 2020	From scratch (bringing content from climate resilience, Economics of climate change and some new content)	Sadads
Marine resources	24 May 2022	It is just a stub or list type article so far; it was previously a redirect to “marine conservation”.	Sadads

Results for improvements in quality scores by individual quality parameters (Phase 1)

Why score lead and main text separately

We scored the articles' leads separately as the leads are the most important segment of the article which readers read. The lead should be a good summary of the article and be about four paragraphs long. More information is here: WP:LEAD.

We had originally planned to improve the lead for twice as many articles as full articles but did not manage this workload.

Scoring system and results summary for main text

The quality of articles was assessed on a scale of 0 to 100 by using the following parameters. The assessment time "before" was the 1 Sept 2020 version of the article or nearest older date. The assessment time afterwards was around May/June 2022.

Edit this table

Table 4: Overview of the scoring system and results to assess article quality before and after (for the main article text) - maximum possible score: 100
	Parameter (M is machine assessment, E is expert assessment)	Maximum possible value	Average before	Average after the project	Improvement (%)	Comments on how the values are derived	Tool to use or expert assessment	Guidance to improve scores
1	M1 - Readability	25	14.9	15.4	3%	Calculated assessment, based on Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease score and linear scaling function. Score based on how readable and well-written the article is.	WebFX tool, using the second tab called "test by direct input" (select and copy main text of article except for the lead, and up to the "See also" section).	Use the Hemingway App to get guidance on improving readability. In general: shorter sentences, less passive voice, less complicated words, less technical jargon
2	M2 - Sourcing	15	8.4	9.2	9%	Calculated assessment, based on ratio of references per hundred words.	WebFX tool and Wikipedia page statistics	More references
3	M3 - Completeness	5	3.5	3.7	4%	This parameter is based on Wikipedia's ORES analysis tool and is meant to indicate quality.	WikiEdu tool	All the improvements necessary to get an article to Good Article or Featured Article standard.
4	M4 - Illustrations (quantity)	5	2.7	3.0	8%	Calculated assessment, based on number of images per thousand words.	Xtool (Wikipedia page statistics)	More images
5	M5 - Embedding (incoming wikilinks)	2.5	1.2	1.4	16%	Calculated assessment, based on number of incoming wikilinks.	Xtool (Wikipedia page statistics)	More wikilinks from other articles to this one
6	M6 - Embedding (outgoing wikilinks)	2.5	1.6	1.7	6%	Calculated assessment, based on number of outoing wikilinks per hundred words.	Xtool (Wikipedia page statistics)	More wikilinks from this article to other articles
7	E1 - Comprehensiveness	15	8.4	11.6	38%	Subjective assessment (score based on how fully the article covers significant aspects of the topic.)	Needs expert assessment	Ensure that the article is comprehensive, goes into appropriate detail about all significant aspects of the topic, and uses summary style where appropriate.
8	E2 - Connectivity and article tree structure	10	5.8	9.2	58%	Score based on how well a “parent article" interacts with sub-articles. There is often a suite or tree of articles which all need to be interwoven with each other.	Needs expert assessment	Ensure that article is well connected to any relevant parent or sub-particles; it's clear where in the "tree structure" this articles sits. It points people to the relevant sub-articles (or to parent articles); parent articles should not have too much detail in areas where sub-articles exist.
9	E3 - Formatting and adherences to style guide	10	6.7	9.8	45%	Score based on how well the section headings conform with standard headings style; also the quality of the article's layout and adherence to the Wikipedia's Manual of Style.	Needs expert assessment	Ensure that article uses standard headings wherever possible, there is a logical flow to the sections, good use of level 1, 2, 3 headings. No external links in the main text. No bolding and other formatting except for first few words in lead. No bullet point lists or only used sparingly (mainly prose is used). Article has the right amount of wikilinks compared to text (not too many, not too few). Length of article is within guidelines (readable prose is less than 50 kB).
10	E4 - Neutrality	2	1.9	2.0	2%	Score based on adherence to the Neutral Point of View policy.	Needs expert assessment	Ensure that the article follows the NPOV policy.
11	E5 - Illustrations (quality)	8	4.0	5.7	42%	Score based on quality of images and their captions.	Needs expert assessment	Ensure that all of the images in the article illustrate the topic well, are in the right sections and have high quality captions which explain why the image is relevant.
	Total	100	59	73	22%
	Sum of automated parameters only	55	32	34	6%
	Sum of expert assessed parameters only	45	27	38	42%

Scoring system and results summary for leads only

The quality of articles' leads was assessed on a scale of 0 to 100 by using the following parameters:

Edit this table

Table 5: Overview of the scoring system and results to assess article quality before and after (for the leads only) - maximum possible score: 100
	Parameter	Maximum possible value	Average at baseline	Average value at project end	Improvement (%)	Comments on how the values were derived	Tool to use	Parameters that need to be recorded	Guidance to improve scores
1	ML1 - Readability	30	18	17	-2%	Calculated assessment, based on Flesch score and linear scaling function (using just the text of the lead)	Webfx tool using the second tab called "test by direct input"	Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease	Use the Hemingway App to get guidance on improving readability: In general: shorter sentences, less passive voice, less complicated words, less technical jargon
2	ML2 - Length	25	11	14	30%	Calculated assessment, based only on the length of the lead using a linear scaling function	Webfx tool using the second tab called "test by direct input"	Number of words (total)	Make the lead longer
3	EL1 - Quality of summary	30	11	17	53%	Score based on how well the lead represents a summary of the entire article, not just a summary of some sections.	Needs expert assessment		Make the lead into a good summary of the entire article
4	EL2 - Illustration	15	8	13	52%	Score based on how good the lead's image and its caption are.	Needs expert assessment		Select an excellent image: the lead image should be representative because it provides a visual association for the topic, and allow readers to quickly assess if they have arrived at the right page
	Total	100	48	61	27%
	Sum of automated parameters only	55	29	32	10%
	Sum of expert assessed parameters only	45	19	29	52%

Targets

We planned to measure the direct project impacts and set measurable targets for ourselves as follows:

Leads: Number of article leads to be improved: 300 (100 per SDG) - with a quality score at the end of the project of 100 out of 100 (average across all articles) - this was not achieved as we realised we could not really improve the leads before the articles were not substantially improved (in most cases)
Full articles: Number of full articles to be improved: 150 (50 per SDG) - with a quality score at the end of the project of 85 out of 100 (average across all articles) - this was nearly achieved
Professional networks: Number of professional networks or groups of scientists to be engaged: 30 (10 per SDG)
View rates: Increase in user traffic (view rates) for the edited articles - 15% after two years compared to start of project. (not achieved, some articles increased in pageviews, others dropped; overall there was an 11% drop.

Reasons for not improving the scores of some articles

We did work on nearly all of the articles that we had pre-selected but some articles - which we later called “not improved” - have received only minor improvements which did not change the score. For example, adding a sentence about SDG 13 did improve the article but did not change its score.

The reasons that we didn’t work on (or did not improve the scores for) all of the articles that we had selected included one or several of the following:

Very low pageviews (less than 100)
Quality score at the base line was already quite high (higher than 80)
Could not identify suitable experts
Experts were contacted but either did not reply or did not send in comments on time
Relevance to the particular SDG was fairly low
Ran out of time (moved some of the articles to Phase 2)

Further article options for future project phases for SDG 6 and 14

Further options for SDG 6 articles

Possible additional articles or articles that we decided against:

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), views: 624, rating: B
Helminthiasis, views: 309, rating: B
Toilet, views: 982, rating: C (the term is not mentioned in SDG 6 targets but it is related and has high view rates)
Water efficiency, views: 65, rating: C
Water politics, views: 49, rating: C
Water quality, views: 534, rating: C
Water conflict, views: 195, class: C

If there was time left over, we could also improve these articles:

Global Goals Week (article recently created in August 2020), views: 25, rating: C
Global North and Global South (article renamed in June 2021), rating: C
Human Development Index, views: 6884, rating: B
Least developed countries, views: 115, rating: C
United Nations General Assembly, views: 1190, rating: C
Small Island Developing States, views: 135, rating: C
United Nations, views: 9659, rating: A- or GA (good article)

Further options for SDG 14 articles

Biological pump / marine carbon pump; views: 76
Blue carbon; views: 52, class: B
Climate change and fisheries; views: 19 (article only created in late 2020)
Environmental issues with coral reefs / Human impact on coral reefs; views: 193
Great Barrier Reef; views: 1716, class: C
Human impact on marine life; views: 62
Integrated coastal zone management, views: 59, class: C
Marine biogeochemical cycles; views: 25 (article only created in June 2020)
Oceanic carbon cycle / Marine carbon cycle; views: 62
Ocean governance; views: 16, class: C
Ocean solutions a term used a lot at this conference: Ocean Visions 2021 Summit
Seagrass meadow; views: 50 (since May 2020)
Source to sea
United Nations-Oceans; views: 19
Whaling views: 687, class: B but is a level 4 VA; topic often highly controversial so maye worth including
World Oceans Day (8 June), views: 103, class: start

Articles considered but decided against:

Blue economy / Sustainable ocean economy, views: 146, rating: start
Blue justice, views: 10, rating: start
Baltic sea, views: 1301, rating: B
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR), views: 239, class: B
Coastal management / coastal resilience, views: 147, rating: C
Ecosystem-based management, views: 32, rating: B
Environmental protection, views: 1187, rating: C
Fisheries science, views: 75, rating: start
Marine biology, views: 346, rating: C
Oceanography, views: 493, rating: C
Offshore wind power

Supporting resources

How to edit for beginners

Information on how to edit for beginners is included here, on the project page of the Wiki4Climate edit-a-thon in 2020.

Video tutorials for Wikipedia editing

See our Youtube Playlist for several video tutorials for Wikipedia editing here.

Promotional videos about Wikipedia editing

Video describing why it is important to contribute aquatic content to Wikipedia.

Video describing how to add aquatic information to Wikipedia

WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography (which is closely related to SDG 14) commissioned creation of two videos to describe the importance of contributing aquatic content to Wikipedia, and how to do so.

Guide for written peer reviews

A guide for peer reviews is provided by WikiEdu here.

In general, the best Wikipedia articles have five elements:

A lead section that is easy to understand
A clear structure
Balanced coverage
Neutral content
Reliable sources

Guiding questions for reviewers (each should be answerable with "yes"):

Lead

Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
Does the Lead include only information that is present in the article?
Is the Lead concise and not overly detailed? Does the lead not contain redundant information
Does the lead not give more weight to certain parts of the article over others?

The lead is the first section of an article. It usually states the most important information about the article's subject, and gives a good overview of the rest of the article. Good leads don't get too bogged down in detail, and don't simply repeat what's in the article below. You should be able to read the lead and feel like you have a pretty good grasp of what the article is about.

Content

Is the content relevant to the topic?
Is the content up-to-date?
Is there no content missing and all content belongs?
Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? If so: Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?
Does it not repeat content in too much detail which is better off in a sub-article?

Tone and Balance

Is the content neutral?
Are there no claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
Are there no viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
Does the content not attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References

Is all content backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
Does the content accurately reflect what the cited sources say? (You'll need to refer to the sources to check this.)
Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
Are the sources current?
Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
Are there no better sources available, such as peer-reviewed articles in place of news coverage or random websites? (You may need to do some digging to answer this.)
Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization

Is the content well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
Does the content have no grammatical or spelling errors?
Is the content well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
Are images well-captioned?
Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Examples of good feedback

A good article evaluation can take a number of forms. The most essential things are to clearly identify the biggest shortcomings, and provide specific guidance on how the article can be improved.

Peer review of "Homemaking"
Peer review of this article about a famous painting

Interviews with experts

Examples of interviews with experts:

Interview to investigate if an article is correctly emphasising the right topics
in Spanish: Filmed discussion about an article about a river in Argentina which led to a listing of recommendations, see talk page of Río Matanza-Riachuelo

Possible new categories or navigation boxes

New category: Climate change and international development (compare with existing category on economic development and category on international development)
New category: Topics about developing countries (see discussion here)
Or a new navigation box for topics about developing countries? Compare with navigation box about the SDGs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sustainable_Development_Goals

Phase 1

Logos of SDGs 6, 13 and 14 - the focus of this communications project

Basic project facts (Phase 1)

Start: 1 Aug 2020
End: 31 July 2022
Project title: "Phase 1: Communication of SDG-related research knowledge in water and sanitation (SDG 6), climate action (SDG 13) and life below water (oceans) (SDG14) in Wikipedia while engaging professional networks"
Administrating organisation: Stockholm Environment Institute
Funder: Formas - a Swedish government research council for sustainable development and a state authority under the Swedish Ministry of the Environment. Formas also has funds and assignments from the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
Wiki projects in focus: English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and a small component of Swedish Wikipedia

Core team members:

Arno Rosemarin (project manager), Stockholm, Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden
Elisabeth von Muench (project team member), Brisbane, Ostella Consulting, Australia/Germany
Olle Terenius (project team member), Uppsala, Uppsala University, Sweden (first six months only)

Publications about the project:

Giving the public better understanding about the Sustainable Development Goals through Wikipedia: a call to action (blog post on SEI website)

WikiProjects and Wikipedia initiatives that we engaged with: All SDGs: WikiProject International Relations, WikiProject United Nations, WikiProject Globalization, WikiProject Sustainability, WikiProject International Development, (no significant responses received through any of these)

SDG 6: WikiProject Sanitation, WikiProject Pollution (no significant responses received)

SDG 13:

WikiProject Climate change
“Wiki4Climate”: A week of editing on climate change topics from 24 November - 1 December 2020 - The Wiki4Climate initiative is ongoing and you can continue to collaborate using the Slack channel to jointly edit Wikipedia articles on climate change topics. The twitter handle is @Wiki4Climate.

SDG 14:

WikiProject Environment, WikiProject Fisheries and Fishing, WikiProject Oceans (no significant responses received)
WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography (some few responses received)

Project Dashboard: Participants can join by adding their Wikipedia login names to the project dashboard here (after logging into to Wikipedia; if the link it clicked while not logged in it will ask for a passcode; the way the dashboard is set up is that it will only log edits made to predetermined Wikipedia articles) - we didn't really use this tool in the end.

Background (Phase 1)

This project has its main focus on three SDGs that are directly impacted by changes to the environment (freshwater, climate and oceans). There are also linkages to agriculture (irrigation, reuse of nutrients from excreta, eutrophication) and to spatial planning and infrastructure (water supply, sanitation infrastructure such as sewer systems, renewable energy systems). The project will emphasize the communication of cross-cutting issues between the SDGs - integrating socio-political, economic and environmental aspects.

This project is important because there are gaps between what various stakeholder groups find on the internet and the published scientific work on SDG-related topics. That much of the specialized literature containing critical knowledge is unavailable to the informed public is a handicap in the dissemination and implementation of the SDGs. Wikipedia articles usually appear at the top of internet search results but are incomplete in many areas. Wikipedia therefore has a key role in helping promote the SDGs but the improvement of the key articles making use of available scientific expertise is necessary.

It is also part of the meetups on SDGs and connected to a larger initiative called "Wiki loves SDGs" which is supported by members of Wikimedians for Sustainable Development.

Diversity aspects

The project will emphasize gender and diversity aspects as well as content provided by research from the Global South.

Goals and objectives (Phase 1)

The overall goal of this project is to inform the public about the SDGs, initially focusing on SDGs 6, 13 and 14. This will be done by using Wikipedia as communication channel for the products of the work and for how we communicate with other Wikipedia editors. The project target group is the informed public searching the internet for information. This includes researchers, educators, local government decision makers, journalists, students, entrepreneurs and consultants.

Another target group for participation is high school students. We believe that the strength among the coming generation is to be taken seriously and that integrating writing about SDGs will not only teach them about the goals, but also how to write technically (in English) and how to value and cite different sources of information.

The specific objectives of the project are to:

assist scientists/scholars to bring their work to Wikipedia as a medium to convey their knowledge about SDG-related topics;
focus on readability for laypersons and those with first language not English;
involve experts from low-income countries; not just the volunteers/researchers from the Global North that dominate Wikipedia editing efforts today;
encourage more subject matter experts to write in Wikipedia, rather than only relying on volunteers with limited topics of interest;
bridge the gap between experts and those who are looking for information on Wikipedia about SDGs;
make use of professional networks on both sides of the ledger in order to reach out and market the project work
teach Swedish high school students at some selected pilot schools to add content to SDG-related articles (for the English Wikipedia) and to translate part of the SDG articles developed into Swedish Wikipedia. (we had to drop this activity due to Corona-related school closures)

List of content experts (Phase 1)

We had 39 content experts who helped us with improving the Wikipedia articles in Phase 1:

SDG 6 topics:

Darold Batzer, University of Georgia, United States (Wikipedia article: Wetland)
Edward A. Laws, Louisiana State University, United States (Water pollution)
Guy Geltner, University of Amsterdam and Monash University, The Netherlands and Australia (public health, early history)
Linda Strande, EAWAG, Switzerland (Fecal sludge management)
Marcos von Sperling, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil (Sewage treatment, Wastewater treatment, Sewage)
Mesfin Mekonnen, The University of Alabama, United States (Water scarcity)
Oliver Jones, RMIT University, Australia (Water pollution)
Sally Bloomfield, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK (Hygiene)
Tom Crook, Oxford Brookes University (Public health)
Virginia Berridge, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK (Public health)
Anonymous reviewer 1 (Capacity building)

SDG 13 topics:

Baylor Fox-Kemper (User:Baylorfk), Brown University, United States (an IPCC AR 6 report author worked with his students on e.g. sea surface temperature, climate change in Antarctica)
Blair Trewin, Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (Instrumental temperature record) - an IPCC AR 6 report author
Fiona Charlson, University of Queensland, Australia (Effects of climate change on mental health)
Henry Shue, Merton College, Oxford, UK (Climate Justice)
Ian Hamilton, University College London, UK (Effects of climate change on human health)
Gonéri Le Cozannet (User:Goneri Le Cozannet), BRGM French Geologic Survey / Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières, France (Sea level rise) - an IPCC AR 6 report author
Jonathan Lynn (User:Jonathanlynn), France (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
Nick Watts, National Health Service (NHS England & NHS Improvement), UK (Effects of climate change on human health)
Peter Alexander, University of Edinburgh (User:PAlandus), UK (Effects of climate change on agriculture) - an IPCC AR 6 report author
Pierre Friedlingstein, University of Exeter, UK (carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere)
Richard Taylor, Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden (Climate change adaptation)
Thian Yew Gan, University of Alberta, Canada (Effects of climate change) - an IPCC AR 6 report author

SDG 14 topics:

David A. Fennell, Brock University, Canada (Sustainable tourism)
Gianluca Ferraro, University of Portsmouth, UK (Marine plastic pollution)
Michael Petterson, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand (Sustainable Development Goal 14)
Ivan Nagelkerken, University of Adelaide, Australia (Coast)
Tim Jickells, University of East Anglia, UK (Ocean, eutrophication, harmful algal bloom, coastal waters, effects of climate change on oceans)
F. Stuart Chapin III (Terry Chapin), University of Alaska Fairbanks, United States (Ecosystem)

Topics related to several SDGs:

Ben Purvis, University of Sheffield, UK (Sustainability)
Christian Berg (User:Seemountain), Clausthal University of Technology, Germany (Sustainability)
Lisa M. Butler Harrington, Professor Emeritus, Kansas State University, United States (Sustainability)
Michael Medley, Center for Social Development Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand (Official development assistance)
Murray W. Scown, Utrecht University, The Netherlands (Sustainable development goals)
Sarah Cornell, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden Planetary Boundaries
Thomas Hickmann, Utrecht University, The Netherlands (Sustainable development goals)
Tom Kuhlman (User:TK26), retired from Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands (Sustainability)
William C. Clark (Bill Clark), Harvard University, USA (Sustainable development)

Contributor with a focus on readability improvements and standard structure for "climate change by country" articles:

Diane Kellogg (User:PlanetCare), Bentley University (Emerita), United States (Sustainability, sustainable tourism, Sustainable Development Goals, Climate change in Finland, Ocean, Water pollution, Climate change in Kenya, Climate change in Ghana, Climate change in Brazil, Climate change in Mexico, Ecosystem, Climate change in Norway, Climate change in Sweden)

Books and publications provided by content experts (Phase 1)

Some content experts sent us pdf files of their own books or their own publications that are behind paywalls so that we could utilise them without having to purchase a copy. The following is an incomplete list (focused on textbooks):

For sewage, wastewater, sewage treatment, wastewater treatment: Von Sperling, M. (2015). "Wastewater Characteristics, Treatment and Disposal". Water Intelligence Online. 6: 9781780402086. doi:10.2166/9781780402086. ISSN 1476-1777 (this book is in fact open access already)
For ecosystem and eutrophication by Terry Chapin: Chapin, F. Stuart, III (2011). "Chapter 1: The Ecosystem Concept". Principles of terrestrial ecosystem ecology. P. A. Matson, Peter Morrison Vitousek, Melissa C. Chapin (2nd ed.). New York: Springer. ISBN 978-1-4419-9504-9. OCLC 755081405.
For water pollution by Oliver jones: Jones OA, Gomes RL (2013). "Chapter 1: Chemical Pollution of the Aquatic Environment by Priority Pollutants and its Control". Pollution: Causes, Effects and Control (5th ed.). Royal Society of Chemistry. ISBN 978-1-84973-648-0.
For sustainable tourism by David Fennell: Fennell, David A.; Cooper, Chris (2020). Sustainable Tourism: Principles, Contexts and Practices. Bristol, Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters. pp. 198, 234. doi:10.21832/9781845417673. ISBN 978-1-84541-767-3. S2CID 228913882.
For sustainability by Christian Berg: Berg, Christian (2020). Sustainable action : overcoming the barriers. Abingdon, Oxon. ISBN 978-0-429-57873-1. OCLC 1124780147.
For water security by David Grey: Sadoff, Claudia; Grey, David; Borgomeo, Edoardo (2020), "Water Security", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.013.609, ISBN 978-0-19-938941-4, retrieved 2022-04-12

External links

Project website at SEI (click on Tab "Results and Impacts", scroll down to "Learn more")
Presentation about the project from September 2022
Massviews - pageviews for articles that are in the same category