Generation of and access to scientific information have traditionally been limited to those with privilege or power. The internet, and the development of Wikipedia, has revolutionized the way information is shared by allowing everyone connected to the internet to generate and access content. However, the scientific community has not taken full advantage of this information dissemination paradigm. This is particularly true in the aquatic sciences, as is evidenced by the scarcity and low quality of aquatic information on Wikipedia. We argue that societies, institutions, and scientists should prioritize and incentivize contributing to Wikipedia in parallel to traditional scientific outlets to increase both equity and efficiency in transferring aquatic scientific information among our community and to the public.
Read the full article in Limnology and Oceanography Letters.