Several UN agencies and other Intergovernmental Organizations produce publications and other text available under an open license that can be copied into Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects using the instructions below.
Wikimedia project page view statistics are available for open license text from the following UN agencies:
The process for adding open license text to Wikipedia can be broken down into the following steps:
Copy: Add the text from the open license source into Wikipedia.
Edit: Correct any formatting issues with the text, add headings and subheadings, change any wording not suitable for Wikipedia and add links to other articles.
Add media: Add graphics from the source if they are available by uploading them to Wikimedia Commons where the license on the graphics allows. You can also add in tables to the article, if the table is in a PDF (Tabula may be helpful for such additions).
Add attribution: Attribute the text using the 'Free-content attribution' template in the 'Sources' section, as explained below.
Cite: Add the original source of the text as a reference at the end of every paragraph or more if required. If the text has references add them as citations in the article. If you are creating a new article add additional references from other reliable sources to establish the notability of the subject.
Link: Create links to the article from other Wikipedia pages in both the main text and in the 'See also' sections, also add hatnotes where needed. Use the find link tool to identify and create links to the article. Add categories and Wikiproject templates to the talk page.
Publish: Save the changes to the existing article or publish the new article. In the edit summary include that you are using open license text and name the source (sometimes open license text can be flagged as a copyright violation, this helps avoid those issues).
There are two ways to attribute open license text in Wikipedia, either through the Visual editor or the Source editor. Text from multiple pages of the same source can be attributed at the same time using page numbers, when using text from more than one source please attribute separately.
Copy and paste the open license text into a Wikipedia article.
Create a section called Sources above the References section and click Insert on the editing toolbar and select Template.
Paste Free-content attribution into the box, click the first option and then click add template
Add the relevant information into the Title, Author, Publisher, Source, URL, License statement URL (if not stated within the document) fields and License (e.g. CC-BY-SA).
Click Publish changes and add added open license text, see the Sources section for more information to the edit summary.
Copy and paste the open license text into a Wikipedia article.
Create a Sources section above the References section and paste in:
{{Free-content attribution|title=<!-- The title of the work -->|author =<!-- The author of the work -->|publisher =<!-- The publisher of the work -->|source=<!-- The source of the work if not from the publisher or the author -->|documentURL=<!-- The URL of the work -->|license statement URL=<!-- The URL of the license statement of the work if not included within the document -->|license=<!-- The license of the work -->|howto=<!-- Only necessary if the template is used multiple times on the same page. Any value here will hide the last two sentences about instructions. -->|this=<!-- Only necessary if the template is appended to an already existing reference, hiding the text about the source. Accepts "yes" -->}}
Fill in the relevant fields, the text between the <!--...--> is simply for guidance, it will not appear
Add added open license text, see the Sources section for more information to the edit summary and click Publish changes.
Descriptions
UNESCO
Biosphere Reserves promote solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use, today there are 669 biosphere reserves in 120 countries belonging to a World Network of Biosphere Reserves. UNESCO has made descriptions of the Biosphere Reserves available under a Wikimedia compatible license to help create Wikipedia articles about the sites, click here to help create new articles.
Note: Please check at the start of the document for the license it is available under, some publications carry a Non Derivative (ND) or Non Derivative (ND) requirements, these are not compatible with Wikimedia projects, please do not use text from these documents. The description page for the publication carries the correct license, some documents have been released under an open license after their publication so will not include the correct license within the document. Please do not upload images from UNESCO publications to Wikimedia Commons, not all are available under an open license. Work is being done to upload media used in publications in high resolution.
Food and Agriculture Organization
Some UN FAO publications have been made available under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 license on Wikimedia Commons here. Note: Please link to the Wikimedia Commons page for the 'license statement URL' field in the attribution template, the license statement on the FAO website are not the same.
How to add open license text to Wikipedia
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