The quality of articles in Wikipedia has grown tremendously in the last few years. A "good article" requires a big list of necessities, including coherence, readability, comprehensiveness and credible references. As such contributing technical articles requires academic merit, good explaining skills and mastery of the subject.
- How much value is being accorded to doctorates' contributions to Wikipedia during faculty recruitment?
- Since, on paper, a Wikipedia article should exposit an article lucidly to a (relative) fresher in the field, can Wikipedia contributions be taken as a partial measure of one's teaching abilities?
- How effectively could one list his/her Wikipedia contributions?
Answer
Contributions to Wikipedia (or Stack Exchange) are best viewed as community service. Like other kinds of community service, significant and sustained contributions can have a positive effect on hiring and promotion decisions. The effect is not likely to be major, unless maybe your outreach efforts rival Neil DeGrasse Tyson's, but it won't be zero.
Edit: I have to agree with Anonymous Mathematician's warning. Significant community service of any kind is best offered after tenure. Unfortunately, some people view significant service (or teaching) accomplishments as prima facie evidence of a lack of research focus. (Indeed, the case that I'm familiar with was a post-tenure promotion.)
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