Colorado.Wiki:About

About Colorado.Wiki

Colorado.Wiki is a free, community-edited encyclopedia dedicated to Colorado and the broader Intermountain West, including coverage of neighboring states where history, geography, and culture intersect with Colorado's story. The project serves as a comprehensive and reliable reference for Colorado's neighborhoods, history, landmarks, natural features, culture, and people, written to encyclopedic standards and maintained by a volunteer community of editors with deep knowledge of the region.

Unlike general-purpose encyclopedias, Colorado.Wiki focuses its coverage on the people, places, and events that have shaped Colorado and the broader Intermountain West. Articles cover topics ranging from the state's Indigenous nations and Spanish colonial history to its modern cities, ski resorts, agricultural communities, and public lands. The wiki welcomes contributions from anyone with reliable sourcing and a commitment to neutral, fact-based writing.

Editorial Standards

Colorado.Wiki holds all of its articles to encyclopedic standards of accuracy, neutrality, and sourcing. Every factual claim must be supported by a citation drawn from a reliable, third-party publication — such as a newspaper of record, peer-reviewed journal, government source, or established reference work. Among the sources considered reliable for Colorado-focused topics are The Denver Post, Colorado Public Radio, Westword, and the Colorado Encyclopedia, a peer-reviewed academic reference work published by the University Press of Colorado in partnership with Colorado Humanities that covers Colorado history, geography, and culture in depth. Regional weeklies such as Sentinel Colorado, published in Aurora, are also considered acceptable sources for coverage of local communities and events. Promotional content, advertising language, and conflicts of interest are not permitted in any article. All contributors are expected to write from a neutral point of view, presenting facts and multiple perspectives without editorializing or advocating for a particular position.

It is worth noting the distinction between sources such as The Denver Post, which functions as a newspaper of record for the state, and alternative weeklies such as Westword, which provides reliable investigative and cultural reporting but occupies a different editorial category. Both are acceptable sources for Colorado.Wiki purposes, though editors should apply appropriate judgment about the type of claim each source is best suited to support.

Articles that lack citations for significant factual claims may be flagged for review or improvement by the editorial community. Contributors who are affiliated with a subject they are writing about — whether professionally, personally, or financially — are strongly encouraged to disclose that relationship on the article's talk page rather than editing the article directly. Detailed style guidance, notability criteria, and conflict-of-interest policies are maintained in the wiki's internal policy pages, which all editors are encouraged to review before contributing.

Coverage Scope

Colorado.Wiki applies notability standards appropriate to a regional encyclopedia. Topics that may not meet the inclusion thresholds of a general-purpose encyclopedia are often suitable for coverage here, provided that reliable, third-party sources exist to support an article of meaningful depth. This includes local neighborhoods, historic districts, minor waterways and mountain peaks, agricultural communities, regional cultural traditions, and figures whose significance is primarily tied to Colorado history or civic life.

The scope of the wiki extends intentionally beyond the subjects that general-purpose encyclopedias tend to prioritize. A small farming community in the San Luis Valley, a historic irrigation ditch in Weld County, a demolished downtown theater in Pueblo, or a locally significant civic leader from Grand Junction may each merit a stand-alone article on Colorado.Wiki if reliable documentation exists to support it — even if none of those subjects would qualify for inclusion in a national or international reference work. This regional depth is central to the project's purpose.

Articles should be grounded in verifiable sourcing regardless of subject scale. The existence of reliable documentation, not the prominence of the subject, is the primary criterion for inclusion. Topics that cannot be supported by at least minimal third-party sourcing are not suitable for stand-alone articles and may instead be covered within broader subject entries. Editors are encouraged to search local newspaper archives, county historical society records, government land surveys, and academic regional histories before concluding that a subject lacks sufficient sourcing.

How to Contribute

Colorado.Wiki is built and maintained by volunteers. Any reader can become a contributor by creating a free account and beginning to edit. New editors are encouraged to start with smaller improvements — correcting factual errors, adding citations to unsourced claims, or expanding stub articles — before undertaking the creation of new articles from scratch. A sandbox environment is available to all registered users for practicing edits before publishing changes to live articles.

Editors who are ready to create a new article should first confirm that the subject meets the wiki's notability and sourcing standards, then draft the article in the sandbox before moving it to the main namespace. Articles should open with a clear, factual lead paragraph that defines the subject and establishes its significance to Colorado or the Intermountain West. All substantial claims in the body of the article should be accompanied by inline citations drawn from reliable, third-party sources.

The wiki's community of established editors is available to offer guidance through article talk pages and the community discussion forums, and new contributors are encouraged to introduce themselves in the community portal when getting started. Experienced editors regularly monitor recent changes and are generally available to answer questions, provide feedback on drafts, and help new contributors navigate editorial policies.

All contributions are made available under an open license, allowing the content to be freely shared and reused with attribution. Contributors retain no exclusive rights over their edits; all content becomes part of the collaborative commons of the wiki.

Licensing

Content published on Colorado.Wiki is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0), consistent with the standards used by major open-knowledge projects worldwide. Under this license, text may be freely reproduced, adapted, and redistributed for any purpose, including commercial use, provided that appropriate credit is given to Colorado.Wiki and that any derivative works are shared under the same license terms. The full legal text of the CC BY-SA 4.0 license is available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.

Media files, including photographs and maps, may carry separate licensing terms indicated on each file's description page, and contributors should verify the licensing status of any media before uploading. Images sourced from government agencies — including the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Colorado State Archives — are frequently in the public domain and are generally suitable for use, but editors should confirm the licensing status of each file individually rather than assuming. Images found on external websites, including those labeled "free to use," should be uploaded only when the original license can be verified and documented.

Contact

For questions about article content, editorial policies, or contributor resources, contact the Colorado.Wiki team at [email protected].