How to contribute to Wikipedia

Last month I was surfing the collaboratively-edited free encyclopedia Wikipedia, as I’m wont to do, and I came across a typo. I’ve always been only a Wikipedia reader, never a Wikipedia editor. Over the years, Wikipedia has greatly benefitted me with scads of information about every topic under the sun. However, the prospect of editing the thing seemed scary and mysterious - I mean, who are these people anyway? How does one become an encyclopedia editor? - but there it was, a big honkin’ typo staring at me. I was suddenly seized by the responsibility - obligation, really - to fix it. So I took the plunge and hit that edit button.