WikiWomen

[thekohser]

Began systematically moving female novelists off the "American Novelists'' page
and onto the "American Women Novelists'' subcategory.

I'm in two minds about this. Would people complain if someone began systematically moving American novelists off the "Novelists'' page and onto the "American Novelists'' subcategory? Of course, the best thing would be to improve the category system so you had categories of Americans, Women and Novelists and could create their intersection, or that of any two of them, on the fly.

Semantic Mediawiki rather elegantly solves for this very complex problem. But, Semantic Mediawiki was too difficult for Jimbo Wales, so he passively squashed the idea of implementing it on Wikipedia. Then he fibbed about doing that, in typical Jimbo fashion.

[Mancunium]

Why we’re organizing a Hack4Change in Delhi
MediaNama, 6 December 2013 link

To say violence against women (VAW) is a huge problem in India would be an understatement. This is sadly such an obvious fact that I don’t need to quote any studies to justify my claim. The only silver lining in this extremely bleak scenario is that we can see more women coming out and speaking about their experiences openly. [...] Given this backdrop, we at Breakthrough in association with Hacks/hackers Delhi, are planning to organise a thematic hackathon around women’s rights. Women in technology are a minority and the field of technology continues to be a male domain. Also, the skewed ratio of women editors in Wikipedia is a well-documented fact. [...]

There are different activities planned for the hackathon. For instance, we have a Wikipedia edit-a-thon, where we plan to edit Wikipedia articles on the issues of gender-based violence. Articles about cases of sexual violence in India or about women who have been an integral part of women’s movement in India are either not many, or are incomplete or just don’t exist. This event is a way of populating the world’s biggest encyclopedia with stories related to violence against women from India.

So does this mean that the hackathon is only open to techies? No! We intend for this hackathon to open to all. There will be a lot of group work to do and we need people with diverse skillsets in order to achieve the desired output. Does it also mean that men can’t participate? Hell, no! While we want more women to take part, we also want more men to participate because we believe men are allies in the cause of VAW.

The Hack4Change hackathon on VAW is being held in Delhi on 7 and 8 December: link

Also reported here:

A hackathon for women's rights
Daily News & Analysis, 6 December 2013 link

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia Art and Feminism Edit-a-thon
Jezebel, 14 January 2014 link

Wikipedia is one of our most-used information sources, yet women are woefully unrepresented. There have even been incidents like the systematic removal of female authors from the category of "American novelists" and placement of them into "American women novelists," because there are people and there are women and those don't overlap, right?

There is a meetup on February 1st to do a mass edit-a-thon. There are sites all over the place, you can start your own, or if all else fails you can take this as an inspiration to edit an article or five. I would hope that we could be even more specific and especially examine articles about WOC, women's class- and ability-related topics, and others. [...]

Wikipedia:Meetup/ArtAndFeminism (T-H-L)

[...] We invite you to help address this absence at a Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Saturday, February 1, 2014 from noon to 6 p.m. at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, 540 West 21st Street, New York City. We will provide tutorials for the beginner Wikipedian, reference materials, and light refreshments. For the editing-averse, we urge you to stop by to show your support. A closing reception for Eyebeam Art and Technology Center Annual Showcase will follow the edit sprint.

We also encourage remote participation; you can share your thoughts on the editing process in real-time here or on our tumblr. Satellite events will take place at: De Appel in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; University of Texas at Austin School of Information; Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum (co-hosted by Project Continua); Luke Lindoe Library at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, Canada; School of the Art Institute of Chicago; NSCAD University Library in Halifax, Canada; Women's Studio Workshop in Kingston, NY; The Public School in Los Angeles; University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Library & Information Studies; Eastern Bloc (co-hosted by Eastern Bloc, Studio XX, revue .dpi, and Skol) in Montreal, Canada; University of the Arts Greenfield Library in Philadelphia, PA; Portland State University; State University of New York at Purchase; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco; Art Metropole in Toronto, Canada; National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC; and more locations to be announced. If you would like to host an Edit-a-Thon please join in. If you are looking for training materials or have questions post on the talk page or contact one of the organizers. [...]

[Hersch]

Stop me if you've heard this.

[SB_Johnny]

Stop me if you've heard this.

Thus, Postcolonial Digital Humanists have an obligation to engage with Wikipedia editing. Postcolonial studies has prided itself on challenging paradigms that perpetuate social inequality in terms of “who” and “what” is worthy of representation. Through Wikipedia editing, Postcolonial Digital Humanists have the opportunity to intervene in what postcolonial studies critics have termed colonial paradigms of knowledge production and imperialist hierarchies of information.

The Capitalization of Important Things is quite charming, but it leaves me wondering what the leftie equivalent to the tin-foil-hat would be. Organically Grown Fair Trade Underwear, perhaps?

[EricBarbour]

Stop me if you've heard this.

Thus, Postcolonial Digital Humanists have an obligation to engage with Wikipedia editing. Postcolonial studies has prided itself on challenging paradigms that perpetuate social inequality in terms of “who” and “what” is worthy of representation. Through Wikipedia editing, Postcolonial Digital Humanists have the opportunity to intervene in what postcolonial studies critics have termed colonial paradigms of knowledge production and imperialist hierarchies of information.

[Hersch]

Stop me if you've heard this.

Thus, Postcolonial Digital Humanists have an obligation to engage with Wikipedia editing. Postcolonial studies has prided itself on challenging paradigms that perpetuate social inequality in terms of “who” and “what” is worthy of representation. Through Wikipedia editing, Postcolonial Digital Humanists have the opportunity to intervene in what postcolonial studies critics have termed colonial paradigms of knowledge production and imperialist hierarchies of information.

I also find the jargon annoying, but "humanist" is particularly troubling because it used to have such a different definition.

[Zoloft]

I commented, it's waiting moderation. I expect it may wait an awful looooong time.

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia Arts + Feminism Edit-a-Thon
Portland Mercury, 15 January 2014 link

[...] There's another, similar event on the horizon: The upcoming Art + Feminism Edit-a-Thon aims to boost Wikipedia's coverage of female artists while also encouraging women to contribute to the site, whose contributor base strongly skews male. The Portland meetup is one of many taking place across the country. No experience is required; pro Wikipedians will be on hand to help newcomers navigate the Wiki editing process, including finding and citing sources. So if your interests lie anywhere near the intersection of art, feminism, and technology, put this one on the calendar. The Wikipedia page for the national event already contains a long list of feminist subjects whose articles either don't exist at all, or need substantial revision.

The Portland event is Saturday, Feb 1 at PSU's Neuberger Hall (Room 293), from 9 am-3 pm; participants should bring their own laptop and power cord.

Yes, there is a long list of "feminist subjects" awaiting female skew on the Wikipedia:Meetup/ArtAndFeminism (T-H-L) page.

I couldn't possibly comment.

[thekohser]

Stop me if you've heard this.

So go edit Wikipedia, and try and get your friends and students involved!

Yeah, that'll fix the problem!

[Kiefer.Wolfowitz]

participants should bring their ... power cord.

[Poetlister]

I also find the jargon annoying, but "humanist" is particularly troubling because it used to have such a different definition.

I thought that in the last 20 years, "humanist" had become a euphemism for "atheist". Certainly, the British Humanist Society has been taken over by atheists.

[HRIP7]

Stop me if you've heard this.

So go edit Wikipedia, and try and get your friends and students involved!

Yeah, that'll fix the problem!

More Wikipedia cannon fodder. While the WMF lot laugh all the way to the bank about the number of people falling over themselves to do their work for them.

[Mancunium]

Sieging the Servers
Worldwide Feminist Wikipedia Edit-a-thon to Take Over the Web This Weekend
The Link, 27 January 2014 link

On Feb. 1, Wikipedia is getting a makeover—or is it a reality check? At 22 locations across the globe, from Wisconsin to Australia, individuals across the net will tackle the lack of feminist content as well as the lapses in art pages on Wikipedia, and Montreal will be one of these hotspots of Internet activism. [...] The event will be a gathering of editors who will update Wikipedia’s current art and feminist content, which, according to its organizers, is seriously lacking. “You’ll have five pages of text on a Lord Of The Rings costume and then you won’t be able to find a famous artist’s page because it just isn’t there,” said Amber Berson, in charge of organizing Montreal’s Edit-a-thon, citing artist Adrian Piper as an example. Piper’s Wikipedia page was just recently built. [...]

“Absolutely anyone” can participate, but women are encouraged to be a part of the event as the Edit-a-thon not only takes on the shortage of female artists on the site, but is also a reaction to a 2010 study by Wikimedia that found that only 13 per cent of its editors—the people who create and correct the site’s self-regulated content, which is open for anyone to do—self-identify as female. Berson says the number of female editors may be higher, but they might not all be identifying as such for various reasons. “You have to come out with more of a strong voice when you self-identify as a woman, as an editor,” said Berson. “There’s a devaluation of the way women express themselves and their opinions.

“I would also say that the more that women hear Wikipedia, tech, whatever is a ‘man’s world,’ the more alienated they feel from it,” she added. [...] The lack of women in the Internet and tech world is well known. From gaming to Twitter, from the companies’ CEOs to the clients, Silicon Valley has often been called a “boys’ club.” Indeed, women make up only about a quarter of the industry’s workforce, according to nonprofit feminist media organization Bitch Media. By addressing those issues concretely, the edit sprint encourages people to contribute to the online open encyclopedia they may only be used to consulting—something Berson herself said she was terrified of because of a coding class she took in university. [...]

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia Art+Feminism Edit-A-Thon's takeover
Get in the NSCAD University library and expand the internet's most ubiquitous source this Saturday
The Coast, 28 January 2014 link

Wikipedia has a problem. Of the 20,572,652 editors that populate the online encyclopedia, only 13 per cent are women. Organizers of the Wikipedia Art+Feminism Edit-A-Thon event believe that this lack of female editorship results in less content about notable women. “It seems that the ratio of the content providers is being reflected in the actual content itself,” says Eleanor King, Director of NSCAD’s Anna Leonowens Gallery and co-coordinator of Halifax’s event. “The aim of the Edit-A-Thon is to get women and men involved and to sort of level out that playing field a little bit.” [...] All you have to do is take a quick tutorial on how to be a Wikipedia editor, pick a person to add and start researching. The process is pretty empowering. “Every time you see something that needs to be corrected now you can say I’m just logging in, I’m going to fix this.” [...] [Rebecca] Young and King are looking forward to building up the repository of articles on women along with so many other people around the world. “Is the internet going to explode?” Young asks, “We don’t know.”

Unfortunately, it's idealistic people like these who have a problem. They really don't know anything about Wikipedia, and if they become involved it will most likely end in heartbreak. If they want to support art and feminism, it would be better for them to organize Wikipedia Art+Feminism Resistance cells.

[Tippi Hadron]

Unfortunately, it's idealistic people like these who have a problem. They really don't know anything about Wikipedia, and if they become involved it will most likely end in heartbreak. If they want to support art and feminism, it would be better for them to organize Wikipedia Art+Feminism Resistance cells.

This!

I think it would be more satisfying to the participants, and make more women see what an amazing career IT offers, to hold a ladies-only Festival of Vandalizing and Trolling Wikipedia.

[Mancunium]

Fixing Wikipedia's gender bias, one edit at a time
Edit-a-thon aims to fill the gap in online content and community
Halifax Media Co-op, 29 January 2014 link

Eleanor King is hoping that Wikipedia will be her new Facebook. "I'd much rather spend my time on the internet doing something productive," says the director of the Anna Leonowens Gallery. And "this free, open-source, community-based sum of all knowledge – to me it's a utopian place," says King. "To contribute to that is really exciting."

King has recently made the move from Wikipedia reader to true Wikipedian, one of the more than 125,000 people that collaboratively write, edit, and fact-check the enormous repository of information that is Wikipedia. The inspiration for King's conversion? The upcoming Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, an international event founded by New York-based art and technology non-profit, Eyebeam. [...] Thanks to NSCAD University Director of Library Services Rebecca Young, Haligonians will have a chance to join in the fun. Young felt the Edit-a-thon was a natural fit for the NSCAD library, because it brings together art, feminism, and also a focus on information literacy. And it's a chance to bring people together, too. "Since I've been in the library racket," says Young, "it seems there's fewer bodies in the library."

"People are working alone a lot, and that's fine," says Young, but she's hoping the Edit-a-thon gathering will be an opportunity for "the spontaneous interactions that support new ideas and more collaborative work." According to a 2010 survey conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation, less than 13% of Wikipedia contributors identify as women. "That creates a bias inherent in the resource," says Young. "Women have less presence as notable human beings, with listings and biographies, on Wikipedia," says King, who is co-presenting the event with Young. [...] "Our focus for this event is looking to find out where those holes are," says King. [...]

King herself has yet to publish a new article, instead opting to edit existing articles. Even a recent spate of housekeeping work on the NSCAD University article, "was an empowering, exciting thing to do," says King. Another of her fixes involved a minor edit on an entry for the Art Workers’ Coalition, which listed a female artist differently than her male colleagues, creating ambiguity about her role. "I fixed it," says King. "It was just a silly formal thing, but to me it made a difference, so I changed it. It's really satisfying." The Pew Research Centre estimates that 53% of adult internet users internationally use Wikipedia to look for information. King and Young are asking people to come to the Edit-a-thon with a Wikipedia account set up, and the one-hour online training for students under their belts. But even the technologically-averse are welcome. "People can also contribute by being in the library and finding the citations," says Young. [...]

What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_blog.2C_Web_hosting_service.2C_social_networking_service.2C_or_memorial_site (T-H-L)

Wikipedia is not a social networking service like Facebook [...] The focus of user pages should not be social networking, or amusement, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration. [...] Wikipedia is not an appropriate place to pursue relationships or sexual encounters. [...]

[thekohser]

The User account of a soon-to-be disillusioned, disheartened, dismayed woman:
Darlakitty (T-C-L)

[Cla68]

The User account of a soon-to-be disillusioned, disheartened, dismayed woman:
Darlakitty (T-C-L)

I'd like to suggest some topic areas for them to work on, perhaps to add the feminist perspective if there is one:

- Intelligent design and other theistic science articles
- North American highways and roads
- Global warming
- Psuedosciences like cold fusion
- Alternative medicines like homeopathy, etc
- Race and intelligence
- Pokemon
- Eve Online or other MMOPRGs

It would be interesting to see their reactions when their initial contributions to any of these topic areas get immediately reverted.

[Poetlister]

I'd like to suggest some topic areas for them to work on, perhaps to add the feminist perspective if there is one:

- Intelligent design and other theistic science articles
- North American highways and roads
- Global warming
- Psuedosciences like cold fusion
- Alternative medicines like homeopathy, etc
- Race and intelligence
- Pokemon
- Eve Online or other MMOPRGs

We could have some fun edit wars about sex and intelligence.

[Vigilant]

You forgot the Isreali/Palestinian kerfluffle.
Oh, and the Irish.

[Zoloft]

Keep novice editors out of trouble. Have them add articles about the British Isles.

[Vigilant]

I'd like to suggest some topic areas for them to work on, perhaps to add the feminist perspective if there is one:

- Intelligent design and other theistic science articles
- North American highways and roads
- Global warming
- Psuedosciences like cold fusion
- Alternative medicines like homeopathy, etc
- Race and intelligence
- Pokemon
- Eve Online or other MMOPRGs

We could have some fun edit wars about sex and intelligence.

Here. Let me start.
Brain_size (T-H-L)

The average male in their third decade (ages 20–29) had a significantly higher gray matter ratio than the average female of the same age group.

Studies demonstrate a clear biological basis to intelligence, with larger brains predicting higher intelligence.

Let me know if you need help with that thinking stuff, ladies...

[Alison]

Keep novice editors out of trouble. Have them add articles about the British Isles.

What could possibly go wrong?

[enwikibadscience]

I'd like to suggest some topic areas for them to work on, perhaps to add the feminist perspective if there is one:

- Intelligent design and other theistic science articles
- North American highways and roads
- Global warming
- Psuedosciences like cold fusion
- Alternative medicines like homeopathy, etc
- Race and intelligence
- Pokemon
- Eve Online or other MMOPRGs

We could have some fun edit wars about sex and intelligence.

Here. Let me start.
Brain_size (T-H-L)

The average male in their third decade (ages 20–29) had a significantly higher gray matter ratio than the average female of the same age group.

Studies demonstrate a clear biological basis to intelligence, with larger brains predicting higher intelligence.

Let me know if you need help with that thinking stuff, ladies...

Turgenev's brain weighed almost two pounds more than Einstein's.

[Vigilant]

Turgenev's brain weighed almost two pounds more than Einstein's.

Correlation, not causation, my dear.
Now, about that smaller women's brain mass...

Are you sure there isn't a stuck jar lid I can help you with, as well?

[Poetlister]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:W ... _laureates

[Vigilant]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:W ... _laureates

The obvious rejoinder is List_of_Nobel_laureates (T-H-L).

I'd say next, "I'm not a misogynist...some of my relatives are women.", but it appears the joke has grown thin already.

<----Totally not a misogynist.

[enwikibadscience]

Turgenev's brain weighed almost two pounds more than Einstein's.

Correlation, not causation, my dear.
Now, about that smaller women's brain mass...

Are you sure there isn't a stuck jar lid I can help you with, as well?

Lol, if you only knew what I did for a living.

(Nothing, my husband works to support me.)

[Mancunium]

The author of this article knows enough about Wikipedia to present the encyclopedia's dark side.

WSW hosts Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon in Kingston
Almanac Weekly, 30 January 2014 link

Wikipedia is perhaps the ultimate example of the modern conventional wisdom that the Internet, as a source for research, is “a mile wide and an inch deep.” Much as we have grown to rely on it, it’s still all too common to run across a Wikipedia entry that’s obviously biased, riddled with errors or lacking in crucial tidbits of information about the subject. Sometimes the temptation to join the legions who go in and tinker with the entries is just too powerful to resist, even knowing full well that someone else might go into the very same page an hour later and change it back.

And then of course there’s the whole complicated protocol of registering and establishing your credentials as a “Wikipedian,” which militates to some degree against the website’s alleged democratic spirit of information-sharing. If you’re not already enough of a computer geek to understand what’s on all those tabs behind a Wikipedia entry, the learning curve can seem rather intimidating. One of the upshots of this user-unfriendly setup is that fewer than 20 percent of Wikipedia editors are women. And that helps explain why entries about great women in various fields are disproportionately scanty. Every so often a group gets together to make an organized effort to rectify this and other imbalances in what Wikipedia covers. [...]

In our neck of the woods, Women’s Studio Workshop (WSW) will host a local “meetup” at Café East in uptown Kingston (across from the county office building also known as “The Glass Menagerie) on February 1 from 12 noon to 3 p.m. WSW will provide coffee to keep editorial minds stimulated, and guests can opt to purchase additional brain fuel from the special menu that Café East will prepare for the afternoon. The event is free to attend and open to all who are interested, although female editors are especially encouraged to attend. While no prior Wikipedia editing experience is required, attendees should bring their own laptops and power cords. Activities will range from creating new articles to editing existing content, adding new citations and correcting broken links. Even if the subject of women in art isn’t your particular area of interest or expertise, it’s a great opportunity to hone your Wiki-editing skills and become an active member of the community of contributors to this increasingly essential public resource.

Why? If, as you say, Wikipedia is obviously biased, riddled with errors, lacking in crucial information, intimidating and user-unfriendly, why encourage people to become active members of the "community of contributors"? This meetup is a great opportunity to use your caffeine-stimulated minds and your well-fueled brains to discuss the real problem with Wikipedia, and what you can really do about it.

[Mancunium]

We can edit it! Brooklyn Museum feminists to add shunned women to Wikipedia
Brooklyn Paper, 1 February 2014 link

Ladies, man your stations.

Feminists will try to stamp out anti-woman bias on Wikipedia today through an online editing spree at the Brooklyn Museum’s anti-sexist art center. “Our mission is to bring attention to women who have been neglected,” said Jess Wilcox, program coordinator for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. “History is sort-of being written by Wikipedia, and there has been a lot of discussion in the media about gender inequities in Wikipedia.” [...] The mass editing effort was inspired by Wikipedia’s dudely move last year to segregate female American novelists into their own category, placing only men in the “American novelists” group. “That sparked a lot of debate about gender equality,” said Wilcox. “It is all part of a bigger picture.” [...]

Ladies, woman your stations.

Wiki thump
Lansing City Pulse, 31 January 2014 link

Wikipedia, the bane of teachers and the toast of lazy students around the world, provides terabyte upon terabyte of free information online. Whether looking for Lincoln’s birthday (Feb. 12, 1809) or the number of residents in Lansing (113,996), nearly any imaginable fact or figure can be found with a simple search. However, noting that less than 13 percent of contributors to the site are female, Art Feminism is organizing a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Saturday, Feb. 1, with the Broad Art Museum in an attempt to better represent female perspectives on the webs largest encyclopedia. [...] While editing Wikipedia is often nefarious, Tammy Fortin, curatorial program manager for Broad, said this event is meant to suppliant existing pages as well as promoting lesser-known female artists. [...]

We're nefarious. Join us.

Feminist groups bring another 'Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon' to campuses, claim website has 'political impact'
Campus Reform, 31 January 2014 link

[...] Sarah Stierch, a Wikipedia editor who has worked with event co-organizer Wikimedia to increase female participation, said the very appearance of the Wikipedia website proves it is skewed towards males. "It's aesthetically very masculine in its design," Stierch told online news source The Daily Dot. [...] Eyebeam also cited a 2010 study which found that fewer than 13 percent of Wikipedia editors were female. Stierch, however, explained that the actual number may be higher because editors often choose not to disclose their gender. She also argues that many women simply choose not to edit the website. Joseph Reagle, an assistant professor at Northeastern University, however, said that women are not capable of making a true choice whether or not to participate because of Wikipedia’s “brogrammer' locker-room type of environment." [...]

Interesting choice of poster person.

[EricBarbour]

Feminist groups bring another 'Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon' to campuses, claim website has 'political impact'
Campus Reform, 31 January 2014 link
Interesting choice of poster person.

Hmm, good photo. Think I'll grab it.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... Voices.jpg

From past experience, I would not be surprised to learn that Ms. Timpf, the author of this little item, is also a Wikipedia editor hooked into the Gendergap gang somehow.

Do you realize there are 37 photos of Ms. Stierch posted on Wikipedia? And all of them, plus several more, are on Commons. Her ego is bigger than an aircraft carrier.

[Zoloft]

Give her credit for perseverance. She's wading right back in after a severe check.

[Mancunium]

SCSU group participates in edit-a-thon for Wikipedia website
St. Cloud Times, 1 February 2014 link

In many classrooms, relying on Wikipedia for information is a surefire way to get on a teacher’s bad side. That puts St. Cloud State University professor Sharon Cogdill in an unusual position: She doesn’t just approve of the popular community-edited encyclopedia; she wants her students to add to it as well.

“I had my students contribute to Wikipedia last semester and I encourage my students to do it. I think it gives them a sense of power they didn’t have before,” Cogdill said. That empowerment was on display Saturday as groups worldwide participated in a Wikipedia edit-a-thon aimed at eliminating gender bias on the Internet site. The group at St. Cloud State was led by Rachel Wexelbaum, the collection management librarian at the school. “There’s a systemic bias within Wikipedia because the vast majority of contributors are white English-speaking men,” she said. “There’s a lot that gets left out or misrepresented.” [...]

Twelve people signed up for the event Saturday and while the turnout fell short of that, one the best things about the website is the fact that a single person can have a large positive impact, Wexelbaum said. “Once you understand the power of the resource, you realize that the resource exists not just to entertain us ... this is a global resource to do good around the world,” Wexelbaum said.

St. Cloud State freshman Katie Forsman said the day opened her mind to the opportunities the website provides. “I’m really surprised because I always just thought that it wasn’t credible and there was a lot of wrong information on there,” Forsman said. “But they were talking about how it’s changed and there are people who watch over it. If you write too much bad information, then you get blocked from editing. I just thought that was very interesting.” [...]

Cogdill said the site itself helps by monitoring “graffiti” – entries that are incorrect or intentionally inflammatory – and having restricted access to certain articles. She was quick to note that if more people take on the personal responsibility of making Wikipedia more accurate, the fear of misinformation may begin to fade. She noted an instance when she was able to add her historical knowledge to an entry and another where a student was able to add her real-world knowledge of her hometown to enhance entries. She said that’s when the site is at its best, when people build on existing information.

“Wikipedia is kind of advertising ‘Please add citations’ and they really mean it, but most people don’t feel like they can,” Cogdill said. “That’s what Rachel is trying to do, break that ‘I don’t feel like I can’ feeling.” Having a capable online community where people can go to get reliable information could potentially change the way people around the world consume information. People could begin to learn as the world changes rather than studying the soon-outdated “snapshots” found in a traditional encyclopedia. People always have to remember that all of our knowledge ... it increases and evolves over time,” Wexelbaum said. “An (encyclopedia) is finite. It is closed and it’s done ... it captures a snapshot of our knowledge of a particular subject in that time period. Wikipedia is an open resource that people can add and edit and it can keep growing.”

Wikipedia edit-a-thon organizer Rachel Wexelbaum eliminating gender bias on the Internet site.


A group of women changing the way the people around the world consume information.

[enwikibadscience]

Interesting choice of poster person.

All this technology and the women leading the rest of us feeble-brained members of the human race into the light is using pen on paper snapshots....

[Mancunium]

More diversity means more voices meaning more voices to drown the vocal/uncivil minority meaning more wikilove!!

Are You Drowning Out Minority Voices?
Psychology Today, 13 September 2013 link

[...] At best, shutting out the minority voices will over-weight the status quo and sacrifice innovation. At worst, failing to listen to minority voices is a dangerous precursor to groupthink--when excessive group cohesiveness leads to a false sense of invulnerability and a disconnection from the world outside the team. [...]

Wikipedia editathon combats the online encylopaedia’s gender gap
The Varsity, 3 February 2014 link

[...] “Thirteen percent of the editors being female results in gaps where there should be entries about women’s contributors or expanded entries about women,” explains Amy Lam, one of the coordinators behind Toronto’s editathon. “This is not to say that male editors are not aware of feminist issues,” Lam explained, adding that having such a skewed percentage of female editors on Wikipedia reflects the type and quality of information represented on Wikipeda. For instance, at the time of publication, there exists no entries for topics such as “feminist aesthetics” or “representations of women in art.” [...] According to Lam, the goal of the edithons is simple: “Its goal is to address the gender disparity of Wikipedia editors,” she explained during an interview. It is not an attempt to make a “feminist” Wikipedia, but more so provide a “feminist response to Wikipedia,” she said. [...]

Wikipedia is ‘very masculine,’ so feminists pledge to fix it
The Daily Caller, 3 February 2014 link

Feminist groups at more than a dozen universities are planning to participate in another mass “edit Wikipedia day,” because the free, volunteer encyclopedia website is obviously horribly sexist. Sarah Stierch, a Wikipedia contributor and researcher for the Wikimedia Foundation, said the problem isn’t just that most Wikipedia users are male. The layout of the website is itself “very masculine,” she said. “It’s aesthetically very masculine in its design,” said Stierch in a statement to The Daily Dot, also noting that, “The average Wikipedia editor is a well-educated white male. Well-educated white males have been writing history and the story of the world since ancient times." [...] “It’s not like my life passion to make Wikipedia feminist, but it’s been really surprising, there’s this whole underground world that I wasn’t aware of of people who are dedicated to editing Wikipedia,” said Krystal South, an event organizer, in a statement to Bitch Magazine. “The beauty of Wikipedia is it’s a public institution, people have the ability to go change it.” [...]

A representation of women in art: poorly-educated white females combating the gender gap by drowning out vocal/uncivil minority voices

[thekohser]

The Daily Caller, 3 February 2014 link

The reader comments on that piece are particularly vicious.

[eppur si muove]

The Daily Caller, 3 February 2014 link

The reader comments on that piece are particularly vicious.

Talk about dinosaurs.

[Mancunium]

The Daily Caller, 3 February 2014 link

The reader comments on that piece are particularly vicious.

Talk about dinosaurs.

Yeah, those are some nasty comments-- and so far there are 1330 of them. Those would be the people who like Wikipedia just the way it is.

[enwikibadscience]

The Daily Caller, 3 February 2014 link

The reader comments on that piece are particularly vicious.

Talk about dinosaurs.

Yeah, those are some nasty comments-- and so far there are 1330 of them. Those would be the people who like Wikipedia just the way it is.

No, probably don't have an opinion on Wikipedia, just basement dwelling internet trolls.

[EricBarbour]

The Daily Caller, 3 February 2014 link

The reader comments on that piece are particularly vicious.

Talk about dinosaurs.

Yeah, those are some nasty comments-- and so far there are 1330 of them. Those would be the people who like Wikipedia just the way it is.

That is Daily Caller, politically conservative and run by one of the most ridiculous conservative pundits in DC, Tucker Carlson. He is the perfect walking stereotype of a spoiled, petulant trust-fund brat.

He's a big "men's rights" pusher, and attracts other angry boy-men with a similar interest in protecting their foreskins and urinals from "feminazis", etc etc. Most of them probably have no idea what Wikipedia is -- someone waved the feminist red cape at them, and it's time to flip out.

[Cla68]

The Daily Caller, 3 February 2014 link

The reader comments on that piece are particularly vicious.

Talk about dinosaurs.

Yeah, those are some nasty comments-- and so far there are 1330 of them. Those would be the people who like Wikipedia just the way it is.

That is Daily Caller, politically conservative and run by one of the most ridiculous conservative pundits in DC, Tucker Carlson. He is the perfect walking stereotype of a spoiled, petulant trust-fund brat.

He's a big "men's rights" pusher, and attracts other angry boy-men with a similar interest in protecting their foreskins and urinals from "feminazis", etc etc. Most of them probably have no idea what Wikipedia is -- someone waved the feminist red cape at them, and it's time to flip out.

Most of the commenters appeared to be using the article to post screeds about whatever was bothering them lately and not necessarily related to the topic of the article. None of them appeared to suggest, "Hey, why don't we all edit WP as a group and add the conservative, men's rights perspective to it?" I suspect that wouldn't work because most of their individual, half-baked philosophies on life don't agree with the others.

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia Meets Feminism
Women artists and historical figures have gotten short shrift on the Internet. It’s time to organize to fight that gender bias.
by Dorothy Howard
The Daily Beast, 5 February 2014 link

Does your favorite female artist or historical figure have a Wikipedia page? Having an article on the world’s largest encyclopedia is a sign of cultural recognition and acknowledgement, but Wikipedia has left women out of accounts of major historical movements and art periodization. [...] Eyebeam’s edit-a-thon is a sign that the worldwide Wikipedia movement getting more organized, more political, and more willing to confront the systematic biases of its information. Thousands of edit-a-thons have occurred since the first was held at the British Museum in 2010.

As a Wikipedian-in-Residence at the Metropolitan New York Library Council, my work is to add archival content to Wikipedia and encourage institutions to donate their authority information to the public domain— another example of the site’s efforts to increase the reputability and scope of its articles. I’ve also found that libraries and archives, still largely female fields, have been some of the first to embrace Wikipedia editing at an institutional level. [...] What’s needed now is what we might call a project of feminist information activism, and a cross-generational commitment to writing-in female and feminist artists into history. Last weekend’s events produced more than 90 new Wikipedia articles, expanded or improved over 70 articles, and added several dozen images to the public domain image site Wikimedia Commons. Here are some of my favorites created on the day of the event: [...]

Because of systematic biases, I've never heard of Dorothy Howard (OR_drohowa (T-C-L)), or any of the subjects of her ten most favorite new articles. I guess I should read number 4 on her list, n.paradoxa (T-H-L), and number 6 on the same list, I_Love_Dick (T-H-L).

[mac]

101 Women Artists Who Got Wikipedia Pages This Week
The Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon was an international initiative to bring women's voices to the online encyclopedia--as editors and as subjects
BY Robin Cembalest
ARTnews, February 6, 2014 link

Last Saturday, about 600 volunteers in 31 venues around the globe engaged in a collective effort to change the world, one Wikipedia entry at a time.

In the United States, Canada, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, in nonprofits and art schools, in museums and universities, these people—mostly women—set out to write entries, uncredited and unpaid, for the fast-growing crowd-sourced online encyclopedia.

In my day, activism meant getting off your ass.

[Mancunium]

10 Women in Wikipedia: Meetup/Art And Feminism You Should Know
Flavorwire, 9 February 2014 link

Wikipedia has changed the way we hunt for and gather our information, but it’s not a bible of knowledge. There are countless figures absent from the online records, especially when it comes to women, which is something that the Wikipedia: Meetup/Art And Feminism group continues to rectify. Participants add to Wikipedia’s database, with a focus on female artists and cultural figures. These Wikipedia Edit-a-thons are a crucial form of “feminist information activism.” A recent event found more than 90 new Wiki articles added and over 70 expanded and improved. Here are ten women whose works you should know about. [...]

With information about, and examples of the work of, the following women whose works you should know about:
Marion Faller
Jillian Tamaki
Eve Mosher
Kelly O
Carmen Tórtola Valencia
Kate Durbin
Zarina
Linda Lee Alter
Daria Martin
Claire Parker


A woman
by Kelly O


A man
by Marion Faller

[Mancunium]

Closing Wikipedia’s Gender Gap — Reluctantly
New York Magazine, 11 February 2014 link

It felt like finals week at the Chelsea arts nonprofit Eyebeam last weekend: More than a hundred people — mostly women — were crowded laptop to laptop, the sounds of keyboards and quiet requests to borrow chargers echoing off the concrete floor. They had gathered for the first-ever Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. At Eyebeam, and satellite marathons across New York and in more than twenty cities internationally, women were researching and writing, an effort with the twofold goal of bolstering Wikipedia’s entries on women artists and of encouraging more women to edit Wikipedia. I’d seen the event on Jezebel’s commenter blog and felt compelled to attend out of a mix of curiosity and guilt. Wikipedia famously bears one of the starkest gender gaps in contemporary culture — less than 15 percent of its editors are women. As a result, the Internet encyclopedia is a lopsided, Axe-scented version of the world, one where Sex and the City has fewer citations than a single character from Grand Theft Auto. But unlike other spaces where women are underrepresented, Wikipedia doesn’t have any official gatekeeper excluding us. No one hires you to edit Wikipedia. Which means it’s the kind of thing you can’t really complain about unless you do your part.

And what better place to make one's Wikipedia debut? According to Art + Feminism organizers, if you look at the Wikipedia pages of a male and female contemporary artist of similar stature in the art world, the female artist’s page will typically be less developed. Organized editorial sprints aim to correct such imbalances, usually by focusing on particular topics, like the Ada Lovelace Day edit-a-thon held at Brown University last fall to create and edit pages for women who have contributed to STEM fields. Art + Feminism promised editing tutorials from expert Wikipedians, IRL human company, light refreshments, and free child-care for those who RSVPed. That last perk was thanks to Laurel Ptak, an Eyebeam fellow and one of the event’s organizers — she spent a year working in Sweden (“Where all anyone thinks about is providing free child-care,” she said), and a few hours child-proofing a room in Eyebeam’s basement. The generous social services were a reminder of one of the more basic obstacles that might keep women from editing Wikipedia: a lack of leisure time. One prominent theory for women’s absence is that — in spite of changing domestic gender roles — household drudgery still means that women have less free time than men do to spend mired in obscure online research projects. “For big events like this, that think about ethical things, I think we have a responsibility to follow through,” Ptak said.

Another big deterrent — and one without a temporary fix for the weekend event — is the argumentative and trollish atmosphere of Wikipedia. On Saturday, a trainee editor (just one of the event’s impressive showing of senior citizens) asked a prominent Wikipedian called Lane Rasberry if revealing her gender identity on her user page would attract the site’s infamous vandals. “Anyone who identifies as female on the Internet is subject to discrimination that males don’t ever experience,” he said. “It’s been said that Wikipedia is perhaps harsher than other places. If you’re comfortable exposing yourself to a bit more criticism, go ahead.” When I asked Rasberry if I could use the quote, he suggested I speak with some women for my story. [... skipping a lot of good stuff here ...]

I overheard one woman near me working her way through her cell-phone contacts. (“Hey, I’m at this Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, let me know if there’s anything you want me to add to your page.”) Filmmaker Barbara Hammer created a page for her wife, Florrie Burke, a human-trafficking expert who was recently awarded the inaugural Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons. This is not, strictly speaking, Wikipedia protocol. One of site’s cardinal rules is not to “edit Wikipedia in your own interests or in the interests of your external relationships,” and it’s broadly interpreted. In the debate over whether to change transgender Wikileaker Chelsea Manning’s name and pronouns after she came out publicly, some administrators were banned from editing pages on transgender topics for what amounted to having trans friends. So even though editing-for-pay is verboten (Sarah Stierch, the originator of the women’s edit-a-thon, was reportedly fired from her post at Wikipedia’s nonprofit foundation for taking a $300 side gig) it’s not exactly a labor of love, either. The ideal Wikipedian is the someone with nothing at stake in the topics at hand, but the time and stamina to research, explain, and defend them in lengthy debates. In other words: not the most obviously qualified person to write the encyclopedia. [...]

It was boring, in the methodical manner of high-school French homework. No wonder more women don’t do this, I thought. But the alternative to unpaid tedium (and engaging with the pedants who relish it) is for women, their accomplishments, and their interests to be written out of the handiest body of human knowledge. Equality, it appears, requires equal drudgery — probably no surprise. And while the world awaits a shortcut for online chores (Wikipedia homework for students? Paid Wikipedia ambassadors?), at least the nearly 200 pages created or expanded last Saturday should be a help to someone, somewhere. “Undergraduate art history papers are never going to be the same after today,” Ptak said.

Everything flows, nothing stays.

[mac]

Closing Wikipedia’s Gender Gap — Reluctantly
New York Magazine, 11 February 2014 link

That looks like it could be Jimmy Wales in a Hannibal Lecter-esque mask in the upper right corner of the image.

[edited]

[Mancunium]

Florrie_R._Burke (T-H-L)

This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information. Please remove or replace such wording and instead of making proclamations about a subject's importance, use facts and attribution to demonstrate that importance. (February 2014)

(cur | prev) 20:54, 1 February 2014‎ Barbara Jean Ward (talk | contribs)‎ . . (2,408 bytes) (+2,408)‎ . . (As part of Wikipedia Meetup/Art and Feminism I created an article on the woman who received the first Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons in May 2013.)

O shoot! Did New_York_(magazine) (T-H-L) just "out", in several senses of the word, COI editor Barbara_Jean_Ward (T-C-L)? Someone add this evil periodical to Wikipedia:BADSITE (T-H-L) immediately, if not sooner.

[Mancunium]

Closing the Gender Gap at Wikipedia
The Nonprofit Quarterly, 12 February 2014 link

Twenty cities played host this past week to the first Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, an attempt to build out Wikipedia’s entries on women artists and, through that, to encourage women to edit Wikipedia, which has a big gender gap problem among its volunteer editors. Apparently, less than 15 percent of its editors are women. This, naturally, affects content, and that flies in the face of what Wikipedia means to be to the world. In an interview last year with Anasuya Sengupta of the Wikimedia Foundation, NPQ heard that intention quite clearly: “When I look at all the activism that I and my comrades—my sisters—have done around the world, I think to myself, ‘What is the outcome of that activism if every day a young man or woman looks up a Wikipedia article and finds a singular worldview that is not theirs or that is biased against them in some way? What happens when a young woman looks up rape or abortion on Wikipedia and doesn’t find the information she needs? How radical is turning that around?’” [...]

The Art and Feminism events offered a deep dive in editing tutorials from expert Wikipedians, IRL human company, snacks, and child care. But such attractions may be counteracted by what is described here as the “argumentative and trollish atmosphere of Wikipedia” that apparently sometimes reveals itself as misogynist. But Jacqueline Mabey, one of the event’s organizers, thinks some of the gender gap comes down to the fact that “We don’t raise young women to consider themselves authorities on anything.” She said, “We raise them to doubt, constantly, their work and themselves.” Librarians are seen as the only female-dominated group that overall is a fan of Wikipedia, but Mabey says even they are cautious about editing. “These are women with double masters degrees,” she said. “I’m like, yes, you can edit it! The 18-year-old boy who doesn’t know anything is editing it, and he doesn’t even question it!” [...]

[EricBarbour]

Just an idle speculation: perhaps this would be a good time to make a blog post about Wikipedia's ongoing problem with "Men's rights" extremists. And how it ties into Reddit and other Web 2.0 properties, and the general culture of the Web.

If anyone cares to go into that, let me know. I have material.