Putting more women on Wikipedia
Students honour past by posting more female-centric content on site
Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites in the world, but only about one in 10 of its contributors are women.
So today — International Women’s Day — University of Regina faculty and students are aiming to change that with the Art + Feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon.
Megan Smith, an assistant professor in new media, is spearheading the Regina event, which is just what it sounds like: It’s a marathon of writing and editing Wikipedia articles about women, artists and Prairies-based content — all of which is lacking on Wikipedia, said Smith.
“There is a lot of incredible work happening in this area,” said Smith, “and we are in an age of promotion. There’s no reason why information shouldn’t be available on what is happening in the Prairies and the only way to make that happen is to do it yourself.”
“I saw that as a problem that we could solve actively,” Smith added.
Smith, a couple of faculty colleagues (including Canada Research Chair Charity Marsh), and about 17 undergraduate and master’s of fine arts students will spend the day writing new articles — or expanding on existing articles — about Saskatchewan-based-women (many of them artists).
Smith said her philosophy is “we work best with community,” so the event is open to the public and it’s family-friendly. Anyone who’s interested can partake in a beginner tutorial (bring your laptop if you have one).
Though it’s just one day’s work — and some articles will be about people who haven’t been widely researched before — “the point is to get the momentum,” said Smith.
“So it might not be a huge contribution, but once you’re into the system we can help to build that and then we identify where we need more research done and more publications needed.”
Marsh sees the project as “a way to take up some very serious ongoing systemic problems” — namely “the under-representation of women in Wikipedia” and “lots and lots of male representation.”
This is problematic, said Marsh, because Wikipedia “is a system that is about the democratization of knowledge” and it’s usually “the first stop for people,” but the platform excludes a lot of voices.
“If this is where people are turning to and this is where they’re getting this information from, is it not a question of ethics and responsibility that Wikipedia actually attempts to tell more complete stories?” said Marsh.
Though the edit-a-thon is focused on women, not all of the participants are women. Smith’s male students “are as feminist as the women,” she said. “Anyone who believes in equal rights and equal pay and having a good life can be categorized a feminist — if we need to categorize at all.”
The Regina event runs 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today in the Wascana Room of the U of R Archer Library.
It’s one of hundreds of Art + Feminism edit-a-thons occurring internationally. The first such events were held last year on International Women’s Day, including one at the University of Saskatchewan.