Bratton, Lyndsay

Oliveira, Rose

Parmer, Rebecca

Rotramel, Ariella

English

DigitalCommons@Connecticut College

Connecticut CollegeDigital Commons @ Connecticut CollegeGender and Women's Studies Faculty Publications Gender and Women's Studies Department4-3-2017Filling in the Gaps Together: InternationalWomen’s Day Wikipedia Edit-A-ThonAriella RotramelConnecticut College, arotrame@conncoll.eduRebecca ParmerConnecticut College, rparmer@conncoll.eduRose OliveiraConnecticut College, roliveir@conncoll.eduLyndsay BrattonConnecticut College, lbratton@conncoll.eduFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/gwsfacpubThis Blog Post is brought to you for free and open access by the Gender and Women's Studies Department at Digital Commons @ ConnecticutCollege. It has been accepted for inclusion in Gender and Women's Studies Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @Connecticut College. For more information, please contact bpancier@conncoll.edu.The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author.Recommended CitationRotramel, Ariella; Parmer, Rebecca; Oliveira, Rose; and Bratton, Lyndsay, "Filling in the Gaps Together: International Women’s DayWikipedia Edit-A-Thon" (2017). Gender and Women's Studies Faculty Publications. 6.http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/gwsfacpub/6Rose Olivera introducing the edit-a-thonEngageTeaching with Technology @ Connecticut CollegeFilling in the Gaps Together: International Women’s DayWikipedia Edit-A-ThonApril 3, 2017March 29, 2017 Ariella RotramelByLyndsayBratton,RoseOliveira, Becky Parmer, and Ariella RotramelOn Wednesday, March 8, we hosted the first annual International Women’s Day Wiki-Edit-A-Thon inShain Library’s Advanced Technology Lab (ATL). International Women’s Day is observed throughoutthe world on March 8 and in some countries it is a public holiday. While celebrations in some countriesinclude bringing women flowers or celebrating with a women’s night out, the day has a political history(https://iwd.uchicago.edu/page/international-womens-day-history) that resulted in this year’s call fora women’s strike (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/08/strike-for-womens-rights-international-womens-day) in the United States.  International Women’s Day provides animportant opportunity to reflect on ongoing gender inequality and the ability of women and allies to actto make change. Editing Wikipedia collectively provides one platform for responding to issues of genderinequality.According to the 2011 Editor Survey(https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Editors_Survey_2011_April), 91% ofWikipedians are men. Not only does such a homogenous editor force yield a body of work that reflects alimited scope of perspectives, but the survey also found that the relatively few women editors eachmake far fewer edits than men editors. Wikipedia Edit-a-Thons are staged periodically around theworld, and often focus on reversing such trends by bringing women editors on board to fill in gaps in!Articles edited or created duringthe edit-a-thoncontent related to women’s issues and women in history. A great example of one such initiative is theArt + Feminism Edit-a-Thon (http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-feminist-edit-a-thon-seeks-to-reshape-wikipedia).To address these issues of gender bias, we held an International Women’s Day Wikipedia-Edit-A-Thon.Edit-a-thons are events where newcomers and experienced Wikipedians alike come together to learnand participate in editing. Everyone was welcome and no prior editing experience was needed toparticipate. We had 13 people attend the evening’s event to create or improve articles on women andrelated topics.Faculty, staff, students, and community members at the edit-a-thonRose Oliveira, Becky Parmer, and Ariella Rotramel started the event by talking about the the genderissues that face Wikipedia and how Ariella has used Wikipedia in her feminist theory class(https://wikiedu.org/blog/2016/03/23/feminist-praxis-and-wikipedia-in-the-classroom/). Becky andRose then reviewed the Five Pillars of Wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars) to ensure that editors understood how to carryout their work effectively. Rose demonstrated how to create content on Wikipedia and the basics ofediting. Andrew Lopez and Ashley Hanson shared a set of library resources they curated to helpparticipants get started in their work. We also linked many resources on our Wikipedia libguide(http://conncoll.libguides.com/c.php?g=619346&p=4310823) to assist editors in moving into editing.For the remainder of the time, we dove into the work. People choseto either collaborate in teams or work by themselves to research,create or improve a variety of articles. They contributed citations;rephrased poorly written sections; added new content to existingentries; and began work on developing new entries. All of theseactions help improve Wikipedia by creating or strengthening content that relates to women and otherunderrepresented groups. In the last 10 minutes, everyone added their entries that they worked on awhiteboard: Lois Gibbs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Gibbs); Mary Foulke Morrisson(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Foulke_Morrisson); 16 Days of Activism against Gender-basedViolence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Days_of_Activism_against_Gender-based_Violence); TransDay of Action (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Day_of_Action); Caroline Black(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Black_(botanist)); Avtar Brah; Beatrice Cuming; and MarieHoppe-Teinitzerová. We concluded the evening by taking turns sharing the woman, organization, orevent that they worked on. It was rewarding to see what we were collectively able to do in a shortamount of time.As a result, on the third Wednesday of every month, we have decided to hold an informal Wiki Meetupor “Wiki Wednesday” at The Social (http://www.socialnewlondon.com/) at 5:15pm. We welcome newand experienced editors! To check in about the meetup, please contact Rose Oliveira(roliveir@conncoll.edu (mailto:roliveira@conncoll.edu)). For more information about working withWikipedia in the classroom, please contact your instructional technologist or library liaison.AdvertisementsActive & Project Based Learning, Collaborative Assignments, Multimedia Assignments, ResearchSkills, Social Media, Special Collections & Archives, Technology Fellows, WorkshopsCreate a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Filling in the Gaps Together: International Women’s Day Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon

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Filling in the Gaps Together: International Women’s Day Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon

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