Join the Global Women Wikipedia Write-In (#GWWI) this Friday, 1-3pm EST!

Ever been disappointed by the level of Wikipedia coverage on the world outside of Europe and the United States? Consider joining in this Friday in the Global Women Wikipedia Write-in (#GWWI), hosted by the Postcolonial Digital Humanities (#DHPoco) and the Global Outlook on the Digital Humanities (GO:DH) special interest group. If this event sounds familiar to you, that’s because #GWWI follows on from the success of #tooFEW, a multi-location edit-a-thon to write women and people of color into Wikipedia held in March 2013.

Building on #tooFEW, we want to increase the amount of Wikipedia coverage on women outside of Europe and the United States. If you’ve ever tried doing a Wikipedia search for important women theorists around the world, you might be surprised to note how short the entries are, particularly on their work and their ideas.

A few examples:

• Chandra Talpade Mohanty,
• Gayatri Spivak,
• bell hooks,
• Gloria Anzaldua,
• Vandana Shiva, and
• Sara Ahmed.

Many important women of color, such as Oyeronke Oyewumi and Frieda Ekotto, lack entries or stubs in Wikipedia. Additionally, coverage of international events involving women is brief or nonexistent (for example: the 1929 Aba Women’s Riots in Nigeria; Domitila Barrios de Chúngara; and Angkatan Wanita Sedar or “Force of Awakened Women,” an important feminist group in Malaysian history).

These gaps in Wikipedia’s knowledge base are striking and important, especially since Wikipedia is now the most commonly referenced encyclopedia globally. These gaps–particularly the gender gap–have been subject to study. According to the Wikimedia Wikipedia’s Editor’s Survey of 2011, “If there is a typical Wikipedia editor, he has a college degree, is 30-years-old, is computer savvy but not necessarily a programmer, doesn’t actually spend much time playing games, and lives in US or Europe.”

If you’re interested in helping to change this geographical and gender bias in Wikipedia, join us this Friday!

All you need to do:

• Sign up for a Wikipedia account (consider using a pseudonym at the outset, you can always change it once you’re comfortable)
• Sign up on our Wikipedia meetup page
• Watch this video by Adrianne Wadewitz (https://sites.google.com/site/wadewitz/) (@wadewitz) to learn just how to edit Wikipedia. Be sure to set aside some time for this video, it’s an hour long, and we recommend clicking on FLASH — it tends to play better that way. (Although, we will provide editing help at the edit-a-thon, if you don’t have time to do this.)
• Join us virtually by doing your work during our edit-a-thon. If you’re on Twitter, send out a Tweet that includes the hashtag #GWWI to let us know you’re out there. We’ll be live editing from 1-3pm EST, Friday April 26.
• Organize an in-person meetup wherever you are! All you need are computers, an internet connection and willing bodies and minds :) Download our poster in pdf format, and hack, remix etc. for your own event: GWWI poster

We hope to see you there!

Additional Resources

• How to create Wikipedia entries that will stick
• Help for Wikipedia newcomers and using Wikiepdia in the classroom

* Roopika Risam contributed copy for this post