Wikipedia:GLAM/Protests and Suffragettes/Events/SWAC Members and Friends Workshop

Edit-A-Thon held 2 July 2016 at Glasgow Women's Library, Scotland, UK, hosted by the 'Strong Women of the Clydeside' (SWaC) and 'Govan's Hidden Histories' project. The event increased representation of women involved in Glasgow's Red Clydeside actions. Image by tsBeall, Lead Artist, SWaC project.

Mary Barbour Statue - Front view

We Can Edit

About the event

With 6,097,911 (at 13th June 2020) articles in 229 different languages, Wikipedia is now both a well-established force for the democratisation of knowledge, and a key outreach tool, with one recent study showing that the encyclopedia shapes, as well as reflects, scientific thought. However, Wikipedia has a gender problem: the encyclopedia and its content is weighted toward men. In a 2011 survey, the Foundation found that only around 9% of contributors identified as female, and less than 1% as trans*. This imbalance in demographic leads to a content gap - as of 2 June 2020, just 18.46% of biographies on English Wikipedia were about women. It’s a form of systemic bias that both the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikipedia community are working to fix, with projects like Wikiproject Women in Red and the Gender Gap Task Force. But we need more people to help.

During a previous editathon hosted by the 'Strong Women of the Clydeside' project team, Wikipedia articles relating to Glasgow’s Suffragettes, Rent Strike organisers, and other Scottish women activists were edited and created. This event will focus on improving, expanding and creating articles about protests and Suffragettes linked to Glasgow or Scotland. No prior experience of editing Wikipedia is necessary, as full training will be given on the day, but participants should create a Wikipedia account in advance (see below).

How do I prepare?

• Create a Wikipedia account
• Learn about editing if you like: Tutorial, or Getting started on Wikipedia for more information
• Think about what you would like to edit - if there's a person or topic on the hit list that particularly catches your eye, feel free to do some research in advance & have materials with you on the day.
• Learn about creating women's biographies: Primer for creating women’s biographies
• Learn more about good practice for writing about women on Wikipedia: Writing about women

Link to Wikiproject: Women in Red

• This Wikiproject links to some great resources. Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red

Where

• Your house

Programme

- Don't worry if you can't arrive in time for the main training session - Sara Thomas will be on hand to give help and advice.

• 12:00 - 12:15 - Introductions, sorting out tech issues
• 12:15 - 13:15 - Introduction to editing Wikipedia
• 13:15 - 13:30 - Break
• 13:30 - 15:00 - EDIT! Sara will be on hand to help with any queries
• 15:00 - 15:15 - Break
• 15:15 - 16:15 - EDIT! Sara will be on hand to help with any queries
• 16:15 - 16:45 - Feedback and reflections

Trainers

• Dr Sara Thomas, Scotland Programme Coordinator, Wikimedia UK

Hit list of articles to be created or improved

Helpful updates could be as simple as:

• Making sure reference links are still appropriate and functional
• Adding new inline citations/references
• Adding a photo or requesting a photo on the Talk page
• Adding an infobox: Here's a useful tool: https://tools.wmflabs.org/magnustools/prepbio.php
• Adding data to more fields in an existing infobox
• Creating headings
• Adding categories; etc.

The following is a small sample of topics to work on. Feel free to come up with your own ideas!

Topics to search on citation hunt

• Govan
• People from Govan
• Red Clydeside
• Rent Strikes
• British suffragists
• Women's suffrage
• Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom
• Anti-suffragists

Sources

General Sources

• Wikipedia is a tertiary resource, which relies upon good quality secondary sources and some primary sources. Wikipedia is not a place for fringe theories, untested hypotheses, or personal interpretation.
• For more guidance on the use of sources, see this guide here.
• Try the Wikipedia Library's list of free resources
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Shareable Images can be found through a Creative Commons search(which includes Google, Flickr & Wikicommons in its search).
• Scottish Bibliographies Online
• Histories of Scottish Families
• British Newspaper Archive
• Spartacus Educational is used as a source for history teachers
• Women's History Scotland Suffrage Learning resource
• Ancestry - [1] Available to Glasgow Libraries members during the closure period: This will need to be done in advance of 4th July.
• Find My Past - [2] Available to Glasgow Libraries members during the closure period: This will need to be done in advance of 4th July.

This tag can be placed on new articles when they're published at the event.

After the event

You may find these useful if you want to learn further about editing:

• Video tutorials
• Instructional videos on using Wikipedia