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University of Edinburgh edit-a-thon

About the event

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Have you ever wondered why the information in Wikipedia is extensive for some topics and scarce for others? For Halloween 2017, the University's Information Services team are running an edit-a-thon to celebrate the lives of those sadly passed on.

Working together with liaison librarians, archivists & academic colleagues we will provide training on how to edit and participate in an open knowledge community. Participants will be supported to develop articles covering areas which could stand to be improved.

Samhain is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the "darker half" of the year. Traditionally, it is celebrated from the very beginning of one Celtic day to its end, or in the modern calendar, from sunset on 31 October to sunset on 1 November. Samhain was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld could more easily be crossed. This meant the Aos Sí, the 'spirits' or 'fairies', could more easily come into our world. Offerings of food and drink were left outside for them. The souls of the dead were also thought to revisit their homes seeking hospitality. Come join us as we set a place for the dead; through helping to create new biography articles and improving existing articles as part of a day of celebration. New editors very welcome. Full Wikipedia training given. Thereafter the afternoon's editathon will focus on improving the quality of Wikipedia articles relating to notable lives unearthed from newspaper obituary articles!

Booking

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Booking is not yet open.

How do I prepare?

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TurnipJackolantern

Programme

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To be decided.

We Can Edit

Trainers

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Ewan McAndrew, Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Edinburgh

Hit list of articles to be created or improved

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Helpful updates could be as simple as: Making sure reference links are still appropriate and functional; Adding new inline citations/references; Adding a photo; Adding an infobox; Adding data to more fields in an existing infobox; Creating headings; Adding categories; etc.

The Wikipedia Manual of Style has a lot of great information on the formatting & style of an article so please do consult it, especially if you are not sure how or where to begin & looking for help with writing the lead section.

There is a more specific Manual of Style for Writing Biographies which is worth consulting too.

All are welcome to add names to the list which is intended to serve as a basis for creating new articles in this important but somewhat neglected sector on the English Wikipedia.

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

Articles to be created

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Articles to be improved

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Sources

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Suggested sources:

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General
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  • DiscoverEd to find books, ebooks, journals, ejournals and more.
News sources
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Theses databases
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Finding sources

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Outcomes - Content created

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  1. Sethu Vijayakumar page created. Sethu Vijayakumar is Professor of Robotics at the University of Edinburgh and a judge on the BBC2 show Robot Wars. He was instrumental in bringing the first Valkyrie humanoid robot out of the United States of America, and to Europe.
  2. Honor Fell, British scientist and zoologist, translated onto Swedish Wikipedia. Her contributions to science included the development of experimental methods in organ culture, tissue culture, and cell biology.
  3. Brenda Moon - Librarian to the University of Edinburgh from 1980 to 1996. She was the first female chief of a university library in Scotland, and one of the first female librarian chiefs of a major UK research university.
  4. Janet Anne Galloway(1841–1909) promoted higher education for women in Scotland. As a result of the limited educational opportunities open to women, Janet became an active supporter of the movement for higher education provision for women. In 1877 Janet was appointed as the honorary secretary of the new Glasgow Association for the Higher Education of Women, founded by Jessie Campbell and financed by Isabella Elder. John Caird, principal of Glasgow University at the time, was the first Chairman of its General Committee.
  5. Katherine Clerk Maxwell - a Scottish physical scientist best known for her observations which supported and contributed to the discoveries of her husband, James Clerk Maxwell. She born Katherine Dewar in 1824 In Glasgow and married Clerk Maxwell in 1859. Her contributions are largely recorded in writings on her husband, partly due to a fire at the Maxwell family estate which destroyed many of the family papers.
  6. James MacLagan - a Church of Scotland minister and collector of Scottish Gaelic poetry and song. He was the creator of the McLagan Manuscripts, a collection of some 250 manuscripts containing 630 items of primarily Gaelic song and poetry collected in the second half of the eighteenth century including many of the most well-known 17th- and 18th-century Gaelic poets such as Iain Lom, Màiri nighean Alasdair Ruaidh and Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair.
  7. Jeffery Collins - prolific electrical engineer who directed and researched experimental physics, robotics, microelectronics, communications technologies and parallel computing.
  8. David Houston (zoologist) - Demonstrated Sex Allocation in lesser black-backed gulls in a practical study with Pat Monaghan in 1999.
  9. Susan Manning (professor) - Scottish academic born in Glasgow, Scotland. She specialized in Scottish studies and English literature. Before her untimely death in 2013 at the age of 59 years, she was the Grierson Professor in English literature in the University of Edinburgh and the Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities (IASH) an institute under the University of Edinburgh.
  10. Joan Brown (potter) - British potter.
  11. Magdalena Midgley - former Professor of the European Neolithic at the University of Edinburgh (2013-4), dedicated her archaeological career to teaching and researching early farming cultures of Continental Europe.
  12. Ernest Francis Bashford - influential oncologist who pioneered the biological approach to the study of cancer.
  13. Christian Kay - Emeritus Professor of English Language and Honorary Professorial Research Fellow in English Language at the University of Glasgow.
  14. Anne Strachan Robertson - archeologist, numismatist and writer who was a professor of archeology at the University of Glasgow.
  15. George Robin Henderson (mathematician) - Scots mathematician with a flair for music. Noted as an inspirational character in his field, he taught at Boroughmuir High School, lectured at Napier College, played cornet and tuba, and through the 1980s and 90s as a member of the MacTaggart Scott Works Band he revived the band and pushed them to have a "positive impact on the community".
  16. William Lindsay Renwick - Professor of English Literature at the University of Durham from 1921 to 1945 and Regis Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at Edinburgh University from 1945-1959.
  17. Isabella Elder - article improved.
  18. Queen Margaret College (Glasgow) - article improved.
  19. Galoshin section added to Mummers_play#galoshin
  20. Evelyn Gillan - Champion of women’s rights, co-founder of the Zero Tolerance campaign and the main proponent in bringing about a minimum alcohol pricing law in Scotland.

What can I do after the event?

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Join us for the event!

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

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Participants - Sign Up Here!

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Prior to the event:

  1. RSVP: ewan.mcandrew@ed.ac.uk
  2. Do you have a Wikipedia User Name?
    No? Create a Wikipedia account
    Yes? Go to Step #3
  3. Sign up! Add your Wikipedia User Name to this section by clicking the blue button below (follow instructions). Your name will be added to the bottom of this page
Don't worry! If you haven't edited Wikipedia before and don't have a Wikipedia User Name yet, we will help you on the day of the event! And remember to have fun!
To sign up for this event: Log in or create an account.
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