Hi all,
I am an Australian mother who has begun a campaign to increase women's participation
in Wikipedia in light of the recent media attention on the issue. I have set up a basic
web site at
http://women4wikipedia.net as a base to organise Womens Wikipedia Hackfests
between now and International Womens Day (8 March). You can find previous chat transcripts
at the site and other resources. I've also hooked Sue Francis up with Social Media
Women (Sydney, Australia) to do an IWD presentation on Women4Wikipedia.
I've begun hosting Twitter chats on the subject of Women & Wikipedia (our 3rd is
Mon 21 Feb) and I think there is only another 3 before IWD by which time I hope that
we'll have inspired some women to organise somen Womens Wikipedia Hackfests (before or
after IWD is fine).
Everyone is welcome to the weekly Twitter chats and I need all the help I can get. Given
the recent article in Datamation on the Ada Initiative
http://bit.ly/fih76w I thought it
raised some interesting issues in terms of how women in open source is portrayed in the
media.
Mon 21 Chat will be on the topic of 'Sexism & Internet Security' What should
women be aware of online
& when editing Wikipedia? I thought it would be a good time to give out a few pointers
on internet safety for women to combat some of the negative media coverage. It should be
noted that I'm not a Wikipedia/technology expert so I can do with any help offered. I
started this campaign for the very reason that you don't have to be an expert to edit
Wikipedia and because I was so surprised at the low participation rates of women.
Please find Twitter Chat times (Monday 9am UTC/GTM) at
http://women4wikipedia.net or
http://wthashtag.com/Women4wikipedia which you can also use to participate if you have a
Twitter account.
I am also building a list of articles edited or created by women on Wikipedia. We've
only just begun and already have 2 more women Wikipedians. If you would like to add your
contrib page to the list please email me or contact me via Twitter. It is to show people
that women actually can and do edit Wikipedia. Thanks to Kathy O'Donnell for
forwarding me links to this mailing list and pleased to meet you all! :-)
regards
Rosie Williams
http://collectiveaction.com.au
@collectiveact