Re Sydney's point about women and reliable sources, I have been involved in quite a few editathons now (I'm the GLAM organiser for Wikimedia UK). Several editathons I have been involved in were targeting the gender gap, and the issue of women being underrepresented in primary and secondary sources often comes up.

What I have now started pointing out to people who raise it is that Wikipedia is a Tertiary source, we can work on under representation of the secondary sourced material, and run editathons where there is access to offline secondary sources but we need others to redress gaps in the secondary sources. Of course the risk with that approach is that some of the feminists who come to those events then spend their time creating secondary sources rather than editing Wikipedia.

Another tack I would commend to everyone here is that editathons usually have a to do list, and people are unlikely to object if you add relevant articles to it. For example we have an editathon coming up at the cinema museum for the 100th anniversary of the release of "The Tramp", that isn't one of our Gendergap events, instead it is an anniversary event - improving relevant Wikipedia articles in advance of an anniversary. However I added the article on Edna Purviance as a relevant one to improve in the editathon, I expect there will be other similar opportunities.

Regards

Jonathan/WereSpielChequers


On 30 Jan 2015, at 19:54, Sydney Poore <sydney.poore@gmail.com> wrote:

One of the issues that faces anyone who tries to create Wikipedia articles about women is that there is less details about their accomplishments in reliable sources. This piece highlights the problem.


For this reason, it is great for us to form initiatives with outside organizations who generate content so we can reinforce the importance of creating material that covers women's accomplishments in a greater level of detail. 

Our initiatives are a two way street. Working inside of GLAMs (Galleries, libraries, archives, museums),  universities, government agencies, not for profit organizations of all types gives us an opportunity to talk about the best way that an organizations can create material suitable for Wikipedia. And we gain a better understanding of how their content can be shared with the wikimedia movement. 

Wikipedian in Residence is one way for people to create initiatives with outside organizations. Having women in these positions helps to decrease biases. Some women are doing an awesome job in these positions now and in the past. 

My experience working at Cochrane Collaboration as Wikipedian in Residence is positive and I encourage women to apply for these position when they are posted. 

Also, we can approach organizations that would be good partners for creating content about women and organize initiatives with them.

If there is a strong interest, maybe we could have a google hangout call to talk about this in more detail.


Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedian in Residence
at Cochrane Collaboration
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