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