Quoted from the publicly logged #wikimedia-office IRC channel, and emailing with the consent of Emily:
[17:14:19] <harej> Finnegan: or in emily's case, "there are not enough articles on women scientists. this is an outrage to us."
[17:15:19] <Finnegan> i am now enjoying a mental image of her delivering a podium-pounding speech to rouse the feminists
[17:15:52] <marktraceur> I want you to get up, walk to your windows, throw them open, and yell "I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M GOING TO WRITE ARTICLES ABOUT WOMEN SCIENTISTS"
[17:15:54] <ragesoss> DOWN WITH THE PATRIARCHY
[17:16:46] <Finnegan> marktraceur: i think you honestly just summarized her operating philosophy. If only everyone could channel their anger like that..."
I thought (and apparently other people do as well!) that Emily's approach is quite motivational! (:
Pine
*This is an Encyclopedia* https://www.wikipedia.org/
*One gateway to the wide garden of knowledge, where lies The deep rock of our past, in which we must delve The well of our future,The clear water we must leave untainted for those who come after us,The fertile earth, in which truth may grow in bright places, tended by many hands,And the broad fall of sunshine, warming our first steps toward knowing how much we do not know.*
*—Catherine Munro*
Well, I hope you will all be delighted to hear I have just pushed out some of the first articles created as part of Australian Women of Neuroscience 2014
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Australian_Women_of_Neuroscience_2014
I didn't support the event personally so I am not quite sure why the articles were still sitting user space months after the event, but the organiser just asked me to help get them live so I did a bit of a clean-up and moved them into the mainspace. I believe there are a lot more articles but waiting for the organiser to point me at them.
While these kind of edit-a-thons don't seem to create ongoing editors, they do at least create some content in under-represented areas: women scientists in this case.
Kerry
_____
From: gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pine W Sent: Thursday, 26 March 2015 2:24 PM To: Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participationof women within Wikimedia projects. Subject: [Gendergap] Some motivation (:
Quoted from the publicly logged #wikimedia-office IRC channel, and emailing with the consent of Emily:
[17:14:19] <harej> Finnegan: or in emily's case, "there are not enough articles on women scientists. this is an outrage to us."
[17:15:19] <Finnegan> i am now enjoying a mental image of her delivering a podium-pounding speech to rouse the feminists
[17:15:52] <marktraceur> I want you to get up, walk to your windows, throw them open, and yell "I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M GOING TO WRITE ARTICLES ABOUT WOMEN SCIENTISTS"
[17:15:54] <ragesoss> DOWN WITH THE PATRIARCHY
[17:16:46] <Finnegan> marktraceur: i think you honestly just summarized her operating philosophy. If only everyone could channel their anger like that..."
I thought (and apparently other people do as well!) that Emily's approach is quite motivational! (:
Pine
This is an Encyclopedia https://www.wikipedia.org/ One gateway to the wide garden of knowledge, where lies The deep rock of our past, in which we must delve The well of our future, The clear water we must leave untainted for those who come after us, The fertile earth, in which truth may grow in bright places, tended by many hands, And the broad fall of sunshine, warming our first steps toward knowing how much we do not know. -Catherine Munro
Kerry, Thanks for that effort and I totally agree. Dyed-in-the-wool Wikipedians quickly develop a blind eye for other ways of approaching the topic of an edit-a-thon and it is the fresh perspective of the attendees that keeps us up-to-date and challenges the workflows we currently keep in place. So whether or not those attendees go on to become Wikipedians, edit-a-thons remain a very productive tool for bringing Wikipedians together with their reading public in focused topic areas.
Jane
On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 8:05 AM, Kerry Raymond kerry.raymond@gmail.com wrote:
Well, I hope you will all be delighted to hear I have just pushed out some of the first articles created as part of Australian Women of Neuroscience 2014
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Australian_Women_of_Neuroscience_2014
I didn’t support the event personally so I am not quite sure why the articles were still sitting user space months after the event, but the organiser just asked me to help get them live so I did a bit of a clean-up and moved them into the mainspace. I believe there are a lot more articles but waiting for the organiser to point me at them.
While these kind of edit-a-thons don’t seem to create ongoing editors, they do at least create some content in under-represented areas: women scientists in this case.
Kerry
*From:* gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Pine W *Sent:* Thursday, 26 March 2015 2:24 PM *To:* Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participationof women within Wikimedia projects. *Subject:* [Gendergap] Some motivation (:
Quoted from the publicly logged #wikimedia-office IRC channel, and emailing with the consent of Emily:
[17:14:19] <harej> Finnegan: or in emily's case, "there are not enough articles on women scientists. this is an outrage to us."
[17:15:19] <Finnegan> i am now enjoying a mental image of her delivering a podium-pounding speech to rouse the feminists
[17:15:52] <marktraceur> I want you to get up, walk to your windows, throw them open, and yell "I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M GOING TO WRITE ARTICLES ABOUT WOMEN SCIENTISTS"
[17:15:54] <ragesoss> DOWN WITH THE PATRIARCHY
[17:16:46] <Finnegan> marktraceur: i think you honestly just summarized her operating philosophy. If only everyone could channel their anger like that..."
I thought (and apparently other people do as well!) that Emily's approach is quite motivational! (:
Pine
This is an Encyclopedia https://www.wikipedia.org/
- One gateway to the wide garden of knowledge, where lies The deep rock of
our past, in which we must delve The well of our future, The clear water we must leave untainted for those who come after us, The fertile earth, in which truth may grow in bright places, tended by many hands, And the broad fall of sunshine, warming our first steps toward knowing how much we do not know. —Catherine Munro *
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On 3/26/2015 3:26 AM, Jane Darnell wrote:
Kerry, Thanks for that effort and I totally agree. Dyed-in-the-wool Wikipedians quickly develop a blind eye for other ways of approaching the topic of an edit-a-thon and it is the fresh perspective of the attendees that keeps us up-to-date and challenges the workflows we currently keep in place. So whether or not those attendees go on to become Wikipedians, edit-a-thons remain a very productive tool for bringing Wikipedians together with their reading public in focused topic areas.
I think the two most important things, at this early stage just to keep them coming back are:
* identify at the edit-a-thon the passion of each editor; that's what keeps them coming back; the topic of the edit-a-thon may be of passing or mild interest, but a passion lasts for years
* make sure there are at least two more lined up, even two hour sessions after work, and encourage them to come and help them with their area of interest. (DC does do something like that in a slightly less structured way.) It really does have to be more hands on.
Even as a compulsive writer, I only started editing because of crappy articles about myself, my peace group and a couple of acquaintances. It took another 8 months before it clicked in my head that I could improve articles on all sorts of topics I was interested in and started doing so. If I'd started with edit-a-thons that really clued me into how to use Wikipedia for the latter, it would have made sure I got to the second point and didn't just forget about editing after I'd dealt with those issues at hand.
CM