Great blog by Keilana! Feel free to ping me if you'd like to write your own blog about your project - all languages and projects welcome!!! -Sarah (See below)
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/18/wikiproject-women-scientists-invites-y...
Starting a WikiProject is a pretty big undertaking, what with sorting out the templates, tagging thousands of articles, and recruiting new members. But I have to say, startingWikiProject Women Scientists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_scientistswith Sarah Stierch has been one of the most rewarding experiences I've had in my 5 1/2 years contributing to Wikipedia.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Aedes_aegypti.jpg/320px-Aedes_aegypti.jpg
Biologist Anne Bishop studied the "Aedes aegypti"
I had never consciously noticed the gender gap http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/27/nine-out-of-ten-wikipedians-continue-to-be-men/ until it was pointed out to me that, as a female Wikipedian, I was a pretty rare commodity. That was a bit of a wake-up call, and I started to think about the systemic bias inherent in Wikipedia, a reference work largely compiled by white males from the Western world.
On Ada Lovelace Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace_Day#Commemoration, I decided to create an article about biologist Ann Bishop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Bishop_%28biologist%29 as my contribution, which was quickly promoted as a /Did you know.../ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Keilana#DYK_for_Ann_Bishop_.28biologist.29 and became a Good Article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Good_articles a couple of weeks later. Throughout that process I realized just how many female scientist articles were missing, even among the erstwhile ranks of the Fellows of the Royal Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_Fellows_of_the_Royal_Society. I also realized that, as motivated as I was, I couldn't write those articles alone. Thus, a WikiProject was born, and since then, it has gathered 15 members!
I want to take a second to invite you to join the project! We have a fairlyactive discussion page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Women_scientistswhere plenty of people are happy to answer questions. The silver lining of systemic bias is that there's a lot of work to do and a lot of ways that people can contribute. A common public opinion is that "if it's not on Wikipedia it doesn't exist" -- so, to our readers, many important, influential scientists "don't exist."
Let's change that! Go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Women scientists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_scientists to join us!
/Wikipedia User:Keilana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keilana/
* Copyright notes:Aedes aegypti" https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aedes_aegypti.jpg%22byMuhammad Mahdi Karim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Muhammad_Mahdi_Karim, underGNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GNU_Free_Documentation_License_1.2, from Wikimedia Commons.
