WikiGap 8 March 2019
WikiGap is an initiative taken to close the gender gap and other gaps relevant for diversity of Wikipedia. The initiative is made possible by a cooperation between Wikimedia Sverige, the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Swedish embassies and Wikimedia affiliates, volunteers and local organizations around the world. WikiGap was first organized in March 2018 and now we would like to do it again. We are planning to organize several Wikipedia edit-a-thons during 8 March 2019. The purpose of the edit-a-thons is to create more articles about women to achieve a more gender-equal Internet – and a more gender-equal world and by doing so reduce the gender gap a bit.
The 8 March is just the starting point of the campaign. If the embassy, your local partner and you finds a better date to cooperate and implement a WikiGap event during 2019 then that also works.
Main page on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiGap
The background to WikiGap 2019
The initiative started in March 2017 with a sister edit-a-thon in four languages between the Swedish embassy in New Delhi and Stockholm https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India-Sweden_edit-a-thon.
During 2017 the Swedish embassies in Pretoria and Washington DC also successfully hosted Wikipedia edit-a-thons with Wikimedia chapters. In 2018 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to increase outreach and the number of partnering Wikimedia affiliates and we decided to implement WikiGap 2018 together.
Together with the Ministry we have developed a toolkit for how embassies should organise Wikipedia edit-a-thons, and they are committed to surfacing the achievements of women in the world’s largest encyclopedia, in partnership with Wikimedia affiliates and other local organisations.
Changes from previous year
This year we’re also going to have an online-competition which is called the WikiGap Challenge during the first month of WikiGap.
The WikiGap Challenge is an attempt to connect the individual events with each other. It is also a possibility for the organizing Wikimedia organizations and volunteers to highlight important women from their context that they believe deserve articles on multiple languages.
More information about the contest will be shared with local organizers shortly
and on the WikiGap Campaign portal on Meta.
How you can join?
The WikiGap invites broad and diverse participation, just like last year, and allows for local adaptations to the theme. If you think that you have an interest in taking part of WikiGap but have any questions about the implementation you can either contact the Swedish embassy in your country, they have all the material that you need to make this event a success, or you can send me a question – I’m more than happy to help you sort out some question marks.I will be out of office February 25 to March 4 so please send a copy of your request to info@wikimedia.se and someone at the office will get back to you as soon as possible.
If you don’t think that you will be the main organizer of WikiGap in your country or if you are a part of a larger team, I, as part of coordinating the WikiGap, would like you to please help share this information with the right individuals.
Are you interested in taking part of WikiGap 2019?
Please send me an email to confirm your interest. At the WikiGap portal https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiGap on Meta you can find a list of WikiGap events https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiGap/Events. Use this space to find events and share details of your own WikiGap event, such as user name of the organizer(s), your local theme and if you’re merging the event with other wiki initiatives.
Here you will find some more information about WikiGap: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiGap/Events
Join WikiGap on Programs & Events Dashboard to show impact
We also have a WikiGap campaign 2019 https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/campaigns/campaign_wikigap_2019/overview up on Programs & Events dashboard https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs_%26_Events_Dashboard to facilitate running and keeping track of all events on various language version. Please go in there and register your event as soon as possible.
Please help us spread the word about WikiGap.
Best Regards,
Mia Jacobsson
Wikimedia Sverige
Coordinator for WikiGap 2019