Six years, 100,000 articles: WikiGap is on a mission to close Wikipedia’s gender gap
It’s possible that right now, as you read these words, a WikiGap event is being held in a Swedish embassy somewhere in the world. Created through a joint effort from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Wikimedia Sverige, an independent Wikimedia movement affiliate organization in Sweden, WikiGap edit-a-thon events bring people together across countries….
How Art+Feminism is using Wikipedia to promote equity in the art world
If you were asked to name the greatest artists in history, who would come to mind? Chances are, the first few names that pop into your head are men. “Whereas men experience presence in our art institutions, women experience primarily absence,” Judy Chicago, an American feminist artist describes, “except in images that do not necessarily….
Closing the gender gap: Women in Red’s efforts to add more women to Wikipedia
All of the information found on Wikipedia is created and shared by volunteers around the world. However, since 2020, only 15% of these contributors are women. This imbalance has a real impact on how information is covered and presented on the world’s largest online encyclopedia. This problem is often called the “gender gap” and is….
Kelly Doyle Kim and this new Smithsonian museum are writing women into Wikipedia
It’s called the ‘great man theory‘: the idea that large swaths of human history can be explained by the actions of so-called great men. These days, that theory has been resoundingly discredited—but popular history’s long reliance on it has contributed towards an imbalance of stories told about women in the history learned in schools and….
Whose Knowledge? — A movement for inclusive representation on Wikipedia
While three-quarters of the world’s online population today comes from the Global South (Asia, Africa, and Latin America) and nearly half are women, most public knowledge online has been written by white men from the Global North. The feminist collective and Wikimedia volunteer group, “Whose Knowledge?,” is working to change this. Sunshine Fionah Komusana, the….
Stephen LaPorte becomes the new General Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation announced Stephen LaPorte as General Counsel. Stephen was previously Deputy General Counsel at the Foundation; he has held several leadership roles in the Legal department, covering a range of legal issues including copyright, trademarks, governance, and public policy.
U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Wikimedia Foundation’s Challenge to NSA Mass Surveillance
The U.S. Supreme Court today denied the Wikimedia Foundation’s petition for review of its legal challenge to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) “Upstream” surveillance program. Under this program, the NSA systematically searches the contents of internet traffic entering and leaving the United States, including Americans’ private emails, messages, and web communications.
Behind the Wikipedia articles educating thousands about the 1838 Jesuit sale of enslaved people
It’s June 19, 1838. No one knows it yet, but the American Civil War will kick off in just over two decades. Slavery in the United States will come to an end after that conflict—but for now, the sale of enslaved human beings is still legal. Now, let’s bring in the Jesuits, a Catholic religious….
The Smithsonian’s quest to expand the history of Black women in food and drink on Wikipedia
The history of Black Americans has often been lost, overlooked, or credited to others. Unfortunately, that also includes the influence of Black women on the United States’ food and drink history. Meet Lena Richard: the first Black woman to host a cooking television show in the United States. That may sound like a big achievement,….
Celebrating eight years of AfroCROWD diversifying Wikipedia
Wikipedia is known for being the world’s largest encyclopedia that anyone can edit—but that does not mean everyone does. Whether due to social, political, or technological barriers that prevent people from sharing what they know with the world, the site is still missing out on a lot of the world’s wealth of knowledge. In particular,….
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