Mass Wikipedia Edit To Make The Internet Less Sexist
This Saturday, one tech-savvy group is hoping to correct a major gender imbalance on the internet. After the recent, much publicizedGamerGatecontroversy, in which several female developers and cultural critics were victims of a sustained campaign ofmisogynisticattacks and advanced trolling, this help is certainly needed. TheArt+FeminismWikipedia Edit-a-thon, currently in its second year, is an all-day mass update ofWikipedia entries pertaining to art and women, meant to increase female involvement with, and coverage on, the predominantly male website. Wikipedias problems with gender distribution are legendary, and a 2011 survey by theWikimedia Foundationfound that lessthan 8.5% of contributors were female. This has led(by default)to a paucity of entries on seminal womenespecially in the arts.To help rectify this, onMarch 7th, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) willturn the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Education and Research Building into mission control for a vast international effort to help promote, create, and edit articlesonfemale artists and movements. At last years event, participants at 31 locations created more than 100 new articlesand added content to another 90.This yearsEdit-a-thon, falling conveniently onInternational Womens Dayweekend (March 7-8, 2015), will incorporate 55+ satellite events internationally, taking place simultaneously at the Stedelijk Museum in the Netherlands, the Dowse Art Museum in New Zealand, the National Museum ofWomen in the Arts, Washington, DC. and many others.
The project was first conceived of inOctober 2013, whenSin Evans, coordinator of theWomen and Art Special Interest group for Art Libraries Society of North America, and writer and curatorJacqueline Mabeyfirst discussed potential art and feminism projects in homage to theAda Lovelace Dayedit-a-thons.Mabeybrought the idea to NYU professorMichael Mandiberg, known for his use of Wikipedia in his teaching, who quickly joined up, offering his new media expertise. Mandiberg then recruited curatorLaurel Ptak, a cyberfeminism fellow atEyebeam, thecenter for art and technology in New York City. Later,Dorothy Howard, METROs Wikipedian-in-Residence and Open Data Fellow joined as well, andRichard Knipelof Wikimedia NYC rounded out the team.
Two editors hard at work at the Wikipedia Art+Feminism Edit-a-thon, at Eyebeam in New York City.
As Mabey mentioned recently, This project also came on the heels of a very public debate about structural sexism in Wikipedia. [This] began when writer Amanda Filipacchi wrotea New York Times op-edon a problematic editorial practice being implemented by a number of Wikipedia editors: women were being removed from the American Novelists category and moved into a subcategory for American Women Novelists. Filipacchis piece set the internet on fire, sparking a mass call for reform. At the same time, continues Mabey. Wikipedians were having an entirely separate conversation on Wikipedia about whether to change this practice of sub categorization. These conversations were worlds apart. We wanted to help give people the training to shape the conversation directly on Wikipedia.
The Edit-a-thonsso far have proven extremely successful, capturing the attention of women in tech as well as the Wikipedia Foundation itself, which recently awarded a grant to the group to create+Feminism, an infrastructure permitting the event tobe replicated by others.The response has been overwhelmingly positive, says Mabey. A few trollish sub-reddits here anda confused Guardian articlethere, sure, but ultimately, what were doing isnt that radical: were editing articles on Baroque painters and adding citations to entries on important dada artists. Simple enough, yet the project isnot just radical, but urgently needed.
In the 21stcentury, when women have unprecedented freedoms, they are still marginalized, not just in the art world, but also on the digital plane, often relegated to a footnote or brief citation. While were still a distance from common-sense realities like equal pay for women, comprehensive childcare, and a reproductive rights bill, at least the digital world will be a slightlymore female-friendly place after this weekend.
A discussion of strategy at the Wikipedia Art+Feminism Edit-a-thon, at Eyebeam in New York City
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Mass Wikipedia Edit To Make The Internet Less Sexist