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Two Aboriginal languages Atayal and Sediq have been added to the languages in which information is available on Wikipedia, the Ministry of Education said on Thursday.

The languages, which Wikipedia lists as Tayal and Sediq Taroko, were recognized by the online encyclopedia and granted their own language option on March 16, the ministry said.

There were 2,400 Wikipedia entries in Atayal and 1,037 in Sediq, the ministry said.

The two became the second and third languages of Taiwan-based Aborigines on Wikipedia, following the Sakizaya language, which was added in November 2019, it said.

Before recognizing a language and allowing it its own section, the Wikimedia Foundation assesses how many active users have contributed to entries in the language over a period.

Amis might also receive its own Wikipedia option soon, the foundation said.

The ministry, in collaboration with National Chengchi University (NCCU), launched a Wikipedia project six years ago with the goal of promoting writing in Aboriginal languages and encouraging the languages use among young people, Deputy Minister of Education Lin Teng-chiao () said.

However, while spoken Aboriginal languages in Taiwan have been used and passed on, their writing systems are far more recent, mainly based on the Latin alphabet.

They were not officially recognized until 2005.

A 2016 report commissioned by the Council of Indigenous Peoples evaluated native language proficiency among Aborigines through tests given to more than 20,000 people in 16 languages.

The report showed that only 27.6 percent of Sediq were able to read the newly developed script, while less than 12 percent knew how to write it.

Only 20.6 percent of Atayal were capable of reading the script, while less than 5 percent could write it, the report said.

When it comes to preserving languages, speaking and writing are both important, Lin said, adding that through the project, young Aborigines obtain knowledge in their mother tongue under the guidance of their elders.

NCCU professor Lim Siu-theh (), who presides over the project, said that in addition to documenting the written language, the group also reinvents words so they can be used in a modern context.

Hitay-Payan, a leader of the editing team for Atayal entries on Wikipedia, said that there were challenges creating entries in his native tongue.

The team began by translating introductory texts on well-known people, he said.

Lituk Teymu, who leads the Sediq editing team, said that she was pleased to see the language of her ancestors being given a global stage.

The team would continue to promote the Sediq language, she said.

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A unique online project is putting a spotlight on women artists from Central Europe. Some 250 artists spanning three generations fromPoland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary are included on a growing platform that hopes to uplift womens voices and highlight their artistic contributions in a region where they have historically been overlooked.

Created by the Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation in Warsaw together with international partners, the easy-to-search archive, calledSecondary Archive, should be useful for scholars and curators from the region.

In Central and Eastern Europe, we were always educated with Western historical canons. We know more about Western history than we know of our neighboring countries, Polish-based Agata Cielak, the Secondary Archives coordinator and an artist listed on the platform, told Artnet News. It is important for us to bring the region together and understand what that actually meansbecause we come from similar backgrounds, historically speaking, though the contemporary situation is completely different.

The projecta sort of Wikipedia for Central European female artistswas built out from an initial core list of artists devised by theKatarzyna Kozyra Foundation and its partners. Organizers then invited the living artists on the list to share their work and write a statement about what they create and why.The aim was to invite female artists to speak for themselves,Cielak said.

While the political and art historical trajectories in the nations in the archive are unique, they were all marked by decades of communism which, according to the platforms statement to Artnet News, was a particularly difficult time due to the barriers it introduced to the cultural and social emancipation of women.

More recently, there has been a staggering regression in gender equity in Poland, and the platform has offered an opportunity for artists to voice their grievances. A near-total ban on abortion in the Central European nation sparked the historic Women Strike protests last fall, which also drew on the work of a number of artists.

In Poland today, Iam perceived by ultra-right-wing circles as adifferent, alien, childless, middle-aged woman, a widow, aconcubine, contaminated by COVID, an artist, writesAleksandra Ska.

The platforms name,Secondary Archive, plays on the idea of the second sex as coined by Simone de Beauvoir in her 1949 book, which explored womens place in a male-dominated society.

Cielak said the project already has concretized plans to expand to Belarus and Ukraine, and eventually Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.

Visit the Secondary Archive here.

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Experts Launch a Massive New Wikipedia-Style Archive to Address the Lack of Research on Women Artists From Central Europe - artnet News

This story originally appeared on LX.com

If you were on the internet in April 2019, you may recognize computer scientist Katie Bouman, who went viral after her team captured the worlds first image of a black hole and her thrilled reaction was captured on camera.

That breakthrough prompted a Wikipedia volunteer to draft her biography for the digital encyclopedia. But the same day, it was nearly pulled by someone else who thought she wasn't notable enough to be included.

This incident points to a bigger problem: women feature in less than one in five biographies on Wikipedia. There are several reasons for this gap.

First, some background: Wikipedia pages are written and edited by a volunteer community that now numbers over 143,000 individuals, around 90% of whom are male. Anyone can write a draft article, and anyone can nominate an article for deletion. Editors then decide by consensus whether to keep the article, merge it with another one or delete it.

These decisions come down to guidelines set by Wikipedia editors in the early days, including a test of notability: Is there significant coverage of the topic in secondary sources? Are these sources reliable? Are they independent of the subject itself? By this criteria, enough editors rushed to defend Katie Boumans notability and ultimately saved her article from deletion. Many others, though, never see the light of day.

According to Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight, a veteran volunteer whos written over 5,000 articles since 2007, information about men is much more readily available in large quantities than it is about women. If a woman hasnt been covered sufficiently in secondary sources, a Wikipedia editor may determine that she doesn't meet the notability standard.

One study also found that women who do make the cut have to be relatively more notable than their male counterparts. That might have to do less with gender bias in the past and more with the way it manifests today. A Wikimedia Foundation survey from 2018 found that 14 percent of women faced harassment or a general lack of support as volunteers; some even said that they were sent porn. Theres even a Wikipedia page about gender bias on Wikipedia.

In February, with an aim to better attract and retain new and diverse volunteers, the Wikimedia Foundation released its first Universal Code of Conduct. According to the policy, violations of the code like harassment, trolling, and abuse of power can result in sanctions.

Meanwhile, editors of all genders have been working to combat bias through community organizing. In 2015, after learning that women made up just 15.53% of biographies on the English-language Wikipedia, Stephenson-Goodknight and an editor from Scotland named Roger Bamkin formed a group called Women in Red, named for the red links on the site that represent missing articles. In less than six years, theyve turned over 17,000 red links to blue. But theres still a lot of catching up to do.

If you want to contribute, Sandister Tei, a volunteer who won Wikimedian of the Year in 2020 for mobilizing editors in her home country of Ghana, says the best first step is to make an account. For additional guidance, groups like Art + Feminism organize open edit-a-thons, many of which are virtual, in partnership with museums, colleges and community centers around the world.

Tei stresses that Wikipedias mission cannot be realized without a diverse editing community. You're trying to build a sum of human knowledge," she said. "And you can't do that if you exclude people.

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Women Are Writing Themselves Back Into History on Wikipedia - NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Celebrities have learned the secret to eternal youth is... to alter your age on Wikipedia.

That is according to comedy duo Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, who are, respectively, 52 and 51, but that may change if they ever get access to their Wiki entries.

Mel said: There are certain people on Wikipedia, who shall remain nameless, but are known to us in the profession whove been sort of 41 for the last 15 years.

Sue, who met Mel when they were students at Cambridge and members of Footlights theatre club, said: I know and its very Google-able that we were all in the same university, in the same year.

The moment I work out how to change my Wikipedia entry its a game changer and I will.

During their online chat, Mel and Sue spoke of a pact to grow old gracefully and not have any work done as the years roll on.

Comparing their lockdown hair, Sue told Mel: Your grey shocks me because it means youve been dyeing. We had a pact we would not have anything done, mate.

Mel said her hair was like a cul de sac in late 70s Leatherhead. She said: Im receding, its perimenopausal. Ive been dyeing it since Ive ruddy met you, my love.

Sue joked about having to wear a hat while the hairdressers remained closed. She said: Ive developed this look over lockdown. So beanie at all times.

Sue also spoke of her lockdown diet. She said: All I really have existed on is Greggs.

All I care about is Greggs. I get six vegan sausage rolls at any one time and they do not last.

Obsessed. Delicious.

From secret feuds and sexy scandals to the biggest showbiz headlines - we're serving up a daily dose of gossip.

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Vain celebrities are changing their true ages on Wikipedia, Mel & Sue claim - Mirror Online

If youre a creative type, youve likely heard of the Moleskine notebook, branded as the heir to the little blank books used by the likes of van Gogh, Picasso and Hemingway. Maybe you even picked one up during quarantine in the hopes of one day being known by surname only. Headquartered in Milan, the Moleskine company has around 500 employees today and a vast network of partners. It produces physical and digital notebooks, and even runs cafes.

In 2006, the company launched the Moleskine Foundation, which works with an eye toward Africa at the intersection of three focus areas: innovative education, art and culture for social transformation, and advocacy.

Creativity is a function of knowledge to a certain extent. Its not just about having information. Its about what youre going to do with it, says Adama Sanneh, CEO and co-founder of Moleskine Foundation, in a recent interview.

The foundation began as lettera27an unconventional cultural incubatorillustrating the unique philanthropic angle here. And though incubating culture might seem a bit nebulous, Sanneh spoke at length about Moleskines real impact on the ground, and how it uses creativity as a path toward social change.

Consider its WikiAfrica Education initiative, which launched in 2006 just five years after Wikipedia itself launched. Harnessing the promise of creativity, the initiative has generated over 40,000 Wikipedia contributions since its launch, and over 200 articles in 18 languages about COVID-19 in the past year alone. The goal is to serve as a way to support creative young people on the continent, and also to improve online information about Africa.

But just how did this unconventional foundation get started, why did it partner with Wikimedia, and how is the partnership emblematic of the foundations overall aims to impact African youth?

African roots

Born in Italy as the son of a Muslim West African father and an Italian Catholic mother, Sanneh has long been interested in questions of identity. His honors thesis as a political science major in undergrad was titled Identity Paradox in the Second Generation of Immigrants in Italy. He got his feet wet in the world of NGOs, working in Northern Uganda and the capital city Kampala.

After a time, though, Sanneh wondered if he was on the right side of history. Where was I in the overall international aid machine? Even though we were reaching many people and making a difference I didnt feel like I was part of the right system, he says.

Sanneh went on to earn his MBA from the University of Geneva and then worked as a consultant for the World Intellectual Property Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations. Working within the Global Challenges Division, he started to realize the power of creative tools to solve global challenges like climate change and food security.

I entered in the field of art, culture, and education and had a slow but steady epiphany, Sanneh says with a laugh. A lot of the questions I had in Uganda, I started to find some answers to.

Using creativity to change the world

As lettera27 evolved into Moleskine Foundation, the company behind the organization doubled down its support so that the nonprofit could scale. While backed by the Moleskine company, it operates independently, running its own programs and partnerships while also making grants to aligned organizations.

And with Sanneh at the helm, the foundation was able to get off the ground quickly, thanks to lettera27s 10-year runway creating partnerships with cultural, creative and educational institutions around Africa.

Consider partner organization Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, a former prison complex from the Apartheid era whose walls held the likes of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. Today, Constitution Hill is a living museum that tells the story of South Africas journey to the present. The foundation has been working with the organization for years, and others like it, even when it wasnt the popular choice.

Ten years ago, some looked at you like you were some kind of New Age person. But very early on in the game, we had the chance to meet some incredible partners, he says.

Moleskine Foundation works to encourage, inspire and connect young people to transform themselves and then larger society through unconventional educational experiences. One past initiative called the Directors Eye supported authors and producers of African cinema throughout the phases of film development and production.

The foundation also has a long history with Ashoka, the well-known international association of social innovators, and was an early supporter of Ashokas Changemaker Schools Africa, which has launched dozens of schools and also runs storytelling workshops.

Where is Africa on Wikipedia?

As a top-five global website with some 6.1 billion visitors per month, Wikipedia is as ubiquitous as the air we breathe, and the perfect mic drop in an intense internet debatenot that Im encouraging such a thing. Still, as with many other internet era phenomena, Wikipedia wasnt always Wikipedia.

In 2006, lettera27 had an intuition, Sanneh says. Where is Africa on Wikipedia? It was intuition, because at the time, Wikipedia wasnt even a big deal. And I was just a young volunteer.

The organization decided to make an early bet, partnering with Wikimedia Italia to launch WikiAfrica, an international movement that encourages individuals, interested groups and organizations to create, expand and enhance online content about Africa.

WikiAfrica Education introduces, trains and supports teachers as they incorporate Wikipedia article writing into their lesson plans. The initiative conducts edit-a-thon events so they can learn more about the Wikimedia platform and supports teacher training. Students learn important literacy skills, how to work in collaboration, and best practices and tools relating to critical thinking. The ultimate goal is to build the next generation of online content creators.

I can tell you, there is more information about the city of Paris now than about the entire African continent, Sanneh says; he knows the consequences of the lack of online representation for people of color. He recalls the first time he landed in New York and met a Black American, who asked where Sanneh was from. When he said Italy, the man was surprised.

Hes like, Wait, Italy has Black people? Sanneh recalls with a smile.

For these reasons, WikiAfrica is focused on the entire diaspora, impacting people around the world who know what it means to live in a society where you arent fully reflected. For instance, Moleskine, in partnership with Constitution Hill and AFROPUNK (conveners of the popular Brooklyn music festival), curated the names of 12 Black South African women who were erased from history.

WikiAfrica created an educational program in which young people could learn about women like Joyce Seroke, a South African educator, activist, feminist and community organizer who fought against apartheid. From there, young people wrote these entries in their own languagesZulu, Xhosa, Venda and so on.

In one day, the event produced 70 new entries in five African languages about these vital figures.

Another larger AfroCuration event focused on the constitution of South Africa and anti-Apartheid efforts, and resulted in more than 200 written articles. Between these two events combined, there were more than 200,000 views from these entries in a few months.

Moleskine Foundation only works with local partners who know the lay of the land and can effectively host events, like Harambee, a youth employment nonprofit. And right now, Sanneh is working hard to find multiple avenues to reach rural areas.

Sometimes, its a struggle, Sanneh admits, but compared to when we started, this is a great improvement. This is why we want to expand this program, and get more co-founding donors.

A new perception of creativity

Sanneh believes that these creativity tools can be used to get at some of Africas more intractable challenges, including housing, water sanitation and food security. But as veteran of this space, he also thinks some reframing could be useful.

International organizations always ask how they can fix problems. But they never really ask how they can support and develop talent. We are in this second business. I dont see a dichotomy. We live in a creativity era. Why should it be different for a young kid in Lagos? Sannah says.

Moleskine Foundation works on three levels, and its final frontier is working to transform the way creativity is perceived in society. The foundation created a publication called Folio and a podcast called Creativity Pioneers, in-depth conversations with leaders who use creativity to create social change. Harvard graduate Uzodinma Iweala, CEO of Africa Center in New York City, talks about building inclusive cultural institutions, and Raphael Chikukwa, executive director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, believes that every revolution starts from the revolution of the mind.

When I ask Sanneh if he believes this work could help westerners better understand Africa, he says he remains hopeful. But he also says hes not overly concerned by it, because you cant really change those who dont want to change.

African creators themselves are undergoing a new era of visibility around the world, including through Afrobeats music and so-called Nollywood (Nigerian Hollywood) films. Afrobeats artist Burna Boy took home a 2021 Grammy, and was also featured in video game sensation Grand Theft Auto Online.

Three decades ago, Ashoka made early waves in whats now the established field of social entrepreneurship. If successful, Sanneh thinks Moleskine Foundation can follow the same trajectory as a pioneer in the space of creativity for social change. We now know how to attract resources, to nurture talent, to bring solutions, and serve millions of people.

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A Foundation Takes on Wikipedia's Africa Gap, While Backing Young Creatives on the Continent Inside Philanthropy - Inside Philanthropy