Share your expertise: a Wikipedia edit-a-thon

Description

Convenor

Claire Carroll (CDH Methods Fellow and PhD student)

Summary

How do we learn about the world around us and what sources do we trust for information? We may turn to teachers and books, but we also turn to collective knowledge online. Each month, Wikipedia and Wikimedia entries are viewed over 20 billion times. And those pages are fed into AI tools like ChatGPT to share answers to more directed queries.

While Wikipedia has relatively robust citation and source verification protocols, it is a free, volunteer-led project. Wikipedia is only as robust and balanced as its contributors make it, yet there is an imbalance in who editors are; as many as 90% of Wikipedia editors are male. How might that influence the knowledge and perspectives that are amplified?

This edit-a-thon gives you a chance to share information about topics that you know and care about. We seek to provide an accessible space to help new and returning Wikipedians share their expertise. While organisers will present a list of articles that could benefit from expansion, it’s entirely up to participants what information they’d like to add.

We’ll begin the workshop with a brief presentation on objectivity, neutrality, and critical reading before diving into Wikipedia’s best practices and protocols. Some potential edits that participants could make include:

• Translating pages between languages they are fluent in.
• Adding quotes by women on any topic to Wikiquotes as part of the #SheSaid campaign.
• Expanding the synopsis or context on books or films that you enjoy.
• Sharing local history that you think deserves more recognition.

The goal of this workshop is to improve young adults’ media literacy and help all participants share their expertise to diversify knowledge in our global community. Suitable for adults and young adults.

Requirements: please bring your own (charged) laptop. 

Accessibility

The Alison Richard Building is located on the University of Cambridge’s Sidgwick Site and has step-free access. This room (S2) has wheelchair access, accessible toilets on all floors, and lift access. Disabled parking is available outside the Alison Richard Building.
If you have specific accessibility needs for this event please email comms.events@cdh.cam.ac.uk. We will do our best to accommodate any requests.