By Kerry Gaynor
Murphy News Service
Feminists and Wikipedians alike are huddled around their laptops today in honor of Ms. Magazine’s Fembot Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. At the University of Minnesota, a handful of feminist-minded folks came together to edit pages, create and add citations and chat about feminist topics on Wikipedia.
The Edit-a-thon’s goal is to add feminist and women’s histories, as well as queer and LGBT histories that are overlooked or underwritten on the online encyclopedia. The event is scheduled to honor March as Women’s History Month with Sunday, March 8, being International Women’s Day.
The main location of the event is being housed at Ms. Magazine’s headquarters in Los Angeles, Calf. but folks are encouraged to participate remotely from any part of the world.
At the University of Minnesota, editors gathered in the study lounge of Ford Hall to collaborate and offer assistance with their online endeavors. Powered by seltzer water and cookies, the group typed away, filling the room with the clattering of keyboards.
Lars Mackenzie, the Digital Projects Fellow for the GWSS Department said he heard about the event through the Ms. Fembot group and wanted to participate.
“We just wanted to get involved with the department. It’s part of our push to do more digital engaged learning and teaching in GWSS,” Mackenzie said.
Some people in the group based their edits on knowledge from their own previous academic work and research, shocked by the lack of information on Wikipedia. The topics varied widely from cultural assimilation of Native Americans to Hmong Americans to a celebration of women in hip-hop called B-Girl Be.
To see what the University’s group successfully changed, check out the Gender, Women & Sexuality Department Facebook page.
On the Fembot project page, organizers have suggested pages for editing as well as a list of participants and contributors. The page will also show the results of the editing once the event is over.
The hottest topics (breastfeeding is currently in the lead) can be tracked on the joint project page WikiProject Feminism.
The WikiProject LGBT page also shows updates and resources, along with a massive list of articles in need of clean up.
All Wikipedia edits have to go through approval of the site’s moderators, so many of the changes being made through the Edit-a-thon might not become permanent additions to the online encyclopedia. During the scheduled time of the event, about 100 edits were being made a minute, Wikipedia-wide, according to Listen to Wikipedia.
The Edit-a-thon runs today through today, up to tomorrow’s Hack-a-thon, also sponsored by Ms. Updates can be seen through the hastags #WikiWomen and #FemBotWiki on Wikipedia, Twitter and Facebook.
Reporter Kerry Gaynor is studying journalism and the University of Minnesota.