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On Saturday, March 18th<\/sup>, 2017 I had the privilege of observing and helping my colleague, Digital Services Librarian of the School of Visual Arts Library, Phoebe Stein, lead an event\u2014the \u201cArt + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon @svalibrary.\u201d\u00a0 This event was in coordination with a series of events, over a week\u2019s time, presented by the SVA Library called \u2018RESIST!\u2019 and a satellite event of the international Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon\u2014an event that has been going on since 2014 and that was just one of over 280 events worldwide that take place every March.<\/em><\/p>\n Art + Feminism is an organization focused on the inclusion of women artists in Wikipedia articles.\u00a0 Since the Wikimedia Foundation\u2014a charitable, nonprofit, organization dedicated to \u201cencouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual, educational content, and to providing the full content [of] wiki-based projects to the public free of charge<\/em>[i]<\/a> \u201d\u2014found that less than 13% of its contributors identity as female, Art + Feminism made an initiative to help expand the representation of women\u2014and LBGTQ persons\u2014as Wikipedia authors, and to edit and correct the existing articles involving the art of women\/LBGTQ persons.\u00a0 <\/em>A large group of: librarians, professors, artists, students, and art workers\/lovers \u201ccommitted to contributing specific knowledge\u201d to the Wikipedia articles involving women in art: Art + Feminism explains themselves as a community of people with \u201cdifferent perspectives and practices but [who] share the belief that art is fundamental to thriving societies and [who] strive to make visible the lives and work of underrepresented artists.\u201d\u00a0 Patrons of the event were encouraged to sign in, in order to ensure Art + Feminism get the funding from the Wikimedia Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n Phoebe gave a PowerPoint presentation about how to navigate and explore the vast world of Wikipedia, followed by hands-on practicing and guiding for the participants.\u00a0 She went over the basics of: how to create a Wikipedia account with a unique username; how to edit, comment, and start conversations about preexisting Wikipedia articles; how to find articles that have been flagged as \u2018in need of assistance\u2019; and how to create your own articles.\u00a0 The presentation and training sessions were offered twice throughout the day, as well as options of things to work on based on your constraint for the allotted time\u2014ranging from 1 hour or less (set up Wikipedia user page and make some simple edits to existing pages), to 2-4 hours (create a new article).<\/em><\/p>\n Phoebe\u2019s presentation began with suggestions of what a novice Wikipedia user\u2019s first actions should be; the most important being to engage in conversation with the Wikipedia community and to read articles before you begin editing or writing your own.\u00a0 She stressed the importance of having a neutral point of view when editing\/writing and notability, as well as the issue of conflicts of interest (not to partake in editing or creating articles that are somehow affiliated with your personal life, such as: places you have worked for, organizations you donate to, etc.).<\/em><\/p>\n In regards to notability, Phoebe urged the patrons to use secondary sources for citations, as primary sources are often frowned upon within the Wikipedia community.\u00a0 A creditable Wikipedia article will always have multiple sources, independent sources, quotes, and all of its citations in the same format.\u00a0 Sources must also be published and available to the public.\u00a0 Phoebe suggests patrons utilize \u2018Wikipedia Teahouse\u2019, a \u201cfriendly place to help new editors become accustomed to Wikipedia culture, ask questions, and develop community relationships.<\/em>[ii]<\/a>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n A link to the handout given, and helpful outside sources such as video tutorials and ways to navigate around Wikipedia to get the answers you need as a contributor, and online training sessions from Art + Feminism were also made available.\u00a0 Phoebe remarked that \u201cmost anything that you want to do can be found by searching Wikipedia itself,\u201d meaning that if you need help regarding articles, go to \u2018Wikipedia: Your First Article\u2019, and if you want to learn more about Wikipedia\u2019s sandbox, navigate yourself to: \u2018Wikipedia: About The Sandbox\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n Phoebe\u2019s presentation gave concise, easily understood guidance and was conducted in a casual, yet professional way.\u00a0 Observing and assisting her in this event ensued thoughts in me of: how I would conduct an event in a Library on my own; the way people responded to certain design aspects in the PowerPoint; what was retained by the patrons, and what needed to be reiterated after the presentation.\u00a0 There was an odd occurrence that not many SVA students showed up to this event, and that most of the patrons had heard about it from an outside source.\u00a0 The <\/em>demographic present was widely women over the age of 50.\u00a0 Towards the end of the day, two Wikipedia volunteers were available to help us with instructing the patrons further.<\/p>\n \u201cWikipedia Volunteers\u201d are people who dedicate a significant amount of time to editing and creating articles on Wikipedia.\u00a0 These are people of all sorts: retirees, professors, teenagers, etc. and have \u201cproved themselves\u201d to be reliable based on their history on the website.\u00a0 When looking for a creditable writer on Wikipedia, it is important to check how many articles they have written and contributed to, their user history, and if anything they have participated in editing\/writing has been flagged as incorrect or biased information.\u00a0 Wikipedia has created algorithms called \u2018bots\u2019 to \u201cflag and queue articles for quality and revision.[iii]<\/a>\u201d The realization that some Wikipedia users are merely using the resource to vandalize articles has forced the site to create these algorithms and survey articles more carefully, especially as Wikipedia becomes more creditable in the intellectual community as a source\u2014currently the fifth most visited website in the world.[iv]<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWikipedia thrives only as long as legions of volunteer editors practice protocol labor as they learn and share conventions for structuring different kinds of pages and writing encyclopedic forms of prose. iii\u201d<\/p>\n The Wikipedia gender gap is not a new concept, and I, personally have always been told by Art Professors that one of the most useless, incorrect topics on Wikipedia is Art History.\u00a0 This, in conjunction with the underrepresentation of women artists on the site, creates a larger problem that many people are attending to.<\/p>\n In 2016, Art History Professor, Jamie Ratliff of the University of Minnesota Duluth created an assignment for her students to each conduct research on a Latin American female artist and create a Wikipedia page on the person.[v]<\/a>\u00a0 Events and activities in this nature are going on throughout the country and the world as more people become aware of the gender gap.\u00a0 In a CBC news March 2017 interview with Alexandra Bischoff, program coordinator of the Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver, Bischoff said that \u201cmany accomplished female artists [were] notably absent from the platform.[vi]<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n In her presentation, Phoebe used the juxtaposition of the Wikipedia articles \u201cBaseball Card\u201d and \u201cDoll\u201d as an example of another type of underrepresentation of women present on the website.\u00a0 In this example we must regard \u2018doll\u2019 as something feminine and \u2018baseball card\u2019 as something masculine\u2014though this is not always the case.\u00a0 It was clear that the baseball card article had received much more attention than the doll article.\u00a0 \u201cBaseball\u201d contains about 5,400 words and 9 \u2018see also\u2019 links; while \u201cDoll\u201d has roughly 2,850 words, zero \u2018see also\u2019 links, and a significantly smaller table of contents.\u00a0 *Though it is amazing that since this event (not yet 2 weeks ago), the \u2018doll\u2019 article has been very much bulked up.\u00a0 Hopefully this is in part from Phoebe\u2019s mention of the issue.<\/p>\n \u201cThe organizers of Art+Feminism are deeply disturbed by the sheer amount of fake news on social media, and its influence on the recent US election. We believe this makes our work even more pressing. Now more than ever we must gather together to improve Wikipedia and affirm work of women, people of color, immigrants, [and] the LGBTQIA+ community and other marginalized peoples.i\u201d<\/p>\n The work that was put into this event by Librarian, Phoebe Stein was impressive: reaching out to work with Art + Feminism, creating and lecturing on her presentation, and helping the patrons after the fact to do justice to the cause.\u00a0 I was happy to help out, and excited to learn new information about Wikipedia, and about the work being done by the community for women artist representation on Wikipedia.\u00a0 As the world becomes more aware and active in women\u2019s rights, the work that Art + Feminism will surely act as a catalyst to serve as a valuable protocol of activism, intellectual aide, and feminism as Wikipedia\u2014and the internet\u2014continue to\u00a0 expand.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n ————-<\/p>\n [i]<\/a> “Art + Feminism.” Art + Feminism. Art + Feminism, n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.0<\/p>\n [ii]<\/a> “About.”\u00a0Wikipedia<\/em>. Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Mar. 2017. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.<\/p>\n [iii]<\/a> Downey, Greg. “Making media work: Time, space, identity, and labor in the analysis of information and communication infrastructures<\/em>.”\u00a0Media technologies: Essays on communication, materiality, and society<\/em>\u00a0(2014): 141-66.<\/p>\n [iv]<\/a> Alcantara, Chris. “Wikipedia Editors Are Essentially Writing the Election Guide Millions of Voters Will Read.”\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>. WP Company, 27 Oct. 2016. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.<\/p>\n![\"blog22\"](\"http:\/\/listheory.prattsils.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog22-300x126.png\")
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