Viewpoint: How I tackle Wiki gender gap one article at a time (original) (raw)

Each month, about 250,000 new user accounts are created on Wikipedia, external, and mine, Rosiestep, was created on 4 June 2007.

Since then, I've created more than 4,000 new articles. I write on various topics, including biographies, architecture, and geography. A few notable ones come to mind, including controversial women such as the writer, Deolinda Rodriguez de Almeida. Nicknamed the "Mother of the Revolution", she was captured, tortured, and executed for her support of the growing independence movement in Angola.

Though I have a business degree, business was not my calling. I wanted to be a cultural anthropologist. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Margaret Mead and study cultural anthropology at Barnard College (my mother's alma mater), like Margaret did. I wanted to travel to Papua New Guinea and do research on its people, like Margaret did. But my dad said "no" to anthropology - he wanted something more practical for my university studies.

Wikipedia has given me an outlet for the research I wanted to do. Anarchists and vedettes, writers and scientists, I've written about them all. Initially, I was surprised that anyone read a word that I wrote, but when I was notified that the article I started on Kallawaya people had been mentioned on the Wikipedia main page, I was humbled, recognising that my voice was important. More than 1,300 additional articles that I've worked on have been mentioned on the main page, more than any other woman. Every edit I've made - more than 113,000 - has been in the capacity of a volunteer; I haven't been paid for any of them. Yes, Wikipedia editors are volunteers.

I'm 40 years older than Emily Temple-Wood, the woman who shares the 2016 co-Wikipedian of the Year award with me. The fact Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales singled us out with this honour shows the commitment of the Wikipedia community to breaking down the barriers associated with gender imbalance.

Roger Bamkin, user:Victuallers, and I co-founded Women in Red in 2015, inviting everyone, regardless of gender, to help us address Wikipedia's content gender gap.

The project maintains lists of notable women who don't have a Wikipedia article, and creates articles about them and their works - from the books they wrote, to the schools they founded, and the conferences they convened.

The project is becoming equally well known for its lists of missing articles as the articles it creates. Women in Red now maintains more than 130 lists of women who are historically significant but missing an article on Wikipedia.

Understanding that every one of us can contribute to the sum of all human knowledge is incredible. Never before in history has there been an opportunity for anyone to contribute to an encyclopaedia.