March is Women's History Month at Wikipedia. As a part of this year's celebrations, Wikipedia editors in India have organised a month long edit-a-thon, workshops and other events.
Male editors at Wikipedia outnumber female ones by a ratio of 9:1. Wikipedia terms the disparity between the sexes the “Gendergap”. The edit-a-thon and other events are aimed at bridging the Gendergap -- increasing the participation of women in contributing to Wikipedia, increasing the number of articles on women’s issues, and expanding them. Contributors may edit Wikipedia articles in English or their native Indian languages. Translation of existing Wikipedia articles from English to Indian languages, or vice versa, or from one Indian language to another is one more task contributors could take up. The edit-a-thon, an online event, is open to all.
This Wikipedia page lists the details of various events as well as the names of articles that need to be created or expanded in English, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, or Hindi. The previous edit-a-thon for this month was held starting from International Women’s Day, March 8 to March 10. Eighteen articles, most of them biographies of women, were created on the English language Wikipedia. One article was expanded. The next edit-a-thon is scheduled for the next weekend, March 16 and 17. The participants who sign up for the edit-a-thon will be awarded “Barnstars”, a kind of community award, for their contributions.
As a part of offline outreach efforts, Wikipedia editing workshops for women were held in Bangalore and Goa on International Women’s Day. Women’s History Month meetups are being held in many cities across the world.
Starting today, the Wikimedia community blogs at WikipeDNA about offline and online Wikipedia events and initiatives. We will also put up Wikipedia-related content that would help more people get around editing Wikipedia and its sister projects and use Wikipedia better. Rohini Lakshane, a Wikimedian from Mumbai, maintains the blog. Write to her at: rohini at wikimedia.in
Cross-posted at Wikimedia India Chapter blog and Technosophy.
