Name: Japleen Pasricha

Organisation: Feminism in India

Country: India

Stakeholder Group: Civil Society Organisation

Thematic Area: Digital Literacy and Empowerment

 Session Title: How to Hold a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon and Reduce Its Gender Gap

Session Format: WORKSHOP (90 MINS)

Co-organizers Name (if any): Asmita Ghosh, Megha Marik

Speakers Name: Japleen Pasricha

Speaker Status: Confirmed

Relevance of the issue with specified session theme: Wikipedia has a gender gap, where only 9% of Wikipedia editors are women globally, and only 3% of Wikipedia Editors are women in India. This gender gap leads itself to a gap in its content as well âs where there is far more Wikipedia content on famous men than famous women. Hosting Wikipedia edit-a-thons with primarily woman editors fulfills the dual objective of closing the gender gap in both diversity in editors as well as content on the website. Learning how to edit on Wikipedia also teaches women skills of research, text editing, and content creation, thus aiding digital literacy and empowerment.

Content of the session (Objective of the session): The session will teach participants how to organize, research and hold their own Wikipedia Edit-a-thons. This will be done by initially teaching participants about how Wikipedia content guidelines function, holding a mini Edit-a-thon in order to show participants how exactly to host one, as well as information on the background research and work necessary to host an Edit-a-thon.

What is USP of the session: To teach women and other marginalized identities how to host Wikipedia Edit-a-thons, to increase representation from their communities on Wikipedia as well as impart skills of digital literacy and empowerment.

Please describe how you will use your speakers and how their views/ perspectives /expertise will be included in the session: As this is a workshop, it will not have any additional speakers. It will be moderated by our team, who have had previous experience in hosting Wikipedia Edit-a-thons as we have conducted 8 Edit-a-thons so far either independently or in collaboration with other organizations.

How are you bringing diversity in your proposed session whether it is relevant to the specified theme?

Our session will feature predominantly participants who are women or from other marginalized genders as the whole point of the session is to increase the representation of women and other genders on Wikipedia and lower the gender gap on it. Thus the very session itself is aimed at diversity and inclusivity. We will demand that there is a minimum of a 1:1 ratio between women and men in the workshop, with a preference to a greater number of women than men.

Relevant Tags (Minimum 3 tags)

Wikipedia Editathon, Gender Gap, Digital Literacy, Wikipedia