The Swedish Embassy in Pretoria together with Unisa is inviting the public to write articles or biographies on local women whom they think excel in their fields. The works will then be published on one of the most popular online encyclopedia’s, Wikipedia.

This was heard recently when the Embassy in collaboration with Unisa’s Department of English Studies and WikimediaZA hosted a #HerStory Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon event at Unisa’s Department of Communication Science’s Digital Teaching Lab.

Director for WikimediaZA, Bobby Shabangu, described the edit-a-thon as a community organised event that aims to teach people how to edit, update, and add articles on Wikipedia. It also serves as a way to increase content on the platform, as in this case on South African women representation.

Wikipedia is one of the most visited encyclopaedia websites in the world; however, information on Wikipedia and many other platforms is often prejudiced and contributes towards biases that affect women. “This subsequently leads to a misrepresentation of women,” said Shabangu, adding that another aim of the edit-a-thon was to address the alarming statistic that about 91% of editors on Wikipedia are men and there are about four times as many articles about men compared to women. 

Facilitating a practical session that taught participants how to open a Wikipedia account, write, edit and contribute on Wikipedia, Shabangu explained that Wikipedia is a free encyclopaedia, written collaboratively by its users. He said it could be edited by anyone on any page for as long as it is not locked. He added that there are thousands of changes made on Wikipedia per hour.

He also presented the five pillars that hold up Wikipedia. The first pillar is that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia; the second is that it is written from a neutral point of view; the third is that it is free content that anyone can use, edit and distribute; the fourth is that it dictates for editors to treat each other with respect and civility; and the fifth pillar is that it has no firm rules.

The #HerStory Edit-A-Thon was broadcasted live through the Digital Teaching Lab in the Department of Communication Science, therefore, included in the audience, was a group of woman in Sweden that are actively contributing to the information wealth on Wikipedia platform. They shared their experiences where most of them agreed that generally, Wikipedia is very hostile to women, and as a result they feel undermined.

To conclude, Claudia Fratini from the Department of English Studies, advised that a valuable lesson to take away from the edit-a-thon was that it was an exercise for women to add to the body of knowledge. And if at all they had trouble getting the right subject to write about, they should know that there are women already on Wikipedia that any Wikipedian can add information about. She added that edit-a-thon is not only about creating new material, it is also about adding to what is already there.

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The #HerStory Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon hosted by the Swedish Embassy in Pretoria in collaboration with Unisa’s Department of English Studies and WikimediaZA was broadcasted live through the Digital Teaching Lab in the Department of Communication Science. This allowed for a group of woman in Sweden who are actively contributing to the information wealth on Wikipedia platform, to participate.

 *By Katlego Pilane (CHS communications and marketing)

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