Medieval Women Wikipedia Write-In (A Workshop)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS)
Organizer Name
Dorothy Kim
Organizer Affiliation
Vassar College
Start Date
8-5-2014 10:00 AM
Session Location
Fetzer 1060
Description
In the past, the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship has usually sponsored a film or television series as part of our efforts in thinking through feminist medieval discourse in new media. This year, we are changing our gears and wish to partner with our colleagues who work on digital humanities to sponsor, support, and bring together a hive of over 3000 experts and medievalist scholars at Kalamazoo to do a marathon (from the beginning of the conference to the end) Medieval Women Wikipedia Write-In.
As my colleagues Adeline Koh and Roopika Risam have written in discussing the Global Women Wikipedia Write-in: "While Wikipedia has increasingly taken on the role of most commonly referenced encyclopedia, the number and length of entries on ethnic/minority and marginalized people around the world are lacking. This is arguably the result of the internalized biases and interests of most Wikipedia editors. According to the Wikimedia Wikipedia’s Editor’s Survey of 2011, “If there is a typical Wikipedia editor, he has a college degree, is 30-years-old, is computer savvy but not necessarily a programmer, doesn’t actually spend much time playing games, and lives in US or Europe.” As a result, we also aim to encourage new people to become Wikipedia editors to diversify the profile of Wikipedia editors, and we provide support for these editors and develop best practices for rewriting Wikipedia."
We would like to use the opportunity of this conference to change the terrain for medieval studies on Wikipedia which is often the go-to source for so many of our students across the country in reshaping the information (its accuracy, scope, and inclusion) of medieval studies. Thus, we are proposing a Medieval Women Wikipedia Write-In.
Dorothy Kim
Medieval Women Wikipedia Write-In (A Workshop)
Fetzer 1060
In the past, the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship has usually sponsored a film or television series as part of our efforts in thinking through feminist medieval discourse in new media. This year, we are changing our gears and wish to partner with our colleagues who work on digital humanities to sponsor, support, and bring together a hive of over 3000 experts and medievalist scholars at Kalamazoo to do a marathon (from the beginning of the conference to the end) Medieval Women Wikipedia Write-In.
As my colleagues Adeline Koh and Roopika Risam have written in discussing the Global Women Wikipedia Write-in: "While Wikipedia has increasingly taken on the role of most commonly referenced encyclopedia, the number and length of entries on ethnic/minority and marginalized people around the world are lacking. This is arguably the result of the internalized biases and interests of most Wikipedia editors. According to the Wikimedia Wikipedia’s Editor’s Survey of 2011, “If there is a typical Wikipedia editor, he has a college degree, is 30-years-old, is computer savvy but not necessarily a programmer, doesn’t actually spend much time playing games, and lives in US or Europe.” As a result, we also aim to encourage new people to become Wikipedia editors to diversify the profile of Wikipedia editors, and we provide support for these editors and develop best practices for rewriting Wikipedia."
We would like to use the opportunity of this conference to change the terrain for medieval studies on Wikipedia which is often the go-to source for so many of our students across the country in reshaping the information (its accuracy, scope, and inclusion) of medieval studies. Thus, we are proposing a Medieval Women Wikipedia Write-In.
Dorothy Kim