Wikipedia
is the largest reference work the world has ever created. It is the
sixth-largest website in the world. It is the most visited reference
work on the internet. It is available in over 285 languages. If you want
to affect how the world understands a particular topic, you must edit
Wikipedia.
As academics, we already possess many of the skills
necessary to be excellent writers of encyclopedia entries: specialized
knowledge and finely-honed research and writing abilities. It is
incumbent upon us to share our knowledge with the world, where it will
be read not only by our fellow academics but by anyone curious about our
topics.
The gender gap: every edit is political
Every edit on Wikipedia is political. While Wikipedians
pride themselves on remaining objective and neutral, it is impossible to
remain so and the presentation of contemporary events puts this into
high relief. In February 2012, Sandra Fluke testified before
Congressional Democrats about women’s reproductive rights, for which she
was viciously attacked by Rush Limbaugh. Within four days of her
testimony, a Wikipedia article was created for her. This is one of
Wikipedia’s strengths – its ability to be up-to-date. However, within
five minutes of being created, the article was nominated for “
speedy deletion”
for “no indication of importance” (this process allows Wikipedians to
delete obvious spam articles). It remained an article, passing this
test, but was
nominated two hours later through a more rigorous deletion process, in which Wikipedians would debate the merits of the article for a week. Fluke was considered
non-notable or notable only because Rush Limbaugh had attacked her. In the end, her biographical article was merged with the
Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke controversy
article. For three and a half months on Google, the first Google hit
for Sandra Fluke’s name was Wikipedia’s article on the controversy. At
that time, the Sandra Fluke article was recreated and she was deemed
notable enough to have her own article.
Wikipedia’s rules are not neutral or objective, however
much Wikipedians may wish them to be – they have very real political
consequences. For three and a half months, Wikipedia allowed Sandra
Fluke to be defined by Rush Limbaugh’s wildly inappropriate and
derogatory comments, rather than by her own life story, and helped fuel
an irrelevant news story. This is one small example of how every choice
Wikipedia editors make on the encyclopedia shapes the world’s knowledge
and thus who is editing the encyclopedia is of paramount importance.
The gender gap and its concomitant effect on the content
and structure of the encyclopedia has caused a recent upsurge in efforts
to recruit more women to edit Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation, for
example,
hired a fellow specifically to work on this problem for a year. But there have also been grassroots efforts and the
#tooFEW edit-a-thon on March 15 was part of this. During this event, the
THATCamp Feminisms West,
East, and
South
hosted edit-a-thons. Moreover, as news of the edit-a-thon spread, other
locations (mainly in the United States) started their own editing
sessions and individuals made time in their day to add to Wikipedia’s
coverage of women.
The root of all knowledge
During the edit-a-thon,
the question of notability and verifiability was raised frequently.
Wikipedia has a “notability” policy that determines who and what can
have an article. While Wikipedia includes articles about many more
topics than a traditional encyclopedia, it does not include articles
about any topic. Over the years, Wikipedia’s notability guideline has
evolved quite a bit. Wikipedia did not have a solid notability guide
until 2007. This is important to remember – Wikipedia’s policies, like
everything on the site, evolves and changes as the community changes (if
you want to follow the changes, click on the “view history” tab at the
top of the page). In general, a topic is notable if it has been covered
in
reliable sources
independent of the subject. What this means in practice, of course, is
that Wikipedia should be fundamentally conservative in the sense that it
is only publishing information that has been published before. However,
because Wikipedia accepts a variety of reliable sources (while still
privileging peer-reviewed sources), such as newspapers and blog posts,
there are ways in which the encyclopedia is pushing against the
boundaries of established scholarly practice.
While academics may see Wikipedia’s rules as restrictive
and prescriptive (and in certain contexts they certainly can be),
Wikipedians themselves are constantly working to adjust the rules. For
example, at Wikimania 2012 (the conference for all things Wikipedia),
there was a panel on “
Wikipedia in the Twitter Age”,
which specifically raised the question of the reliability of different
kinds of information and which forms Wikipedia privileges and why, using
the 2011 Egyptian revolution as an example of when the most reliable
information came from Twitter.
There is nothing more essential than seeing that these
policies on Wikipedia are evolving and that if we as feminists and
academics want them to evolve in ways we feel reflect the progressive
politics important to us, we must participate in the conversation.
Wikipedia is a community and we have to join it.
Join us!
What Wikipedia chooses to include is shaping what we remember and
value about our culture. It is important that as academics we do not
absent ourselves from these debates. Wikipedia, like the Encyclopédie,
will define what knowledge is for generations. Join us in shaping the
world’s knowledge!
