Yale Women Wikipedia Editathon

The Yale community is invited to participate in a Yale Women Wikipedia Editathon on July 9. Drop in any time between 11:30 am and 1:30 pm to help create and edit the Wikipedia pages of  Yale Women. The event is free and open to Wikipedia beginners and people of all gender expressions and identities. Registration is recommended.

What is a Wikipedia Editathon? 

A Wikipedia Editathon is a hackathon but for Wikipedia, usually organized around a theme to mobilize Wikipedia editors to generate edits and new content about an under-recognized topic. It is also an opportunity to teach basic editing skills for new Wikipedia authors.  

Why host an Editathon for Yale women?

This year Yale is celebrating Women at Yale, a year-long series of events that recognizes the 50th anniversary of coeducation in Yale College and the 150th anniversary of women students at the university. This is a prescient time to recognize and celebrate Yale women on a platform where women are currently under-represented in terms of biographies as well as those who edit and create content.

Only 17% of the biographies on Wikipedia are of women.  Contributing to that inequity, is the fact that up to 90% of editors on Wikipedia are male while general readership remains generally evenly split among genders. As the largest general reference resource on the internet (over 5 million and counting) and the fifth most popular website in both the U.S. and across the globe, this is an alarming statistic. If women don’t tell or share our stories, our place in history is threatened and certainly distorted.

Gender offers distinct perspectives and an inequity contributes to an implicit bias in the information being contributed and edited. Put simply, Wikipedia should reflect the people who use it, along dimensions of race and sexual orientation, including all dimensions of diversity, such as race, sexual orientation and gender.

Event Instructions

• Come anytime within the event time window.
• Bring your computer and an open mind!
• New editors: Create your account before you arrive.
• No previous editing experience is necessary.
• We will provide suggested profiles to edit and create.
• Lunch & refreshments will be served.