Sunday, February 7, 2016

Boldy Go! [Edit Wikipedia]

"Be Bold" is the Star Trek–tinged invitation from the Wikipedia community to us to help write the encyclopedia.

Communications officer Uhura ^ takes the helm after the navigator is knocked out.


design by Oile 11
This week I started to edit Wikipedia because:

1.  I use Wikipedia all the time.

2. Stone Soup is my religion, and Wikipedia illustrates my credo:
With checks and balances, humans can work together for the common good. 
Even with no money in the pot.

3. Editing Wikipedia provides a fix for my "put things in order" jones, 
now I'm not thrift herding (or working in a library,  or, for the moment, editing anything else).

4. And because I just learned that only about 10% of Wikipedia editors are women. [see Gender Bias] [A-ha! That explains why its Starsky and Hutch subheading Cars is longer than the entire entry on author Sarah Vowell. ]

I can represent.
Everyone on the bridge is able to operate the vessel, even the young yeoman [Janice Rand, in the episode "The Naked Time"]:

A New York Times article "Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia's Contributor List" (2011) "cited as possibly discouraging women from editing included the "obsessive fact-loving realm", associations with the "hard-driving hacker crowd," and the necessity to be "open to very difficult, high-conflict people, even misogynists"." 

Unfortunately I have met the type before...

But what are you going to do? It reminds me of something Benjamin Franklin said:
"When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their error of opinions, their local interests, and their selfish views."
I read that last night in Sarah Vowell's latest book, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States.

This morning I edited Sarah Vowell's page because it still said the book was "due out in October 2015."
I updated it:

Wanna give it a go?
It's easy to edit a page: click "edit" tab along the top. (You don't even have to log in, though I did create an account.)
The tab leads you to a composition box familiar to any blogger.

I prefer to just jump in and figure stuff out by feel, but the Help:Editing page takes you through the steps, if you like that better.

4 comments:

Zhoen said...

You are a braver woman than I. When I read about the gender bias issue at wiki, I pulled back. Stopped giving them donations, avoided the site. I'm not up to that fight. Thank you for engaging and battling.

Frex said...

Frex = Fresca

Thanks but, no, I'm not up for a fight!
There're tons of backwaters where Edit Wars don't happen!
I figure most of my natural interests will fall in those areas. (Sarah Vowell, Catharine Beecher...)

It's not Wikipedia's policy that discourages women--in fact, they try to encourage everybody, and women and people of color in particular.
"Editors Are Trying To Fix Wikipedia's Gender And Racial Bias Problem "
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/15/wikipedia-gender-racial-bias_n_7054550.html

Frex said...

P.S. WHERE THE EDIT WARS ARE:
Politics, Star Wars, and...
"geospatial summary of the high peaks/summits of the Juneau Icefield"??

Yep:
"Some people get really into editing some obscure Wikipedia pages, and that shows in these numbers. Take last year - after the death page, the most edited one was not about Donald Trump or Star Wars.
Here it is - geospatial summary of the high peaks/summits of the Juneau Icefield."
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/15/463224123/on-wikipedias-15th-anniversary-a-look-at-the-most-edited-entries

deanna said...

Enjoy! Obviously, Wikipedia needs you. Which means we all do.