Submissions/Personal invitations, coffee and small talk - how weekly editathons may solve the gender bias on Swedish Wikipedia

This has been marked as a Withdrawn submission for Wikimania 2015 because it has been withdrawn by its submitter. The submitter is invited to consider trying again next year.

Submission no.: 2104

Title of the submission: Personal invitations, coffee and small talk - how weekly editathons may solve the gender bias on Swedish Wikipedia

Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop): Presentation

Author of the submission: Lennart Guldbrandsson and Sofie Jansson

E-mail address: lennartwikimedia.se and skrivakreativtgmail.com

Username: User:Hannibal and Vätte

Country of origin: Sweden

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.): Wikimedia Sverige volunteers

Personal homepage or blog: Lennart's web page and Sofie's web page

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal): We have been running a weekly editathon in Gothenburg, focused on women and literature, for about a year now, to great success. Our editathons have increased the number of literature related "Recommended articles" on Swedish Wikipedia. Now, we are at a point where articles about female authors and womens' literature are almost on par with the articles about male authors. At the same time, the number of active female Wikipedians have gone up. Even previously skeptical users, who have met the Wikipedia watchdogs with disasterous results, have come back to produce good articles, after going to our weekly edithathons. Soon the gender gap is history, both in female participation and female article topics - at least in this small corner of Swedish Wikipedia.

All in all, this project have evoked a big interest from the media and from likeminded organisations. We are now looking to expand our model to other cities, with curious Wikipedians and non-Wikipedians visiting us, to better be able to copy the model.

In connection with this project, the same group of Wikipedians have also taken part in other events, like the Gothenburg Book Fair and International Women’s Day at the Museum of World Culture; showing how tightly knit the group have become. Even among non-Wikipedians, the weekly edithathons have become quite established, through free small ads, radio interviews and brochures.

So, how did we do it? There are a few easy answers: personal invitations, a generous amount of time and small talk, and coffee. But there are more things going on here. Let us show you some of the things we've done to make newcomers feel welcome, gather confidence and start editing.

Let us also answer the questions on everybody's mind: how do you replicate what we have done? Where are the pitfalls? And what would we have done differently? The answers may surprise you.

Track

WikiCulture & Community

Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long): 30 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Yes, if our scholarship applications are granted.

Slides or further information (optional): http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/01/07/weekly-edit-a-thons-in-sweden/

Special requests

Interested attendees

If you are interested in attending this session, please sign with your username below. This will help reviewers to decide which sessions are of high interest. Sign with a hash and four tildes. (# ~~~~).

Daniel Mietchen (talk) 11:45, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ocaasi (talk) 23:47, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
CFCF (talk) 17:58, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 06:46, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Add your username here.