Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/BlackLivesMatter Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

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• Black History Month and #BlackLivesMatter Wikipedia Edit-a-thons take place throughout the United States to tackle Wikipedia's Multicultural Gaps
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Group editing Wikipedia at the Schomburg

February 2015- This month Wikipedians work together to address Wikipedia's multicultural gaps in the encyclopedia and to honor Black History, hosting at least 5 Black History Month Wikipedia Edit-a-thons throughout the United States. Black History Month Edit-a-thons include an Edit-a-thon at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, an AfroCROWD Edit-a-thon at the Brooklyn Public Library, events at Howard University in D.C., and an Edit-a-thon at NPR Central headquarters in D.C., and events at SUNY Purchase and Nashville, as part of NPR's Black History Month. "There is a bias and a lack of people of color involved in creating Wikipedia and many subjects are also missing from Wikipedia. So events like today are in part to make people aware of that and then to empower them and give them the information they need to correct that bias," said Maira Liriano, one of the key institutional organizers of the #BlackLives Matter Edit-a-thon in New York, to reporters at Innovation Trail.

Kicking things off, the New York #BlackLivesMatter Wikipedia Edit-a-thon was held on Saturday February 7th at the New York Public Library Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Aaron Douglas Reading Room of the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division of the library, Harlem, New York. Satellite #BlackLivesMatter Edit-a-thons were held on February 7th at SUNY Purchase College Library and the Nashville Public Library, and a concurrent Wikipedia event, AfroCROWD, was held on February 7th and 8th at the Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch.

In New York, the #Black Lives Matter Edit-a-thon was organized in collaboration with NYPL, the Metropolitan New York Library Council, Wikimedia NYC, Wireless Harlem, and the West Harlem Art Fund for the Black WikiHistory Month outreach campaign. Over 50 experienced and beginning Wikipedians were in attendance throughout the day, with almost every seat in the house packed.

The run-of events for the Edit-a-thons includes Wikipedia editing trainings for beginners, and following the training wikistorming– with experienced Wikipedians floated around the room, working one-on-one with attendees to edit articles and answer questions. Many of these events also took place in libraries so that librarians were available at a desk in the Aaron Douglas Reading Room to help locate reference texts and provide suggestions for further research.

The Results of the New York Edit-a-thon were an overwhelming success that included the creation of 19 new Wikipedia articles, including articles for:

• Leonard Harper, producer/stager/choreographer in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance.
• Judy Dearing, American costume designer, dancer, and choreographer.
• Mildred Blount, American milliner, costume designer, and clothier.
• National Black Theatre, a non-profit cultural and educational corporation, and community-based theatre company.
• Ruth Jean Baskerville Brown, first black female booking agent and the president of Queen Booking Corporation
• Harlem Book Fair, the United State’s largest African-American book fair.

Press for the event reached to a diverse and expansive set of news sources, included stories in the Huffington Post, FastCompany, Colorlines, DNAInfo, Essence, CBS Local, The Root, NYDaily News, and Rue89.

Dorothy Howard, Wikipedian-in-Residence, Metropolitan New York Library Council

All photos in this article by Terrence Jennings, free license under CC BY-SA 4.0

AfroCROWD kickoff events at the Brooklyn Public Library Feb. 7th and 8th

AfroCROWD kickoff events --titled Intro to Wikimedia and how to Edit Wikipedia-- took place at the Brooklyn Public Library on February 7th and 8th and attracted over 50 attendees. The first day, former Wikimedia Serbia President Milos Rancic and Wikimedia NYC's David Goodman gave overview presentations on Wikimedia resources including wimedia site infrastructure, rules for posting and an overview of some the many languages of interest to our target population: French, Garifuna, Haitian Kreyòl, Igbo, Yoruba, Spanish and Twi. The Second Day, Pharos offered a shorter presentation on how to edit wikipedia following which individual attendees chose between doing the wikipedia adventure, adding articles to the AfroCROWD suggested articles list, setting up personal pages, editing existing articles, creating articles or exploring and leaving suggestions on affiliate project pages such as WikiProject Haiti. We intend to encourage more active and regular wikipedia editing as the workshop series progresses and our attendees become progressively more acclimated to this new environment. Our workshop series will culminate in an edit-a-thon June 20th at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Our next 3 events will be HaitiCROWD on 3/14, AfricaCROWD on 4/4 and AfrolatinoCROWD on 4/12 where we will drill down on resources available to each target group in their languages when needed. HaitiCROWD will focus on resources in the Haitian Kreyòl, French and English Wikipedias with much time devoted to ways of growing the Haitian wikipedia which is now available free of charge to many Haitians in Haiti through the Digicel/Wikimedia Foundation Wikipedia Zero initiative.

Check out a recap of the event including live tweets, photos and press here: https://storify.com/kiskeacity/afrocrowd-kickoff

The Haitian Times also provided a nice overview of the kickoff events: AfroCrowd: Owning Haitian History Through Digital Empowerment | The Haitian Times http://haitiantimes.com/afrocrowd-owning-haitian-history-through-digital-empowerment-10342/

Press leading up to the events included: For Blacks, New ‪Afrocrowd‬ Initiative Offers Opportunity to Tell Stories | Our Time Press http://ourtimepress.com/?p=16012

Can ‘Black Wikipedia’ Take Off Like ‘Black Twitter’? | ColorLines http://fw.to/o0EyciH

Black Digital Empowerment Through AfroCROWD workshops | Black Star News http://www.blackstarnews.com/money/economy/black-digital-empowerment-through-afrocrowd-workshops.html

AfroCrowd: The Black Wikipedia For People of African Descent | Kreyolicious http://kreyolicious.com/afrocrowd/17531/

Summary

On February 7th, New York Public Library hosted a #BlackLivesMatter Wikipedia Edit-a-thon; we had a full house! Satellite #BalckLivesMatter Edit-a-thons where held in several other public library’s in New York, D.C, and Tennesse (fact check this, Nashville Public Library)

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