WikiProject Women in Red is holding a biographical article creation contest throughout the month of November. They aim to create 2000 new biographical articles by the end of the month on women from every country and occupation on the planet as part of a project effort to increase diversity and the percentage of women biographies on Wikipedia (which is just 17.15% in relation to men at present).
The total prize fund is over $4500 (over £3000), and Wikimedia UK are offering Amazon voucher prizes valued at £250 (top prize £150) for any Wikimedian who writes the most satisfactory new articles on British women which are rated Start Class (1.5k bytes) or better.
UK Wikimedians may also create articles on women from any country and compete for the prizes for women of different continents and occupations. Work done on British women may also count towards the European prize for most article creations, of which WMF are offering $200 in prizes.
To take part in the contest, Wikimedians should enter their names in the participants section of the contest page and check out the list of missing biographies of women from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) which you can see here. You can find missing biographies specifically of British women here. Newly created articles should be added to the bottom of the contest page. If you are competing for prizes further list your entries in the United Kingdom section on the page for Europe during the contest and the prize claims page for most new British biographies at the end of the contest.
User:Dr. Blofeld, the contest organiser, says ‘we’ll accept any UK women bios, but the emphasis is really on those notable missing dictionary entries, particularly the ODNB and the Welsh Dictionary of Biography. In just a week, over 600 articles have been produced worldwide already, but at present not many editors are doing British entries. Here is a chance to significantly increase our proportion of British women biographies and target really notable missing articles. Even if you only have time to create one or two entries, everything counts’.
So we need the UK Wikimedia community to get involved and contribute more new biographies of notable women. Let’s get editing!