Grandjean de Fouchy, who as yet does not have a Wikipedia page. Image CC BY SA via Commons.
By Dr Martin Poulter, Wikimedian in Residence, Bodleian Libraries Oxford
A major scholarly database is offering free access to selected Wikipedians, thanks to an arrangement with Oxford University Press.
Housed at the Bodleian Libraries, Electronic Enlightenment (EE) is is the most wide-ranging online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century. It gives access to thousands of short biographies and to 70,000 annotated pieces of correspondence.
EE is already available to many people via subscribing institutions that include universities and public libraries. Still, there are Wikipedians who do not have access but would benefit from it. As a result of the Wikimedian In Residence placement at the University of Oxford, they can now apply for free access through the Wikipedia Library (TWL). TWL is a Wikimedia Foundation program that supports Wikipedia’s volunteer editors by facilitating access donations for paywalled resources from leading publishers.
EE is now included in the Oxford University Press Scholarship accounts which also give free access to eight other online resources, including the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and American National Biography Online.
Wikipedians, usually with an active account and at least 500 edits, can apply through the Wikipedia Library Card Platform. The accounts last one year, but if you still need to use EE or the other Scholarship resources once the year has elapsed, you can apply again.
In another part of the collaboration, EE has shared a dataset with Wikidata covering more than three thousand individuals. This lets us explore those people’s representation on Wikipedia. Of this set, we have identified 2663 EE people who already have English Wikipedia biographies, 287 with no English Wikipedia article but an article in another language version, and 168 with no representation in Wikipedia at all. The latter two sets are listed on a project page. We welcome help in creating new articles for these people, filling in the story of the Enlightenment.
Through EE, I’ve learned about the early feminist Sarah Chapone, for whom I’ve created a Wikisource profile, and discovered my near-namesake Francois-Martin Poultier. It has confirmed that Clotworthy Rowley and Slingsby Bethell are not made-up names from the Goon Show but real British politicians. Like Wikipedia, it is a web of knowledge calling out to be explored.
Picture taken at a training session in Edinburgh in 2015 – image by Lirazelf
By Sara Thomas, Wikimedian in Residence at SLIC
I’m Sara Thomas, aka [[user:lirazelf]], and I’m delighted to have taken up the role of Wikimedian in Residence with the Scottish Library and Information Council, from now until February 2019. It’s great to be back into the Wikimedia fold once more, following my previous residency with Museums Galleries Scotland, which ran from January 2015 – June 2016. During the course of that residency, I spoke at SLIC’s Digital Champions meeting about Libraries & Wikimedia. Following that, they, along with project proposers Inverclyde Libraries, applied for funding for their own Resident from the Public Library Improvement Fund.
The SLIC residency feels like a very natural progression from that at MGS, as a networked residency working across an entire sector. Here, again, my primary focus will be on advocacy and training. We’re aiming to establish public libraries as quality content creators in the digital sphere, and to provide open access to freely usable content about Scottish culture, derived from our rich library collections. The residency will be supported by a steering group, whose members will be drawn from key partners and stakeholders, including the National Library of Scotland, and Museums Galleries Scotland.
Libraries promoting reading, literacy and learning
Libraries promoting digital inclusion
Libraries promoting economic wellbeing
Libraries promoting social wellbeing
Libraries promoting culture and creativity
Libraries as excellent public services
Nationally, Scottish public libraries already offer code clubs, 3D printing and WiFi access, and we’re excited to explore how open knowledge will add to this landscape. As a lifelong library user, I’m really proud to be playing a part in bringing Scottish public libraries and the Wikimedia movement together.
I’m based at SLIC’s offices in Glasgow, however I’ll likely often be found visiting local libraries and library staff across Scotland. It’s a phased programme, with the first phase scheduled from now until January 2018, during which time we’ll be securing and training our initial partners, engaging in a public library content audit, and staging a small number of editing events.
Jason Evans at the National Library of Wales – image by Llywelyn2000 CC BY-SA 4.0
From 1 August, the National Library of Wales will employ the UK’s first permanent Wikimedian. As National Wikimedian, Jason Evans will make Wikipedia and its sister projects a core aspect of the Library’s activities and services. Building on the successful collaboration between the Library, Wikimedia UK and the Wiki community, he will lead activities associated with the Library’s collections, Wales as a nation and/or the Welsh language.
The National Library of Wales, Wikimedia UK, and the editing community have worked together since 2014 to host a Wikimedian in Residence. Jason Evans was appointed and has helped the Library to explore the use of Wikipedia and its sister project in the fulfilling its aim of giving access to knowledge, especially relating to Wales and the Welsh. In August 2017 the activity becomes a core aspect of the Library’s work. The Library won ‘Partnership of the Year’ in the UK Wikimedian of the Year Awards for their influential work and vision in making the role permanent.
Images from the Library have been used in Wikipedia articles which have been seen more than 250 million times. As well as enabling these collections to be used in this way, the Wikimedian in Residence has held 20 public events and has taught more than 100 people how to edit, and together they have improved thousands of pages. The Library has also played a key role in supporting the Welsh Wicipedia, leading initiatives like WiciPop which resulted in the creation of hundreds of articles and Welsh-language record company Recordiau Sain sharing 8,000 audio files. It also leads the ongoing Wici-Iechyd (Wiki-Health) project which aims to improve health related subjects on the Welsh Wicipedia.
Wikipedia in both Welsh and English is one of the main places people go to for information. The Welsh language Wicipedia has more articles on women than men and is the most popular Welsh website, with an average of around 800,000 pages opened every month and around 130 regular editors.
As Wikimedian in Residence, Jason Evans has helped to organise many different events to encourage people to edit Wikipedia, has attracted significant media coverage, and helped Welsh Wicipedia to become one of the biggest and most advanced Wikipedias in a minority language. You can find out much more about the residency on its homepage here.
Unidentified elderly couple (1850s) – image from the NLW’s collection of early Swansea photographs
Pedr ap Llwyd, Director of Collections and Public Programmes at the National Library of Wales said: “For the benefit of Wales as a nation, it is crucial that Wikipedia contains a wealth of knowledge about its history and culture, and that the range of articles on the Welsh language Wicipedia covers the widest possible range of subjects. The National Library of Wales has a key role to play in providing access to knowledge about Wales and its people, and this post demonstrates our desire to collaborate with individuals and organisations within Wales and beyond in fulfilling this aim.”
Lucy Crompton-Reid, the Chief Executive of Wikimedia UK, said “I am delighted that the National Library of Wales have made this residency a permanent post within the library, demonstrating the enormous impact that Wikimedians in Residence can have in opening up cultural heritage institutions and engaging global audiences with their collections through Wikimedia. Our partnership with the National Library of Wales has been characterised by innovation, and we look forward to the continued success of this work with a permanent staff member focused on engaging with Wikimedia and open knowledge.”
Notes for editors
The National Library of Wales (NLW) serves as the nation’s memory. It is a repository of treasures and facts, a disseminator of knowledge, a venue, a destination, a place to keep the past safe and readily available for all to access, use and be inspired by, now and in the future.
Located in Aberystwyth, the Library plays a central role in culture and heritage as one of Wales’s major national institutions. As one of the six Copyright Libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the National Library of Wales’ collections are vast and varied and are free to access. They include 950,000 photographs, 150,000 hours of sound recordings, 250,000 hours of moving image, 25,000 manuscripts, 50,000 works of art, 1,500,000 maps, as well as 6,000,000 books. More than 5,000,000 individual items from these collections have been digitised and made freely available on the internet.
The National Library of Wales engages in a full and continuous programme of public events that include high-quality permanent and temporary exhibitions with associated educational and presentational activities. These are crucial to NLW’s mission of interpreting the collections for, and encouraging participation by, a wide range of audiences whether onsite, at external locations or online.
Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter for the global Wikimedia movement. A registered charity, its mission is to support and advocate for the development of open knowledge, working in partnership with volunteers, the cultural and education sectors and other organisations to make knowledge available, usable and reusable online.
Wikipedia is available in more than 290 languages, and receives about 16 billion pageviews a month. Created in 2001, it has more than 40 million articles across all languages and is the 5th most visited website in the world.
The Wikimedia UK AGM 2017 at Senate House Library – image by Jwslubbock
Every year Wikimedia UK holds the UK Wikimedian of the Year Awards at our Annual General Meeting to recognise the work of the vibrant community that our charity depends on. 2016-17 was an important year for Wikimedia UK, with nearly half a million pages improved on the Wikimedia projects and 20,000 hours contributed by volunteers.
The awards have three categories: ‘UK Wikimedian of the Year’ for individual contributions, ‘Partnership of the Year’ for organisations, and ‘Honourable Mention’ for individuals or groups who have made important contributions to Wikimedia.
UK Wikimedian of the Year
Nominees: Brianboulton, Jason Evans, Kelly Foster, Ewan McAndrew, Fabian Tompsett, Ritchie333, Alice White
This year the award was jointly given to Kelly Foster and Ewan McAndrew. The nominating statements are below:
Kelly Foster – Wikimedia relies on people to edit it, and its aims of enabling people to share knowledge in a neutral way means making sure that all sorts of different people are able to edit it. This makes trainers absolutely key as Wikimedians. As an excellent and effective trainer, Kelly Foster made an enormous contribution in training the members of our Wikipedia project, which is a huge part of why its members are now confident and frequent editors. This is just one of many training sessions she has run for groups and the quality and effectiveness of her contribution deserves this recognition. Nomination by Claire 75.
Ewan McAndrew: Ewan’s work with Edinburgh University is hugely important for normalising the use of Wikipedia in an academic setting. Without being able to point out the great work he has done there i doubt i would have got Aberystwyth University to start taking Wikipedia seriously as a teaching tool. But the main reason for nominating Ewan is the Celtic Knot Conference. Ewan clearly worked incredibly hard on putting this event together, which by all accounts was a great success. From a Welsh perspective, a Wiki conference focused on smaller and minority languages was hugely valuable, as issues on smaller Wikis can be very different to those on en Wiki. Nomination by Jason Evans.
Ewan McAndrew with participants at an Edinburgh Spy Week workshop – image by Mihaela Bodlovic
Partnership of the Year
Nominees: National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales, Wellcome Library
National Library of Wales
Nominating statement:
I think the National Library of Wales deserves a nomination for their unparalleled commitment to Wikimedia UK and the wider Wikimedia movement. The NLW are now coming to the end of a 36 month full time residency. They have released 15,000 images to Commons and have helped to create 33,000 Wikidata items. They have held 20 Editathons, and users attending NLW events have created 10,000 new articles since January 2015. The Library has been committed to supporting Wikimedia projects and has helped other Welsh content producers share their content on Wikimedia platforms, such as CADW (27,000 Wikidata items) and Sain Records (7,000 sound clips). They have agreed to open their doors to Wiki visiting scholars, and have embedded Wiki based activities into their volunteer programme. They have partnered with the Welsh Government to run projects aimed at improving Welsh language content, and they have now appointed a permanent full time Wikimedian to their staff in order to maintain and develop their partnership with Wikimedia long term. Nomination by Jason Evans.
Jason Evans at the National Library of Wales – image by Llywelyn2000
Honourable Mention
Nominees: User:Andrew Davidson, Dundee Dental School, User:Jesswade88, London Wikimedians, User:Sic19
Simon Cobb
Nominating statement:
User:Sic19 – Simon Cobb (Sic19) has worked incredibly hard this year developing cultural Wikidata. As the Wikidata visiting scholar with National Library of Wales he has created over 10,000 Wikidata items and showcased the benefits of creating open linked data using visualisations, and by writing blogs. He ran a successful session at LODLAM 2017 aimed at developing collaborative Wikidata projects across the sector. In his role at the Leeds University Library he has also run several Wikipedia sessions and has been a strong advocate for Wikimedia within that institution. Nomination by Jason Evans.
Thank you to all the nominees for their outstanding work, the people who proposed them for recognising their value, and the rest of the Wikimedia community in the UK for supporting each other and Wikimedia UK’s work over the past year. We will run the awards again next year, and anyone can make nominations so please take part.
Agnes Bruszik at the Wikimedia UK office – image by Jwslubbock
Dear All,
I would like to take this opportunity to greet all of you and to introduce myself very briefly. My name is Agnes Bruszik and I am replacing Karla Marte while she is on maternity leave in the post of ‘Programme Evaluation Assistant’.
My working days will be the following: Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. My email address is: agnes.bruszik@wikimedia.org.uk
A few words about me: I hold an MSc in Molecular Biology, an MPhil in Environmental Sciences and Policy, and I am a PhD Candidate at the interdisciplinary Central European University. I have been an international project manager for over 15 years: 8 of which I spent in nature conservation and the rest in media and digital literacy. In the past few years I worked on the development, testing and refining of media literacy indicators for the European Commission, researched formal and informal media and digital literacy education approaches across EU Member States, and organised campaigns, conferences and projects promoting media literacy.
It is an exciting opportunity for me to get to know you all and learn about your approaches and achievements, and to contribute to the Wikimedia movement through my work! It was great to meet and get to know the volunteer community at the 2017 AGM and I am looking forward to working together with many of you in the coming months!
Artwork for the Album Let All Men Sing by Pontarddulais Male Voice Choir – image from Sain (Records) Ltd
Artwork for the Album Benedictus by Bryn Terfel/rhys Meirion – Image by Sain (records) Ltd
Artwork for the Album Lleuad Llawn by Elin Fflur – image by Sain (records) Ltd
Artwork for the Album Jonah by Calan – image by Sain (records) Ltd
Artwork for the Album Tenor by Gwyn Hughes Jones – image by Sain (records) Ltd
Artwork for the Album Lleuad Llawn by Gwerinos – image by Sain (records) Ltd
Welsh Record company releases seven thousand sound clips to Wikimedia Commons on an open licence.
Article by Jason Evans, Wikimedian in Residence at the National Library of Wales
Wales, or ‘The land of song’ as it has been coined, is a country famous for its love of music. This tiny nation has given us some of the world’s greatest musicians. From Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey to bands like Catatonia, Stereophonics and the Manic Street Preachers, Wales has a long tradition of producing musical megastars.
Now the Welsh Music industry are also open access trailblazers after Sain Records, Wales’ largest record producer, agreed to release thousands of sound clips to Wikimedia Commons on a CC-BY-SA licence.
Hafan Gobaith (Another Day) by Bryn Terfel
Goreuon Ar Log – The Best Of Ar Log
1974-1992 by Mynediad Am Ddim
Solomon by Calan
Just a few of the many albums included in the release.
The project saw the record label partner with Wicipedia Cymraeg editors, Wikimedia UK, the Welsh Government and the National Library of Wales to bring Welsh music to Wikipedia’s audience of 500 million readers. Over 7000 thirty second audio clips and 498 album covers are now available on the Wikimedia Commons website.
This is an exciting venture, and places Sain (Records) at the forefront of open access to free knowledge.
It now means that worldwide editors will be able to use these files to create and update Wikipedia articles on singers, songs, music bands, groups and choirs including household names such as Bryn Terfel, Katherine Jenkins and Mary Hopkin as well as works by composers such as Karl Jenkins.
Lona Mason, Head of The National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales said: “The National Library of Wales is delighted to work in partnership with the Welsh Government, the Apton website and Sain (Records) on this important project. This is great news for Welsh music collectors and enthusiasts all over the world, and will be an important platform to enable people to share and enjoy the variety of Sain (Records) audio and album covers from years gone by.”
Robin Owain, from Wikimedia UK, said, “No other record company has shared as many songs with the world as Sain Records. The Wikimedia community will now be able to add these sound-clips on Wikipedia articles in over 295 languages – showing the world that we are not only a ‘musical nation’, but also at the cutting edge of information technology.”
Wikipedia is rich with photographs and artworks but there are desperately few clips of the world’s rich and diverse music back catalogue. For now Wales is top of the charts in terms of providing free access to its musical archive. It is hoped that this unparalleled open access release will act as a catalyst for similar releases around the world.
Josie Fraser at the Wikimedia UK 2017 AGM – image by John Lubbock
I am delighted to have become the new chair of Wikimedia UK at today’s AGM. I was initially elected to serve as a trustee in July 2015, and re-elected to serve a further term last year until 2019. Over the last two years I’ve been privileged to be able serve the organisation through both the formal duties of a Trustee and as a volunteer. In addition to my main Board duties, I’ve been a member of the Governance Committee and the Partnership Advisory Board, and have helped organise education conferences. While this may sound a little dry to those of you who aren’t keen on committee work, it’s been a delight and a pleasure to belong and to contribute to the community. Our volunteers, staff and trustees are a fascinating and constantly inspiring group. I get to work with an expert Trustee team and CEO that share a strong sense of responsibility and professionalism, and are as thoughtful as they are fun – a rare combination. I’m honoured to have their confidence.
The passion and commitment to openness which permeates our whole community helps make Wikimedia UK one of the leading organisations in the global Wikimedia and open knowledge movement. It’s been a privilege to support the work of members, volunteers, and employees in realising both the organisation’s potential and our collective vision to make the world a fairer place by providing free access to unbiased and reliable knowledge to all. The global communities that support Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects are a powerful force for social good, benefiting people and communities worldwide every day.
Michael Maggs has been a consistently excellent Chair since 2013, and a hard act for anyone to follow. He’s provided fair, intelligent and debonair leadership, and I’ll be working hard to do him justice. I’m incredibly grateful – as is everyone who gets to work with him – for his sterling commitment to the charity, and very happy that he is willing to continue to support us as a Trustee and to mentor me.
I look forward to continuing to meet and get to know more of our community, and to contribute to the growth and visibility of our amazing organisation and people as Chair. If you haven’t already, do take a look at the 2016-17 Annual Report to see some of what we have achieved in the past year.
Maryam Nawaz Sharif – image by Junaidro via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Written by Saqib Qayyum – Pakistani Wikimedian
On the early morning of July 11th, as a controversy developed in Pakistan over the release date of a Microsoft typeface, Calibri, unidentified individuals (both supporters and opponents of the Government of Pakistan) rushed on to Wikipedia’s Calibri entry to amend the information about the font’s release date.
Documents handed over to an investigation team by Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister’s daughter, were found to be typed in Calibri. The documents were dated as 2006, but the Wikipedia article noted the commercial release date being in 2007. The documents pertain to an ongoing corruption investigation into the business dealings of the Sharif family and their offshore bank accounts, which were revealed by the Panama Papers.
Supporters of the government insisted that the font was released prior to 2006 but opponents repeatedly changed the release date to 2007. As per an earlier version, the article stated that the font was designed in 2004 but was released to the public in 2007. The designer of the font later himself confirmed that though he started working on the font in 2004, it was released for internal purposes at Microsoft in or around 2006 and for commercial purpose in 2007.
As I am part of Wikipedia’s counter-vandalism team, I have been engaged in the reverting of unverified information being added to the Calibri page by anonymous users. But as the edit war grew and the sensitivity of the issue became obvious, I had to ask an administrator to lock the page to restrict any further edits in order to avoid misleading information being spread outside of Wikipedia.
But perhaps my clean up of the page and most importantly shutting down open editing of the Calibri entry has made Wikipedia and me a part of a major corruption case surrounding the Government of Pakistan. Since my name is prominent on the revision history page, many people, especially opponents of the government (which includes a major opposition party that brought the corruption case to court), assumed that I was the one tampering with the release date (removing release date 2007) and accused me of being pro-government. But on the contrary I was actually removing the unverified release date (2004/2006) which was being added by pro-government users.Following the Wikipedia page being protected, social media went crazy and the news went viral on Pakistani channels.
The Guardian noted that people praised Wikipedia for its quick action to lock the page, and I hope that this experience is an important example of how quickly establishing a disputed fact can stop Wikipedia itself from being dragged into a political dispute. As well as answering people’s ordinary questions, we should remember that sometimes, important political issues can depend on establishing the facts about a particular subject.
And while after this ‘Fontgate’, calls for the removal of Prime Minister have become stronger, it is yet to be seen whether as something as ordinary as a font can bring down the government of Pakistan as many publications have suggested.
For anybody interested in the details of the details of the edits that I made, they are as follows:
In my 1st edit, I removed unreliable sources, even though if they were supporting the release year 2007.
In my 2nd edit, I added a few Reliable Sources (RS) which were supporting the year 2007, and added a reference to the corruption case which was noted by Quartz
In my 3rd edit, I added the [[Category:2007 introductions]] and removed [[Category:2005 introductions]]
In my 4th edit, I reverted the font release date from 2006 to 2007.
In my 5th edit, I reverted the edit which removed the verified information that I added in my second edit.
In my 6th edit, I removed the information which said the font was created in 2007, and added that it was actually created in 2004.
In my last edit, i added in the side box the font release year as 2007 and the page was locked.
It has been over a year and a half since Dundee Dental School first established the Wikipedia Editing Project, a student-led effort with the intent of improving dental articles on the site. Students at Dundee first learned of the deficiency and often absence of dental information on Wikipedia from a former Wikipedian in residence with the Cochrane Collaboration. A group of students felt change was necessary as they were disappointed from their own experience of having used Wikipedia to search for dental topics. So they decided to take the lead in establishing the UK’s first continuously running dental Editing Group.
To recruit students, an introductory event was held: a lecture was given on the type of research generally conducted and the type suitable for citation on dental Wikipedia articles. This was followed by a tutorial on how to edit. Those interested then sign up to an Editing Group which met on a regular basis to edit assigned topics. At the end of each semester, groups presented their edits before peers and lecturers. This was an opportunity for our editors to showcase their work and allowed for a chance to discuss the chosen topics and any challenges faced in the process of editing. Since the establishment of the group in early 2016, our students have made a tangible difference for the benefit of their peers, dentists and the general public, through the creation of numerous new pages as well as the expansion and improvement of existing ones. Below is just a small sample of the pages developed by our students:
Dental Extraction page- a section on post- extraction bleeding has been added
Fissure Sealant page has been expanded to further explain use, materials and techniques for success as well as other preventative treatment options for caries
Fluoride Varnish page- an image was added, resources were added under clinical recommendations
References were improved on the Dental Dam page
Orthognathic surgery page- expanded to include information on cleft lip and palate and references were also improved
The dedication and effort demonstrated by our editors at Dundee has been remarkable. Their contribution to the dissemination of evidence based dentistry has sparked the interest of many in the dental community and word quickly spread through news outlets and social media blogs. By February 2017 the Dundee Dental Wikipedia Editing Project expanded to include the growing number of schools joining the cause and so the Wikiepdia Collaboration of Dental Schools was born. The Collaboration now includes the Cairo branch of the University of Dundee (who edit in both English and Arabic), Glasgow, Aberdeen and Manchester Dental Schools in the UK as well as Tufts and Harvard Schools of Dental Medicine and New York University College of Dentistry in the USA. These schools are currently in the process of establishing their own Editing Groups as well as undergoing training, under the guidance of Dundee Dental School, with the aim of having their groups up and running by the coming academic year.
We are thrilled that others have joined our cause and look forward to the unique contribution each school will bring to the Project. Over the coming year we aim to work as an international community of students, dentists and academics to enhance the accessibility of accurate, up-to date, evidence based information through Wikipedia. Our long-term vision is to enable the existence of a large online community of editors that will work collectively to maintain, update and expand information on the Encyclopaedia. We would be delighted if any individuals or schools wish to join and welcome you to get in touch at ngeres@dundee.ac.uk or through our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/WikiCollab/
Lady Leshurr at Field Day 2017 – image by Jwslubbock
I’ve been doing some outreach to various UK music festivals and labels to encourage them to release content on their artists and to consider giving Wikimedia community members press passes to take photographs at their events.
Last weekend I did some photography at Field Day 2017, taking photos of artists like Loyle Carner, Mura Masa, Omar Souleyman, Gaika, Lady Leshurr and Sinkane, most of whom did not have photos on Commons already. You can see all the photos here.
There are lots of other festivals where Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) artists make up a large proportion of the performers, but perhaps most prominently is Afropunk Festival in London on July 22-23. Artists like Lianne la Havas, Danny Brown, NAO, Corinne Bailey Rae, Little Simz, Saul Williams and Nadia Rose are performing at the new Printworks venue in Elephant and Castle, South London.
Afropunk’s organisers are happy to have Wikimedia photographers present, so if you would be interested in coming along to take photos, please get in touch with me at john.lubbock@wikimedia.org.uk. You can also help contribute to improving content on Wikimedia projects by adding to the WikiProject Black British Music page, which lists artists who need their articles improving or creating in the first place.
We are blessed in the UK with an incredibly diverse and vibrant culture comprised of the hundreds of diaspora communities who live here. Britain grew rich and powerful by exploiting the peoples it colonised, but now we have the opportunity to open up knowledge and information so that it is accessible by everyone in the world. We also have the opportunity to animate and work in partnership with diaspora groups to encourage them to use Wikipedia as a way to make accurate information about their history and culture available to everyone.
That’s why I started the Kurdish Wikipedia Project, and why Wikimedia UK is working with Kurdish cultural organisations to train Kurdish people to edit Wikipedia and improve the its coverage of Kurdish history and culture. At the moment, there are only 28 people on Wikidata listed as Kurdish, compared to thousands of people belonging to groups with more developed Wikipedia communities.
Wikidata timeline showing all the Kurdish people with Wikidata items.
People in the music industry I have spoken to recognise that articles about their artists are often not very good, but they usually don’t understand how they can go about improving them without it being a conflict of interest, and why copyright makes it hard for them to release content to illustrate articles with. I spoke to representatives from two music labels a couple of weeks ago, but I found that content releases would be difficult as they would have to get permission from photographers who had granted them the rights to use photos of their artists, but might not be happy to release them on Open Licenses.
So that’s why we would like to encourage our community to get out there and help increase the diversity of content on Wikimedia. Perhaps you have photos of places outside Europe where little content exists currently on Commons? Perhaps there is a festival or cultural event you would like to go to but need help getting a press pass or with expenses? We can help.
Lots of organisations will be happy to give someone a press pass once they understand the content will be used to improve the Wikipedia articles about their event or artists. Tell us what events you would like to attend and we can see if we can get you a press pass.
Everyone can take part in improving the diversity of the content on Wikimedia projects. If we are to create the best, most accurate encyclopaedia in the world, it cannot only reflect the interests and culture of European people. So tell us your ideas, and let’s make Wikipedia more diverse.
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Written by Nour Geres
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