This major investment in our digital future has been made possible through a generous legacy gift from the late Mr Nicholas Timothy David Stone. We’re deeply grateful to Mr Stone for this lasting contribution to our work, and to his estate for ensuring that the gift was safely received. It’s thanks to this generosity that we’re able to move forward with a project that will strengthen how people access, understand and support our work.

The new website will create a more accessible, engaging and effective digital home for Wikimedia UK. It will make it easier for people to discover our programmes and partnerships and learn more about the importance of free and open knowledge. We’ll have easier ways to get involved through volunteering, donating and participating in our work.

Accessibility and participation sits at the heart of the redevelopment. The new site will help us better serve our communities, communicate our impact, and provide stronger pathways for supporters, partners, contributors and the wider public to engage with our mission.

We’re excited to be working with the Hotfoot team over the coming months and look forward to sharing updates as the project progresses.

Wikimedia UK extends its sincere thanks once again to the late Mr Nicholas Timothy David Stone and his estate for making this important project possible.

The post Honouring a legacy, building our future appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

By Rupal Karia – Outreach & Community Coordinator | 22 Apr 2026

We are excited to announce a second season of the virtual Sandbox Session and invite community members to propose sessions they are interested in leading. Community Sandbox Sessions offer a space for community members to share their learning, meet other Wikimedians and try new things. They are volunteer-led events, supported by Wikimedia UK. 

Our first season featured sessions on the Wikidata tool Duplicity, how to edit calmly in controversial areas, a wikisource transcribe-a-thon, smell-related content on Wiki, and being an en.wiki admin!  Huge thanks to all our presenters – Josef Anthony, Femke Njise, Martin Poulter, Lucy Moore, and Harry Mitchell.

The type or format of an event is open; however, we’d like to encourage proposals which go beyond the traditional Wikipedia edit-a-thon. Maybe there is something you do on Wikimedia projects you’d like to do in community with others? Here are some session suggestions.

• A talk on how to advocate for the release of images from a collection
• Here’s how I overcame hurdles related to adding under-represented content
• Let’s add images to Wikipedia from this collection
• My special niche on Wikimedia projects
• Let’s spend an hour thanking people on Wikipedia
• Let’s build a worklist and find reliable sources for this under represented topic on Wikipedia
• Hints and tips on translation of articles
• Here’s a cool Wikidata tool I’ve found, let’s try it out
• How to add structured data to images
• Add pictures to articles together
• If you have extended user rights and are involved in the governance of Wikipedia tell us about your role 
• Here’s how I got this article to Featured Article status

We would love to hear any other ideas that you might have.

Support WMUK can offer 

• Advice on refining your format
• Setting up of Event Registration 
• Event promotion through UK listings & mailing lists
• Hosting on the WMUK Zoom account / Google Meet
• Friendly space support from a WMUK staff member (or volunteer) during the event 

Dates and times

Events can take place throughout the year, and can also be on an evening or weekend.  Suggested duration is an hour, but longer (or shorter!) events could be considered. We’re suggesting that these events are online in the first instance, to reach the widest possible audience, and all events should of course be run in line with the Wikimedia UK Safe Space policy.  

If you’re interested in running a session, please submit a proposal here.

Deadline

The initial deadline for submitting proposals is 18th May 2026. If you have any questions, please contact rupal.karia@wikimedia.org.uk

Season 1

By Dr. Sara Thomas – Programme Manager | 24 April 2025

Do you have an idea for a Wiki-learning session?  Have you found something that you’d like to share with other Wikimedians, or an idea that you’d like to try out?  And would you like some help from Wikimedia UK in sharing it? 

In response to feedback from the community around having opportunities to improve Wiki-skills, and connecting with other community members, and as part of the overall training package for 2025, we’re excited to introduce a new strand of event programming, called Community Sandbox Sessions.

We’re looking to programme up to 6 virtual events over the next year, which would be open to all members of the UK community, and supported by Wikimedia UK.  We’re asking community members to propose sessions that you’d like to lead.

Session suggestions

The type or format of any event is open; but we’d like to encourage proposals which go beyond the traditional Wikipedia editathon – for example: 

• Here’s a cool Wikidata tool I’ve found, let’s try it out
• Wikisource transcribe-a-thon
• A talk on how to run backstage pass events
• Here’s how I got this article to Featured Article status
• Let’s add images from this collection to Wikipedia
• A mobile meeting where we take pictures of our local area for Wikimedia Commons
• Minoritised language work – eg: adding Wikidata labels
• Building a worklist & finding reliable sources for future events

Dates and times

Events can take place throughout the year, and can also be on an evening or weekend.  Suggested duration is an hour, but longer (or shorter!) events could be considered.  We’re suggesting that these events are online in the first instance, to reach the widest possible audience, and all events should of course be run in line with the Wikimedia UK Safe Space policy.  

Support WMUK can offer 

• Advice on refining your format
• Setting up of Event Registration 
• Event promotion through UK listings & mailing lists
• Hosting on the WMUK Zoom account / Google Meet
• Friendly space support from a WMUK staff member (or volunteer) during the event 

This is very much an experiment, and we hope that the format will allow community members to share knowledge and skills, and get to know other UK Wikimedians, as well as test out new ideas!  If you’d be interested in running a session, please submit a proposal here.

Deadline

The initial deadline for submitting proposals is Tuesday 20th May. 

If you have any questions, please contact sara.thomas@wikimedia.org.uk.

The post Community Sandbox Sessions appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

I came to the role of Education Lead at Wikimedia UK after 20 years of teaching A level Philosophy in a Further Education college. I had always strongly felt that critical thinking skills should be taught to all young people, regardless of social or educational background. This will enable us to move toward a more equitable society and see more diversity in politics, media and society in general.

The changing face of education in the digital age

Over my many years of teaching, I saw gradual changes in how young people engage with the digital world. I also saw how those changes became drastic over time. Students have always been passionate about causes, always curious and keen to learn about the world they lived in. But they were increasingly being exposed to more information than ever before. That information came from more sources and also arrived at a faster pace than ever before.

The philosophical skills I was teaching them had always been about critically engaging with information they are given, learning how to spot good from bad arguments, questioning what they are told and having the confidence to articulate their own thoughts and opinions. But now these skills are crucial in navigating the digital world in an age of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories, and where developments in AI blur the boundaries of truth and fiction. Those students who did not develop these skills are increasingly at risk of polarisation, or at worst radicalisation. 

The digital divide and education.

During my time in education I was also involved in widening participation in Higher Education, running programmes to help students overcome barriers to reaching top universities. Many of our students were the first generation to go into post-compulsory education and came from a variety of challenging backgrounds. Socio-economic barriers had always existed, but now the digital divide added a new dimension to inequality.

Digital poverty includes a lack of access to technology and online information. It also needs to be understood as poor information literacy. If students cannot critically assess the digital information they encounter, they become vulnerable. They are more exposed to misinformation and disinformation. As a result, they are also more vulnerable to harm. Since 16-year-olds will soon be able to vote in general elections, they will become targets online. Fake news and conspiracy theories are likely to focus on them. Students also need to learn how to check sources. They must assess information for reliability. They also need to use AI responsibly and effectively. Without these skills, they may struggle academically at university. This can lead to higher dropout rates. It can also widen educational divides.

From the Classroom to Wikimedia UK

The move from teaching to Education Lead at Wikimedia UK was something that was very natural for me. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, a charity supporting all the Wiki projects and community of volunteers. The most well-known of these projects is of course Wikipedia. When I began teaching most teachers still warned against using Wikipedia as a research tool. Times have changed, although some misconceptions about Wikipedia do still exist.

Why Wikipedia should be used in the classroom

At the heart of Wikimedia UK’s work is the belief that every human should have free and equal access to the sum of all human knowledge. The charity works hard to break down barriers which prevent individuals and groups from accessing and shaping open knowledge. Wikipedia itself is the product of collaboration and the work of volunteers across the globe who produce, edit and monitor its content. Campaigns and projects work to increase representation on Wikipedia, both in those contributing and in the content, and young people play an important part in that process. 

Wikipedia also strives for the core principle of neutrality, with articles giving proportionate weight to different viewpoints when they exist and lacking bias or opinion. Combined with the principles of transparency (all edits are visible) and verifiability (articles strive to be clearly sourced) Wikipedia is one of the few places where young people can go for a neutral, unbiased perspective. In a world of fake news and influencers this is more important than ever. 

Where Wikimedia UK comes in

Wikimedia UK encourages critical evaluation of online information, including of Wikipedia itself. Some articles need improving in content or citation, and there are knowledge gaps to be filled. Debates occur on the talk pages about the best way to present information. But all of this encourages complexity resilience, being more comfortable with an increasingly ambiguous, complex, and difficult world, rather than simply offering definitive answers or actions (like conspiracies theories or answers given by AI often do). 

Following the Curriculum and Assessment Review of English schools, media and information literacy has been recognised as a crucial part of education. At Wikimedia UK we are committed to helping teachers and students navigate this increasingly complex and important topic by providing teacher training, classroom materials and workshops.

I am proud to be part of something that will empower young people to build digital resilience, safeguarding their wellbeing and allowing them to make informed decisions as they become the ones to shape the future. 

Interested in Workshops or Collaboration? Let’s Talk

My role as Education Lead at Wikimedia UK involves developing materials and workshops to teach young people crucial media literacy skills. If you are an educator interested in bringing this work to your school or college, or an organisation looking to collaborate on media literacy projects I would love to hear from you.

Dr Sally Latham (sally.latham@wikimedia.org.uk)

The post Why Wikimedia belongs in education appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

For the first time, the course included both in-person and online international training, expanding access and supporting Wikimedia’s global mission. Participants took part in a WikiLearn course, hands-on workshops, and interactive sessions led by Programme Manager Dr Sara Thomas and UK Wikimedian of the Year Fran Allfrey.

Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. 100% of respondents said they felt better equipped to make positive change in their communities. New mentoring opportunities and regular online edit-a-thons are now being introduced to help new trainers continue developing their skills and confidence.

The post Train the Trainer 2025: Building confidence, community, and inclusion appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

I invited Dr Ross (who, along with Dr Ardati, also of the IDEA network, and Dr Bhatti, a co-author of the below blog, have all attended Wikimedia UK Train the Trainer courses) to tell us more about one of this year’s Summer programmes. 
/ (Dr Sara Thomas, Programme Manager, Wikimedia UK)

Authors: Kirsty Ross (School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews), Saeeda Bhatti (Medical School, University of Glasgow), Pauline Souleau (School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews)

Corresponding author: ksrh1@st-andrews.ac.uk

During COVID there was a lack of summer internship opportunities for undergraduates due to pandemic lockdowns and restrictions on travel. The Summer Team Enterprise Programme (STEP) at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, was designed to fill this gap and has run every summer since 2020. STEP is an opportunity for undergraduate students to invest 6 weeks in participating in a fully-online skills development programme, where they work on a real-life project designed and supported by University staff, gain virtual team-work experience in a group of diverse students, contribute to the University’s learning and teaching through working on impactful outputs, and get this experience listed on their academic transcript.

My name is Dr Kirsty Ross and I’ve been involved in STEP since its inception. As a project sponsor, my role is to propose a suitable project and provide direction to the student teams. I’m also the co-founder of the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility in Open Knowledge Network (IDEA Network for short) at the University of St Andrews which aims to address knowledge gaps in the Wiki projects by training others and building capacity. STEP has been a fantastic mechanism for introducing undergraduates to the wonders of Wiki and providing evidence of real-world impact, even resulting in a peer reviewed public engagement paper!¹

Research has shown that Wikipedia is the most common source for obtaining medical information online. Amongst medical professionals, more than 90% of medical students and 50% of doctors have turned to Wikipedia at some point². However, there is substantial variation in the length and quality of medical content in different languages. For example, pneumonia is a topic that is currently available in 134 language versions. However, the English Wikipedia article for pneumonia contains approximately 7,600 words and has 172 references, whereas the equivalent article in Urdu is just 125 words long with 1 reference. We drew inspiration from the excellent work of WikiProjectMed, which inspired the name of the project!

Over WhatsApp, Dr Saeeda Bhatti (Medical School, University of Glasgow) and I discussed how we might plug some of these medical knowledge gaps. Dr Bhatti’s background is in medical education and genetics, so we discussed targeting articles about rare genetic diseases. Using the Medics 4 Rare Diseases website, we narrowed down over 7000 rare diseases to a shortlist of 12 conditions. This shortlist formed the basis for the Healthcare Translation Task Force STEP project. 

As part of the STEP application process, students choose which projects they would like to take part in over the summer. We ended up with two teams and 11 students in total. These students could speak, read, and write in 15 languages! We then explored Wikidata to find out whether or not those languages had articles about the chosen rare genetic diseases. Some languages (Arabic, French, German, Spanish) had almost complete article coverage (92-100%). Others (Simple English, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Russian) had approximately 50% article coverage. Cantonese, Croatian, Kiswahili, Kurdish, Serbian, and Somali had either no articles or just one or two (8-12%)! As the project was just 6 weeks in duration and was often balanced alongside paid work or internships, we weren’t going to be able to plug every single gap, so it was over to the students to decide how to proceed. 

Dr Pauline Souleau (School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews) also provided training on how to adapt their translations to suit the cultural context; we wanted to avoid overly relying on the existing versions in English. When asked to reflect upon her experience of STEP, she said:

“The cross-disciplinarity of the STEP programme means that participating students are not necessarily trained linguists. Part of the Healthcare Translation Task Force STEP training was therefore to introduce students to the importance of localisation and cultural awareness when translating a wiki article.” 

“When an article did exist in English, the aim was never to translate it word for word but to a) make it clear in the target language and b) adapt it to the target culture if needed. During the training session, we therefore discussed questions of language variants, as well as specialised terms, article titles, and disease names. Students took it on board and showed nuanced translation skills throughout the project.“

The students worked together to describe and name the conditions in their languages in Wikidata. They then picked a couple of articles to research, draft, and upload. Many roped in friends, family, and medical professionals to provide feedback on their drafts. The students also hunted down references in their own languages. Wikipedia depends on reliable, secondary sources³, and readers of a specific language should be able to verify the statements in the article⁴, without having to know English as well.

The students’ enthusiasm and commitment exceeded our expectations! 11 students, speaking 15 different languages, spent the summer creating 12 brand new articles, editing an additional 38 articles, adding 61,000 words and 555 references. Table 1 links to the articles in various languages; we’d love to see the wider Wiki community get stuck in and expand them even further!

As of mid-August 2025, the newly created and edited articles have been viewed nearly 58,000 times (see Figure 1 below), a testament to the real-world impact of student contributions. We hope this project inspires further translation efforts and continues to grow through community contributions.

None of the above would have been possible without the dedication of the students and their PGR coaches. They were: Dasha Andreeva, Alistair Grant, Lila Darmon, Mingxiao Yang, Lucie Siu, Aro Aziz, Summer Kwon, Jacqueline Park, Anne Foote, Anna Mokhovik, Aleksandra Lucic, Zamzam Issack, Axel Van Den Ancker, Lareina Yang (STEP students) and Ziying Ye and Maya Fenyk (STEP PGR coaches).

References

1. Cornwell RM, Ross K, Gibeily C, et al. Unearthing new learning opportunities: adapting and innovating through the ‘Antibiotics under our feet’ citizen science project in Scotland during COVID-19. Access Microbiol. 2024;6(6). doi:10.1099/acmi.0.000710.v3

2. Heilman JM, West AG. Wikipedia and Medicine: Quantifying Readership, Editors, and the Significance of Natural Language. J Med Internet Res. 2015;17(3):e62. doi:10.2196/jmir.4069

3. Wikipedia:Reliable sources. In: Wikipedia. ; 2025. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reliable_sources&oldid=1305930263

4. Wikipedia:Verifiability. In: Wikipedia. ; 2025. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Verifiability&oldid=1305104342 

The post The 6-week Wikipedia translation sprint: A case study in fast medical knowledge equity appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

You can nominate individuals and organisations that have been involved with Wikimedia UK’s efforts to advance open knowledge during 2024/25.

Categories

This year’s categories are:

• UK Wikimedian of the year (Individual)
• Partnership of the year (Organisation)
• Up and coming Wikimedian (Individual)

Criteria

We are looking for people and partnerships within the Wikimedia UK community who have really impressed with their open knowledge work in 2024/25. We are particularly keen to hear about people and organisations who delivered projects addressing our strategic themes of Knowledge Equity, Information Literacy, and Climate and the Environment.  

Nominations will be judged by members of the Community Development Committee and winners will be announced at the Community Celebration on Saturday 15th November 2025.

How to nominate

You can submit two nominations per category using this Google Form . The closing date for submissions is 22nd October 2025.

Read more about last year’s winners.

The post Wikimedian of the Year Awards – Call for nominations now open appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

Running over 30 miles a week and keeping very fit has given me a lot of renewed energy and enthusiasm and makes me more motivated to run something on a large scale to improve everything. Over half of all articles on Wikipedia are still ‘stubs’ – pages with sometimes just a sentence or two about a subject. The idea behind a Destubathon is to encourage Wikipedia editors to focus on these articles. With the OKA and Wikimedia UK prepared to provide prize money, it felt the right time to give running contests another shot.

With first-hand experience of translating a lot of articles into English from other European language Wikipedias, I know how much of a gap there is in quality and breadth of content. So I wanted to run something to benefit European countries and bring together Wikipedia editors to focus on some of the shortest articles about Europe. I simply set up the contest based on the African Destubathon model and then sent out invitations to past contestants and challenge contributors. Participants were asked to focus on articles with 1,500 characters of readable prose or less (only 200–300 words) and self-report what they had been working on. Prizes for the most articles improved on individual countries added extra motivation.

4,046 articles were produced for The European Destubathon. Over 1,200 articles were on women’s biographies. 441 articles were submitted for the WMUK prize for most British destubs alone, though there were many more done than this in the main list. I was pleased to see destubs for countries which rarely get attention. Andorra stood out in particular due to a few editors expanding stubs I once created like 15 years ago!

I found the contest far easier to run than previous contests due to no scoreboard. I averaged about 3 hours a day patrolling, not a problem for me, but a prize could always be given for helping judge articles if people interested in running contests can’t commit to that.

It was clear that Wikipedia’s editors have a lot of enthusiasm for a targeted approach like this, and there seems to be joy in particular at seeing a diversity of topics and colourful flags coming in. Over one hundred people registered for the competition. While the competition covered articles about Europe, it was open to anyone globally, so we had participants from the US, India, and New Zealand. After pausing for a breather I started work on a sequel: The World Destubathon. This time stub articles related to anywhere in the world and cleanups of longer articles are eligible! I’m looking forward to seeing the results.

The post The European Destubathon: A drive to improve Wikipedia’s shortest articles. appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

In August 2023, Queer Britain collaborated with Wikimedia UK to host a Wikimedian in Residence project. From August to November, Evie Moore worked on improving content on Wikipedia and related websites, with a focus on topics relevant to Queer Britain. In this post, Evie reflects on the residency.

Project highlights

Over the past three months, I’ve had the opportunity of contributing to Wikimedia projects as part of my residency at Queer Britain. Despite encountering challenges throughout the residency, specifically limitations due to healing from a broken ankle and undergoing surgery within the residency period, the unwavering support and kindness from the wiki team transformed these obstacles into opportunities. Thanks to this collaborative effort, I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The residency has been both enriching and productive, allowing me to engage with various aspects of the Wikimedia community and make valuable contributions to LGBTQ+ representation on the platform.

Wikipedia article contributions

One of my primary tasks during the residency was enhancing the ‘LGBT rights in the UK’ Wikipedia article, expanding sections on Advocacy Organisations, LGBT representation in politics, Pride Parades, and Rights for Asylum. The comprehensive 1500+ words added aim to provide a well-rounded view of the current landscape of LGBTQ+ rights in the UK. The page is read on average 12,000 times a month so it’s an important source of information.

I also spent time improving the Wikipedia pages of LGBTQ+ figures such as Roberta Cowell. This involved fact-checking, correcting inaccuracies, and ensuring proper referencing. The goal was to provide accurate and comprehensive information about her life and contributions to the LGBTQ+ community.

Wikimedia Commons contributions

I contributed photographic content of the Queer Britain building to Wikimedia Commons. This not only serves as a visual representation but also adds a layer of accessibility for users seeking information about Queer Britain.

Increasing visibility

To enhance the visibility of Queer Britain, I strategically placed links to their page in the ‘see other’ section of related national Queer Museums and Archives. This cross-referencing helps users discover Queer Britain in the broader context of LGBTQ+ history and culture while constructing relationships between Queer museums and archives internationally. 

Collaboration

I engaged with Owen Blacker in discussions about the LGBTQ+ community on Wikipedia and explored the use of LGBTQ+ acronyms across the platform. These conversations were instrumental in gaining insights into the challenges and opportunities within the LGBTQ+ Wiki community.

I collaborated with Alice White on an upcoming edit-a-thon event at the Wellcome Collection, focusing on sourcing articles related to sexual health and education. This initiative aligns with Queer Britain’s commitment to diverse and inclusive representation within the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

I actively participated in the larger residency team, fostering collaboration and learning about diverse Wikimedia projects. Understanding the scope and shape of longer residencies proved beneficial in shaping the direction of my residency.

Research and data collection

Following on from my and Owens’s discussion, I conducted thorough research and collected data regarding the use of different acronyms such as LGBT, LGBT+, and LGBTQ+ This information can serve as a foundation for future initiatives focused on inclusivity and accurate representation, and can be utilised in future debates regarding which Acronym to use across Wikipedia.

Project pages and planning

I created a project page for Queer Britain, providing detailed information about the residency and Queer Britain itself. Additionally, internal planning for a future Wiki event at Queer Britain, titled ‘Queering Wikipedia,’ is underway. This edit-a-thon will emphasise the importance of accessible and open-source information in queer archiving.

Upon my return to the museum, I am looking forward to offering volunteers Wikipedia training, continuing to improve and expand on LGBTQ+ open source articles, collecting more photographic content to upload on Wikipedia Commons, and continuing to push for Wiki to use more inclusive and relevant acronyms for the LGBTQ+ community.

Summary stats

We used the Outreach Dashboard to summarise the impact of the residency on Wikipedia.

In conclusion, my Wikimedia residency at Queer Britain has been a fulfilling experience marked by collaboration, content creation, and community engagement. The impact of these contributions extends beyond the digital realm, promoting a more inclusive representation of LGBTQ+ history and culture on a global scale. I look forward to the continued growth of these initiatives and the positive impact they will have on Wikipedia’s LGBTQ+ content.

The post Queer Britain’s Wikimedian in Residence appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

The previous 12 months has seen all of us challenged like never before. Collectively and
individually we have faced new ways of living and changes to how we work and volunteer.

As a staff and Trustee team we are sending our appreciation and thanks to each one of you for your dedication, commitment, passion and belief that time volunteered on open knowledge is time well spent.

Thank You!

The post Thank You To Each and Every Amazing Volunteer! appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

By John Lubbock, Wikimedia UK Communications Coordinator

I’ve worked at Wikimedia UK since 2016, managing their social media, press, content and general communications. During that time, the gender gap issue has become increasingly salient, especially with the media attention generated by Dr Jess Wade, a British research scientist who has written hundreds of biographical Wikipedia pages.

Jess started editing Wikipedia after attending a training workshop given by Dr Alice White, who was employed as the Wellcome Library’s Wikimedian in Residence, and is now Digital Editor at the Wellcome Collection. Wikimedia UK pioneered the use of Wikimedians in Residence, with the first ever WiR being hosted at the British Museum in 2010. Through promoting the use of Wikimedians in Residence and demonstrating their results, Wikimedia UK has punched above its weight as a chapter within the Wikimedia community, helping to release hundreds of thousands of images and show Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAMs), and also Universities, how they can use Wikipedia as a platform to gain a huge audience for their content.

Dr Wade, as well as a number of Wikimedians in Residence who have worked on the gender gap issue, feature prominently in our video, and add greatly to the impact that Wikimedia UK’s work has had in the past few years. Alone, we are just a small charity with 10 staff, but our allies and our community multiply the impact of our work greatly.

The knowledge that Wikipedia suffers from inadequacies and gaps in its coverage has pushed our community hard to try to redress the imbalances in content and contributors to Wikimedia projects. We have started to run Wikipedia training workshops for speakers of other languages, and especially to organise events aimed at encouraging contributions from women and LGBT+ groups.

Since the end of 2018 I have been slowly filming interviews and events which help to explain the breadth of work going on in the UK to help close the gender gap on Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia UK works across the country, so that we are not too London-centric an organisation. We have strong communities in Wales and Scotland, and support the Celtic languages to allow them to thrive in the digital era.

In Wales, this has been so successful that Welsh Wikipedia, Wicipedia Cymraeg, is the most viewed website in Welsh on the internet, and passed 100,000 articles in 2018. Wikipedia training was even included in the Welsh curriculum, and WiciMon, a group based in Northern Wales, has been training high school students in numerous schools. These younger groups are much more gender balanced than most Wikipedia communities, and there is also parity in biographical articles in Welsh between men and women.

There is so much work going on across different groups in the UK to address the gender gap, with groups like the Women’s Classical Committee and Women in Engineering running regular sessions, that sometimes it’s hard to see that at the root of this work, our chapter is often there helping with training and organising. It has not been easy to get the media’s attention on the work that we do to fix issues like the gender gap, because this work is not particularly glamourous and doesn’t make for clickbait headlines.

The intention of this film is therefore to show the media, and the wider Wikimedia community, how much effort Wikimedia UK staff, Wikimedians in Residence, and volunteers have put into improving Wikipedia’s coverage of underrepresented groups, and particularly women, over the last 4 years.

Wikipedia and Wikimedia charities often get criticised for not doing enough to fix sexism on our sites and within our communities. Clearly we have a long way to go, and there is much more to be done, but I hope that this film will show people what we are in fact doing, and how much we care about this issue.

The great promise of Wikimedia projects is that anybody can get involved in them and change them. The reality we experience is that over 40% of the world still has no internet access, and among those who do, there is a huge difference in levels of access. In less economically developed countries, millions of new internet citizens are coming online each day, and people in countries like the UK have a historical obligation to use our privilege to help people in countries with less resources redress this balance.

The gender gap problem is part of an intersectional network of inequalities in access to power and resources. As a community, Wikimedians must ensure that we do not repeat the unequal structures of power on which our technology is based. Fundamentally, we cannot fix gender inequality overnight, or the structure of power on which its is based. We can, however, help democratise access to those resources, especially those necessary for people to become educated.

‘You cannot be what you cannot see’, is a phrase often repeated by our community. I just searched Google images for the word ‘scientist’, and out of 40 people in the images that immediately appeared, 19 were women, 21 men. The first image in the list is the image that illustrates the Wikipedia page ‘Scientist’, and features two non-white people, one male and one female.

The proportion of biographical articles on English Wikipedia about women has increased from 14% to 18% since about 2015. If this proportion were to continue to increase by 1% a year, we could reach parity by 2051. It may be that complete parity is never achievable, due to the paucity of historical sources about women, but I think that these successes go to show that we are winning this fight, even if it feels like slow progress sometimes.

Communicating the work of a local Wikimedia chapter is hard work, but all of us at Wikimedia UK are extremely proud of what we have been able to achieve since the chapter began 10 years ago. Even if few journalists at big media companies pay attention to what we are doing, we know that what we are doing is changing things, and making the internet a better place for every digital citizen who has to share it in future.

The post Wikimedia UK publishes ‘Closing the Gender Gap’ video appeared first on Wikimedia UK.