Wikipedia editing as fannish practice
Today I went to an Art+Feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon. They’re happening this weekend in like 70+ cities around the world. So that was fun and also tiring.
But I was working on a page for an artist I really like but who barely had any coverage on wp and turns out she’d won all these awards and stuff that weren’t even listed anywhere there. And hey, now she has an article, so yay. (Keeping her anonymous because my wp account isn’t linked to this one, which is also why I chose someone I haven’t really talked about here.)
But like. If you like an artist or an author or a show or whatever, sure it’s great to post about them and recommend them and all that. But you know what’s also super important? Writing them into history.
Yes, excellent. My concern is always that I will inadvertently make a mistake in building the page and thus effectively delegitimize the person or construct I’m aiming to support. But that’s a silly lack of confidence.
As a devoted member of the meta side of fandom, I will happily begin to integrate this into my practices. I will write about amazing women scientists who lack Wiki pages despite having made critical discoveries. I will edit out casual sexism. I will create pages for the hundreds of women writers in translation who are all but unknown. I will create pages for the webseries I love, for production companies I follow, for bands I listen to, for artists I admire…
Just yes.
I’ve found that editing Wikipedia is excellent practice (at least for me) for learning how to collaborate with people who see the world differently than I do. Also, being an editor has made me a more savvy consumer of Wikipedia content, because I know the social conventions that underlie it and contribute to its strengths and weaknesses.
Reposted from http://ift.tt/1AS2gIj.
Tags: wikipedia.
