Tag: Wikipedia

In visiting a lot of different people of places over the last two months, one question keeps cropping up: what is the difference between Wikimedian and Wikipedian?

Which is a fair question.

Ultimately, Wikimedia UK is the parent or umbrella body, a charitable non-profit foundation (the UK chapter of the global Wikimedia movement which has its HQ in San Francisco) which exists to support & promote Wikimedia’s projects in the UK: one of which happens to be its main open Knowledge project, Wikipedia.

From the Wikimedia Foundation’s FAQs:

“What is Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is the largest collection of free, collaborative knowledge in human history. Millions of people from around the world have written and added to Wikipedia since it was created in 2001: anyone can edit it, at any time. Wikipedia contains more than 35 million volunteer-authored articles in more than 290 languages. Every month, Wikipedia is viewed more than 15 billion times, making it one of the most popular sites in the world. The people who support it are united by the joy of knowledge, their passion and curiosity, and their awareness that we know much more together than any of us does alone.

What is the Wikimedia Foundation?

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that supports and operates Wikipedia and the other free knowledge projects. All of our work is guided by our mission to share the sum of all knowledge with every person in the world. We keep the websites fast, secure, and available. We support the community of volunteers who contribute to the Wikimedia projects. We make free knowledge accessible wherever you are — on your phone or laptop, on a boat in the South Pacific, or in the hills of Nepal. We help bring new knowledge online, lower barriers to access, and make it easier for everyone to share what they know.”

However, while Wikipedia draws the most attention, there are numerous ways where staff & students can get involved & directly contribute their knowledge & expertise to develop Wikimedia UK’s diverse range of projects.

Not just Wikipedia: Wikimedia UK’s diverse range projects (above).

Wikisource, for instance, is a ‘free content library of source texts’ with some 300,000+ source texts which anyone can use.

Wikimedia Commons is our media repository with over 30 million freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute to and re-use.

Wikibooks, an open-content textbooks collection that anyone can edit, has been utilised by some academic institutions (notably Greg Singh, lecturer in Communications, Media & Culture at the University of Stirling) as an assessed part of their courses where students work in research groups to contribute chapters to create a brand new textbook, the Digital Media & Culture Yearbook.

Wikidata, in particular, as Wikipedia’s newest sister project offers up a wealth of possibilities as a structured database of all human knowledge which is readable by humans and machines. For example, the Histropedia website makes good use of the data Wikidata harnesses in order to create visually stimulating & dynamic timelines: be it as straightforward as a timeline of University of Edinburgh alumni or something much more bespoke: such as a timeline of descendants of Robert the Bruce, who are female, and born in Denmark.

Example timeline from Histropedia

As the residency continues, I hope to explore each of these projects a bit further (and others besides) and see if any collaborations can be achieved which mutually benefit the university and Wikimedia in adding open knowledge content to these projects. So watch this space… and if you have any questions about any of the projects then let me know.

Art+Feminism Wikipedia editathon – Saturday 5th March

By Ewan McAndrew

On March 3, 2016

In Uncategorized

In a 2011 survey, the Wikimedia Foundation found that less than 10% of its contributors identify as female while only 15% of the English Wikipedia’s biographies are about women. As a result, content is skewed by the lack of female participation.

About our next event

Following the successful editathon held at Modern One to mark the opening of the exhibition Modern Scottish Women, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is holding a follow-up Wikipedia Edit-a-thon during Women’s History Month as part of the Art+Feminism series. This event will coincide with other International Women’s Day events happening elsewhere in Edinburgh that day and will carry on where the last Modern Scottish Women editathon left off; creating and improving articles relating to those women featured in the exhibition.

Modern Scottish Women is an exhibition of work by Scottish women artists and concentrates on painters and sculptors. It covers the period from 1885, when Fra Newbery became Director of Glasgow School of Art, until 1965, the year of Anne Redpath’s death.

All you need to bring is a laptop as wifi will be provided. But you can also have a look at the notable artists listed below to see if there is someone there you may wish to work on:

Hit list of articles to be created or improved

Articles to be created

Articles to be improved

** The work of those artists marked with a double asterisk has now passed into the public domain.

Come along if you can make it, the more the merrier. New editors are very welcome and full training will be given. With Visual Editor, it really is now as easy as using MS Word or WordPress.

The event signup is here: Art&Feminism Wikipedia editathon

Hopefully see you there!

We Can Edit

Reflecting on the History of Medicine editathon – The Outcome

By Ewan McAndrew

On March 2, 2016

In Uncategorized

After 5 Wikipedia editing sessions over 3 days with some terrific guest speakers, our Wiki editors helped to upload over 500 images, created 12 brand new Wiki pages and improved 63 articles with 249 edits.

Anatomical gingerbread

I would encourage everyone to have a look over the work that was created last week (Creating an Open Body of Knowledge editathon) as there are now some astonishingly interesting additions to Wikipedia which just simply weren’t there before….

Including:

A new article on Norman Dott – the first holder of the Chair of Neurological Surgery at the University of Edinburgh.
Our digital curator’s one man ‘Citation Hunt’ crusade to plug those pesky ‘citation needed’ labels in articles.
Improved article on Robert Battey – an American physician who is known for pioneering a surgical procedure then called Battey’s Operation and now termed radical oophorectomy (or removal of a woman’s ovaries)
Noteworthy work (because she’s on a banknote) doubling (if not trebling) the article on Mary Fairfax Somerville – a Scottish science writer and polymath, at a time when women’s participation in science was discouraged. As well as editing articles on Isabel Thorne, Matilda Chaplin Ayrton and the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service.
A new ‘Controversy’ section added on the intriguing case of James Miranda Barry.
A really helpful mapping tool of the buildings to be photographed: https://mapalist.com/map/573668
Our historian of medicine worked on The Brunonian system of medicine article – a theory of medicine which regards and treats disorders as caused by defective or excessive excitation.
A brand new article on Leith Hospital – illustrated with pictures the new editor took themselves and uploaded to Wikicommons.
Articles on Frances Helen Simson (a Scottish suffragist) and The Edinburgh Royal Maternity and Simpson Maternity Hospital Pavilion. Ably added to by work on Lady Tweedale.
Work on Emily Bovell’s article and a brand new article on the New Zealand Army Nursing Service page which came into being in early 1915, when the Army Council in London accepted the New Zealand government’s offer of nurses to help in the war effort during the First World War.
Improved articles on ‘Fabry disease’ – a rare genetic lysosomal storage disease – and on ‘Alport Syndrome’ – a genetic disorder affecting around 1 in 5,000 children, characterized by glomerulonephritis, end-stage kidney disease, and hearing loss
Improvement work on Frances Hoggan – the first British woman to receive a doctorate in medicine from a university in Europe, and the first female doctor to be registered in Wales.
And much much more besides…. including work expanding on The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh’s page on Chinese Wikipedia!

Burke and Hare myths debunked at the History of Medicine editathon.

The fully illustrated (pics & tweets) story of the History of Medicine editathon can be found on our Storify page so please feel free to take a look: The History of Medicine editathon for ILW 2016

Happily, our editors’ efforts have now been rewarded with a nomination at the Innovative Learning Week 2016 awards. Out of nearly 300 ILW events, the award category we are shortlisted in states:

“Best Impact – Innovation doesn’t just happen in a week and these event organisers know it. They used the festival to support an idea which will have a great deal of impact outside of the classroom and for months – maybe even years! – to come.”

Our next Wikipedia editathon event will be for Women’s History Month and will coincide with a number of other International Women’s Day events in Edinburgh on Saturday 5th March. Feel free to sign up as new editors are very welcome and full training will be given. The event details are here: Art+Feminism Wikipedia Editathon for Women’s History Month

Thanks so much to everyone involved our last one for the History of Medicine for being a part of it. If you’ve still got something lurking in your sandbox, go on & be bold and publish it!

Editing Wikipedia is easy with Visual Editor

By Ewan McAndrew

On February 13, 2016

In Uncategorized

I recently found myself chatting with a software engineer friend of mine about the Wikimedian in Residence project at the University of Edinburgh. He proclaimed two things that he felt were ‘acknowledged truths’ which everyone understood about editing Wikipedia.

“You can’t add to Wikipedia. Wikipedia already has EVERYTHING in the entire world within it so there is never any need to add anything more to it.”

Wikipedia’s Quality and Ratings scale – Screengrab from Wikipedia (CC-BY-SA)

As this graphic shows Wikipedia has a ‘Quality and Ratings‘ scale which shows the sheer quantity of English Wikipedia articles (over 5 million) but tellingly only a fraction are deemed of such high quality that they can be the ‘featured article’ (FA) on Wikipedia’s front page. Indeed as the second Pi chart shows (above right), over 50% of the articles on Wikipedia are short ‘stub’ articles (the red ‘stub class’ section).

Hence, while Wikipedia has sought in its first 15 years to achieve the ‘sum of all human knowledge‘ it is not quote there yet. Not quite.

The quantity of articles is there but the quality can certainly be improved. Which is why partnerships between Wikimedia UK and institutions like the University of Edinburgh are so important for both communities. The quantity and quality of Wikipedia’s content is improved by the process of knowledge exchange and the partner institution’s knowledge & expertise is successfully curated & disseminated throughout the world utilising a medium with unparalleled reach and influence.

Screengrab from ‘How to work successfully with Wikipedia’ WMUK GLAM Booklet 2014 (CC-BY-SA)

The second thing my software engineer chum said was:

2. “Editing in Wikipedia using the markup programming language is easy.”

This may well be true. Using the markup language is not that difficult when one considers other programming languages out there but, of course, a software engineer would feel ‘markup’ was easy to use. Other people without the same degree of programming experience may not necessarily feel the same degree of confidence.

This is why Wikipedia’s introduction of the new ‘Visual Editor‘ interface is a HUGE leap forward in allowing would-be editors from all backgrounds to edit with confidence. The new interface has taken years to develop and implement and makes editing so much easier. It is a WYSIWYG interface (What You See Is What You Get) so makes the days of considering the foibles of programming language when creating/editing Wiki articles a thing of the past. Instead, using the Visual Editor makes editing Wikipedia much more like using Microsoft Word or WordPress.

But don’t just take my word for it, here’s a short clip to introduce Visual Editor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5iyJSdpvwg

Modern Scottish Women editathon – National Gallery of Modern Art

By Ewan McAndrew

On February 13, 2016

In Uncategorized

Modern Scottish Women editathon

I was invited by Sara Thomas, Wikimedian in Residence at the Museums & Galleries Scotland, to attend an edit-a-thon she was hosting on Saturday 23rd January at the National Gallery of Modern Art to mark their new exhibition entitled ‘Modern Scottish Women’.

Loaded with the cold though I was, I trooped along and was rewarded with a guided tour upon arrival.

Modern Scottish Women

The exhibition of work by Scottish women artists concentrates on painters and sculptors. It covers the period from 1885, when Fra Newbery became Director of Glasgow School of Art, until 1965, the year of Anne Redpath’s death.

The editathon event page is here: Modern Scottish Women edit-a-thon

After the tour, Sara ran through the steps involved in how to edit Wikipedia and explained that it is a lot easier to work with with Wikipedia now that the ‘Visual Editor’ interface makes editing in Wikipedia as easy as using Microsoft Word or WordPress.

According to Sara’s Edit-a-thon event page:

“In a 2011 survey, the Wikimedia Foundation found that less than 10% of its contributors identify as female while only 15% of the English Wikipedia’s biographies are about women. As a result, content is skewed by the lack of female participation.

The event will focus on expanding or improving Wikipedia entries for the artists exhibiting in Modern Scottish Women, and to provide an expanded context for their work and practice.”

Following the training, everyone was enthused to correct this lack of female participation on Wikipedia.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

While I was personally keen to add information to some of my favorite artists’ Wikipedia pages (Joan Eardley, Hannah Frank) it seemed clearly more important to create a new Wiki article on Beatrice Huntingdon whose work was overlooked completely by Wikipedia.

After a couple of hours and a couple of coffees, my careful research, like my fellow Wiki editors at the edit-a-thon, had produced a brand new article on Wikipedia on Beatrice Huntingdon and corrected this sin of omission.

Overall, the National Galleries of Modern Art were terrifically welcoming hosts & were very enthusiastic to make sure the artists in their exhibition received the acknowledgement on Wikipedia that they deserved.

Cold or no cold, it was a successful afternoon and everyone went home feeling ‘mission accomplished’.

Vicks Inhaler

Wikipedia at 15 – Happy Birthday!

By Ewan McAndrew

On February 13, 2016

In Uncategorized

Jimmy Wales cuts the cake – By Gordon Joly (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Last month marked 15 years since Wikipedia first began. A number of excellent articles came out at this time assessing Wikipedia’ impact and its relevance going forward.

I’ve picked two such articles:

The Oxford Internet Institute on Wikipedia’s Ongoing Search for the Sum of All Human Knowledge

The LSE’s Impact Blog on Wikipedia Amplifying Impact Of Open Access

The University of Edinburgh Library also marked the occasion by taking part in Wikipedia’s #1Lib1ref campaign.

There are apparently over 350,000 articles marked with ‘citation needed’ in the English Wikipedia so the library staff spent a little time on Wikipedia’s birthday (15th January) to see if they could help clear some of these tags by using the ‘Citation Hunt’ tool to identify the articles and then added citations using reliable sources such as journals, books and official websites.

The University of Edinburgh’s library blog on #1Lib1Ref

The Wikipedia Library explains the 1Lib1Ref campaign

In all, 32 new citations were added. A fine morning’s work.

By Halibutt (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Supporting the University of Edinburgh's commitments to digital skills, information literacy, and sharing knowledge openly

Tag: Wikipedia

A smorgasbord of Wikimedia projects to choose from: not just Wikipedia!

Art+Feminism Wikipedia editathon – Saturday 5th March

Hit list of articles to be created or improved

Articles to be created

Articles to be improved

Reflecting on the History of Medicine editathon – The Outcome

Editing Wikipedia is easy with Visual Editor

Modern Scottish Women editathon – National Gallery of Modern Art

Wikipedia at 15 – Happy Birthday!