{"id":1527,"date":"2024-10-29T14:29:33","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T14:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/?p=1527"},"modified":"2025-01-17T16:07:20","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T16:07:20","slug":"final-reflections-on-my-wikipedia-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/final-reflections-on-my-wikipedia-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Reflections on my Wikipedia Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

At the launch event last Wednesday. Picture by me.<\/p><\/div>\n

This week marks the end of my year-long internship as Assistant Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Edinburgh. Now, at the end of my role, I can look back at all of the opportunities that this internship has given me and safely say that no other role could have offered me such an enjoyable, useful and unique experience!<\/p>\n

Reflections on my Wikipedia experience<\/strong><\/p>\n

Within the first couple of months after starting my role, I wrote a blog reflecting on my preconceptions, experiences so far and new things I had learnt about Wikipedia<\/a>. In this blog I intend to revisit this, comparing my knowledge and experiences to date with what I wrote in my first blog.<\/p>\n

I wrote that I initially had entered the role with the misconception that Wikipedia was not to be trusted, and that the nature of it being an open and crowdsourced project was a weakness of the site. I have come to realise, however, that this element of Wikipedia is quite the opposite of a \u2018weakness\u2019. Throughout my time as Assistant Wikimedian in Residence I have encountered scepticism about the reliability of Wikipedia from friends, family, staff and students. When these doubts are expressed, I like to combat them picking from the armoury of facts I have picked up whilst in the role. For instance, explaining the role of editors watching<\/a> pages and conducting the recent page patrols<\/a>, the fact that this openness means that there are over 300 languages used on Wikipedia<\/a>, the clear and effective policies and guidelines<\/a>, and the importance of including verifiable<\/a> andreliable sources<\/a> in articles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Print Wikipedia – Benjamin Busch\/Import Projects, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

It has become clear to me that the open knowledge, crown sourced, open-ended and community elements of Wikipedia are the strengths of the site and are the reason why it is still the world\u2019s 7th most visited website. It is a useful tool for both education institutions and students alike and can really illuminate the student learning experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWikipedia differs from printed references in important ways<\/a>. It is continually created and updated, and encyclopedic articles on news events appear within minutes, making it more dynamic than most traditional resources. Anyone can improve Wikipedia, and more than 23 years of volunteer editors giving their time and talents to the project have made Wikipedia history’s most comprehensive encyclopedia. Its editors add quality and quantity, remove misinformation, and fix errors and\u00a0vandalism<\/a>. The sources they provide are used by researchers worldwide (see\u00a0Researching with Wikipedia<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n

In summary, Wikipedia has tested the\u00a0wisdom of the crowd<\/a>\u00a0since 2001 and has found that it succeeds<\/em>.\u201d \u2013 taken from the Wikipedia:About<\/a> page.<\/p>\n

Women in Red<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Women in Red Logo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

In my original blog, I noted how happy and interested I was to be learning about the Women in Red<\/a> Wikiproject. When I started, articles about women made up around 19.72% of biographies on Wikipedia. That number is now 19.96%, a difference of nearly 15 000 new articles, and it feels amazing that some of the editathons that I have organised have helped to close that gap even further. Hopefully it will not be long until 20% is reached!<\/p>\n

I have thoroughly enjoyed working on this important project and am grateful for all the knowledge that I have gained about women across the world, from 16th<\/sup> century Scotland to 21st<\/sup> century America. I will certainly be continuing to add to this in my own time and will make it my mission to reappear at a Women in Red editing event in the near future!\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Key Events<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Bessie Watson, the 9 year old Scottish suffragette from Edinburgh who had a room at the University
named after her on International Women\u2019s
Day 2024. CC-BY-SA via Wikimedia
Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

From this internship I have been able to run, talk at and partake in numerous wonderful events, from helping to open the new Bessie Watson Lecture Theatre<\/a>, to welcoming people to a Burns Night themed editathon<\/a> (fully fuelled by Irn Bru and shortbread!).<\/p>\n

Other notable events included the International Women\u2019s Day editathon<\/a>. I organised this Wikipedia workshop in order to celebrate the lives and contributions of all the inspiring women the world, past and present, who have dedicated themselves to fighting for women\u2019s rights, women\u2019s education, universal suffrage and global justice by adding them onto Wikipedia. This event was ran in collaboration with the Global Justice Academy<\/a> at Edinburgh Law School. \u00a0Dr Kasey McCall-Smith, Lecturer in Public International Law and Programme Director for the LLM in Human Rights also\u00a0spoke to us about women in justice at local, national and global levels.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dr. Jenny Nex giving the guided tour of St Cecilia\u2019s Hall concert room and music museum. Pic by Ellie Whitehead, CC-BY-SA<\/p><\/div>\n

I also really enjoyed both our World Music Day<\/a> and Scottish Castles and Witchlore<\/a> events. Both these editathons saw me work with University of Edinburgh Collections and Heritage teams. For the World Music Day event I organised a tour of St Cecilia\u2019s Music Hall and Museum<\/a> led by its senior curator Dr Jenny Nex. The Scottish Castles and Witchlore event was a topic close to my heart, so I really wanted to make it as interactive as possible. To help with this, I organised a small exhibition of collections relating to witchcraft and castles with the University Special Collections<\/a> team. Seeing university archives related to our topic was a big hit, and really brought the content to life.<\/p>\n

Map of Scottish Witchcraft, Memorials and Curious Edinburgh tour launch<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Map of Scottish Witchcraft, Map of Memorials and Curious Edinburgh walking tour launch.<\/p><\/div>\n

In this blog I also wanted to reflect on the fantastic launch event that took place on the afternoon of last Wednesday, 23rd<\/sup> October. This event saw the launch of the new version of the Map of Scottish Witchcraft<\/a>, the new Map of Memorials<\/a> and new Curious Edinburgh \u2018History of Witchcraft\u2019 walking tour of Edinburgh<\/a>. We celebrated the launch with talks and a Q&A from me, Witchfinder General Intern Ruby Imrie, and Professor Emeritus in Scottish History Julian Goodare, complimented by refreshments of tea, coffee, cake and wine!<\/p>\n

I have been lucky enough to work on all three of these projects, which has easily been the highlight of my experience as Assistant<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Giving my presentation on the Curious Edinburgh History of Witchcraft tour at the launch event. Picture by me.<\/p><\/div>\n

Wikimedian in Residence. It has been a fantastic opportunity, which saw me apply my knowledge of the history of early modern Scottish witchcraft. An opportunity that does not come up very often! I researched sites for memorials and wrote their descriptions, wrote introductions and glossaries to add more context to the Map of Scottish Witchcraft, researched and developed a tour of Edinburgh\u2019s witchy locations, learnt how to film and edit videos<\/a> and ultimately helped to improve the accurate understanding of the history of Scottish witchcraft. It feels amazing to have these projects launched and to see my (and many others!) hard work available to be viewed, shared and enjoyed by everyone.<\/p>\n

Overall, I will be sorry to leave this role behind as I have really<\/em> enjoyed it and got more out of it than I could have ever imagined! I have many thanks to extend to Ewan, who taught me the ropes and encouraged me to dive head-first into all things Wikipedia and beyond. Though finishing my role, I hope to be back editing Wikipedia in my own time as soon as I can!<\/p>\n

This blog was written by Ellie Whitehead, Assistant Wikimedian in Residence<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week marks the end of my year-long internship as Assistant Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Edinburgh. Now, at the end of my role, I can look back at all of the opportunities that this internship has given me and safely say that no other role could have offered me such an enjoyable, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1527"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1552,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions\/1552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/wir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}