Submissions/Non-notable? Deletion and Devaluation on Wikipedia

This is an Open submission for Wikimania 2017 that has not yet been reviewed by a member of the Programme Committee.

Submission no. 2053 Subject - C4

Title of the submission: Non-notable? Deletion and Devaluation on Wikipedia

Type of submission (lecture, panel, tutorial/workshop, roundtable discussion, lightning talk, poster, birds of a feather discussion): lecture

Author of the submission: FTripodi

type of submission: Panel (or roundtable but panel preferred)

Language of presentation: English

E-mail address: ftripodi@gmail.com

Username: FTripodi

Country of origin: USA

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.): University of Virginia

Personal homepage or blog: ftripodi.com

Abstract (up to 300 words to describe your proposal)

The extent of Wikipedia's "gender gap" has been measured both with regard to who edits Wikipedia (less than 15% of editors are women) as well as the content available on the site (less than 17% of the available biographies on English Wikipedia are about women). As a way of combating this problem, Wikipedia has turned to “edit-a-thons” to encourage a more diverse set of editors to contribute to Wikipedia. These events not only help close the gap with regard to who edits, they are also aimed at improving the number of articles written about women. While some Wikipedian’s have questioned the efficacy of these events few have looked at the persistence of articles after they are added. By focusing on persistence, this paper demonstrates how the structure of how edit-a-thons are run (mainly selecting a username and creating stub articles) might not be the most effective solution. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data, this paper also demonstrates that biographies about women are disproportionately targeted for deletion as non-notable despite them meeting Wikipedia's own standards of notability. While this process of deleting content might seem benign, I argue that because the process of deletion is not regulated with any formal rules, it sustains the problem of devaluation of women and women’s interests in the twenty-first century.

What will attendees take away from this session? Gain insight into edit-a-thons as a solution. Help brainstorm some solutions for future edit-a-thons, learn more about how even those who meet notability criteria (which can be bias) are still being targeted for deletion.

Theme of presentation

I believe this would go with either WikiCulture & Community or GLAM since both work on hosting edit-a-thons.

For workshops and discussions, what level is the intended audience? ALL

Length of session (if other than 25 minutes, specify how long): 25 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: YES

Slides or further information (optional)

Special requests

Is this Submission a Draft or Final?

This is a Completed submission for Wikimania 2017 ready to be reviewed by a member of the Programme Committee.

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