Wikipedia:Meetup/Wellington/Women in Science

What's it about? edit

A Wikipedia workshop is an all-day event where people improve Wikipedia's coverage of a particular topic. Led by an experienced Wikipedia editor, participants learn to create and edit pages, correct mistakes, add references, and upload photos. Complete beginners are welcome; training and troubleshooting is provided. This edit-a-thon was hosted by the Royal Society Te Apārangi, and focussed on adding and improving articles on women in New Zealand science.

When and where edit

Sunday 6 August, 2017
10:00–16:00 NZST
Royal Society of New Zealand building, 11 Turnbull St, Wellington.
Participants from anywhere in the world are welcome to join in remotely, using #WikiSciWomen in tweets and in edit summaries. Using the #WikiSciWomen hashtag in edit summaries will help us highlight the impact of the edit-a-thon via this tool.

Timetable edit

Giantflightlessbirds giving the introduction to the workshop

10:00: Meet and greet
Setup, and account creation if needed.
10:15–12:00: Intro to Wikipedia
We'll explore how Wikipedia works, how to create and edit articles, and the various editing rules and conventions. Experienced editors will be familiar with this, so will be buddied with newcomers.
Lunch
A light lunch will be provided; vegan and vegetarian options available.
12:30–16:00: Wikipedia editing
Our goal is for beginners to create stub articles on New Zealand women in science, and to improve existing pages. Experienced Wikipedia editors will be available to help and troubleshoot.

What to bring edit

Laptop and power cord. The building has free wifi.
Any snacks and drink you want.
Children are welcome: there will be professional childcare available, so just bring some toys and books to share.
Spare name tag or lanyard if you have one (we'll have extras), with your name and Wikipedia username.
Any resources (books, journals, magazine or newspaper articles) relevant to pages you're interested in. The Royal Society Te Apārangi has a small library with books on New Zealand science and its history we can use.
Any photos that might illustrate articles you're working on; you'll learn how to donate these to Wikimedia Commons so Wikipedia articles can use them.

How to sign up edit

This event is free and open to all!

Lunch and childcare are provided; you'll need to register so we know numbers attending. Register here. (Update: all 40 tickets were sold, though two participants cancelled on the day.)

Preparation edit

If you're coming, try to create a Wikipedia account beforehand: don't wait until the day to do it! Here's a form you can use. Creating an account makes editing much easier (here's more info on why you should). You'll need to pick a "handle" for your username; you could use your real name, but it's nice to have the option to be a bit anonymous if you want. See the list of attendees below for the format.
Read up on Wikipedia: there are lots of tutorials, like the Wikipedia Adventure, and useful guides, like the Editing Wikipedia brochure. The more you prepare, the more you'll be able to get done. You may want to read up on avoiding common mistakes, but Wikipedia has a "don't bite the newbies" policy, and we'll be there to troubleshoot.
Pick a woman from the list below who needs an article created or improved. Do some homework: find references and sources, especially public-domain or open-licensed photographs (see the info in Useful Links). You don't have to be an expert; anyone who can do library research and write clearly can contribute to Wikipedia. The best candidates for Wikipedia articles are people who are "notable". In Wikipedia terms (here's lots more info on what "notability" means), that usually means they're mentioned in print in various reliable independent sources, such as news stories, textbooks, or magazine articles. If you're proposing to add someone to Wikipedia it's very important to make sure they're "notable"; talk to us if you're not sure.

Some "notable" women who need articles edit

Marjorie Mestayer, a notable New Zealand concologist. See this as a starting point for research. Note: Emilyc15 has created a page for her.
Margot Forde, a notable New Zealand botanist. See this Spanish Wikipedia entry as a starting point and this obituary. The Margot Forde germplasm centre is named in her honour. Albatross Landing is interested in creating the stub for this person. User:Susan Tol is interested in making stub too, User:flannejess is interested too
Wendy Nelson MNZM, expert on NZ marine algae. Book, CARIM profile, Te Papa blog profile, research award, Uni Auckland profile and publications, NIWA page. --StevieDiva (talk) 01:54, 6 August 2017 (UTC) Has helped edit this page.[reply]
Helen Kirkland Dalrymple, notable New Zealand botanist. see - @Ambrosia10 is planning on drafting an article to be published during the Edit-a-thon
Jacqui Horswell, environmental microbiologist. As a starting point for research see this Guardian article, this Fairfax article and this article. - Tuaono marama has created a stub for her. User:Realitylink will start an update and development of the article from 17.05.2021.
Dianne McCarthy, previous chief executive of the Royal Society of New Zealand and a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. See this article and this as a starting point. petergnz working on editing this page.
Lesley Rhodes, Marine Research Scientist, recently in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2017 awarded the Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. See this, this, and this as starting points. User:Susan Tol is working on this
Sue Middleton, Emeritus Professor at Waikato in education research. [1] The_Rolling_Pomegranate is interested in creating the stub for this individual.
Peggy G. Koopman-Boyden (Dame), Emeritus Professor at Waikato. [2]TomCa (talk) 03:55, 6 August 2017 (UTC)TomCa is currently working on creating a stub.[reply]
Helen Moewaka Barnes, Prof at Massey. [3]
Josephine Gordon Rich, notable zoologist. Student of Professor Thomas Jeffery Parker (1850-1897) in Dunedin. One of only four New Zealand women to publish the results of her scientific work before 1901. [4]. Melwel is interested in making a stub for Josephine.
Margaret Hyland, Chief scientist at MBIE, Prof of Engineering at University of Auckland. [5] Tuaono marama is drafting an article for her. User:Realitylink has updated this article.
Sheila Natusch historian, natural science writer and illustrator, Born 1926 in Invercargill [6] --StevieDiva (talk) 02:01, 6 August 2017 (UTC) is interested in creating a page for Sheila[reply]
Helen Anderson geophysicist [7]
Sue Pullon health science researcher, academic and teacher. Author of the NZ Pregnancy Book [[ http://bwb.co.nz/authors/sue-pullon]]
Wendy Larner social scientist, work on globalisation, governance and gender.
Jennifer Hay linguistics professor and director of NZILBB at Canterbury. [8] Psychokiwi (talk) 02:49, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Stuartyeates has created a Google list of New Zealand women professors. All of these women meet the minimum requirements for inclusion in Wikipedia, but whether it will be easy to find good, relevant sources will vary from person to person. If you find a blank page a bit intimidating, there is a template at User:Stuartyeates/sandbox/academicbio of things that should go in an academic's biography: it's a helpful starting point.

Other editing tasks edit

There are many "stub" articles on notable women scientists that are in need of improvement. See the category New Zealand women scientists. Examples include:

Eliza Amy Hodgson
Constance Helen Frost
Amy Castle -- Writescience and StellaMcQ working on this
Christine Coe Winterbourn see this article
Pérrine Moncrieff (I have her obit from the Emu if you want to collaborate Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:49, 5 August 2017 (UTC))[reply]
Elaine Rush
Miraka Szászy
Vida Stout - drsjnz - done
Janet Holmes (linguist)
Fiona Cross
Pamela Young - Pippipip working on this page

The Royal Society has also created this resource, 150 Women in 150 Words which can be used as a reference.

Appropriately licensed images of women scientists need to be discovered and added to their Wikipedia articles. It is worth checking Auckland War Memorial Museum's Collections Online for images as these are appropriately licensed for uploading into Wikicommons and then for reuse in Wikipedia. Help will be given to those who want to learn how to load images into Wikicommons and then add them to articles.

Any images taken of the actual workshop can be added to Wikicommons under the following category: Category:Women in Science, Wellington.

Useful links edit

This workshop will be following "friendly space" guidelines; check them out. Harassment and disruption won't be tolerated, online or offline.
How to edit pages using the Visual Editor: for when you click Edit
Information about Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons, and crowdsourced photos, harrychapman.nz
Guidelines for notability of New Zealand people: who's "notable", and what does that mean exactly?
Why this workshop? Wikipedia knows it has a gender imbalance problem (see its own discussion of the Gender bias on Wikipedia and its attempts to counter systemic bias, including WikiWomenCamp). A 2015 New Statesman article by Jenny Kleeman is an excellent read, examining the bias, where it comes from, and how to get more women editing Wikipedia.
Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources a tool to help you with sources.

Media edit

Journalists: use the URL http://bit.ly/WikiSciWomen in print; it'll take people to this page. (Note: bit.ly URLs are case sensitive.)
Shareable web graphic version of the banner image
There's a public Facebook event you can share

Attended edit

Please add your Wikipedia username once you've registered and created an account.

Attended remotely edit

Participants from outside Wellington are welcome to register and add themselves and their time zone here. We can Skype you in to chat with other participants and talk about what you're doing. We can't promise you lunch though!

Emjackson42 (EDT)
StellaMcQ

Outcomes edit

Three editors hard at work on new articles

There were 35 people at the workshop, including two organisers and four experienced editors who helped newcomers. The majority of those attending were complete beginners, never having edited Wikipedia before. Workshop participants made 1144 edits, created 114 Wiki pages including 22 new biographies of women in science, and substantially improved 15 other articles. When surveyed, almost all participants said they would be more or much more likely to keep editing, and 25 out of 28 said they now have a more positive feeling towards Wikipedia. All 28 surveyed said they would definitely come to another workshop, and 21 said they would also be interested in being part of regular informal editing meetups.

“

I knew nothing about Wikipedia before so found this workshop fascinating – both for learning technical skills but also the "history" of Wikipedia, how much voluntary work goes into it, how to address bias. A great day, and very motivating, thank you.

”

New articles edit

Articles improved edit

Susanne Boll
Ruth Mason
Hugh MacDonald (filmmaker) (red linked Sheila Natusch for potenial article)
Eliza Amy Hodgson
Martha King
Constance Helen Frost
Miraka Szászy
Astrid an Huef
Vida Stout
Amy Castle
Greta Stevenson
Wolffia (adding reference to Ruth Mason)
Hinke Osinga
Pérrine Moncrieff
List of New Zealand scientists

Follow-up edit

A "Wikibrunch" for participants was organised by Giantflightlessbirds on Sunday 5 November at Loretta's Cafe, Wellington. Ambrosia10, Pippipip, Susan Tol, Rosalindaymes, and Emilyc15 attended, and we discussed amongst other things creating a page on anti-nuclear protests in the Pacific and the possibility of an Edit-a-thon at Otari-Wilton's Bush.

Acknowledgements edit

We're very grateful for the support of Nancy de Bueger at the Royal Society Te Apārangi for hosting this event, and Rebecca Priestley at Victoria University of Wellington for funding lunch and childcare. The organisers and participants are all volunteers who believe that there are far worse things to spend our precious free time on than improving a free information resource used daily by millions. The woman pictured on our banner is theoretical astrophysicist Beatrice Tinsley, one of New Zealand's leading scientists and the inspiration for this workshop.