Wikipedia

Wikipedia:University of Edinburgh/Events and Workshops/Witches in Word, not Deed

< Wikipedia:University of Edinburgh‎ | Events and Workshops
Long Boi, a celebrity duck in York has a page on Wikipedia but 1,000s upon 1,000s of notable women still do not. We can change that. #WeCanEdit!

Image gallery edit

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    The horseshoe at the west end cross at Maxwelton keeping Paisley in good luck.
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    Peebles Witch Trial memorial in Tweed Green, Peebles.
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    Peebles Witch Trial memorial in Tweed Green, Peebles.
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    Peebles Witch Trial memorial in Tweed Green, Peebles.
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    Peebles Witch Trial memorial in Tweed Green, Peebles.
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    Prestonpans memorial to accused witches
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    Elgin order pot
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    Witch stone in Bo'ness
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    Culross witch memorial plaque
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    Culross Town House or Tollbooth
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    Prestonpans memorial to accused witches

Info about the event edit

Did you know that most volunteer Wikipedia editors are male, and that there are fewer and less extensive articles on Wikipedia about women and issues important to women? There are thousands of notable women who meet Wikipedia’s standards for notability but don’t yet have a page.

Come and help us add more accused witches of Scotland to Wikipedia at our Witches in Word, not Deed editathon!

Your 1,2,3,4 to get started! edit

  1. Link to online webinar
  2. Create your Wikipedia account
  3. Once you have created your account join the Wiki dashboard
  4. Have a look at the suggested obits on notable women and our monthly Women in Red worklist of pages to create/improve below and decide who you want to work on. More redlinks can be found on WikiProject Women in Red's crowdsourced and Wikidata-driven Redlist index. Once you have decided who to work on Add your chosen page here.

Schedule edit

Online training webinar on Friday 24 November 2023 will begin at 1:15pm (BST). Please login at 1pm.
Link to online webinar

  • 1:00 pm – 1:15 pm: Everyone log-in and housekeeping
  • 1:15pm – 2:15pm: Welcome and Wikipedia training from Ewan McAndrew.
  • 2:15pm – 2.30pm: Tea and comfort break.
  • 2:30pm – 4:30pm Research and Editing with aim to publish by 5pm
  • 4:30pm – 4:50pm: Publish articles with help from Ewan McAndrew
  • 4:50pm – 5:00pm Event recap and close

Join us as we help make Wikipedia better!

Editing edit

Questions about editing? Read the Wiki-editing FAQ!

Use the PrepBio tool edit

Worklist edit

Cite what you write! 50–100 words or more written with a neutral point of view AND backed up with citations from reliable published secondary sources is enough to get a new article published. e.g. Example of minimum requirements

Witches in Word, not Deed edit

The women in the exhibition are:

Witch tour of Edinburgh pages edit

  • Witch memorials in Scotland - can this be be created pulling all the memorials around Scotland onto one page?
  • Sneak peek at our witchy tour of Edinburgh
  • William Colvill – investigator in 1643 witchcraft cases in Edinburgh. This is not mentioned on his page. His grave is in Greyfriars but where?
  • Agnes Finnie – the witch of 'Potterow Port' – there is a new book about her witchcraft trial.[2]
  • Euphame MacCalzean – her lands on the High Street of Edinburgh were taken off her and given to the King's stabler. Can we find out where this property was?
  • Thomas Weir and Jean Weir – the 'Bowhead Saint' lived on West Bow in Edinburgh but there seems some confusion about whether this was part of West Bow or actually in the inner court of Riddles Court. Can this be explored?
  • George Mackenzie – the role of 'Bloody' George Mackenzie in witchcraft cases is not mentioned on his Wikipedia page.
  • Janet Boyman – can page be improved/expanded?
  • John Nisbet, Lord Dirleton – his role in witchcraft trials is not covered.
  • Canongate Tolbooth – place of detainment for witchcraft trials but not mentioned on the page. The investigation into Janet Douglas could be covered.

Some men could also be added/expanded. A few suggestions:

Task for 24 November workshop – writing AND publishing your 1st Wikipedia page edit

Ideas for articles to create edit

  1. Margaret Laidlaw – m. Hogg, born Ettrick 1730, died Ettrick 1813. Tradition-bearer.
  2. Robena Anna Laidlaw (later Anna Robena), m. Thomson, born Bretton, Yorkshire, 30 April 1819, died London 29 May 1901. Pianist.
  3. Mary Lamond – born Edinburgh 22 Feb. 1862, died 15 March 1949. Deaconess and president, Church of Scotland Woman’s Guild.
  4. Murdina May Lamont Stewart (Ena), n. Lamont, born Glasgow 10 Feb. 1912, died Dalmellington 9 Feb. 2006. Playwright.
  5. Margaret Troup Laws - n. Gray, born Aberdeen, 4 Feb. 1849, died Edinburgh 17 Sept. 1921. Teacher, translator, missionary.
  6. Margaret Mary Leigh, born Oxford 17 Dec. 1894, died Inverness 7 April 1973. Author and farmer.
  7. Rev. Dr Mary Irene Levison , n. Lusk, born Oxford, 8 Jan. 1923, died Edinburgh, 12 Sept. 2011. Church of Scotland minister.
  8. Jennifer McCrindle aka Jenny McCrindle, born Glasgow 19 Sept. 1968, died Glasgow 26 Oct. 2014. Actor. Daughter of Libby Robertson, office worker, and George McCrindle, insurance agent.
  9. Ann Smith MacDonald aka Annie Smith MacDonald n. Johnston, born Barony, Lanark, 20 Nov. 1849, died Edinburgh 21 Oct. 1924. Artistic bookbinder. Daughter of Lucy Leitch, and Fred Johnston, bank cashier.
  10. Louisa MacDonald (scholar) born Arbroath 10 Dec. 1858, died Marylebone, London, 28 Nov. 1949. Scholar, pioneering college principal, Australia. Daughter of Ann Kidd, and John Macdonald, WS and town clerk.
  11. Margaret MacDonald (estate manager), of Sleat, n. Montgomerie, born Eglinton c. 1716, died 30 March 1799. Estate manager. Daughter of Susanna Kennedy of Culzean, and Alexander, 9th Earl of Eglinton.
  12. Mary MacDonald (poet) n. MacDougall, born Ardtun, Isle of Mull, 1789, died Ardtun 21 May 1872. Gaelic poet and hymn writer. . Daughter of Anne Morrison, and Duncan MacDougall, farmer.
  13. Lily McDougall aka Lily Martha Maud McDougall, born Glasgow 25 July 1875, died Edinburgh 21 Dec. 1958. Artist and hostess. Daughter of Matilda Milne, and William Henrie McDougall, banker.
  14. Agnes McDouall, n. Buchan-Hepburn, born East Linton 27 Sept. 1838, died Logan 15 March 1926. Gardener and plant collector. Daughter of Helen Little, and Sir Thomas Buchan-Hepburn.
  15. Hope MacDougall, MACDOUGALL of MacDougall, Margaret Hope Garnons, born Athlone, Ireland 21 Jan. 1913, died Oban 22 Dec. 1998. Historian and collector. Daughter of Colina MacDougall, and Alexander James MacDougall, Chief of the Clan MacDougall.
  16. Helen MacFarlane, [Howard Morton], m1 Proust, m2 Edwards, born Barrhead 25 Dec. 1818, died Baddiley, near Nantwich, 29 Mar. 1860. Radical journalist, first translator of The Communist Manifesto. Daughter of Helen Stenhouse, and George Macfarlane, owner of calico-printing mills.
  17. Jessie MacFarlane, m. Brodie, born Edinburgh 20 Jan. 1843, died Edinburgh 18 August 1871. Itinerant preacher. Daughter of Mary Maxwell Turner, and Archibald McFarlane, clothier.
  18. Margaret McGhie, fl. 1760–1770s, Aberdeen. Innkeeper.
  19. Betty MacGregor aka Elizabeth MacGregor Janet Elizabeth (Betty), MD, FRCPath, OBE, n. McPherson, born Glasgow 12 Jan. 1920, died Lynn of Lorne 8 Oct. 2005. Doctor and cytol�ogist. Daughter of Jean (Jennie) Craig, and Andrew McPherson, company secretary.
  20. Margaret MacGregor Margaret Ann Kinniburgh, n. Burns, baptised Edinburgh 11 Nov. 1838, died Glasgow 20 Jan. 1901. Bible Woman and Lady Mission Superintendent. Daughter of Jeanie Marshall, and James Burns, clerk.
  21. Frances McIan Frances Matilda (Fanny), n. Whitaker, m1 McIan, m2 Unwin, born Bath c. 1814, died London 7 April 1897. Artist, painter of Highland scenes. Daughter of Sarah Hawkins, upholsterer, and William Whitaker, cabinetmaker.

Group research sessions on Fridays edit

I run monthly Wikipedia editing sessions in Room 1.07 and the CRC in the Main Library that you are welcome to join for any part of the afternoon. Book via MyEd

  • Fri 24 November 1–5pm in 1.07 Main Library.
  • Friday 15 December 1–5pm in CRC 6th floor Main Library.

More useful links edit

Here are some useful links to help you with your editing:

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    A speedy guide on where to find the different buttons on Wikipedia, and explaining what they do – useful for complete beginners!
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    Very straightforward step-by-step instructions on how to add a piece of information to an existing Wikipedia page – useful for complete beginners!
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    A guide to elements to include in a wiki-biography, with a checklist to ensure you include as many as you can when editing.
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    A guide to adding infoboxes (those handy things on the right side of a page with a summary of key info).
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    A complete beginner's introduction to adding information onto Wikidata. If in doubt, take a look at someone else's Wikidata entry for inspiration!
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    Steps to adding a photograph to Wikimedia Commons so you can use it in a Wikipedia article – the picture has to be your own for you to add it.
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    Guide to creating your Wikipedia userpage to introduce yourself to other editors.
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    Using talk pages
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    Citing your sources
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    Avoiding plagiarism
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    Classroom handout – moving out of your sandbox
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    Polishing your articles
  • You can add pictures for use on Wiki-pages and beyond on Wikimedia Commons. Your Wikipedia account will work on Commons too – as well as all the other Wiki-projects and different language versions of Wikipedia.

Here are some ways to keep track of your edits:

  • You can view all your contributions to Wikipedia by clicking "Contributions" (in the top right of this page).
  • The Pageviews tool is a great way of measuring how many people are looking at the page you created/edited. You can even export the data if you'd like it for reports, etc.


Join WikiProject Women in Red

Join WikiProject Women in Red by registering in the box at the top of the WIR page. You can then add a userbox to your user page.

Things to remember – anyone can edit BUT cite what you write! edit

  1. Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Articles are backed up by facts from reliable, published secondary sources. Primary sources tend not to be used. A breadth & depth of quality sources helps demonstrates notability which is an important yardstick for articles staying on Wikipedia.
  2. Write with encyclopedic content in mind. Not academic essay. Strip back your writing to the facts.
  3. Write accessibly with a lay audience in mind. Any jargon needs explained the first time it is mentioned.
  4. Write with a neutral point of view. Split text up into sections with headings.
  5. Cite everything you write. Keep a note of urls (open access if possible), Journal articles DOI identifiers, Book ISBN numbers. Page numbers, volume numbers and book chapters should be included in your citation information too.
  6. Draft content in your sandbox draft space first. Wikipedia is a work in progress for sure but you can prepare articles or new sections for articles in peace in your personal draft space (the sandbox) and migrate it when ready.
  7. Write in your own words as much as possible. Even close paraphrasing counts as copyright violation. Short quotes can be included but need to be attributed.
  8. Links in the main body of the article should only be to other Wikipedia pages. You only need to add links when the term is first mentioned in the article. Linking every time is considered overlinking. Sites outside of Wikipedia should be linked in a separate section at the foot of the page with an External links heading. No more than 5–8 links to websites outside of Wikipedia – we are not a link farm!
  9. Images have to open-licensed to be allowed on Wikipedia. CC-0, Public domain, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA licensed images are allowed and are hosted on sister project, Wikimedia Commons. Open images can be searched for using search aggregator tools such as CC Search.
  10. Want to learn more? Go to our website, join/email Wikimedia UK or just mail me at ewan.mcandrew@ed.ac.uk with any questions or ideas for collaborations.


Some short video tutorials

  1. Exploring the main page of Wikipedia (4 mins)
  2. How to create an account on Wikipedia (1 min 30 secs)
  3. How to switch on the (easier to use) Visual Editor interface (1 min 20secs)
  4. How to create a user page and play around with formatting (4 mins)
  5. How to create an article on Wikipedia (7 mins)
  6. How to move your drafted article to the main article space on Wikipedia (2 mins)
  7. How to add bold, headings, links, italics to a Wikipedia page (3 mins)
  8. How to add citations and references to a Wikipedia page (3 mins)
  9. How to upload an image to Wikimedia Commons (Wikipedia’s sister project) - 4 mins
  10. How to insert an image from Wikimedia Commons onto a Wikipedia page (3 mins)
  11. How to edit existing pages on Wikipedia (4 mins)
  12. Some printable resources are here.

These are all embedded in our student-created Wikimedian in Residence website here to make the how & why of editing Wikipedia much easier to engage with. Undergraduate student Hannah Rothmann’s work creating this website and the video resources above in lockdown Summer 2020 won an Open Education Global award recently. Because we felt that students, educators and everyone should be able to do this much more simply and have this ‘need to know’ information readily and openly available so I hope this is of use to you.

Images and videos

Video of a seal at Newburgh beach, Aberdeenshire (my home town)
 
Newburgh beach

Wikipedia pages can feel a tad lifeless without an image or short video to help illustrate it. We can change that. We can edit!
Just have a look at the images and videos we have added to the University of Edinburgh library page by way of illustration!

  • You can add pictures for use on Wiki-pages and beyond on Wikimedia Commons. Your Wikipedia account will work on Commons too – as well as all the other Wiki-projects and different language versions of Wikipedia.
  • Openverse.org - You can use image search tools like Openverse.org to find open-licensed images elsewhere on the internet. Just restrict your search for acceptable open-licensed images by filtering to only (1) Public domain, (2) CC-0, (3) CC-BY, or (4) CC-BY-SA images.
  • Wikimedia Commons – Once you have found an image with one of these licences then you can upload this image to Wikimedia Commons (a media repository of over 90 million free to use images, sound clips and movie clips) and it can then be inserted into a Wikipedia page.
  • Commons:Flickr2Commons is a handy tool to help import both an image and its description information across from Flickr automatically using the unique Flickr image ID or Flickr album ID to import an entire album of images. You just need to login to the tool on Mediawiki using your same Commons login details.
  • Commons:Video2commons is another handy tool to help convert video files to acceptable open formats (.ogg and .webm) for Wikimedia Commons and auto import the file to Commons once conversion is complete. You just need to login to the tool on Mediawiki using your same Commons login details.

Why not help document cultural heritage as part of the world's largest photo competition, Wiki Loves Monuments, where thousands of photos of listed buildings and monuments worldwide (interiors and exteriors) are uploaded for the benefit of the global open knowledge community every year




After today

Once you've learned the basics of editing using Wikipedia’s Visual Editor, I hope that you'll stay logged in and edit or create more articles. As a first step you may like to check out what What Wikipedia is not along with its 5 guiding principles: The 5 pillars. Some ways to keep track of your edits

  • You can view all your contributions to Wikipedia by clicking "Contributions" (in the top right of this page).
  • The Pageviews tool is a great way of measuring how many people are looking at the page you created/edited. You can even export the data if you'd like it for reports, etc.
  • Please sign your messages on talk pages with four tildes (~~~~). This will automatically insert your "signature" (your username and a date stamp). The   or   button, on the tool bar above Wikipedia's text editing window, also does this.
  • If you would like to play around with your new Wiki skills without changing the mainspace, the Sandbox is for you.
  • Check out upcoming Wikimedia in Scotland editing events.
  • Check out upcoming Wikimedia UK editing events.

Video guides to editing Wikipedia edit

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