On International Women’s Day, our team members Elona Shatri and Richard Clegg organised a Wikipedia editing event to create or enhance articles about inspiring women, particularly those in the STEM fields. Although Wikipedia is a widely used source of information, it has been criticized for its significant gender bias, with fewer articles about women and a greater tendency to delete those that do exist as “non-notable.” This gender gap in content and editors was highlighted when Dr. Donna Strickland’s Wikipedia article was deleted for being “non-notable” just before she won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
The editing evening was held on March 8th, with a team of seven individuals working together to improve existing articles and create new ones. In keeping with the theme of the event, the team listened to a carefully curated playlist of music composed by women, which was available on Spotify. Through this event, we aimed to make a contribution to the representation of women on Wikipedia and promote greater gender balance in its content.
