Yorkshire’s women scientists and innovators Wikipedia Editathon
The editathon was aimed at championing women’s voices by improving the representation of ‘Yorkshire’s Women Scientists and Innovators’ on Wikipedia.
The editathon ("edit" + "marathon"), which was held on Tuesday 4 February, was supported by the University’s Athena SWAN initiative and Wikimedia (UK). It focused on Yorkshire’s women (including trans and non-binary individuals) scientists, academics, clinicians, physicians and innovators through a crowd-sourced list of names of women scientists who could be potentially added, edited or improved on Wikipedia.
The event brought together 15 established and aspiring Wikipedians from across the University, although this was a first-time introduction for many of those present. Both academic and professional staff were well represented. Over 2000 new words and 30 new references were added during the Wikithon, as evident from the event's dashboard page.
Of the many pages added and improved, some are those of the microbiologist Hilary Lappin Scott, the archaeologist Penny Bickle and the University of York’s physicist Sarah Thompson, as well as the woman doctor Edith Pechey (1845 to 1908) of the famed Edinburgh Seven.
Organiser of the event, Dr Namrata Ganneri from the Department of History and the Centre for Global Health Histories, said: “There are 1.6 million biographies on Wikipedia, but less that 18 per cent are about women and only 3.35 per cent are about women in science and related fields. Our event is about championing women’s voices and celebrating some of the under-recognised, or even forgotten, talent from the Yorkshire region.”
Another highlight of the event was the exhibit put together by the Borthwick Institute for Archives on their archival collections about pioneering women and institutions from Yorkshire from their own collections.