A live ‘Wikithon’ hosted by Science Gallery Dublin is hoping to shine a light on the minority voices excluded from Wikipedia and other online sources.
Shubhangi Karmakar is a disability ambassador for Trinity College Dublin’s disability service and the first disabled QTIPOC (queer, transgender and intersex people of colour) youth advisor at Science Gallery Dublin. This week, she’s inviting people to join her in a ‘Wikithon’ exploring the systematic erasure of those in the LGBTQ community and people of colour from Wikipedia.
The online event will take place at 4pm on Thursday 11 June and is free to attend. It is part of Science Gallery Dublin’s ongoing digital exhibition, Invisible. A sub-theme of the exhibition is looking at the invisibility of people who work in science and how minority voices have been excluded or underrepresented in STEM.
Is there a missing story or person we should add to Wikipedia? We're compiling a list to add at Thursday's Wikithon event, exploring how we can elevate erased voices through open-access media.
You can register here: https://t.co/UkCRdyrhLp pic.twitter.com/HC8PMebEDz
— ScienceGalleryDublin (@SciGalleryDub) June 8, 2020
The event will see Karmakar build on her daily livestreams during Covid-19, #OnceUponAPandemic, which focus on the experiences of vulnerable people in isolation. It will look at people who are not currently represented in accessible online sources, and the need for elevating erased voices through open-access media.
Dr Alice White, digital editor of the Wellcome Collection, and Rebecca O’Neill, a project coordinator at Wikimedia Ireland, are lined up to share their knowledge at the Wikithon.
White and O’Neill will speak about building bodies of citations for black, indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC), both on and off Wikipedia.
The event will begin with Wikipedia-101, discussing the history, motivations and importance of shaping this collective resource. Attendees will also take part in a live edit and step-by-step guide with experts.
Karmakar hopes that this interactive session will “provide the framework for attendees to give representation to those they admire on Wikipedia”.
Karmakar and her team are also crowdsourcing suggestions for “notable yet overlooked BIPOC in STEM and media” that will be taken onboard by Slight Motif, an Irish black collective.
Those planning to attend can register for a free Wikipedia account ahead of the event. To learn more about the Wikithon, visit its webpage here.
