Wikipedia talk:Meetup/Toronto/ArtAndFeminism 2015

Hello World!

This talk page can be used to discuss questions regarding the meetup without making changes to the meetup page.

Future events

The next meetup is scheduled for May 13, 2015 at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For more information and to RSVP go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Toronto/ArtAndFeminism_May_13,_2015

Ways to help

Images

Reminder: please encourage women artists - especially those who had new pages created during the Art +Feminism meetup to upload images of their work to Wiki Commons.

Other

• Hotgardener (talk) 16:32, 8 March 2015 (UTC) alphabetizing the list of names of existing artists that need more fleshed out information.

• Keep working on pages that were created during the event and are listed on the meetup page, many of these are still stubs or incorrectly referenced.

Introduction

This page will also form the locus of conversation to be used in an upcoming CMagazine article about the Art+Feminism Meetups in Toronto. Please sign in with your username, your edits will be recorded in the history (see tab above).

You are encouraged to comment on who you are, what you have contributed, why you want to contribute in the upcoming event, and how you will contribute in the Contributors section. You are also encouraged to add to sections on events you have attended in the past and your feelings on the issues brought up by the meetup.

Have fun!

CMagazine article, Spring 2015

This article was conceived on the Talk Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Meetup/Toronto/ArtAndFeminism_2015 for the 2015 Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon Meetup Project Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Toronto/ArtAndFeminism_2015 at the Art Gallery of Ontario as an experimental platform for communal composition. There is also the potential that this page will become a sort of community hub for people interested in art, feminism, archives, and Wikipedia in Toronto.

Art and Feminism logo

What are Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thons?

Photo of a group of participants at Art Metropole's Art + Feminism 2014 Edit-a-thon.

Wikipedia's gender trouble is well documented. In a 2010 survey, Wikimedia found that less than 13% of its contributors were female. The reasons for the gender gap are up for debate: suggestions include leisure inequality, how gender socialization shapes public comportment, and the contentious nature of Wikipedia's talk pages. The practical effect of this disparity, however, is not. Content is skewed by the lack of female participation. Many articles on notable women in history and art are absent on Wikipedia. This represents an alarming aporia in an increasingly important repository of shared knowledge.

The edit-a-thons are a direct attempt to bridge this gender gap and to improve coverage of women and the arts on Wikipedia. They can take many forms, but all involve the physical presence of people editing pages and sharing skills together. Edit-a-thons can be events officially sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation, such as the March 8, 2015, edit-a-thon to be held at the Art Gallery of Ontario's library and archives, or gatherings by independent groups or institutions, such as the edit-a-thons organized at OCAD University's Dorothy H. Hoover Library in 2014.

At all edit-a-thons there are a range of skill levels, from novice to expert, and participants represent an inclusive and wide section of people from all age groups and genders.

2015 Art + Feminism Edit-a-thon at the Art Gallery of Ontario

• Date: Sunday, March 8, 2015, 1:00-4:00pm (tutorial from noon-1pm)
• Venue: Art Gallery of Ontario Library & Archives, 317 Dundas Street West
• Cost: Free
• Participants: No Wikipedia editing experience necessary; as needed throughout the event, tutoring will be provided for Wikipedia newcomers. Female editors are particularly encouraged to attend. RSVP by signing your username to the Project Page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Toronto/ArtAndFeminism_2015]

• If you are unfamiliar with Wikipedia, you might try this training module: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Training/For_students which will help explain a lot of things, including how to add your signature.
• What to Bring: Attendees should bring their own laptops and power cords.
• Social Media Hashtag: #ArtAndFeminism

2014 Art Metropole Edit-a-thon

Art Metropole hosted the initial Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on February 1, 2014. This event corresponded with a campaign spearheaded by a group of arts workers, artists, educators, and librarians in New York who had become concerned with the lack of content about women on Wikipedia. Globally, the event included approximately 600 participants, and convened in 31 locations in 6 countries to edit Wikipedia articles on women and the arts. At least 101 new articles were created, and at least 90 articles improved. The message went viral with over 40 press stories. An important part of the event's strategy was the use of social media, with satellite events connected through a Google Hangout and the hashtag #ArtAndFeminism used to share photos and success stories.

The Toronto event was organized by artists Amy Lam, Ella Dawn McGeough and Lili Huston-Herterich. It was well attended with between 20 and 25 intergenerational participants. Primarily, the Edit-a-thon focused on an in-depth tutorial led by a local Wikipedia Ambassador, who provided access to the community and its many policies. For many, the sheer amount of information provided was daunting and it was decided that for future events the aim would be to team up those new to Wikipedia with more experienced editors. Given that many of the attendees were new to editing Wikipedia most edits made during the event were minor due to time and space constraints. However, pages for artists such as Vera Frenkel, Rita McKeough, and Allyson Mitchell were created. Subsequent spinoff events have occurred at OCAD U and attendees' homes throughout the year.

Of the many questions raised, the issue of 'what constitutes notability for artists' was thoroughly discussed and debated. For instance, for performance artists it is often difficult to prove notability despite an artist's importance within a community since their work would likely not have been collected by a major institution and may lack press due to the ephemeral nature of their practice.

OCAD U Library Meetups

After the first edit-a-thon at Art Metropole, many of the organizers and participants were eager to continue working together regularly on Wikipedia articles but needed a space to meet. Amy Lam, who had co-organized the first event, approached Sarah Butterill, a librarian working at OCAD University's Dorothy H. Hoover Library, about using the library space (and its books, databases, and wifi) for future events. Permission went through the library board who were very supportive of the initiative because of the close relationship between the goals of librarianship and those of the Art + Feminism project, such as equitable access to information, critical analysis of information sources, and independent/participatory learning. It was also seen as an undertaking that would be valuable to OCAD U students who could hone their critical writing, research, and tech skills in a way that was interactive and, potentially, immediately rewarding.

These events continued on a monthly basis throughout 2014. Participants have been enthusiastic about improving the content available and Wikipedia editing skills have been taught to a large number of people. Many participants have expressed interest in, or gone on to organize their own edit-a-thon events, including Amy Furness (Artchivist1) who is instrumental in organizing the 2015 event at the AGO on March 8th.

Some of the artists whose Wikipedia articles have been added or expanded at the OCAD U Edit-a-thons include: Mary Anne Barkhouse, Lois Betteridge, Mary Pratt, A.L. Steiner, Lisa Steele, and Life of a Craphead. Names were also added to Art + Feminism's list of artists who still need articles, part of their global effort to expand the record of notable women artists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/ArtAndFeminism/Tasks.

Issues

Permission One area that has not been addressed significantly is the issue of creating pages for living artists without their permission. Personally, I think this would be important to consider for future meet-ups. In addition, it could aid the editors in accessing images to upload to Wikimedia-commons. ella dawn (talk) 20:33, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Very true; once an article is created, it is often remarkably difficult to remove, particularly if the artist's work has been collected by major public institutions or has been included in noteworthy exhibitions. Many people have very good reason to *not* want a Wikipedia article about themselves. The biography of living persons policy may be helpful in removing an unwanted article about a living person whose notability is borderline, although reading the discussion of how "unnotable" one is may be awfully painful. Risker (talk) 22:48, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Notability

Conflict of interest

Talk Pages

Further Reading

"WikiProject Women artists". www.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 17 January 2015.

Cembalest, Robin. "101 Women Artists Who Got Wikipedia Pages This Week". www.artnews.com. Retrieved 17 January 2015.

Evans, Sian; Mabey, Jacqueline. "The Politics of Distributed Learning: Outcomes of the Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon 2014". http://notesonnetworkedlibrarianship.tumblr.com/. Retrieved 17 January 2015. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)

Filipacchi, Amanda. "Wikipedia's Sexism Toward Female Novelists". www.nytimes.com. Retrieved 19 January 2015.

Goroshka, Olga. "Sarah Butterill, Mary Katherine Mcintyre, and Zeesy Powers on: critical pedagogy, research, and knowledge production". http://blog.ocad.ca/wordpress/site-specific. Retrieved 17 January 2015. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)

Healy, Claire. "Fighting the Wikipedia boys' club". www.dazeddigital.com. Dazed. Retrieved 31 January 2015.

"History". http://art.plusfeminism.org. Retrieved 17 January 2015. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)

Simonite, Tom. "The Decline of Wikipedia". www.technologyreview.com. Retrieved 17 January 2015.

Wagley, Catherine (6 February 2014). "Wikipedia Becomes a Battleground for Art Activism" (PDF). LA Weekly. Retrieved 17 January 2015.

"We Asked 20 Women "Is the Art World Biased?" Here's What They Said". news.artnet.com. Retrieved 17 January 2015.

Contributors

This article was co-developed by OCAD U librarian and artist Sarah Butterill, AGO archivist Amy Furness, artist Ella Dawn McGeough, and artist Zeesy Powers. We would like to acknowledge the support and content contributions of New York based Art + Feminism organizers Siân Evans, Dorothy Howard, Jacqueline Mabey/failed projects, and Michael Mandiberg. Feel free to join the conversation and add your bio to the talk page.

Ella

Artist from Vancouver living in Toronto. While a long time Wiki user I was introduced to the edit-a-thon and the need for this particular community intervention through good friends organizing the project in NYC in the winter of 2013. The 2014 edit-a-thon came together in a rush and I look forward to addressing some of the issues of this event while building on on the momentum that it created. ella dawn (talk) 22:07, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Sarah

I'm an artist and librarian in Toronto. Last year I organized a series of monthly Art + Feminism Edit-a-Thons at the OCAD U library, as follow-ups to the main one that happened in February 2014 at Art Metropole. I'm excited to see this event moving to the AGO library, where it will hopefully reach a wider range of participants, and grant them access to even more resources through the AGO library and archives' vast collection. Smoesjes (talk) 18:37, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Zeesy

I'm an artist in Toronto who uses wikipedia pretty much every day. I've attended a few of the OCAD meetups in the past year, and am particularly interested in helping people who are intimidated by wikipedia's interface to contribute to quality articles on topics and figures who are under-recognized on wikipedia. I have contributed to pages for Mary Pratt, Laura Kikauka, Life of a Craphead and Mary Anne Barkhouse. For the March 8 meetup at the AGO, I am looking forward to learning about art and artists I have not been exposed to before, and to helping people to start new pages and improve existing ones. I believe that as a collective repository of knowledge, Wikipedia benefits from contributions at all scales, from a diversity of voices in order to record knowledge that may otherwise be lost. Seazzy (talk) 23:27, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Angela

Ashack5000 (talk) 00:18, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Amy

Archivist specializing in the visual arts, living in Toronto. I use Wikipedia all the time and have been struck by the gulf between it and most traditional library and archives collections. And we are struggling to address the gender imbalance in the analog world too! I learned about last year's edit-a-thon too late to join in, and this year I'm helping to make the event happen at the AGO. The research collections here are great, and they need to be activated. Artchivist1 (talk) 19:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Sandra

I am an Toronto artist and professor at the University of Guelph with a keen interest in righting the balance. Sandra Rechico (talk) | (contribs) 13:32, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Date clarification

UPDATE: notification has been changed to reflect correct date. ella dawn (talk) 20:26, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Dear editathon organizers: The notification about this meetup, which appeared at the top of my watchlist, says that it's happening on March 7, but this page says March 8. Which day is it really?—Anne Delong (talk) 15:17, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Dear Anne, The date will be March 8th, 2015. Apologies for the confusion. Other events are happening on the 7th. I will discuss this issue with those in charge of the notifications. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Please visit: Wikipedia:Meetup/Toronto/ArtAndFeminism_2015 ella dawn (talk) 20:04, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's too bad; I would have like to attend, and could have if it had been on the 7th, but I have a previous commitment on the 8th. I've never been to an editathon.—Anne Delong (talk) 02:00, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Anne, last year there were a few follow-up events, watch this space for updates on future edit-a-thons in the GTA. Or, alternatively, you could participate online through a the Google hangout on March 7th/8th. ella dawn (talk) 04:46, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I found another event Saturday evening in Peterborough and participated there. Thanks!—Anne Delong (talk) 00:25, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Cool! I saw pictures from that event, so great that you were able to participate. ella dawn (talk) 05:09, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you

A quick note to say thank you to the organizers of this event. It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to edit in an environment with so many resources, and with such a talented group of colleagues. I hope that those who are newer to Wikipedia editing continue to develop their editing skills on this and many other topics. Risker (talk) 03:12, 9 March 2015 (UTC)