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OCTOBER’S FEATURED TEXT

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"Wikipedia is pushing the boundaries of scholarly practice but the gender gap must be addressed" is a 2013 blog post by Adrianne Wadewitz.

Wadewitz was a feminist scholar of 18th-century British literature. She contributed to Wikipedia and commented upon it, particularly with regard to the “gender gap,” i.e., the disproportionate predominance of men among editors. This post appeared in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog.

Wikipedia is the largest reference work the world has ever created. It is the sixth-largest website in the world. It is the most visited reference work on the internet. It is available in over 285 languages. If you want to affect how the world understands a particular topic, you must edit Wikipedia.

As academics, we already possess many of the skills necessary to be excellent writers of encyclopedia entries: specialized knowledge and finely-honed research and writing abilities. It is incumbent upon us to share our knowledge with the world, where it will be read not only by our fellow academics but by anyone curious about our topics.

The gender gap: every edit is political

Wikipedia bills itself as “the free encyclopedia and anyone can edit” – but not everyone does. Approximately 90% of Wikipedia’s editors are male. For Wikipedia, this has resulted in problems of bias, overrepresentation/underrepresentation of topics, and an environment hostile towards female editors. A lack of diversity amongst editors means that, for example, topics typically associated with femininity are underrepresented and often actively deleted.

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CURRENT COLLABORATIONS

The current Community collaboration is collecting texts related to WikiProject NARA Recent collaborations: Tenth Anniversary Contest, Disney, Domesday survey, Niccolò Machiavelli

The current Proofread of the Month has been completed. Index:Oliver Spence.djvu 23 pp Index:LodgeAbsence.djvu 17 pp Index:Hospitals, medical science and public health.djvu 30 pp Recent collaborations: The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century, Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine, An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans, A Lady's Cruise in a French Man-of-War, Great Speeches of the War, Secrets of Crewe House, The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage, Lake Ngami, Pieces People Ask For, The Spirit of the Nation, Character of Renaissance Architecture

The current Maintenance of the Month task is Work index revision Recent collaborations: Orphans, Proposed policies and guidelines, Author page connection with Wikidata items, Help page improvement, Undated works

NEW TEXTS

The Reverberator (1888)
 by Henry James
A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (1996)
 by John Perry Barlow
On the Determination of the Wave-length of Electric Radiation by Diffraction Grating (1896)
 by Jagadish Chandra Bose
The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century (1892)
 by Sydney Marow Eardley-Wilmot
Memorial from the ladies of Steubenville, Ohio, protesting Indian removal (1830)
 by the ladies of Steubenville, Ohio
The Education and Employment of Women (1868)
 by Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler
Jimmy Wales Speaks at Closing Ceremony of Wikimania 2014 (2014)
 by Jimmy Wales

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