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Engaging diverse communities to profile women of Antarctica

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By T. Shafee

Hatching the plan

In June 2016 Jan Strugnell approached me with a proposal and a problem. The proposal: Jan had convinced the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) to hold a 'Wikibomb' event for women Antarctic scientists at their upcoming international conference, in which participants would update a large set of relevant articles. The problem: Jan had never edited Wikipedia before. She just knew that improving the representation of notable women on the world’s largest encyclopaedia was important.

She’d heard about my workshops on “Wikipedia Editing for Scientists” and together we composed a plan:

  1. To engage the Antarctic research community and make the most of their knowledge by getting SCAR members to nominate notable women scientists and provide information and references
  2. To recruit volunteer writers from the early career researcher community
  3. To ensure as much as possible that articles met Wikipedia’s quality standards for notability and sourcing before submission to the Articles for Creation editors.

We therefore decided to hold a 3-month-long virtual editathon followed by a final in-person celebration, presentation and recruitment event being held on the 28th of August.

Some background

As with Wikipedia as a whole, there has been systemic under-representation of notable women Antarctic scientists. Compounding this is Antarctic science's unique history of exclusion of women. There was a gap of over 100 years between the first man to set foot on the Antarctic mainland (John Davis) and the first woman to do so (Ingrid Christensen). Most science programmes explicitly prohibited women from working in Antarctica until at least the late 1950s (Maria Klenova), more than half a century after the first male scientists. Women scientists have now risen to prominent positions, including directorships of the British Antarctic Survey (Jane Francis) and Alfred Wegener Institute (Karin Lochte). Nevertheless, women remain under-represented in official recognition (e.g, Polar Medals), and public awareness (e.g., Wikipedia biographies). With 60% of polar early career researchers now women, better representation was needed.

Our process

We gathered 170 nominations from the Antarctic community over the course of a month via an online form, requesting information and sources, promoted via social media, mailing lists and the official SCAR website.(archive link) We classified the initial nomination forms on a 4-point scale from "no references provided," to "clearly notable with all the necessary supporting references."

At the same time, we were recruiting volunteers to help turn nominations into biographies over the next three months. The Women in Polar Science, Association of Polar Early Career Scientists, and Equal Opportunity Science networks were helpful for recruiting keen volunteers, who then worked to move drafts through the pipeline towards being upload-ready. Our initial enquiries indicated that most of our volunteers were initially intimidated by the idea of editing Wikipedia. We therefore developed a pipeline that allowed volunteers to draft off-wiki if they preferred, and work on-wiki once they felt comfortable, organised in a Google Sheets spreadsheet.

First, we wrote biography drafts and stored them in a shared Dropbox folder, starting with the information provided in the nomination form and researching additional references where necessary. We then swapped the drafts around to edit and proofread each other’s writing. Finally, those comfortable with Wikipedia editing were trained by Skype to use the preloaddraft system on the meetup page to upload the drafts.

We decided that our volunteers only really needed to know about Notability (specifically WP:PROF) and Reliable Sources. We guided the content, length and formatting through the use of MS Word templates to draft articles off-wiki and preloaddraft to then upload them. We used the feedback from Women in Red and Articles for creation editors to bring drafts up to standard before they were published. Our final step was to email the article subjects themselves to request images — one element of a biography where freely licensed material is needed, and where conflict of interest doesn't matter.

Outcomes so far

We've found that drawing in diverse expertise into a pipeline allowed us to write a large number of decent-quality pages, with some being ranked "B-class" straight away (e.g. Ingrid Christensen). We were also conscious of minimising the common bias towards English-speaking countries - currently, 53% of our biographies. Although the main focus was on scientists, we also profiled politicians, explorers, civil servants, educators and administrators.

As is always the case, not all pages passed Articles for Creation review (AfC), but we found that the volunteers involved understood that this is all part of the robust calibration that the Wikipedia community has to continuously consider for who is notable. We have been particularly proud of how many images we have added. Requesting photos from article subjects directly yielded a >50% success rate over three weeks.

The people who made this possible

These efforts are being promoted at the SCAR2016 conference and used to recruit further interested editors. We’re hosting a two-hour set of presentations and panel discussions about the new articles and about women in research, followed by drop-in Wikipedia training over the following days of the conference.

Overall, the success of this editathon was based on effectively engaging multiple communities – SCAR members, early career researchers, experienced Wikipedians, and finally the subjects themselves; and on putting people to work in advance of the edit-a-thon itself.

Consequently we would like to thank the Women in Red for their fantastic help, support and advice and the AfC editors whose feedback helped improve the standard of our submitted articles. The SCAR community really got behind the project, nominating a great range of high-flyers. We were fortunate to have a great committee to organise everything consisting of Jan Strugnell, Thomas Shafee, Jenny Baeseman, Nerida Wilson, Craig Stevens, and Justine Shaw. Lastly, of course, the dozens of volunteers who helped on-wiki and off-wiki made this process possible!

Other media relating to this event

  1. Strugnell, Jan (July 2016). "An Antarctic Women Wikibomb: raising the profile of female scientists" (PDF) (3). Women in Polar Science: 6. Retrieved 9 August 2016. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. Strugnell, J; Shafee, T; Wilson, N; Downey, R; Stevens, C; Shaw, J; Baeseman, J (2016-08-10). "Profiles: Kudos for female Antarctic researchers". Nature. 536: 148–148. doi:10.1038/536148b.
  3. "New Wikipedia project champions women scientists in the Antarctic". Mashable. 2016-08-11.
  4. "Antarctic scientists overlooked on Wikipedia for years because of their sex". Sputnik. 2016-08-11.
  5. "Radical action for gender equality in Antarctic science". Voxy. 2016-08-11.
  6. "Women in Antarctica making up for lost time". radio.abc.net.au. ABC Radio National Science Show. 2016-08-12. Retrieved 2016-08-13.
  7. "Wikibomb celebrates women in Antarctic science". Australian Antarctic Division. 2016-08-18.

For more information

See the event page Wikipedia:Meetup/SCAR_2016

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18 August 2016 (all comments)
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    Thanks to all who participated in this effort. You did this the right way and I'm sure others will follow your example. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:24, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    I'd echo Smallbones - nicely done. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:54, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    My congratulations to those who took part in expanding the coverage of this area. All of you are an inspiration to others. MWright96 (talk) 19:33, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Under-represented?

    What's the evidence that female Antarctic scientists were underrepresented on Wikipedia before? (For better or worse, it seems clear that, post-"Wikibomb", female Antarctic scientists are now highly over-represented on the English-language Wikipedia, with 92 entries vs. 40 for men, judging by the categories Antarctic scientists and Women Antarctic scientists.) Yaron K. (talk) 19:48, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    It's tricky to gauge the total number of notable Antarctic scientists. We do know that women make up ~50% of lab heads and ~60% of early-career researchersand that it drops below 50% for research heads. There are certainly notable male Antarcic researchers aren't yet covered.
    The category:Antarctic scientists is only a few months old. We did a reasonably thorough search to find the 7 initial biographies of women (<14%, not too far from the encyclopaedia-wide average of ~16%). However, we've probably not found and categorised all the men yet. Nevertheless, even if we have indeed reached >60% women in Antarctic scientists, the number of biographies of women added each month is typically 20-40%.[1] I suspect that the gender balance will slowly swing back, so I think a temporary over-representation of women in this field isn't too problematic. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 09:09, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    References

    1. ^ Team, WHGI Dev (2015-06-09). "Gender by Wikipedia Language". WHGI. Retrieved 2016-08-19.
    So this comment by Yaron K. is EXACTLY why this initiative is so important. Poor men. Feel very bad for them to be so outrageously under-represented. Like women are in most other instances. Not surprised an editor would have the audacity to make this point and not be called out on it. I mean, really?!? With a history of women not even being allowed to go to work on these research stations until the very recent past this question is not even defensible.
    Way to go SCAR folks! Please reach out to others if you need any support and assistance. I think beyond the Rapid Grant you got SCAR should consider doing an annual plan grant -- it's obvious you are an organized group of experts in the field who have a lot to contribute to this area which is so scientifically important. Way to go! -- BrillLyle (talk) 13:54, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, that escalated quickly... anyway, I don't know what the right ratios should be (neither does anyone else, it seems), but count me among those who think Wikipedia should reflect reality, rather than compensate for it. Yaron K. (talk) 17:33, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, T.Shafee - thanks for your response. Yaron K. (talk) 17:43, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Yaron K.: I don't think anything escalated. I just called you out on something that I think should be addressed. If that's upsetting to you then that is on you.
    And ironically, this "reality" you refer to that should be reflected, whose reality should this be? This seems to be another framing of the gender gap issue using a suspect framing constraint. Baffling. -- BrillLyle (talk) 18:06, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @BrillLyle: I think Yaron K. is right and making comments like "Poor men. Feel very bad for them to be so outrageously under-represented" aren't helpful. I agree with T.Shafee that the rising tide will eventually lift all boats. My concern is that initiatives like these, while adding useful content, seem to grow out of a WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS mentality although I trust proper sourcing on these efforts has been observed. I've written content about women and ethnic-minorities in the US without a triumphal attitude of sticking it to the man. By the way, I think "framing of the gender gap issue using a suspect framing constraint" is Newspeak and ought to be avoided. Those of us educated white men that are way too over-represented on wiki don't deserve to be treated as a heteronormative patriarchal class enemy of yours. We're editing with NPOV as I assume you are. We're all on the same side here. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:15, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't mind over-representation of women thanks to special WP efforts at all, but to continue to use emotive language about the under-representation of women on WP when evidence suggests the balance has in fact gone the other way is rather irritating, here and in some other contexts. Johnbod (talk) 13:56, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Are we all on the same side? It doesn't sound like it from what you say.
    And good job of calling my comments emotive. Emotive=female so therefore bad? #ugh While both yours and Yaron's comments are factual and un-emotive? Yeah, I don't think so.
    I continue to weep with pity #QuelleHorreuer that men might feel like the gender balance is not in their favor in this one instance. If there is an imbalance, then fix it. In almost all cases on Wikipedia the gender balance is very clearly weighted on the side of over-representation of white male subjects and white male editors. The fact that this initiative and WiR are so successful must be both threatening and difficult to absorb. So sorry to hear there is disquiet and concern about that. Imagine now that this is how the rest of us feel.
    Very sad the responses to such a cool initiative is (a) so stereotypically awful and (b) completely misses the whole point of how great this inititiave is. Also illustrates exactly why events like this are necessary. BrillLyle (talk) 14:09, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @BrillLyle: This is a great initiative, and by all means disagree with people who you feel haven't grasped why, but please try and be more collegial when you do it. I find it frustrating when people choose to talk to other volunteer editors in this way when there are much politer ways of phrasing. Acather96 (click here to contact me) 17:43, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Acather96: Wow. Your comment above characterizes _me_ as being un-collegial, yet ironically enough, your comment is in an of itself wildly un-collegial. Huh. -- BrillLyle (talk) 21:21, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi @BrillLyle:. Apologies if it came across that way; I tried to phrase it as politely as possible. I've never interacted with you before to the best of my knowledge, so I can't say that you are uncollegial - but as an uninvolved user reading these comments I did think the replies you were leaving weren't perhaps the most charitable. Don't take that as a criticism, but more a reminder on trying to assume good faith when engaging with other users: we all forget to do it, but the atmosphere here is much better when we all do! Acather96 (click here to contact me) 22:33, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    "I don't know what the right ratios should be": there is no "right ratio"; there's only notability. Mathematically, the content will trend toward 100% of available notable subject matter over time, so this fretting over perceived bias is actually a near-term issue. Praemonitus (talk) 18:19, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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