'Heroines of freethought': humanist women Wikithon

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April 24th, 2022 10:00   --   13:00

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Between recent scholarship and the Humanist Heritage project, history’s radical, reformist, and freethinking women are finally receiving ever more of the attention they deserve. But how well are these humanist heroines represented on Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites in the world, averaging billions of views each month. For many people, it is their first port of call for researching a topic: if it’s on Wikipedia, it suggests it’s noteworthy. However, of the almost two million biographies on Wikipedia, fewer than 20% are of women. Meanwhile, the Wikipedia category ‘British Humanists’ lists only 121 people, and those for English, Scottish, and Welsh humanists combined add up to under 200.

There is plenty of work to be done, and you can help! Join us on Sunday 24 April to help us add, improve, and categorise pages for these forgotten figures.

No Wikipedia experience is required, but if you are already an experienced Wikipedian, please do come along too – we will have plenty of suggested pages to work on! For new or improving editors, we will go through everything you need to know to get editing, and provide a list of ways you can start improving Wikipedia straight away.

The session will take place on Zoom, and will run through how (and why) to edit Wikipedia, suggest a range of useful sources, and provide the space and support to improve pages and celebrate 'heroines of freethought' throughout history.

By ensuring humanist history is properly represented and referenced on Wikipedia, we can help to advance understanding of humanism everywhere.