Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Wikipedia Edit-a-thon aims to add perspective to history

UNLV hosted an Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon on Wednesday as part of an international movement that works to increase representation of women and the arts (artandfeminism.org).

Fewer than 15 percent of editors on Wikipedia are female or non-gender binary. In 2013, the organizers of Art + Feminism set out to improve the numbers, asking: “What happens when the people editing our history don’t look like us? Don’t sound like us? Don’t know our lived experiences? Don’t see the value in our history?”

Since then, more than 7,000 people have created or improved more than 11,000 Wikipedia articles in a series of annual events with outposts around the globe. The group’s goal is to empower cis and transgender women to contribute to making Wikipedia a “tool for open access to reliable information” and to “[dismantle the] systems of thought that ignore the presence and input of women in the room and diminish or erase entirely their place in history.”

The Las Vegas event at Lied Library was co-sponsored by UNLV University Libraries and Department of Art and honored Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and UNLV’s diverse student body. For more information, call 702-895-2111 or visit bit.ly/unlvartandfem or library.unlv.edu.