Whose Knowledge?/VisibleWikiWomen

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Many articles about women, in different Wikipedia languages, lack pictures. Women are invisible for so many reasons, including because the copyright holders of pictures preserve their exclusive rights, instead of using a Creative Commons license suitable for use on Wikipedia.

That’s why this year we will launch again the #VisibleWikiWomen Challenge to reach out to women's rights and feminist NGOs, photographers, libraries, archives, and anyone who has access to pictures of women (with proper consent) to donate photos. Our pilot edition, launched in March 2018, was a success. Our partners – Wikimedians, GLAM and feminist organizations – made the faces of important and influential women from different cultures and regions of the world visible on Wikimedia projects, especially Wikipedia. We hoped to see at least 100 images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons but instead, more than 1000 images were shared during this challenge. We estimate that at least 500 different women are now visible on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

Half a billion people read Wikipedia every month, and it is the 5th most visited website in the world.[1][2] Yet women are still underrepresented in Wikipedia's biographies: less than 1/4 of all Wikipedia biographies represent women - that's still true for nearly every language version of Wikipedia.[3] And we estimate that less than 20% of biographies on Wikipedia contain any images at all. Women’s knowledge and contributions to the world are invisible in so many ways. Let’s change this! Join us from 8 March to 8 May 2019 in the next #VisibleWikiWomen campaign!

Project organizers

  • Whose Knowledge? co-founders began thinking about this campaign in 2017 with a group of Wikimedians from the around the world.
  • Señoritaleona is organizing the 2019 challenge as #VisibleWikiWomen Coordinator for Whose Knowledge?.

Why VisibleWikiWomen?

We are focused on gathering and sharing quality images under free licenses or public ___domain via Wikimedia Commons, so that these can be used to illustrate biographies of women on Wikipedia. These can be photographs or illustrations of women or images of their work, with their consent. We are looking for contemporary or historical images, of living women or women who lived some time ago. They can be new photos taken for the occasion, drawn portraits where no photos are available, or archival images.

Partners are encouraged to host or attend local events in their communities where photos can be taken or uploaded, release photos you might already have under free licence, and help promote and publicize this project. We invite local groups to lead this effort in ways that make most sense for your countries and interests: we’d love to learn from you! Planning is underway now – please contact us at visiblewikiwomen whoseknowledge.org to share your ideas.

How can I contribute?

  1. Take pictures at public events in which notable women will be present, like conferences, live shows, etc.,
  2. Communicate with photographers who may be able to donate images they've already taken of female public figures,
  3. Search public ___domain pictures (the pictures whose license dropped as their owners passed away before 50+ or 70+ years, depending on the country),
  4. Gather pictures from institutions and archives,
  5. Create illustrations portraying remarkable women who may not have any images available under free license,
  6. Once you have an image with the proper license, upload it to Commons with the VisibleWikiWomen 2019 category
  7. Categorize images in Commons and give them better descriptions,
  8. Add the images to Wikipedia articles, Wikidata items, Wikiquote and other sister projects,
  9. Write and translate articles about the portrayed women who do not yet have them, in your language,
  10. Organize events like edit-a-thons at your country,
  11. Contact us at visiblewikiwomen whoseknowledge.org and we'll help you get started!

Upload images

Use the Upload Wizard and add the VisibleWikiWomen 2019 category to your uploads.

#WomenOfColors mini-campaign: Celebrating the colors of #VisibleWikiWomen

#WomenOfColors is a mini-campaign to celebrate and increase the images of influential black, brown and indigenous women that are being uploaded to Wikipedia as part of the #VisibleWikiWomen campaign.

You are invited to participate by adding images of important women of colors from across the world within the broader VisibleWikiWomen category in Wikimedia Commons, from April 22 to May 2.

Please share your contributions using the hashtags #VisibleWikiWomen #WomenofColors and any others that make sense in your language and local contexts.

Resources to help you

The following resource guides offer some answers to common questions about working with images. Feel free to adapt, add, and translate to suit your own needs! And feedback on any of these guides is welcome.

Worklists
Finding or creating images
Uploading images
Licensing
Other guides we like

Super amigxs and friends in collaboration (Join us!)

Social media (Join the conversation!)

Edit-a-thons (Find an event near you!)

In March, there will be many local events to improve the visibility of women in Wikipedia. Edit-a-thons, editing workshops and other activities are being organized by wikipedians around the world.

If you want to be part of such events, search for an event near you, or contact your Wikimedia local chapter. Remember that in addition to creating articles about notable women, you can also take or look for pictures to illustrate them.

Would you like to organize a specific event for the VisibleWikiWomen challenge? We can give you some ideas, resources and support to carry out this plan. Just contact us at visiblewikiwomen@whoseknowldge.org and let's talk!

If you are an Wikimedia event host, like an edit-a-thon, you can join the #VisibleWikiWomen challenge, inviting participants to upload photos of notable women to Wikimedia Commons and to illustrate articles in Wikipedia. We suggest you add some activities related to this challenge in your event. Why not set up a photographic set and invite some notable women from your city to be photographed for Commons? Or maybe do a specific workshop on the use of images in Wikipedia? Join the challenge adding your event below.

Alphabetical by country, Global events with event pages at top

Language Trainer/Organiser Country or region or language Event page
Portuguese Grupo Wiki Movimento Brasil / Faculdade Cásper Líbero / Frente Feminista Casperiana Lisandra Brazil Maratona Artes+Feminismos na Lusofonia 2019
English Women in Red / Art+Feminism / WhoseKnowledge? World wide virtual editathon Women's History Month
English Open Foundation West Africa Ghana Women of the Wiki Edit-a-thon
English Co Media Lab / Design Beku India #VisibleWikiWomen Bangalore Editathon
Spanish Mujeres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia / Art+Feminism Córdoba, Buenos Aires Editatona de Mujeres Latinoamericanas en Buenos Aires Arte y Feminismo 2019
Spanish Mujeres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia / Art+Feminism Córdoba, Argentina Editatona de Mujeres Latinoamericanas en Córdoba Arte y Feminismo 2019
Spanish Mujeres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia / CIPAF Santo Domingo, República Dominicana Editatona Mujeres de Trayectoria y Compromiso
Spanish Wikimedia Uruguay Montevideo, Uruguay Editatona Feminismos en Uruguay

2018 Outcomes

Our campaign on numbers (May 21, 2018):

  • Category "VisibleWikiWomen" (including 1 level of subcategories) has 1405 files
  • Total image usages: 972 (69%)
  • Distinct images used: 483 (34.38%)
  • Images was used on 44 different Wikipedia languajes
  • Most of the uses were in Wikidata (386) and English Wikipedia (234)

To explore live results from GLAMourous analytics:

Some ideas and interesting findings that we have share on our blog during the campaign:


References