Wikipedia needs more diversity among contributors and editors
The free, citizen-produced Wikipedia needs more diversity among contributors and editors. This is the opinion of its recently appointed new boss, Maryana Iskander, who in 2022 will take up the job as CEO of Wikimedia Foundation, the publisher of Wikipedia and other non-profit services.
“I think that trying to increase the diversity of who creates knowledge, who edits knowledge, that’s been the long priority of the movement and of the foundation [and] resonates massively with my own personal values”, Iskander told The Washington Post.
“I think knowledge equity, representation, the technology itself and then [growing] the ecosystem of partners who are trying to achieve similar goals feel like important first areas.”
CODE OF COUNDUCT
The foundation has earlier launched a global code of conduct to combat harassment and stimulate diversity. The new code signals the foundation’s commitment to creating spaces that foster diversity of thought, religion, sexual orientation, age, culture, and language to name a few, the foundation said in a post at its website.
The code is also meant to combat deliberate introduction of false or inaccurate content. The code is 1 600 words, where the foundation and the community define harassment and unacceptable behaviour.
Talking about the code of conduct just after having been appointed, she said:
“I think in true Wikimedia-style, that’s taken a while to get everybody aligned to the same words and the same principles,” she said. “The task now, how to enforce that across local communities around the world is the hard work ahead. But to be honest, we’re taking it on.”
Egypt-born Iskander has since 2013 served as the CEO of Harambee Young Employment Accelerator, a South African non-profit social enterprise focused on building African solutions for the global challenge of youth unemployment.
Prior to this, she spent six years as Chief Operating Officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a volunteer-led social movement focused on access to women’s healthcare. She has also been Advisor to the President of Rice University, an international research university based in the United States.
In a presentation of herself at the foundation´s website she quoted Wikimedia Foundation saying ‘Knowledge belongs to all of us.’
KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL
”Does it, really? It’s a striking statement. In an increasingly unequal and polarizing world, one in which almost nothing belongs to all of us, the idea that knowledge must belong to all is enough to capture anyone’s attention and imagination – certainly mine.”
”Shortly after I was born in Cairo, Egypt, my parents left for the United States. During my time at university, graduate school, and law school, I was consistently pulled towards some of society’s toughest issues – women’s rights, civil rights, and the rights of prisoners.”
“During the recruitment process, I met with a leading academic in the United States named Rebecca. She told me a story of her primary school teacher asking the students to raise their hands if they did not have an encyclopedia at home. She was one of those students, and it made her feel, for the first time, that maybe she didn’t have equal access to the resources needed for her education. The work of this collective community, should we achieve our vision, will make it unnecessary for a teacher to ever ask that question again.”
20th ANNIVERSARY
Wikipedia was launched by entrepreneurs Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on December 15, 2001 so it has celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.
Alexa Internet, a web-analysis firm, ranks Wikipedia as the 13th-most-popular site on the internet, ahead Netflix and Instagram.
Searching facts about Wikipedia at Wikipedia, you find that is has more than 55 million articles that have been edited 3 billion times, has 1.7 billion unique visitors every month and covers 316 languages. It has 6.2 million articles in English with 127 117 active contributors in the month prior to the anniversary.
It has not made billions, it has no shareholders and it does not sell advertising. It is run by not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation financed by donations and user contributions.
THE FUNNY NAME
The name “Wikipedia” is a mix of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning “quick”) and encyclopedia.
Among the foundation´s other activities are Comments (free media repository), MediaWiki (wiki software development), Meta-Wiki (wikimedia project coordination), Wikibooks (free textbooks and manuals), Wikidata (free knowledge base), Wikinews (free-content news), Wikiquote (collection of quotations), Wikisource (free-content library), Wikispecies (directory of species), Wikiversity (free learning resources), Wikivoyage (free travel guide), Wiktionary (dictionary and thesaurus).
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