GLAM/Newsletter/June 2016/Contents/Mexico report

This Month in GLAM – Volume VI, Issue VI, June 2016

Mexico report

3 continuous days of art; Efforts against the Wikipedia Gender Gap

72 hours of continuous edits

The collaboration between Wikimedia Mexico and Museo Soumaya has been long and prosper, and now it can also be described as Officially amazing!

For two years now, Museo Soumaya has shown its commitment to free knowledge, opening its metaphorical doors (and its literal library) to Wikimedia enthusiasts eager to know about art. After breaking the in-house record of the longest editathon in the world, we were to take a big leap forward with an effort dubbed #72HorasConRodin (72 hours with Rodin)

During these 3 days, the museum staff became active editors in their areas of expertise (mostly about their research lines, art conservation and education in museums) while expert wikipedians assisted them in matters of style, technical issues and usage of the Visual Editor. Even though they didn't always write new articles, they had enough expertise to find out factual mistakes or misunderstandings in articles and to correct them with appropriate sources.

We also had the pleasant surprise of university students editing for the first time ever. Gina is a teacher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and she invited several of her students to come over and spend the night writing alongside art experts. Some of them have picked up the habit of editing about their class subjects.

This time, we had two designs for the official shirts! Both are based on Rodin's works
We had the honor of having Katherine Maher, (then interim) ED of the Wikimedia Foundation. She gave a talk about GLAM in Mexico and the world
Wikipedians and Museum researchers working along, helping each other

Among our greatest surprises was our winner for most articles created, Itabsvaru, a young student in Computer Sciences at a local university. She came out of her own curiosity, without prior knowledge on Wikipedia, but eager to learn about how it's created. After 3 days, she managed to write 11 new articles with guidance from more experienced editors, such as Adrián.

She also contributed to our shared goal of narrowing the gender gap. During this editathon, about 60% of all editors were women, and female artists were one of the main subjects for us to write about.

The Museum staff were eager to contribute with their shared knowledge of art, education, preservation and even pedagogy
Educational detail of the upper section of La Porte de l'Enfer, shown at Museo Soumaya in Mexico City
A detail of the figure that would be later known as The Thinker
Wikipedia editors consult with the museum Director regarding Auguste Rodin

Sometime around the 48-hour mark, two gentlemen arrived to the scene and started writing down what we were doing, and how. They seemed pleased, walking between the tables. They went by almost completely unnoticed, except for a small badge in one of their jackets. Around the 60-hour mark they reappeared and the mystery was solved: they were representatives from Guiness World Records, making sure we were still editing without stopping. Our collective effort was about to be recognized by GWR. As their motto says, our editathon was officially amazing

Media coverage

Wikimedia Mexico's Secretary Salvador wrote about what it means to edit for 72 hours at the Wikimedia Mexico blog.
Note at Hipertextual
Note at Código Espagueti
Note at emeequis
Guiness World Records recognized the team's effort via Twitter

Wikimedia Mexico continues its effort against the Wikipedia Gender Gap

In 2014, Wikimedia Mexico started one initiative to reduce the Gender Gap in Wikimedia, where one of ten Wikimedians is a woman. One of this initiative's activities consists in the organization of marathons editing Wikipedia and Wikidata, accompanied by a workshops in editing, named Editatona, an event designed by women for women to encourage them to learn about the Wikimedia Foundation projects, and most importantly, where they can collaborate and help reduce this Gap, which is also present in the contents of the encyclopedia. The editing topics have been feminism, prominent women, Mexican artists, and, in this fifth edition of the Editatona, women's rights.

The Editatona Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (Human Rights of Women) was held on July 2, organized by Wikimedia Mexico in collaboration with the Women's Institute of Mexico City InMujeres (Instituto de las Mujeres CDMX). In this Editatona participated 18 women, of which only 6 had a previous experience editing Wikipedia. In total, 99 editions were realized in 11 articles, of which 4 were created during the event, and more than 50,000 bytes were added to the encyclopedia

Welcome Package
Balbina Hernández's participation in the Inauguration
Banners of the Editatona
Members of the Presidium. In order of left side to right: Gloria Ramírez Hernández; Balbina Hernández Alarcón; Patricia Hernández Salazar and Carmen Alcázar

Were welcomed participants with a package of information leaflets on the Institute's activities and providing support to promote gender equality. After, the event began with the participation of Balbina Hernández Alarcón, Director of Development and Coordination Actions by InMujeres; Patricia Hernández Salazar, Coordinator of Postgraduate education in Librarianship and Information Studies of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM); Gloria Ramírez Hernández, founder and Coordinator of the UNESCO Cathedra of Human Rights at the UNAM, and Carmen Alcázar (Wotancito), Secretary of the Board of Wikimedia Mexico.

Carmen Alzázar teach how include Wikimedia Commons's images in one article of Wikipedia
Editing teams
Participants editing Wikipedia

Before the edition of the articles, Carmen Alcázar gave a workshop in editing to teach the participants how to edit Wikipedia. Later, the participants divided for the topics that they were going to edit: women's rights in general; right to gender equality; right to education; right to information, right to health; right to the political participation; right to work; right to a life without violence; right to safe and healthy environment.

One of the most important aspects of this Editatona was able to collaborate with a goverment institution that is interested in contribuing in reduce the Gender Gap in the country's capital, and is willing to use media as Wikipedia to achieve this goal. But, as we can see in this and other events, there still much work to make it equal the encyclopedia.