Latino Repro Series/Toolkit

Goals of this Toolkit

• Empower individuals and groups to organize Wikipedia edit-a-thons to address reproductive justice issues, especially to meet the need for regionally/locally-focused information.
• Build upon/collate existing resources to provide a framework for edit-a-thons.
• Outline methods for locating Wikipedia articles to edit or add
• Present strategies for organizers to curate information sources specific to reproductive justice and their local/regional history and policy.
• To quell anxieties about editing Wikipedia when it comes to complex topics (generally)
• Educate

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to reproductive justice on Wikipedia: Why edit Wikipedia?
2. Overview of an edit-a-thon and variant formats
3. Laying the groundwork: partnerships between academic, advocacy, and civil society organizations with a local/regional focus
4. Identifying Wikipedia articles of interest
5. Planning an edit-a-thon
   1. Core organizing team
   2. Setting up a Wikiproject dashboard and MetaWiki event page
   3. Build an event manual (template provided)
   4. Fundraising for partner organizations
   5. Subject-area expertise
   6. Support from Wikipedia community
   7. Local venues
   8. Curating information sources, paywalls
6. Holding an edit-a-thon
   1. Wikipedia editing orientation
   2. Knowledge and best practices from partner organizations and experts
   3. Selecting tasks and supporting volunteer editors
   4. Community-building activities for volunteers
7. Edit-a-thon follow-up
   1. Stats on Wikiproject dashboard
   2. Monitoring for deletions or alterations to volunteer edits
   3. Dealing with conflict/disagreement among editors
   4. Thanking volunteers and pathways for more participation

Introduction to reproductive justice on Wikipedia: Why edit Wikipedia?

Information activism: Finding accurate, up-to-date information about reproductive health and justice issues can be hard. Wikipedia is where people go when they want to answer a question without extensive research (or relying on AI summaries, which are not accurate and can be dangerously misleading). Questions about reproductive issues may come up in civic life (what policies do I support) or in personal life (is abortion legal in my state). High-quality Wikipedia articles make this information accessible transparently. Access to information about reproduction, contraception, abortion, and birthing has always been unequal, with women of color facing higher information barriers. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, information access continues to be imperative.

Wikipedia has biases: Wikipedia content is structurally biased towards white, male, Euro-American perspectives. Many longstanding WikiProjects work to increase representation for non-male, non-white groups. This is especially important when providing information about reproductive justice issues. Articles may use biased framing or language that perpetuates stigma around reproductive choices. As an editor, you are empowered to reframe these issues and introduce inclusive language.

Won’t I get attacked by trolls? Editing Wikipedia can be intimidating, especially on controversial topics. Wikipedia is a community of volunteer editors who are bound by user agreements to a code of conduct enforced by admins. As you’ll see, edits to each Wikipedia page are archived; there is a dispute resolution process for dealing with persistent hostile edits, but these situations are rare. The edit-a-thon organizers, other editors, and admins will support you if someone makes changes to your work in bad faith.

Overview of an edit-a-thon and variant formats

Single event: Gather people for an in-person or online edit-a-thon. This requires a 2 to 5 hour commitment from volunteers.

Series of events: If you want to work on a long article, or multiple articles, consider a series of edit-a-thons.

Course integration: Teachers often incorporate Wikipedia editing as an assignment in their courses. This is a great way for students to build expertise in a topic and practice citing sources. This toolkit doesn’t cover course integration; Wiki Education has extensive resources for instructors.

Laying the groundwork: partnerships between academic, advocacy, and civil society organizations with a local/regional focus

Identify national, regional, or local organizations involved in reproductive justice, women’s health, and/or information activism.

National organizations that work on information access, gender, racial and social justice:

• Art + Feminism
• Equis Labs

Identify local/regional abortion funds, reproductive justice organizations, or racial equity and women’s health organizations. Reach out with an invitation to participate in an edit-a-thon. Organizational partners can:

• Share their expertise and suggest articles to edit
• Raise awareness of their mission and recruit volunteers
• Benefit from fund-raising on the day of the event

Identifying Wikipedia articles of interest

National Wikiprojects working on women’s health and repro justice:

• Wikimedia Projects
  • Wikiproject Women's Health/Participate
  • Missing themes and missing topics in Wikipedia:Knowledge gaps in women's health
  • Women in Red
  • C-class articles identified through WikiProjects dashboard search?

Local reproductive justice history and policy: what people, places, events, policies, and narratives have shaped reproductive justice in your region?

• Evaluate the “Abortion in your state” Wikipedia article: Abortion law in the United States by state.
  • What could you improve about this article?
  • Similar articles to review
    • Birth control in the United States
    • Sterilization law in the United States
• Look for news articles, books, and papers about women’s health, reproductive health, reproductive rights, abortion, etc. in your city or state.
• Search local public and academic libraries for resource guides (“LibGuides”) on these topics, or ask a librarian.

Adding articles: Wikipedia is structurally biased towards white, Euro-American individuals and histories. Adding an article about a person, place, or event that is not currently on Wikipedia can be intimidating, but these are valuable contributions. You will need published sources that support the notability of your article to meet Wikipedia notability guidelines. Thanks to the growth of recent scholarship on race, gender, and sexuality, it is more likely that you will be able to locate such sources.

Contributing in other languages

Wikipedia is a multilingual encyclopedia that exists in more than 300 languages, many of which have wider knowledge gaps than English. This is mainly due to the lack of Internet access from different regions, limited access to reliable sources, and the absence of a community.

But it's also worth knowing that each project is independent and has different policies. Before choosing to edit on other projects, it's important to connect with someone native to these projects who can help you navigate the landscape.

Translation Tool

One of the easiest ways to collaborate in different languages is to translate content, however, there are several caveats to take into account before embarking on the translation process

• The source article should be an article in sound form (with corresponding sources), we do not want to carry over any errors from language to language.
• The translation tool extension has severe limitations for newcomers, so it is better to work in a separate document and then paste the text into Wikipedia.

Planning an edit-a-thon

1. Core organizing team
2. Setting up a Wikiproject dashboard and Meta-Wiki event page
3. Build an event manual with an overview of the event and the resources you’ll be using (template here)
4. Curation of information sources
5. Subject-area experts, invited guest speakers
6. Support from Wikipedia community
7. Local venues: factors such as accessibility, technology, openness vs. privacy, and safety
8. Publicity: safety considerations, public versus invitation-only events
   1. Share your event on https://artandfeminism.org/events/
9. Fundraising for partner organizations

Holding an edit-a-thon

1. Wikipedia editing orientation:
   1. Wiki.edu training modules: https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training
   2. Safety and code of conduct:
      1. Art + Feminism Security Toolkit
      2. Art + Feminism safe, brave spaces policy
      3. Wikimedia NYC Code of Conduct
2. Language and best practices from partner organizations and experts: establishing shared terminology and goals
3. Selecting tasks and supporting volunteer editors
4. Community-building activities for volunteers

Edit-a-thon follow-up

1. 1. Stats on Wikiproject dashboard
   2. Encourage new editors to join WikiProjects
   3. Monitoring for deletions or alterations to volunteer edits
      1. Dispute resolution process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_requests
   4. Thanking volunteers and pathways for more participation