Tag Archives: wikipedians

Wikipedia needs improvement re: volunteerism-related topics

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wikipediaI’ve been updating Wikipedia again. I do that from time-to-time. This time, specifically, I’ve been updating information regarding days, weeks and months that have been designated for volunteers or about volunteerism by a major organization, a country or the United Nations, as well as updating information about organizations and associations for those that manage volunteers. You can see all my updates on Wikipedia, ever, here.

It’s unfortunate that there is no program or organization – not one – that sees what I’m doing on my own, when I have time, as an independent, lonely volunteer, as part of its own mission. The result of this lack of an official champion to mobilize contributors is that Wikipedia is severely lacking in accurate information related to volunteerism, and the volunteerism field is losing a lot of its history. For instance, many major events related to volunteerism aren’t mentioned on Wikipedia or are barely mentioned, like the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future, a major event in 1997 in Philadelphia headed by then President Bill Clinton and former President George H. Bush.

But I’m getting tired. Cleaning up Wikipedia and making it an accurate, content-rich resource regarding volunteerism should be a group effort – it shouldn’t just be me. Because I don’t have time and I don’t have all the knowledge! And it shouldn’t be ad hoc, because what’s happening is that people are going on to Wikipedia and changing content on pages related on volunteerism based on how they feel, not based on facts and cited sources, and they know that no one is going to find their edits, because no one is really watching.

There should be an official edit-a-thon to make Wikipedia an accurate, content-rich resource regarding volunteerism. And I just do not have the resources, on my own, to organize an edit-a-thon. I would love to be a part of such an effort – and with funding, I would be happy to organize it, to ensure a range of people and organizations are involved. An edit-a-thon would get a lot of pages created, updated, and linked together, as appropriate, in a two days. It would be a concentration of forces to get the bulk of the work done quickly. It would help people after the hack-a-thon keep contributing accurate, appropriate information. It would create benefits long after the edit-a-thon ended.

Oh, well… in the meantime, below is what I’ve outlined as needing to be done on Wikipedia regarding volunteerism, in case anyone out there wants to help.

Pages that need to be created on Wikipedia:

Pages related to volunteering that need updating, preferably from people intensely familiar with the organizations that are in charge of them (I created some of these pages, FYI, hence why they lack full info – much of what I wrote I had to track down on old web sites on archive.org because the associated web sites aren’t up-to-date for 2016):

June 20, 2017 update: I’ve created a Wikipedia page for National Philanthropy Day, November 15. It’s an observance designated by the Association of Fundraising Professionals – and AFP still doesn’t have a page, and I’ve done enough, someone else needs to create it.

Aug. 3, 2016 update: There is now an International Year of Volunteers – there is a Wikipedia page for IVY+10, and I’ve put on its “talk” page that it should be deleted, and remain a subsection of this main IYV page. I also note this on the IYV talk page. The IYV page needs much more information about national conferences that were held, publications that were made, and big events and activities that were organized in conjunction with IYV all over the world. It’s going to be a challenge, because all IYV web sites are long gone; if you remember the URL for an IYV-related initiative, you can type it into archive.org and review the old information. But do NOT cut and paste information from those sources onto the IYV page! You have to rewrite things and cite every source for every sentence or paragraph! Otherwise, the page will get deleted.

Pages that I consider a hot mess and in dire need of content improvement:

August 1, 2017 update: The Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future is currently a subsection of America’s Promise on Wikipedia. It should be its own page, with much more information.

Three pages that I’m not allowed to update anymore because other Wikipedia volunteers feel that my expertise gives me too much of a bias (oh, yeah, you read that right), but really need a cleanup:

There are Wikipedia pages regarding human resources management, but nothing on that page regarding how the management of volunteers is different, and there’s no page on the management of volunteers. There’s a page on virtual management but, again, no page on the management of volunteers. What I’m trying to say is that there needs to be a page about the management of volunteers!

One page that is decent, but needs to be reviewed to make sure it’s up-to-date: list of volunteer awards. Maybe there needs to be one page of days, weeks and years regarding volunteerism, like there is for this page for volunteer awards.

And then all of these pages need to be linked together appropriately and then be linked to and from other pages I haven’t mentioned here.

And all of that is just a START. My outline above isn’t comprehensive, and it is quite USA-centric. Volunteerism is a global phenomenon, yet you might not suspect such reading the aforementioned pages. And what are the Wikipedia pages like on these subjects in Spanish, German, French, Polish, Russian, and on and on?

Will anyone out there take up the call to host an edit-a-thon? Or will others with expertise in volunteerism join me in trying to improve these pages, without waiting for an edit-a-thon?

(Update July 21, 2016): If you decide to start helping with this effort, some advice:

  • Make sure the page you want to create doesn’t already exist under a different name.
  • Read carefully this official Wikipedia page: Wikipedia is not here to tell the world about your noble cause.
  • Make sure you keep information neutral. Write for an encyclopedia, not a brochure.
  • Use LOTS of citations for what you write, and don’t just use the official web site as your source material.
  • Look at similar pages as a template for the page you want to create or improve. For instance, I used existing pages regarding designated volunteering pages as a template to create new ones. A page on volunteer management should follow the style of the existing pages for human resources management and virtual management.
  • Once you create a page, make sure every Wikipedia page that mentions that organization or phrase links to it. For instance, whoever creates the United We Serve page needs to do a search on United We Serve on Wikipedia and make those phrases on other pages link back to the new page. Also, create links to the page under “See Also” on other pages, as appropriate. If you create a new page and don’t immediately create lots of links to it, it will be deleted.
  • This Wikipedia Cheatsheet is amazing. 

If you decide to have an edit-a-thon to address these many problems on Wikipedia regarding its lack of accurate, complete information related to volunteering and national service, please carefully read these official Wikipedia guidelines on how to hold such.

Wikipedia has a guideline on conflict of interest that states, “You are discouraged from writing articles about yourself or organizations (including their campaigns, clients, products and services) in which you hold a vested interest.” If you represent the organization being talked about on a Wikipedia page, you are supposed to make any editing suggestions on the article’s talk page, using the template {{Request edit}}; supposedly, this will help draw attention to your request and some Wikipedian somewhere will make the edit. The reality is that this rarely happens, and your edit request may languish forever (mine do on the pages Wikipedia has decided I can’t edit anymore). By all means, use the Talk pages as recommended by Wikipedia, but once you do that, it’s best to mobilize your own volunteers that are familiar with Wikipedia and your organization to actually get these edits done.  Make sure those volunteers have user talk pages that provides full details on who they are, and their entirely volunteer, unpaid status with your organization.

(Update March 7, 2019): As many of you know, Susan J. Ellis has passed away. I have been working on a Wikipedia page for her for three years – yes, THREE years – and in conjunction with #WIKI4WOMEN, a virtual volunteering initiative led by UNESCO and Wikimedia celebrating International Women’s Day 2019, I’ve published it today. Will it last, or will an over-zealous and probably male Wikipedian delete it, deeming it as not really noteworthy? I hope that I have enough citations and justification on the Talk page so that it will last. You could help by adding a link to Susan’s Wikipedia page somewhere appropriate on the Wikipedia page regarding virtual volunteering – a page I’m not allowed to edit because Wikipedians have deemed me “too close” to the subject matter – and adding anything to her page about her or her work that comes from a source other than her own books or web site – a book review, a commentary on her work, etc. I don’t know how to add a photograph and prove that I have permission to do so, so if you can do that, awesome.   

(Update April 9, 2021): I continue to tweet and otherwise post about this idea for an edit-a-thon to improve the information on Wikipedia regarding volunteerism. Still no interest from anyone. No one. Another page that needs to be created in Wikipedia: one regarding Ivan H. Scheier, one of the true American pioneers of the field of volunteerism. I just cannot do this by myself, friends.

Why Do So Few Women Edit Wikipedia? Insights into virtual volunteering

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wikipediaJulia Bear of Stony Brook University’s College of Business and Benjamin Collier of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar published “Where are the Women in Wikipedia? Understanding the Different Psychological Experiences of Men and Women in Wikipedia” in the journal Sex Roles in January 2016.

Those that contribute information and edit Wikipedia, help others on the site, are called Wikipedians, and are online volunteers. So this study relates to virtual volunteering without ever actually saying that phrase.

From the abstract of the paper:

“We proposed that masculine norms for behavior in Wikipedia, which may be further exacerbated by the disinhibiting nature of an online, anonymous environment, lead to different psychological experiences for women and men, which, in turn, explain gender differences in contribution behavior. We hypothesized that, among a sample of individuals who occasionally contribute to Wikipedia, women would report less confidence in their expertise, more discomfort with editing others’ work, and more negative responses to critical feedback compared to men, all of which are crucial aspects of contributing to Wikipedia. We also hypothesized that gender differences in these psychological experiences would explain women’s lower contribution rate compared to men in this sample… Significant gender differences were found in confidence in expertise, discomfort with editing, and response to critical feedback. Women reported less confidence in their expertise, expressed greater discomfort with editing (which typically involves conflict) and reported more negative responses to critical feedback compared to men. Mediation analyses revealed that confidence in expertise and discomfort with editing partially mediated the gender difference in number of articles edited, the standard measure for contribution to Wikipedia. Implications for the gender gap in Wikipedia and in organizations more generally are discussed.”

Their study is summarized in this 02 June 2016 article “Why Do So Few Women Edit Wikipedia?” That article notes that Jimmy Wales, the founder of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the site, said that the organization failed to meet its goal of increasing women’s participation to 25% by 2015, despite launching several initiatives.

This is great information for anyone that works with online volunteers – or wants to. While most reviews of the makeup of online volunteers at organizations, at least in the USA, show more women than men participating, and women providing more hours during their service, Wikipedia attracts far more men in its online volunteer ranks. Your organization might also be unconsciously excluding a particular group of people from participating, and this study can help you think about ways to find that out. Kudos to the Wikimedia Foundation for acknowledging this gender gap problem and wanting to address it.

vvbooklittleInformation about this study of the gender gap among Wikipedians has been added to the Virtual Volunteering Wiki list of research regarding virtual volunteering, the most comprehensive list you will find anywhere of such, with information about virtual volunteering research dating back to 1997 (though most starts in 2000). Wikipedia’s engagement of online volunteers is talked about in The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, available both as a traditional printed book and as a digital book. The book is for anyone that works with volunteers – the marketing manager, the director of client services, and on and on – not just the official manager of volunteers.

February 10, 2017 update: @Wikimujeres_ES: voluntarias de Wikimedia que intenta reducir la brecha de género incorporando nuevas editoras y generando más contenidos relacionados con mujeres (Volunteers from Wikimedia who are trying to reduce the gender gap on the service, by incorporating new female Wikimedia editors and by generating more content related to women). Here is the web site of this volunteer effort. Here’s a nice 09 January 2017 article by the Association for Progressive Communications about their efforts, in English.

In January 2015, some women Wikipedia editors from the Wikipedia Mexico chapter, along with SocialTIC, Ímpetu, Luchadoras, Mujeres Construyendo and Sandía Digital, created an Editatona, or Women’s Editathon, “an event exclusively for women where we could learn and share information about Wikipedia just among ourselves, talking about our needs and failures in the project, but also finding solutions by uniting our strengths. And we also wanted to think about specific topics that global Wikimedia events organised by men simply do not take into consideration… we had 84 women registered at the Simone de Beauvoir Leadership Institute. Where there was room for 30 people, we squashed in nearly 40, and there we edited articles about feminist approaches.” On July 2th, 2016, a “Women’s Human Rights” Editatona was held at Mexico City Women Institute offices, Mexico City, Mexico, organized by Instituto de las Mujeres de la Ciudad de México and Wikimedia Mexico, and more than 30 Editatona events have been held in Aguascalientes and Chihuahua in Mexico, and in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Spain and Uruguay. “The Editatona does not have answers to all the problems in digital spaces, such as harassment, very few women creating content, etc. It is only a proposal which we hope will grow and become consolidated. We have a problem to face jointly and resolutely.” You can follow this effort on Twitter at @editatona or on Facebook.. More in this article.

Also of note: this exchange on the TechSoup forum which shows at least some men believe that women don’t feel comfortable as Wikipedia editors.

Also see:

Online volunteers essential to Wikimedia fundraising

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This is my new blog home. Welcome! The more than 600 entries at my blog home for the last five years will move in the coming weeks, I hope (Posterous is working on it). If not, let’s hope they stay at my old blog home indefinitely!

Wikimedia logoInstead of hiring a consultant to lead its annual fall fundraising campaign, as it has in the past, the Wikimedia Foundation is involving online volunteers to design this year’s annual fundraising efforts. About 900 online volunteers have participated in online planning sessions over the past five months, designing and submitting online banners, and testing banners and other fundraising messages. Campaign communications that got the best test results are being adopted. The campaign is already outpacing last year’s in terms of money raised.

Wikipedia is the highest profile activity of Wikimedia, with around 17 million entries in more than 270 languages, but its not the only project of this foundation. Have a look at all the Wikimedia projects to learn more about their various initiatives — all involving online volunteers.

What’s great about this campaign is that the volunteers aren’t being involved because of old-paradigm reasons like “We can’t afford a consultant so we’ll get volunteers to do this activity” or “Online volunteers are free! so we’re going to save money!” No, volunteers are being involved because Wikimedia has realized that volunteers — some of their most dedicated stakeholders — are the BEST people to lead this activity!

In an interview with the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Philippe Beaudette, a former volunteer who is now a Wikimedia Foundation staff member, said volunteers have been essential in making sure this year’s campaign messages are relevant in dozens of different countries where Wikipedia has avid readers. “I wouldn’t know how to ask for money in Zimbabwe, but now I know where to find the volunteers who can ask for money in Zimbabwe,” he says. “The cultural influence and diversity that have come together to support this fund raiser are overwhelming.”

It was assumed that a message from Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, would do better than a solicitation from another spokesperson. But, says Mr. Beaudette, “we tested another banner from a young woman in Jakarta, Indonesia, and her banner did almost as well. She had one memorable line, ‘If you have knowledge, you must share it,’” which proved to be compelling to donors.

Mr. Beaudette says the foundation set out clear rules for participation from the start – something that is essential in effective online volunteering/virtual volunteering. Planning and discussion sessions with online volunteers began weekly and are now daily.

This is at least the second time the Wikimedia Foundation has involved online volunteers in the decision-making processes at the organization: more than a year ago, online volunteers, drawn mostly from the ranks of online volunteer editors of Wikipedia, engaged in a year-long process to develop a strategic plan for the Wikimedia movement. Wikimedia wanted their help in understanding what its initiatives should be in five years, and how Wikimedia could get there from here. I was a volunteer in that process; I started by adding myself to the Wikimedia expert database. I was later asked to join a Wikimedia task force – specifically, the Community Health Task Force. I was able to contribute probably eight hours total, over two weeks. I summarized my own recommendations here, and many of these became a part of the final proposal regarding volunteer recognition at Wikimedia.

As I said in my blog last year spotlighting Wikimedia’s activities, I love it when an organization invites volunteers to contribute to strategic plans, and I love it when they provide an online way to do so. It’s always a good thing to do. No matter what happens, Wikimedia can at least say, “Wow, we have a LOT of community members/volunteers who REALLY care about our future!” Can YOUR nonprofit say that?

But note that this online volunteering effort still requires paid staff to support the volunteers and coordinate their efforts. By the logic of many people, because Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation initiatives involve thousands of online volunteers, the organization should have no budget — because volunteers are FREE, right? Wrong… Even at Wikimedia, online volunteers are not free, and here’s why.