Wikipedia:Meetup/CommunitySummit2020Inequality

This year's Community Summit tackles the topic of inequality, be it economic, social or political. Organized by SFU Public Square and running from April 1-9, this event will consider solutions for a more equitable, just, and prosperous society for all. In response to this year's Community Summit on Overcoming Inequality, SFU Library is running a Wikipedia edit-a-thon that will given students, faculty, and community members an opportunity to support the aims of information equity and knowledge mobilization by improving or creating articles on important, community-specific topics.

For the first half of the afternoon we will hear from community members and librarians about the role of Wikipedia as a means of promoting information equity, and the issues around accessing academic research without a university affiliation. You will learn strategies and tips for finding authoritative resources on a variety of topics, and can apply these techniques for the Wikipedia portion of the event later in the afternoon.

In the second part of the afternoon we invite members of the SFU community and the general public to join us in a hands-on Wikipedia edit-a-thon. We’ll cover the logistics and mechanics of editing Wikipedia articles, and provide technical support as you work on creating and revising pages related to the theme of this year’s Community Summit: Overcoming Inequality.

So why a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon?

Wikipedia is a multilingual, web-based, free encyclopedia based on a model of open community generated knowledge. The community driven nature of Wikipedia is meant to support Wikipedia’s goal of providing “…every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” However, well documented systematic bias including, information gaps, exclusions, diversity of articles and editors, and assumptions about neutrality and notability greatly impacts the information that can be found in an information source with millions of views per day.

Event information
Event Date: Saturday, April 4 Time: 12:00pm - 4:00pm Location: Simon Fraser University Surrey campus. Cost: Free!

Event Hosts

 * Graeme Robinson-Clogg, Reference Librarian, SFU Library