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Votes for All Women: Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

Why "Votes for All Women?" This year's Wikipedia Edit-a-thon theme recognizes that not all women gained the right to vote in 1920. Women of color, including Native women, Black women, and others, remained disenfranchised for decades based on federal law and state laws. Even today, people of color are targeted by state laws that strip voting rights, directly or indirectly, and transwomen in many states are disenfranchised by voter ID laws. This year's Wikipedia Edit-a-thon will focus on activists and changemakers who sought (and seek) to gain voting rights for ALL women.

What is Suffrage?

Suffrage: The right to vote

The Women's Suffrage movement in the United States succeeded in getting the 19th Amendment ratified. The amendment states that: 

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

-US Constitution

 

For more information about voting rights for black women, who are often disenfranchised even now, read this National Parks Service essay, Between  Two Worlds: Black Women and the Fight for Voting Rights.

Sign up here!

When: March 29th, 2021, 11-3PM EST

Once you sign up, we will send you all of the pertinent information, including a Slack link and our day-of Dashboard.

Wikipedia 101

1. Create an account
2. Add your name to the Sign Up and Guest List
3. Make sure you know how to edit Wikpedia pages
4. Pick a topic to work on 
5. Look at ideas for what to edit on Wikipedia articles
6. Watch a video if you get stuck
 

What makes an article good? Here are some criteria from Wikipedia:

  1. Well written: the prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

  2. Verifiable with no original research:it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline; all inline citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines; t contains no original research; and it contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism.

  3. Broad in its coverage: it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

  4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

  5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

  6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Sources

If you are associated with an academic institution, your library's databases and other resources are excellent sources for Wikipedia. If you do not, and are located, or go to school in Massachusetts, sign up for a free eCard at the Boston Public Library to use their large library of resources. 

 

CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=301583

Read about the gender gap on Wikipedia.