Diversity

Wikipedia does not cover all topics equally: it has various systemic biases. You can help address this by editing and sharing knowledge on a diverse range of topics and about a diverse range of people and places.

Things you can do

General

For a range of topics, here are some things you can do:

Think about researchers, artists and practitioners that you've encountered in our collections, exhibitions or events (or any other way in your work). Do they have a Wikipedia article?

If yes, can you think of interesting information to add? Are there other Wikipedia articles where they or their work should be mentioned? You can use this guide to help you add to their page or to add mentions to other relevant pages.

If no, first check out the notability criteria for artists or the notability criteria for researchers to see if they should have a page. If they should, then you can create it! Use this guide to help you. If they don't yet meet the notability criteria for having a page of their own, they quite possibly should still be mentioned in other pages. Use the guide from the "yes" section above to help you add in mentions. Also think about using your contacts to get someone to profile them in a magazine, scholarly newsletter or newspaper article in order to raise their profile so that one day they will meet the criteria!

Think about key concepts that you encounter all the time in your work - are they well-explained on Wikipedia? Could you add something to make it clearer? For instance, Jo Spence did a lot of work on "photo therapy", but if you search for that on Wikipedia you get redirected to a page about light therapy, which is a totally different thing - can you find 3+ sources about photo therapy as an approach and create a page to explain it to a general audience?

I've also broken down some sections below to help you to find other place to begin, but representation is an intersectional issue so keep this in mind when you edit.

Because Wellcome Trust is a scientific and medical organisation, most of the suggested edits listed below are on those topics but there are lots of other themes that you can focus on in your editing. If you have any questions about other possible topics to edit, get in touch via email, or leave a message on my User talk page and I can help!

Gender

You may have heard about Gender bias on Wikipedia, which means that only 18.27% of biography articles in English Wikipedia are about women. Wikiproject Women in Red are a group committed to improving coverage about women, and you can take a look at the project page to find things to edit, special initiatives and more.

Possible edits For ideas of pages to create or improve:

Take a look at the list of 20th-century women scientists and 20th-century women physicians or this list of Women Scientists in Africa.
Check out the community at Wikiproject Women Scientists

Race

You may have heard about Racial bias on Wikipedia. WikiProject African diaspora are committed to improving representation on Wikipieda and AfroCrowd seeks out potential Wikimedia editors of African descent to improve knowledge and digital content on the peoples, history and cultures of the African diaspora. You can take a look at their pages to find things to edit, focussed initiatives and more.

Possible edits Previous Wellcome Wiki-events have focussed on making or improving Wikipedia entries for notable BAME scientists, clinicians and inventors.

At the moment, based on how pages are categorised on Wikipedia, there are only 54 Black British people who have ever been notable for their work in health professions. This must be too low! Is there someone whose page already exists that has not yet got the right categories? Or is there someone who should have a page but does not yet?
At the moment, based on how pages are categorised on Wikipedia, there are only 35 Black British people who have ever been notable scientists. This must be too low! Is there someone whose page already exists that has not yet got the right categories? Or is there someone who should have a page but does not yet?
It's also really important to go beyond the UK and the global north. If you're interested in finding someone who might need a brand new page, consider looking at the List of Fellows of the African Academy of Sciences for someone notable.

LGBTQ+

It is difficult to measure the representation of LGBTQ+ people on Wikipedia but there are many LGBTQ+ people and related topics that are not covered or whose articles need improving.

You can take a look at the LGBTQ portal and there is excellent advice on writing about LGBTQ+ people on WikiProject LGBT studies.

Possible edits Be cautious of pronouns (he/him/his, she/her/hers, them/their/theirs), dead-naming someone (using their previous name prior to transition), or revealing personal information that may out somebody (i.e. reveal their sexuality w/o it being publicly known prior). If in doubt, use a surname rather than pronouns or avoid writing about their personal life.

Look at a previous LGBTQ+ Wikithon page to see lots of suggested improvements you can make
Take a look at the page on LGBT people in science and see if there is anything you can add
If you'd like to edit Wikidata, take a look at WikiProject LGBT and especially the section "How can I help?"