Wikipedia:Meetup/Vancouver/Indigenous Literature 2019

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Indigenous Writers Edit-a-thon

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In December 2015 Daniel Heath Justice (author of “Why Indigenous Literature Matters") began a Twitter campaign to share the names of Indigenous writers. The reason for his efforts was to “...push back against the frequent assumptions that our literary history is any less complex, robust, or diverse than that of other peoples.”

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.

The Indigenous Writers Wikipedia Edit-a-thon is seeking to improve the coverage of Indigenous writers on Wikipedia and to encourage diverse community editors to actively work to dissuade assumptions about Indigenous literature by raising their profile in this increasingly influential information source.

Event information

 Event Date: Monday, March 4 
 Time: 1:00pm - 4:00pm
 Location: Sty-Wet-Tan Hall in the First Nations Longhouse. UBC Vancouver is located on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people.
 Cost: Free!  There will be refreshments and door prizes! 
 Register:https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/University_of_British_Columbia/Indigenous_Writers_Wikipedia_Edit-athon      
 Editing Passcode: Writers

Event Schedule
Time	Activity	Facilitators/Speakers
1:00 - 1:05 pm	Welcome	David Gaertner
1:05 - 1:30 pm	Opening Speaker	Daniel Heath Justice
1:30 - 1:40	Basics of Wikipedia	Erin Fields
1:40-2:20pm	Wikipedia Editing
2:20 - 2:30	Break and Refreshments
2:30 - 3:15 pm	Author Readings	Sam Nock and Jules Koostachin
3:15 - 3:50 pm	Wikipedia Editing
3:50-4:00 pm	Closing	Erin Fields

Event Hosts

• Will Engle, Open Education Strategist, Centre for Teaching and Learning Technology, UBC
• Erin Fields, Liaison Librarian & Flexible Learning Coordinator, UBC Library
• David Gaertner, First Nations and Indigenous Studies Instructor, UBC
• The First Nations House of Learning

References