Wikipedia Edit-a-thon success!

Thanks to all the students and librarians who made Purchase College's Wikipedia Art/Design/New media and feminism edit-a-thon such a success. We had roughly 30 people come (fortunately, lots brought their laptops, but even then some ended up having to sit on the floor of our computer lab).

Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

Wikipedia’s gender trouble is well documented: in a 2010 survey, Wikimedia found that less than 13% of its contributors are female. The reasons for the gender gap are up for debate: suggestions include leisure inequality, how gender socialization shapes public comportment, and the contentious nature of Wikipedia’s talk pages. However, the practical effect of this disparity is not: content is skewed by the lack of female participation, with more articles on notable women missing on Wikipedia in comparison to Encyclopaedia Britannica. This represents an alarming aporia in an increasingly important repository of shared knowledge.


Help address this absence at a Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon . Along with librarian Kim Detterbeck, I am organizing a satellite event (that will focus on design and new media) at Purchase College:


· Date: Saturday, February 1, 2014, 12noon - 6pm. Can’t be there the whole time? No problem. Join us for as little or as long as you like.

· Venue: DMZ Lab 1015B, Purchase College Library, Purchase College, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY 10577

· Cost: Free

· Participants: The event is open to anyone who wishes to attend. No Wikipedia editing experience necessary; as needed throughout the event, tutoring will be provided for Wikipedia newcomers. Female editors are particularly encouraged to attend.

· RSVP by signing your username here! If you are unfamiliar with Wikipedia, you might try this training module which will help explain a lot of things, including how to add your signature.

· What to Bring: Computers (Macs) are available in the computer lab, though attendees are invited to bring their own laptops (and power cords). Light snacks and drinks will be provided.

· Twitter Hashtag: #ArtAndFeminism

Parody of New York Times Dialect Map

I enjoyed this New Yorker parody of the Times' dialect survey and map.  Their map,  of course, is dull:


But who can resist a survey that starts with this question:

What do you call sweetened carbonated beverages?

a. Soda
b. Pop
c. Coke
d. Dope
e. Horse
f. Fizz-bang
g. Explodo
h. Gentleman’s seltzer
i. Heaven bubbles

Today the Times has an interesting article, "A Makeover for Maps" chronicling the field's growing pains.  Big Data needs new forms (and specialists in color--"no more than 18 colors at once").

How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk

I just took this quiz on regional dialect, and it had me pegged, linguistically.  But the big surprise was the elegantly simple interactive map of the United States. Congratulations to Josh Katz, a graphics editor for the New York Times, who developed this quiz and maps based on over 350,000 survey responses collected from August to October, 2013.