Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This article reports on the debate around the deletion of a notable black woman scientist on Wikipedia (that she is notable isn't really debatable - she was part of the team that purified the sample of berkelium-249 from which a new element, tennessine, was created). With Wikipedia the issue of representation is magnified because (unlike in the early days) your contribution will me monitored, and often deleted, by Wikipedia 'editors' operating under a set of principles that may need revision - Claire Jarvis writes, "Fixing the representation problem will require radical changes to Wikipedia's rules and user base.Wikipedia could start by allowing more flexibility in its citation and sourcing criteria for notable figures from underrepresented groups. At the very least, it could protect those pages from anonymous flags... It could also remove user anonymity to help stem the impersonal nastiness seen in page debates and deletion wars."

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

Copyright 2024
Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 03:46 a.m.

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