Wikipedia:Meetup/Breast pump hackathon

Sculpture 15 of the Lakshmana Temple, Khajuraho India, depicting a goddess feeding a baby
Panel of the Fonte Gaia (Fountain of Joy), piazza del Campo, Siena
Renoir, Mother nursing her child
Károly_Patkó, Maternity
Ptolemaios II, Egypt
Collotype of a wooden sculpture showing a woman breast feeding her child while she is holding it and its cradle.

Edit-a-thon at the "Make the Breast Pump not Suck Hackathon", MIT Media Lab, April 28+29, 2018

What we'll be doing

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Throughout the hackathon weekend, we will be working on Wikipedia to improve coverage of breastfeeding and related topics. You do not need to have prior experience with Wikipedia to participate -- we will teach you!

The skills you need to participate are an interest in writing, research, editing or photography (but you do not need to be an expert at any of these skills!) When you work in this group, some of the activities you might do include reading articles and figuring out if something is missing or inaccurate, reviewing articles, doing research to find reliable outside sources that can be cited in Wikipedia, adding citations and missing information to articles, re-writing poorly written articles to be better, translating articles (in any language), or looking at, assessing and categorizing photographs.

Participants are welcome to work in any language they are comfortable writing in. Group leaders speak English and Spanish and are comfortable with navigating any language Wikipedia interface to at least get you started. Trainings will be in English but we will try to answer any questions we can about other languages. Many language editions of Wikipedia need lots of work and we encourage you to work in any of them!

At the end of the weekend, our goals are that breastfeeding-related articles on the English Wikipedia will be assessed and improved, along with related topics in other language Wikipedias, and that missing areas and perspectives will be identified with a start on filling them in.

Experienced Wikipedia editors who want to participate remotely are also welcome to join the edit-a-thon! Be sure to sign into the dashboard. We won't have remote trainings, but you are welcome to set up "sister events" or participate individually.

Why does this project matter?

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Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia in the world, read by millions of people every day and used as a free source of health information by millions. At the same time, Wikipedia has a gender gap: roughly 2 out of 10 editors self-identify as women, and historically there has been a gap in articles about women compared to articles about men. In addition, most editors come from the "global north," especially the United States and Europe. This means that perspectives and research from the rest of the world, and especially from women in the rest of the world, are often omitted on Wikipedia. Our goal is to produce reliable, scientifically-accurate and well-sourced content that can assist curious readers from all over the world understand breastfeeding and all of the issues related to it better.

Schedule and trainings

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We will have some formal training sessions scheduled throughout the weekend. If you have never edited Wikipedia before, or have only edited once or twice, please try to attend one of these (but if you don't make it you are still welcome to participate, of course). In between the trainings, we will work on the articles, and the group leaders will answer questions and do one-on-one training throughout the hackathon.

Trainings

  • Saturday, 2:00-3:00pm, 6th floor auditorium
  • Saturday, 5 pm (if needed/if interest)
  • Sunday, 10:30-11:30am, 6th floor auditorium

What we'll do at the trainings:

  • go over the Wikipedia interface and how to make an edit
  • some things to look for in articles
  • Wikipedia policies and some basic guidance on how to make your edit "stick"
  • answer any questions you have

If you come to Saturday, you don't need to come to Sunday unless you want to.

Sign up to edit!

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This will help us track what we work on this weekend!

Tasks to do

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There is a lot to do on Wikipedia! Here are some ways to help:

Reviewing and assessing articles

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  • Review existing articles in relevant categories. Note sections that are missing or outdated. Tag these in the article text or make notes on the talk page. If article is unrated, rate it; if it's rated, make sure the rating is current. (directions on how to do all of this will be provided)

Researching

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  • What are some good sources for finding reliable, scientific breastfeeding information? Are these sources cited in the articles? If not, cite them or list them on the talk page for future editors.

Writing and re-writing

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  • Did you find missing information in an article? Is an article poorly written? Add new content or simply re-write existing articles to be more clear and understandable. If you want to take on a bigger project and you've found a missing topic, you can write a new article!

Reviewing and categorizing photos and videos on Commons

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  • Are there breastfeeding related topics that either do not have a photo or don't have a good photo? Let's brainstorm what would make a good illustrative photo for these articles. Maybe we'll even take some!

Translating

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If you are fluent in two or more languages, you can translate articles into another language!

Articles to work on

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categories

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These are collections of many articles on the same topic. Browse through these categories to find articles to potentially work on.

WikiProjects

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These are pages where editors interested in the same topic can coordinate.

individual articles & things to do

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Needed photos & videos

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  • Take more & better pictures of breast pumps, from various angles, &/or video demonstrations of pumps. These are the only breast pump pictures Wikipedia has currently: commons:Category:Breast_pump
  • There is currently little or no video footage of breastfeeding on Commons. It would be so, so wonderful if someone could contribute video showing how to latch and unlatch a baby from the breast, what suckling and swallowing at the breast looks like (i.e. how to tell if a baby is getting milk), and how to get the baby into various breastfeeding positions. Other great videos would be: Breast compression to get more milk into the baby (or the pump), hand expression, and rooting reflex (no breast required but you do need a newborn baby)
  • Review the breastfeeding photos currently on commons; are there appropriate photos that represent different types of breasts, mothers, skin tones, positions? Ideally the category would include tasteful and accurate photos that could be used to illustrate articles on various subjects.
  • note: to get photos/videos onto Wikipedia, they must be freely licensed and uploaded to http://commons.wikimedia.org/. Videos must be WebM or ogv format; if they are something else, they need to be converted. This can be an involved process; ask Phoebe for help.

Things to translate/work on in other languages

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Resources on Wikipedia

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Possible sources

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You must have a published source for any information you add to Wikipedia, even if you have personal knowledge of the topic.

Please be aware that sources for biomedical aspects of breastfeeding must satisfy Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) guidelines. There are, however, many aspects of breastfeeding that are parenting skills or cultural practices rather than biomedical information.

You are welcome to use the MIT Libraries while you are on-campus; ask Phoebe for help.

Participants and leaders

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