CDKN and Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) invite you to participate in an online climate change edit-a-thon, Wiki4Climate, which will run from 24 November to 1 December 2020. It is open to anyone with an interest in climate change, and a desire to improve Wikipedia content or share information. Sign up below. 

Over the last 12 months there were 98.3 million pageviews of climate change articles on Wikipedia articles (21 October 2019 - 21 October 2020). That’s over 267,000 pageviews per day. Yet many of those in the climate change community - practitioners, researchers, communicators, community organisers - are not maximising this powerful tool to make climate change information more freely available, more robust and more representative of the diversity of local-level impacts and responses.

“We need local knowledge from the ground integrated into Wikipedia. Telling our own stories is only something we can do”, said Rudolph Ampofo at the webinar last week. Rudolph is Partnerships Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa at the Wikimedia Foundation, where he develops partnerships to increase awareness, reach and access to Wikipedia on the continent. In 2015, the Wikimedia Foundation estimated only about 20% of Wikipedia editors were from the Global South. In a 2018 survey as little as 8.8% of contributors were women across 12 language versions of Wikipedia. 

Why an edit-a-thon?

Wiki4Climate aims to mobilise a community of climate change professionals (researchers, practitioners and communicators), climate and community organisers, and existing Wikipedia editors and volunteers to edit and update climate change articles on Wikipedia. 

Edit-a-thons are where a group of people come together, in person or virtually, to edit wikipedia on a particular topic and it can be a good way to improve the quality of information and encourage people to become contributors. 

The event has four specific goals:

1. To enhance climate change related content on Wikipedia, particularly related to the Global South,
2. To increase awareness on the value of contributing to the platform,
3. To enhance the confidence and skills of climate change professionals to edit Wikipedia, and 
4. To build a community of climate change editors, particularly women and editors from the Global South.

We will also be providing certificates for 10 good edits, as well as prizes for the most valuable contributions.

Date and time: Starting on 24 November 11:00 (GMT) until 1 December 2020 12:30 (GMT).

Location: Online

Sign up here

Note: You are free to commit according to the time you have available and do not need to attend for the whole week. For example, you can choose to edit for ten minutes a day, or every day for the entire week. If you are able to add one sentence or a paragraph to an article, improve one lead or simply add a few robust references, you will be making an important contribution.   

For more information about the edit-a-thon, visit our Wikipedia project page

Download the guide: How to contribute climate change information to Wikipedia

Watch the opening session:

Wiki4Climate - Opening session slides

Additional resources:

Five-minute video on the Africa Climate Change edit-a-thon held in August 2019 

News article: Edit-a-thon helps tackle Wikipedia’s Africa gap

Recording of the webinar held in October 2020

Photo: Wikipedia Asian Month Edit-a-thon 2019 at Angamaly, India, by Wikimedians of Kerala UG via WikiCommons