University of Mannheim: New on Wikipedia: brilliant women and pioneers of medical studies

As part of a linguistic seminar on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, students at the University of Mannheim created a total of 24 Wikipedia articles on important women, most of whom came from Mannheim and the surrounding area.

In the Dr. Maja Linthe developed the advanced seminar “Writing Wikipedia Texts: The Women in Red Project”, among other things, when students created Wikipedia articles about Else von der Leyen and Irma Klausner, who were pioneers in women’s studies in Germany in 1900. The Wikipedia project “Women in Red”, founded in 2016, aims to publish more women’s biographies on Wikipedia. This is intended to shrink the gender gap in the online encyclopedia. Because most of the biographies on Wikipedia are about men.

As part of the seminar, two edit-a-thons were also held at the University of Mannheim. Edit-a-thons are Wikipedia events at which authors work together on articles. In this way, newbies can learn how to create articles from experienced Wikipedians. The main seminar will again be offered in German linguistics in the current semester.