University of Maryland

TEAM UPDATE: Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon with Indigenous Focus!

Brought to you by friends working on the Council for the Preservation of Anthropological Records (CoPAR), this Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon focusing on Indigenous Anthropologists may expand your knowledge and skillset working with linked data.

FAIRly Obscure (The Trilogy): An Anthropology Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

January 9, 2026 | 11:30 am – 4 pm

Virtual

REGISTER HERE

 

Are you interested in the history of anthropology? In archival representation, outreach, and linked data? In FAIR and CARE principles for social science and scientific information? Getting trained up in Wikipedia or Wikidata? Join the third in our series of co-sponsored edit-a-thon events to support the ethical description of anthropological knowledge and anthropological records focused on reworking and expanding related Wikipedia and Wikidata entries.

This edit-a-thon will focus on editing, adding, and checking information on these publicly available and publicly maintained registries (e.g. CoPAR registry version 1 and 2) relating to anthropologists and anthropology. Interested audiences may include community members, anthropologists, graduate students in anthropology, graduate students in information science, linked data nerds, and others!

No Wikipedia editing experience necessary—Wikipedia training will be provided. If you’ve never edited before, please plan to attend the training session, from 11:30am-12:30pm. There will also be lightning talks, a demo on Wikidata, and an optional open discussion on the new North American Indigenous Wiki Interest Group.

Brief Wikidata training will take place at 1:30pm.

Open editing time will run from 12:45pm to 3:30pm (Eastern time).

From 3:30pm to 3:45pm we will invite an optional open discussion of the North American Indigenous Wiki Interest Group.

Please fill out this quick Google Form to indicate your interest in Wikipedia or Wikidata: https://forms.gle/X1fHszJfaBssmCSQ6

Event Preparation

Laptops are required. Please bring your own.

Please create a Wikipedia account prior to the event.

Please read or refresh on the following:

  1. Wiki guide from Australia: https://wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Wikimedia_Australia_and_First_Nations_Metadata:_ATSILIRN_Protocols_for_Description_and_Access

  2. WikiProject, Indigenous Peoples of North America Wikidata Model: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Indigenous_peoples_of_North_America/Data_model

  3. Living persons guidance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons

  4. Protocols for Native Archival Materials: https://www2.nau.edu/libnap-p/

  5. CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance: https://www.gida-global.org/care

  6. FAIR Principles for Scientific Data Management and Stewardship: https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/

  7. On editing Wikipedia for history: Roy Rosenzweig, “Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past,” Journal of American History 93, no. 1 (June 2006): 117-146. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/4486062.

  8. Carlson, B., & Rana, L. (2024). “I really like Wikipedia, but I don’t trust it”: Understanding First Nations peoples’ experiences using Wikipedia as readers and/or editors. Macquarie University. https://doi.org/10.25949/76YK-G627.