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Wikipedia:Meetup/Online edit-a-thon on climate change - November 2020

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“Wiki4Climate”: A week of editing on climate change topics from 24 November - 1 December 2020. (Edit on 8 December 2020: this particular edit-a-thon has now ended but the Wiki4Climate initiative is ongoing and you can continue to collaborate using our Slack channel to jointly edit Wikipedia articles on climate change topics. Our twitter handle is @Wiki4Climate. Our e-mail address is: wiki@southsouthnorth.org)

Wiki4Climate opening session with 78 participants - group photos (24 November 2020)


This was the project meet-up page for an online edit-a-thon on climate change topics, called “Wiki4Climate”. This edit-a-thon took place online from 24 November until 1 December 2020. It aimed to mobilise a community of climate change professionals (researchers, practitioners and communicators), climate organisers, and existing Wikipedia editors and volunteers to edit and update climate change articles on Wikipedia. This initiative was organised by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) and Future Climate for Africa (FCFA).

This event had 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.

Anyone can take part in this event provided you have a reliable internet connection, an interest in climate change, and a desire to improve Wikipedia content or share research.

You are free to commit according to the time you have available. You do not need to attend for the whole week. 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, improve one lead or simply add a few robust references, you will be making an important contribution.  

We particularly encouraged participants from the Global South and women to participate as editors in this event. We wanted to help reduce the major gaps on Wikipedia, such as the Gender Gap, and encouraged voices from less-represented groups to be heard in the global knowledge commons.

Recordings from two live sessions (launch webinar, opening webinar) which we held for this edit-a-thon are available in this Youtube Playlist by CDKN. Presentation slides from these events and further information is available here.

This event followed the Friendly Space policy for conduct.

Questions about the event? Email: wiki@southsouthnorth.org


Help...! I have never edited Wikipedia before!

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Guide book: How to contribute climate change information to Wikipedia

We highly recommend a guide called How to contribute climate change information to Wikipedia which we (CDKN and FCFA) published in October 2020. It shares guidance and tips for new editors. Jump straight to Chapter 4: How to edit Wikipedia.

How to get started with Wikipedia

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Tutorial videos

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If you are more of the "visual, moving pictures and audio" type learner, you might enjoy these tutorial videos which we have put together in our Youtube Playlist for you:

  1. How to make your first edits in Wikipedia.
  2. First steps in Wikipedia editing: talk pages, editing, watchlist, preferences, history...
  3. How to insert references and images to Wikipedia articles.
  4. How to copy a reference inside a Wikipedia article, how to adjust image size.
  5. How and why to create a REDIRECT in Wikipedia.
  6. Inserting references: page numbers, adding from ISBN number, copying references.

If you require more videos on specific topics, just e-mail us: wiki@southsouthnorth.org. There are also plenty more Wikipedia editing videos available on Youtube, just search for "Wikipedia tutorials", for example videos by The Wiki Show.

We also have further videos which are recordings from various Zoom training sessions we held for this edit-a-thon, see the Youtube Playlist by CDKN. Included in the Playlist are:

  1. Launch Webinar of Wikipedia editing guide for climate change topics: How to contribute climate change information to Wikipedia (by EBclimate, Sadads and others) - 1:23 hours:minutes (presentation slides here)
  2. Wiki4Climate opening session (by EBclimate, Mcnlisa and others) - 1:55 hours:minutes (presentation slides here)
  3. Introduction to Wikipedia and editing basics (by Phoebe), a segment cut out of the opening session webinar - 30 minutes
  4. How to get started with Wikipedia editing for this edit-a-thon (by EMsmile), a segment cut out of the opening session webinar - 7 minutes

How to best participate in this edit-a-thon

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  1. Join our Wiki4Climate Slack Channel to interact with other participants and with experienced volunteers who are on hand to provide guidance. (update in June 2021: the Slack channel is still available but is a lot less active now compared to the time of the edit-a-thon in November 2021)
  2. After joining the Slack channel please put your Wikipedia user name in brackets behind your profile name so that we know who is who in real life and in Wikipedia life.
  3. Locate your own Wikipedia talk page. You can find it at the top right after logging in, it's the tab called "talk". A talk page might look like this. Talk pages are the Number 1 tool to communicate with other Wikipedians. Put your talk page on your watchlist by clicking on the star at the top right to make it a blue star.
  4. React to the welcome message on your talk page by posting a little reply, thereby making your very first edit in Wikipedia! Make sure you sign your response with the four tildes which look like this: ~~~~. More details about talk pages are here. If your talk page is empty (no welcome message yet) then please tell us in the Zoom channel that you didn't receive your welcome message yet and we will rectify it.
  5. Put your name next to one or several articles in the tables below to make a little commitment to yourself and others what you're going to work on this week. Note: this page can only be edited with the "source editor", not with the visual editor - don't be alarmed, just give it a go.
  6. Write on the talk page of your article of interest to let others know what you intend on changing. More details about talk pages are here.
  7. Optional: Write in the Slack channel “editing-comments-and-questions” what articles you plan to focus on, or tell us what you have already worked on and edited, as the week progresses. Interact with the others and enjoy meeting new people and working in this collaborative environment!

Once you have done these initial steps you can continue with:

  • Choose more Wikipedia climate change articles that interest you and that requires improvement and check what information is already covered there.
  • Decide what you want to add or change.
  • Click "edit" (for the visual editor) and start editing. See Section 4.6: "How to make an edit"). Only make small changes at first and save your changes very frequently, including an edit summary, to give others a chance to review what you have done.
  • Do not copy and paste chunks of text, but instead write sentences in your own words, with reference to back up what you are saying. Do not add content directly from publications or websites that are under copyright (see: Copyrights in Wikipedia). You need to paraphrase that content and cite the source.
  • When writing, use language that is easy to understand for a layperson, especially for a person who does not have English as their first language.
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CDKN and FCFA have been working closely with the WikiProject Climate Change to identify activities for the edit-a-thon. Many of the actions below are drawn from their suggestions for small to medium tasks for improving climate change content on Wikipedia. The table below outlines six actions to help improve Wikipedia articles. It might look a bit overwhelming, but you can easily select just one, two or more tasks that are suitable for your background by clicking on the sorting arrows at the top of the table.

If you want to know how a "perfect" Wikipedia article should look like, take a look at Wikipedia's featured articles. A featured article is the best quality article within Wikipedia. The Climate change article is a featured article (there is still room for improvement though!). See further examples here: Wikipedia:Featured articles.

Table 1: Proposed six tasks to improve Wikipedia articles
# Task (action) Details, steps and tips Suitable for which type of volunteer
1 Adding reliable citations to articles All Wikipedia articles need citations (references to published work) -- every fact and piece of information should have a reliable source. This means that finding and adding citations is an important task. You can start by reading WikiProject Climate Change’s guide to reliable sources for climate change related articles. You can find citations for assertions not referenced, or delete unsupported assertions.

Steps:

  • To add a citation to an existing article, we recommend using the “citation hunt” tool, which finds articles lacking in citations. See the Citation Hunt for climate change articles on Wikipedia.
  • Search the literature to see if there's more current information available than is currently cited in the articles. Preference is given to reputable sources, literature reviews; Newspaper articles or blog posts are not ideal but can be OK. Posts from discussion forums are not allowed.
  • Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) are highly reliable, as they are a systematic review of the latest available science and technical information on climate change. Adding citations from the latest IPCC Assessment Reports (currently the Fifth Assessment Report) and Special Reports (Special Reports on Land, the Ocean and Cryosphere, and Global Warming of 1.5 ºC were released in 2019) is particularly encouraged. However, please make sure you follow these standard rules for IPCC citations.

Tips:

  • Go to page 31 of our guide for step-by-step instructions for how to add a citation.
  • Adding references (or citations) is also explained here.
  • Tutorial videos showing how references are available in this Youtube Playlist.
Novice editor, with some knowledge about climate change topics
2 Improve language, readability and length of the lead of the articles What Wikipedia calls the "Lead" is the piece of text that appears first in the article, just before the table of contents. We want those leads to be the highest quality possible. Many articles have leads that are way too short and are not good summaries of the article. However, these are the most read parts of a Wikipedia article -- with most readers stopping after the lead.

Steps:

  • Ensure that the lead is like an "executive summary" for the article (similar to an abstract for a journal paper)
  • Ensure the lead has exactly one image (not more than one) and has up to 4 paragraphs (each paragraph no longer than 6 lines).
  • Include wiki links for key words (internal links so readers can click and go to other Wikipedia pages).
  • Use easy to understand, short clear sentences (say less than 20 words).

Tips:

Novice editor, with English writing skills and good understanding of Wikipedia’s style and rules
3 Improving language and readability of parts or the entire article You do not need to restrict yourself to adding new material. You can edit existing content to improve the language and readability.  

Steps:

  • Replace long words with short words whenever possible.
  • Replace passive voice with active voice.
  • Make long sentences shorter or break them into two sentences.
  • Reduce paragraph lengths to 4-6 lines.
  • You can check the impact of your work by using this tool (webfx) or this tool (online utility) which gives you various readability scores for either a whole website or just a block of text. Paste in the web address of the revised article to get the new readability score. The Hemingway App is also a useful tool for improving readability. Is the current readability score (Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease) OK? Rule of thumb: aim for higher than 55.

Tips:

Novice editor, with English writing skills and good understanding of Wikipedia’s style and rules
4 Adding more or better figures, images, videos or wiki links (internal links that connect articles) Images, figures and graphs are especially important for climate change topics, but many articles lack these. Search the literature, internet and Wikimedia Commons to see if there are more maps, figures, infographics and alike that could be added to the articles (they need to be under the open access licence CC-BY SA).

Steps:

  • It is easier to add images that are already in Wikimedia Commons than to add your own images. Try searching for images using Special:MediaSearch.
  • If you want to add new images, you can only add your own images if you own the copyright and are willing to release them under an open access licence.
  • You can also add Wiki links from one Wikipedia article to another (see here for more information).

Tips:

Novice editor
5 Expand articles that are about climate change topics (in the tables below) Often articles in the tables below will have sections or information, but that information might not be very thorough or useful.

Steps:

  • Read the articles involved, and look for sections with less than 2 paragraphs of information.
  • Ask yourself “what else would I expect to find in this section” or “what would I like to learn about this topic”.
  • Look for new sources that you can read to learn about that aspect of the topic.
  • Expand the section, by adding new or insightful information found from the sources.
  • Add examples, sources, projects and other content related to developing countries.

Tips:

Some editing practice, with some knowledge of the topic, moderate research experience
6 Adding more content about countries in the Global South   One of the objectives of this edit-a-thon is to give more visibility to how communities and countries in the Global South are affected by and responding to climate change.

Steps:

  • To start, you can see if an article makes a reference to countries in the Global South. If it doesn't, but if it should, think about how you can add that content.

Tips:

Some editing practice, with knowledge about climate change in developing countries

Articles to work on

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A list of some of the climate change-related Wikipedia articles that require improvement are included in the tables below according to specific topic areas and gaps. Again this draws from WikiProject Climate Change’s guide on small to medium edits, and bigger tasks for more experienced editors here. This is not an exhaustive list of climate change articles given the cross-cutting nature of the topic. We suggest that you do some research to find any other specific articles that may also interest you and that require improvement. The list has been provided to make it easier to know some key gaps and what articles already exist on climate change. It does not mean, however, that the other Wikipedia articles are "out of bounds".

We have grouped the articles by the following themes in the tables below:

  1. Country and climate articles
  2. "Climate change in Country X or Region X" articles
  3. Adaptation and impacts articles
  4. Climate change and society articles
  5. Agriculture, food and water articles (with a connection to climate change impacts)
  6. Climate finance articles
  7. Mitigation and energy articles

Country and climate articles

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A lot more people read the articles about specific countries than the general articles about climate change. By adding more contextually relevant information to those articles, you can help connect climate change, which can be an abstract concept, with people’s sense of place. This is a useful activity to get started with editing. Here is an example: The article Climate change in Pakistan starts with "Climate change is expected to cause wide reaching effects on Pakistan." and yet the country article on Pakistan doesn't mention climate change even once. Let's change that!

Good examples where climate change is already included are the articles for Senegal, Ghana and Suriname (but each of those, the information on climate change is integrated in a slightly different way).

The country articles are meant to follow a certain template which is explained here. The template so far does not have an explicit section on climate but it comes under "geography". This is something we could discuss further with WikiProjects Countries here.

To help you, we have included a table of some country articles where there are a large number of people from these places attending the edit-a-thon. In most cases you would only have to added 1-3 sentences about climate change in that particular country and then link to the relevant sub-article if it already exists (like Climate change in Pakistan).


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Table 2: Proposed country and climate articles to work on
# Article Daily view rates Quality rating

(as provided on talk page)

Locked? People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1 Argentina 7044 B Locked (novices cannot edit)
2 Bangladesh 9,409 B Locked (novices cannot edit)
3 Cameroon 2,960 FA (featured article) - best Locked (novices can edit but edits will be reviewed first)
4 Ethiopia 8,310 B Sarisha
5 Ghana (climate change already included, do take a look) 5,064 B
6 India 25,610 FA (featured article) - best Locked (novices cannot edit) Birendra rai
7 Climate of India (a sub-article to the India article) 1672 B
8 Climate of Asia (a parent article to Climate of India article); Note 1 261 Start
9 Kenya 3,732 B Locked (novices cannot edit)
10 Namibia 3,030 B Rossouw
11 Nepal 5,239 B Locked (novices cannot edit) Kaustuvraj
12 Nigeria 10,394 B Locked (novices cannot edit)
13 Peru 4,437 C Locked (novices can edit but edits will be reviewed first)
14 Climate of Peru (a sub-article to the Peru article) 119 C
15 Senegal (climate change already included, do take a look) 3,079 C BethMackay
16 South Africa 10,344 C Locked (novices cannot edit)
17 Tanzania 4,635 C BethMackay
18 The Gambia 1,892 C
19 Venezuela 5,731 C Locked (novices cannot edit)

Note 1: Compare with Climate of Africa which already has a section on "climate change" (being an excerpt of Climate change in Africa) whereas Climate of Asia does not yet have a section on "climate change".

"Climate change in Country X or Region X" articles

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Many articles on how climate change will affect different regions and countries need expansion, and many rated as “start” articles that need development. Working to expand the articles listed in Climate Change by Country or Region is a valuable task. Click into that category to find articles for a particular country that interests you. For example the article about Abuja does not mention climate change at all. Yet a quick google search shows it is one of the most vulnerable growing cities in Africa (see World Economic Forum). The Abuja article should summarise the effects of climate change in the city and connect with a new article about climate change in Nigeria.

The WikiProject Climate Change has outlined some useful steps to contribute to these articles. Read more about these here.

Steps for contributing:

  • Find your local community’s Wikipedia article. You can search for the name of your city, county, state or province, or country.
  • Expand the articles with key topics or concepts in scholarship that aren’t already covered yet in the article. Consider following the suggested article structure documented here.
  • Look for out-of-date information (anything older than 3-4 years) and see if you can find a new source that allows you to update it.
  • Search within the article for the concept of “Climate Change” or “Global Warming” (use the Control+F keys).
  • If there is no mention, go to the “climate”, “geography” or "environment" section of the article.
  • In a separate tab, search Google or Google news, and search for articles describing the impact of climate change in your specific area.
  • Read the piece about how your local community will be affected by climate change, and add a summary to the article
  • Make sure to cite the source by clicking “Cite” in the visual editor, and generating a citation.
  • Write an edit summary saying what you did (i.e. “added climate change to article”)
  • Click Publish!


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Table 3: Proposed "Climate change in XX" articles to work on (climate-focused country and regional articles)
# Article Daily view rates Quality rating

(as provided on talk page)

People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1 Climate change in Africa 103 B Rwebogora, BethMackay
2 Climate change in Argentina 10 Start Rwebogora, Dolphyb
3 Climate change in Bangladesh 67 Start Rwebogora, Dolphyb, VM98
4 Climate change in Ghana 6 Start Rwebogora, Dolphyb
5 Climate change in Mexico (note this article is not yet linked from Mexico) 24 C Rwebogora, Dolphyb
6 Climate change in Pakistan 55 C Dolphyb
7 Climate change in Senegal 6 Start Dolphyb
8 Climate change in Sri Lanka 10 C Kerri1992
9 Climate change in South Africa 10 C Sirine.M96
10 Environmental issues in Southern Africa 76 Start Sarisha86
11 Climate change in Turkey 21 C Severyan33, Ksitson
12 Climate change in Kenya NA (New article in Nov 2020) NA (New article in Nov 2020) Gbadegesin Muhammed, ClaireBD

Adaptation and impacts articles

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Help address the major gaps in terms of adaptation to climate change. Many participants have also expressed an interest in working on adaptation as well as impacts-related topics. The table below includes some of the main articles in this category. You can also find climate adaptation topics here.

Some previous work to inspire you: At the Africa climate change edit-a-thon, volunteers added a new section to the Climate change adaptation article on adaptation in Africa (with sub-sections on northern, western, eastern and southern Africa); and a new section was also created on adaptation policy, which was populated with examples from across the African continent. Africa-relevant sources were also added to the external links section, which previously only included geographically-specific pointers to North American and European examples.
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Table 4: Proposed adaptation and impacts articles to work on
# Article Daily view rates Quality rating

(as provided on talk page)

People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1 Climate change adaptation 215 C EMsmile, Mcnlisa, Jordanbkinder
2 Climate change adaptation in Bangladesh 9 C VM98
3 Climate change adaptation in Nepal 12 Start Kaustuvraj
4 Coastal flooding 85 C Sirine.M96
5 Ecosystem-based adaptation 14 C Rwebogora
6 Flood 2503 B - this article is locked, cannot be edited by novices
7 Effects of climate change 600 (recent name change from "effects of global warming") B Jordanbkinder
8 Natural disaster 3352 C EMsmile
9 Reforestation 333 C Rwebogora
10 Sea level rise 901 GA (good article) Mcnlisa
11 Wildfire 1199 GA (good article)
12 Effects of climate change on South Asia 76 C VM98, Kaustuvraj
13 Regional effects of climate change 62 C
14 Climate change (Note 1) 6500 FA (featured article - best) - this article is locked, cannot be edited by novices EMsmile
15 Disaster risk reduction (DRR) 244 C ASRASR

Note 1: This is a high impact article and should only be tackled by experienced editors. What needs doing:

  • More developing country examples - for example in the section of impacts on people an African photo and caption is needed
  • The mitigation section is also so much longer than adaptation - despite there being separate articles for both topics (mitigation and adaptation sections should be evenly weighted).
  • Look for ways to improve readability.

Climate change and society articles

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Understanding the societal aspects of climate change is critical for understanding and effectively responding to the climate crisis. This includes how climate change impacts disproportionately affects different social groups and genders, the interactions between climate change and poverty, and the ethical and political dimensions of climate change. This group of articles needs further expansion and more examples and sources from the Global South.

You can highlight gender and social inclusion issues in the various climate change topics (for example, by sector, industry or geography), specifically how climate change will disproportionately affect different groups and the role of women - their needs, concerns and leadership in climate action. If this topic interests you might consider editing articles identified by the Climate Justice Task Force.


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Table 5: Proposed climate change and society articles to work on
# Article Daily view rates Quality rating

(as provided on talk page)

People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1 Climate change and cities New article Start Mcnlisa, BethMackay, Rwebogora
2 Climate change and gender 26 C Gbadegesin_Muhammed, MELA-CC2050, MyteriousWikiEditor, Nahida21972
3 Climate change and indigenous peoples 32 C Jordanbkinder, Nahida21972
4 Climate change and poverty 53 C Sirine.M96
5 Climate communication 16 C Mcnlisa, BethMackay, EBclimate, Lualo
6 Climate justice 167 C BethMackay, Jordanbkinder, Rwebogora, Nahida21972
7 Environmental migrant 184 C Nahida21972 VM98
8 Poverty 1,966 B
9 Women and agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa 14 Start Nahida21972, 555Grace
10 Effects of climate change on humans 263 C EMsmile, Nahida21972, Newcurtains
11 Climate services New article Not yet created KevinShore19 (Note: the new article will be initially developed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:KevinShore19/sandbox)
12 Developing countries (section about climate change needs work) 2157 C MduToit74

Agriculture, food and water articles (with a connection to climate change impacts)

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Climate change is set to dramatically alter our agriculture and food systems and water availability. Many agriculture, food and water-related articles do not adequately cover climate change issues.

We recommend expanding the articles about agriculture through several ways:

  • Improving the lead section of agricultural articles to include mention of climate change impacts with citations on that kind of agricultural topic
  • Expanding key topics related to climate change in the article, i.e. impacts on land-use practices, water scarcity, expected extreme weather impacts, etc.
  • When it's a general topic, add examples of global south content where possible.


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Table 6: Proposed agriculture, food, water articles to work on (with a connection to climate change impacts)
# Article Daily view rates Quality rating

(as provided on talk page)

People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1 Agriculture in Ghana 62 Start
2 Agriculture in Nigeria 174 Start Nsebobo
3 Agriculture in India 1,204 C Rwebogora
4 Carbon farming 48 C Rwebogora
5 Climate change and agriculture 317 B MELA-CC2050, 555Grace, Newcurtains
6 Fisheries and climate change 1 C Rwebogora
7 Drought 825 C EMsmile, Rwebogora
8 Food security 870 B
9 Smallholder farming 151 Start Njogoh
10 Water conflict 193 C
11 Water in Africa 39 Start Rwebogora
12 Water scarcity 762 B
13 Water scarcity in Africa 98 C

Climate finance articles

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Climate finance is another gap and below are some articles that need further development.
Edit this table

Table 7: Proposed climate finance articles to work on
# Article Daily view rates Quality rating

(as provided on talk page)

People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1 Climate finance 31 Start Rwebogora
2 Climate risk insurance New article Stub
3 Green Climate Fund 164 B EMsmile

Mitigation and energy articles

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Edit this table

Table 8: Proposed mitigation and energy articles
# Article Daily view rates Quality rating

(as provided on talk page)

People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1 Climate change mitigation / Climate action 427 B Jordanbkinder
2 Bioenergy 144 Start Daniele Pugliesi
3 Biofuel 843 C
4 Efficient energy use 302 C
5 Energy policy 54 C Rwebogora
6 Energy storage 451 C Rwebogora
7 Renewable energy 2,091 B - Locked (can't be edited by novices)
8 Sustainable energy 3,651 C EMsmile; Femkemilene

Reporting after the event

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Quantifiable outputs

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The outputs were analyzed with event metrics and with the event's Dashboard. The two tools give slightly different results for some of the parameters. In general, the dashboard gives higher numbers for "articles edited" and "article views".

Three users were removed from the analysis because they are long-term active Wikipedians and also edited many articles that were not related to climate change: Sadads, Stanjourdan, Phoebe. Removing these three persons meant that the figures for "articles edited" and "article views" dropped a bit. It is wonderful to have active, long-term editors participate in edit-a-thons. The only small problem with very active editors is related to the statistical analysis: during the week of an edit-a-thon they usually work on a variety of topics, not just climate change ones but it is not easily possible to only include their climate change related edits in the analysis.

Data recorded by Event Metrics

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The outputs were analyzed with event metrics by creating this event and logging English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

Settings:

  • Time period used in the analysis: 19 November to 4 December 2020
  • Wikis analysed: English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons

Contributions:

  • Pages created: 29 (actual value: 5, see explanation below)
  • Pages improved: 286 (actual value: 229, see explanation below)
  • Edits made: 2.3k
  • Uploaded files: 34
  • Bytes changed: 582 K

Impact:

  • Views to pages created: 1 K
  • Average daily views to pages improved: 352.8 K
  • Average daily views to uploaded files: 13.9 K
  • Unique pages with uploaded files: 30
  • Uploaded files in use:30

Participation:

  • Participants: 118
  • New editors: 72
  • Retention after 7 days (beginning 7 days after the event): 2

Data recorded by Dashboard

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The event's Dashboard was useful during the event to have an overview of who is editing and how much. The dashboard's data for this event is provided here for the time period 19 November to 4 December 2020 for the English Wikipedia (data from 16 December 2020):

  • Articles created: 23 (actual value: 5, see explanation below)
  • Articles edited: 270 (actual value: 229, see explanation below)
  • Edits, in total: 6.86 K
  • Registered editors: 118
  • Words added: 119 K
  • References added: 923
  • Article views: 6.91 M (the way the Dashboard seems to work is that this figure will continue to rise over time; the value here is for 16 December 2020)
  • Wikimedia Commons uploads: 35

Reports and blog posts about the event

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New Wikipedia articles created

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We did not focus on creating new articles during this event but rather on improving existing articles. Nevertheless, five articles were created during the event. The analytical tools gave a higher number of 29 because some participants also created articles that were not relevant for our topic (e.g. on African athletes). Also the software did not pick up those articles that only existed as a redirect to another page. The following five articles were created:

  1. Climate change and cities
  2. Climate change in Kenya (was a redirect page before the edit-a-thon)
  3. Climate change in Nigeria
  4. Climate change in Tanzania (was a redirect page before the edit-a-thon)
  5. High Council on Climate

Prize winners

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The ten volunteers who have made the most valuable contributions to climate change related topics in the English Wikipedia during the edit-a-thon are listed below. The prize winners were announced by Dr. Musonda Xoliswa Mumba (United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi) in a video call on 1 December 2020 (recording available here on Youtube: https://youtu.be/3ShOFQ0d2m8). Amongst the prize winners were six women, and all winners were from the Global South:

  1. Muhammed, User:Gbadegesin Muhammed - Nigeria (male); had previously also won a prize in the Wiki loves SDGs edit-a-thon
  2. Adolphus, User:Dolphyb- Nigera (male)
  3. Karina, User:Hsomak - Colombia (female)
  4. Sirine, User:Sirine.M96 - Lebanon (female)
  5. Precious, User:Obiorah_Precious_Oby - Nigeria (female); had previously also won a prize in the Wiki loves SDGs edit-a-thon
  6. Karyna, User:Kerri1992 - Lebanon (female)
  7. Rozai, User:Schezwan - India (male)
  8. Fatima, User:Tima93Lb - Lebanon (female); had previously also won a prize in the Wiki loves SDGs edit-a-thon, under the name of User:Fatima993
  9. Vidur, User:VM98 - India (male)
  10. Juliana, User:555Grace - Uganda (female)

Participants

[edit]

We had 121 participants signed up in the event's Dashboard (compared to 278 people who had responded to the call for participation and added their names to an e-mail list). About 68 volunteers out of these 121 people (56%) contributed to climate change related topics in the English Wikipedia during the edit-a-thon - some with a lot of edits, some with only two or three edits. Volunteers who made at least ten good edits in the English Wikipedia during the edit-a-thon received a certificate of participation (24 volunteers requested a certificate, and 22 were rewarded one).

It is estimated that about 51% of these 68 active editors were female, and 72% were from developing countries (Global South), as per the table below (our target had been 50% female and 75% from Global South). Note that participants did not have to reveal their gender or location which means that for about 20% of participants we did not know these parameters. We also determined that 75% of the 68 active editors were new to Wikipedia editing.

The list below shows participants who made edits during this edit-a-thon, in alphabetical order:

Articles improved

[edit]

The Eventmetrics tools provided a list of 286 articles that were improved during the event by participants. Of those, 57 articles were removed manually because their topics were not relevant to climate change. For example, two editors did some parallel work on biographies of Nigerian athletes or politicians from a range of countries. Another editor changed wikilinks to "biomass" in several articles on various animals. Those articles were removed from the analysis. This left 229 articles that were improved during the event, and these are shown in the table below.

We had proposed 82 articles to be edited (our proposed list is shown further down below). 90% of our proposed 82 articles were indeed edited during this event which is a good result.

Table A: Articles that were improved during this event.
# Article title In our proposed

article list of 82 articles?

Should have been

included (or for next time)?

Edits during event Bytes changed during event Avg. daily pageviews Incoming links
1    Climate change in Sri Lanka yes 125 29529 21 9
2    Humidity no 9 26457 1261 1480
3    Climate change in Kenya yes 179 24047 17 11
4    Climate change in South Africa yes 109 17571 24 121
5    Women in climate change no 42 17337 11 6
6    Climate change and gender yes 47 16245 35 330
7    Climate change in Australia no 36 16091 138 428
8    Climate change in Pakistan yes 60 13646 89 214
9    Climate change in Tanzania yes 21 12452 3 11
10    Climate change in Turkey yes 88 12176 42 38
11    Water in Africa yes 103 11582 87 14
12    Climate change mitigation yes 32 11412 423 1257
13    Climate change and cities yes 37 10655 12 362
14    Smallholding yes 31 10546 164 639
15    Effects of climate change on human health yes 28 9280 161 331
16    Climate change in Senegal yes 45 8894 13 64
17    UNDP South Africa no 12 8340 4 1
18    List of countries by total renewable water resources no 4 8190 280 44
19    Climate change and agriculture yes 54 8161 332 464
20    Effects of climate change on South Asia yes 22 8116 98 444
21    Water scarcity in Africa yes 22 7952 114 17
22    Water conflict yes 13 7184 183 190
23    COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana no 39 7103 246 803
24    Climate change adaptation yes 21 6994 207 453
25    Climate-smart agriculture no yes 6 6931 22 8
26    Environmental migrant yes 22 6581 199 359
27    José Benito Vives de Andréis Marine and Coastal Research Institute no 23 6062 2 9
28    Climate justice yes 31 5996 184 363
29    Climate change adaptation in Nepal yes 26 5987 17 3
30    Climate change in Bangladesh yes 44 5582 81 23
31    United States no 81 5374 41260 456774
32    Environmental issues in Antigua and Barbuda no 8 5245 5 8
33    Fossil fuel divestment no 12 5222 98 398
34    Ghana Meteorological Agency no 26 5153 10 2
35    Disaster risk reduction yes 31 4693 244 121
36    Agriculture in Nigeria yes 33 4647 211 281
37    Enhanced weathering no 3 4141 45 21
38    India yes 38 3877 26521 182686
39    Climate change and poverty yes 46 3860 62 338
40    Ghana Climate innovation centre no 10 3331 3 2
41    Earth Hour no 14 2814 236 131
42    Coastal flooding yes 60 2746 101 389
43    2018–20 Southern Africa drought no 10 2726 43 4
44    Greenhouse gas no yes 22 2716 2729 2113
45    Geography of Bangladesh no 8 2694 288 333
46    Southern Ocean no 12 2622 1010 3651
47    Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Colombia) no 7 2535 4 93
48    Undernutrition in children no 4 2405 34 32
49    Antarctic Peninsula no 4 2347 223 2471
50    Climate of India yes 23 2302 1597 1548
51    Climate finance yes 14 2275 35 333
52    Food security yes 15 2207 957 1276
53    Social impact of YouTube no 3 2051 156 72
54    Developing country yes 23 1897 2418 1214
55    Electric vehicle no 14 1891 1014 1249
56    Climate change and indigenous peoples yes 41 1878 34 330
57    Climate change in the Netherlands no 6 1834 6 12
58    Climate change in Ghana yes 14 1774 10 222
59    Climate of Delhi no 5 1720 321 7
60    Sundarbans National Park no 3 1691 536 1062
61    El Niño no 4 1678 1436 763
62    Climate change in Africa yes 42 1670 100 345
63    Agroforestry no yes 6 1663 285 583
64    Geothermal energy no 12 1560 1079 691
65    WASH no 3 1505 174 102
66    Lightning no 7 1464 1406 1758
67    Lake Malawi no 7 1454 366 782
68    Women and agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa yes 54 1299 17 2
69    Clearing (geography) no 1 1298 21 22
70    Climate and Development Knowledge Network no 2 1278 4 12
71    The Gambia yes 16 1165 2209 5130
72    Climate change in Mexico yes 27 1158 26 140
73    Energy security no yes 8 1154 97 388
74    Renewable energy yes 16 1115 2190 3443
75    Economics of climate change mitigation no yes 6 1107 17 33
76    Tanzania yes 28 1099 4425 19585
77    Geography of Lebanon no 11 1095 106 142
78    Flood yes 3 1062 1705 2138
79    Climate change in Argentina yes 13 1054 16 5
80    Ghana Institute of Journalism no 2 1040 20 92
81    Environmental issues in Colombia no 8 1037 26 153
82    East Africa no 4 1012 1092 3573
83    Kaluki Paul Mutuku no 9 1000 3 0
84    Koës no 2 942 4 12
85    Deforestation in Brazil no 6 933 168 131
86    Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest no 11 909 483 77
87    Planet of the Humans no 22 903 464 14
88    World Health Organization response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa no 3 903 3 1
89    Denmark no 9 900 7243 67383
90    Nkosilathi Nyathi no 2 895 2 0
91    Switzerland no 9 857 10164 89919
92    Hydrofluorocarbon no 1 854 139 73
93    Solar power in Australia no 6 844 111 365
94    Nina Gualinga no 4 834 19 4
95    Photosynthesis no 5 821 4248 2314
96    South Africa yes 11 803 11573 81638
97    Luxembourg no 18 781 5589 20515
98    United Kingdom no 30 763 27734 221679
99    Bioenergy yes 11 740 159 303
100    University of Ghana no 4 727 201 1030
101    Renewable energy in developing countries no yes 6 716 58 16
102    Sudan no 12 705 3895 12590
103    France no 16 704 11177 238291
104    Climate change in Taiwan no 3 696 7 10
105    Effects of climate change on island nations no yes 5 673 98 16
106    Poverty yes 6 672 2068 2894
107    Ecosia no 3 649 618 81
108    Reforestation yes 5 639 367 1344
109    Breakthrough Energy no 14 631 103 2
110    Regional effects of climate change yes 3 618 185 325
111    Climate change in China no 3 586 127 83
112    Natural disaster yes 28 576 2695 899
113    Climate of Brazil no 2 561 223 700
114    Agriculture in Senegal no 1 559 21 101
115    Environmental issues in Africa yes 1 531 50 14
116    Amina J. Mohammed no 6 516 372 409
117    Diesel emissions scandal no 4 499 102 8
118    Carbon farming yes 7 489 50 11
119    Agriculture in Ghana yes 5 489 60 305
120    Goldman Sachs no 7 487 2422 2307
121    Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Ghana no 2 467 8 71
122    Efficient energy use yes 5 434 300 1222
123    National Board for Small-Scale Industries no 1 429 12 8
124    Effects of climate change yes 17 425 784 340
125    Vanessa Nakate no 3 414 52 36
126    Energy policy of India no 4 399 221 323
127    Climate of Asia yes 19 393 226 75
128    Sustainability no 7 388 1445 2552
129    Bangladesh yes 22 386 9450 23486
130    Agriculture in Namibia no 2 364 17 66
131    Deforestation and climate change no yes 3 348 174 380
132    Red Line (Namibia) no 2 343 6 4
133    Climate change in Canada no 5 336 92 33
134    Drought yes 9 316 879 2505
135    Ann Henderson-Sellers no 1 297 2 15
136    Ocean colonization no 5 263 61 47
137    European Climate Change Programme no 3 251 8 19
138    Ministry of Climate Change (Pakistan) no 6 250 31 56
139    Climate change yes 20 226 4891 5698
140    Geography of Namibia no 2 226 47 98
141    Environmental Performance Index no 6 223 352 178
142    Energy policy yes 11 219 63 492
143    ExxonMobil no 15 215 1463 1427
144    Special Report on Emissions Scenarios no 1 207 71 41
145    Bali Declaration by Climate Scientists no 1 196 1 3
146    Namibia no 21 188 4407 13242
147    WAP no 12 171 352 0
148    Environmental impact of the energy industry no 2 154 72 227
149    Climate change in Algeria no 4 153 10 11
150    Energy policy of China no 2 141 79 551
151    Solar energy no 4 136 1572 1482
152    University of Environment and Sustainable Development no 3 133 9 0
153    Agriculture in Tanzania no 4 132 77 184
154    Energy Task Force no 4 131 10 13
155    Effects of climate change on oceans no yes 1 123 91 1
156    Climate change in Belgium no 1 121 3 13
157    Climate change in Minnesota no 5 115 5 366
158    Water supply and sanitation in Namibia no 4 109 19 111
159    Deforestation in Nigeria no 3 101 44 43
160    Lanternfish no 6 100 285 209
161    Deglaciation no 1 99 24 100
162    Energy in South Africa no 5 95 35 221
163    C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group no 2 92 116 60
164    Water in New Zealand no 3 87 12 148
165    Geography of South Africa no 5 86 207 210
166    Order of the Niger no 1 80 87 166
167    Climate risk no yes 1 75 34 357
168    Climate change and fisheries yes 2 69 24 0
169    Airborne fraction no 1 69 5 2
170    Climate change in the Caribbean no 6 65 60 326
171    NamWater no 3 63 3 9
172    Climate of Australia no 5 61 913 224
173    Biofuel yes 5 54 911 1477
174    ConocoPhillips no 7 48 307 687
175    Spring bloom no 2 46 20 108
176    Ecosystem-based adaptation yes 2 44 17 9
177    Social relation no 2 27 413 199
178    Co-production (society) no 3 24 15 143
179    Mission Innovation no 3 24 9 4
180    Reclaimed water no 2 24 200 704
181    Water supply and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa no 5 22 11 103
182    Heat of combustion no 4 10 803 101
183    Climate change in Antarctica no 4 10 46 6
184    Fuzzy number no 1 6 33 55
185    Anne M. Thompson no 1 0 1 2
186    Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019 no 1 -9 30 6
187    Stratospheric sulfur aerosols no 1 -11 44 16
188    Seawater no 6 -22 779 1088
189    Antarctica no 3 -26 4976 11799
190    Biomass no 3 -26 989 2182
191    Grazing no 2 -36 207 1140
192    Roundabout PlayPump no 1 -36 29 7
193    Climate of the United States no 4 -45 791 83
194    European Investment Bank no 4 -49 197 1053
195    Desertification no yes 4 -77 735 1281
196    Energy policy of the United Kingdom no 3 -99 53 360
197    Mesozoic no 4 -106 1010 2377
198    Wildfire yes 20 -121 971 2440
199    Drew Shindell yes 2 -123 3 7
200    Complex adaptive system no 2 -124 183 218
201    Gavin Schmidt no 2 -124 12 46
202    Share taxi no 6 -126 97 466
203    Energy storage yes 9 -127 459 791
204    Arctic methane emissions no 2 -170 163 445
205    Austria no 7 -189 6591 79250
206    Earth no yes 14 -195 8871 9431
207    Kenya yes 13 -260 4159 28190
208    Environmental issues in Southern Africa yes 39 -273 47 4
209    Chevron Corporation no 8 -302 1055 1537
210    Permafrost no 7 -327 744 852
211    Occidental Petroleum no 11 -427 399 531
212    Senegal yes 23 -544 3461 14907
213    Climate change in the United States no 6 -893 123 131
214    Nigeria yes 10 -988 8469 36536
215    Sustainable energy yes 61 -1125 3712 889
216    Ethiopia yes 59 -1375 10804 18405
217    Effects of climate change on humans yes 12 -1584 354 330
218    Iran no 68 -1712 9091 104531
219    Australia no 16 -2029 22396 164056
220    Sustainable Development Goals no 17 -2051 4424 1450
221    Ghana yes 14 -2708 5866 23403
222    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change no yes 5 -3595 674 1581
223    British Empire no 78 -4276 7802 10922
224    Water scarcity yes 32 -5128 773 902
225    Agriculture in India yes 19 -6212 1468 408
226    Karnataka no 21 -12019 3705 13879
227    Water resources no yes 22 -13798 1011 480
228    Environmental racism no 20 -21957 393 344
229    Environmental impact of aviation no 125 -54482 328 469

Logistics and key events

[edit]
Video about a preparatory event one year earlier: face-to-face edit-a-thon "Africa Climate Change" in August 2019: Africa Climate Change edit-a-thon.

Date, time and location

[edit]
  • Date and time: Starting on 24 November 11:00 (GMT) until 1 December 2020 12:30 (GMT).
  • Location: Online.
  • Sign up here

The event will include the following:

  • Opening Zoom session on 24th November from 11:00-12.30 GMT to welcome and orientate participants, share why CDKN and FCFA are hosting the event, and offer some essential editing basics to get everyone started.
  • Daily check-ins and coffee chats (via Zoom) with fellow volunteers and experienced Wikipedia editors to get advice, give updates and share experiences, held from 11:00- 13:00 GMT on 25th, 26th, 27th and 30th November.
  • Virtual workroom (online platform) moderated by a Wikipedia expert to answer any questions that may arise as you are editing. The online platform we will be using is Slack and you can join here.
  • Closing Zoom session on 1st December from 11:00-12.30 GMT to close the edit-a-thon, reflect on progress, announce prize winners, and discuss how to keep in touch and contribute beyond this edit-a-thon.

Registration

[edit]
  • Step 1: Register your interest in the event here. From here we will email you reminders and next steps for the event.
  • Step 2: Create your Wikipedia account here or log into Wikipedia if you already have an account. If you have a problem with a blocked IP address, please email us at: wiki@southsouthnorth.org
  • Step 3: While logged in to Wikipedia, register here on our Wiki4Climate Dashboard for the event. This gives us an overview of all edits made during this edit-a-thon.
  • Step 4: Join our Slack Channel using this link. We will use the Slack Channel to coordinate activities, collaborate with others, and answer you questions. If you have problems with using Slack, email us at: wiki@southsouthnorth.org.
  • Step 5 (recommended for best results): Attend the opening webinar on 24 November and daily check-ins and coffee chats during 24 November to 1 December if you have time (times and links will be announced on the Slack Channel).

Languages

[edit]

We recognise the importance of contributing climate change information to the different language Wikipedia’s and encourage participants of Wiki4Climate to do so.

However, at this time we only have the capacity to provide instructional guidance and evaluate edits in English. Hence prizes (see below) will only be awarded to participants who edit English Wikipedia and all the Zoom sessions will also be held in English. Should a group of editors wish to edit in the same language (other than English) we encourage you to work together and assist each other on Slack.

Organisers and contacts

[edit]
Organizers of Wiki4Climate online edit-a-thon in November 2020 during launch webinar.

This event follows on from the Africa Climate Change edit-a-thon (view this dashboard for more about that event's impact).

Prizes and certificates

[edit]

We will provide certificates for participants who make at least 10 good edits to the English Wikipedia on climate change topics over the course of the week. A "good edit" is one that does not need to be reverted.

Furthermore, a total of 10 participants will receive a prize of USD 50 in vouchers (exchanged in local currency where applicable).

The 10 prizes will be allocated as follows:

  • At least six of the ten prizes will be awarded to female participants, and at least six will be awarded to participants from the Global South.
  • We will look favourably towards the "most improved” climate change editors and are planning to give at least three prizes to people who new to Wikipedia editing (i.e. people who have started Wikipedia editing only this year or even only on 24 November 2020!).

The most valuable contributions will be judged by a combination of the following criteria:

  • The quality of the edit, including depth of information added
  • The quantity of the edits
  • Providing information related to the Global South
  • Bonus points will be given for editors who have added content relating to gender and social inclusion concerns, i.e. climate justice, where it is appreciated that people are affected differently by the impacts of weather and climate change, and benefit differently and have different contributions to make in terms of climate solutions

The prize winners will be selected by the end of Monday 30th November and announced at the end of the edit-a-thon where they will be asked to participate in the closing Zoom session. The organisers will determine the winners and to make this judgement, they will carefully review the volunteers' contributions as per the data collected in the event's dashboard. The judgement decision is final and cannot be disputed.

You can only be eligible for the prize if you are editing while logged into Wikipedia, if you are editing English Wikipedia, and if you have registered for the event's dashboard - see above under registration. This means anonymous edits cannot be counted and neither can edits be counted of someone who did not register for the dashboard. Double check that you are registered by taking a look at the list of editors here.

Participants

[edit]
Participants at a face-to-face edit-a-thon organised by Wikimedia Ghana Usergroup.
Wikipedia Asian Month face-to-face edit-a-thon 2019 organised by Wikimedians of Kerala Usergroup.

You can see who else has registered for this event by clicking on the Dashboard here.

Encouraging contributions from climate change researchers

[edit]

We are encouraging participants from the climate change community (practitioners, communicators and researchers) to use this opportunity to start editing Wikipedia and contribute research to key climate change pages.

Encouraging female editors and editors from the Global South

[edit]

We particularly encourage participants from the Global South and women to participate as editors in this event. We want to help reduce the major gaps on Wikipedia, such as the Gender Gap, and encourage voices from less-represented groups to be more heard in the global knowledge commons.

Wikimedia Community at large

[edit]

We encourage anyone from the Wikimedia Community to participate in this event, in particular members of the WikiProject Climate change and Wikimedians for Sustainable Development group.

Social media outreach

[edit]

You can also help with advertising the event on social media (see hashtags and example tweets below)

  • Hashtags: Primary hashtag: #Wiki4Climate Secondary hashtags you can use: #Wikipedia #ClimateChange #GetInvolved #Volunteer #SignUp. Please help us promote this project on twitter or other social media.
  • Shortened URL to this page: bit.ly/35i07jk
  • Possible tweets to advertise this event:
    • This week, I am working with volunteers from around the world in an exciting online edit-a-thon where we'll edit @Wikipedia articles on climate change. Join us, #volunteer & be a part of an exciting opportunity! #Wiki4Climate
    • #DidYouKnow that a large majority of climate change articles on @Wikipedia lack content & examples from the Global South? Join me any time from 24 Nov - 1 Dec for our online edit-a-thon and help us to change this! #Wiki4Climate
    • Are you a #ClimateChange professional from the Global South? Join me any time from 24Nov - 1Dec to tackle #Wikipedia’s lack of Global South contributors #Wiki4Climate
    • Do you have #climatechange content to share, but have never considered using @Wikipedia as an outreach channel? Register now for the #Wiki4Climate edit-a-thon