Wikipedia seeks more women contributors

Hoping to boost contributions from women editors and writers, Day 2 of the city's first WikiConference hosted a discussion on 'Wiki Women Web' at the Mumbai University campus at Fort on Saturday.

Hoping to boost contributions from women editors and writers, Day 2 of the city's first WikiConference hosted a discussion on 'Wiki Women Web' at the Mumbai University campus at Fort on Saturday.

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"On Wikipedia, 87% of writing and editing contributions are made by men, which leaves the women contributions at a dismal 13%. As expressed by Sue Gardner, executive director, Wikimedia Foundation, the share of women contributions should increase to 25% by 2015," said moderator Bishakha Datta, who is also the trustee of Wikimedia Foundation.

"We can ask the women around us, friends, family members, colleagues to tap into their interests in order to transform their otherwise dormant knowledge into knowledge that can be shared with the world," said Dipali Acharya, a software professional, who presented the keynote address.

Other guest speakers on Saturday included Kuhu Tanveer, a cinema student at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, Debashree Dattaray, a Jadavpur University professor and Harriet Vidyasagar, managing editor, Out of India.

"A large number of women across the country are academically qualified, but are housewives, which is essentially a thankless job.

Such women should be given monetary remuneration as an incentive to contribute as a Wikipedia page editor," suggested Dattaray. The conference concludes on Sunday.