Gretchenmcc

Linguist. Canadian. I've organized over a dozen editathons for linguistics related articles, and counting.

This page is duplicated from my user page on the English Wikipedia. See there for the most up-to-date information.

Resources

Slides for how to edit Wikipedia as a linguist (CC-BY) bit.ly/lingwiki
Fill out this survey if you're participating in a linguistics editathon and want to be counted! bit.ly/lingwikisurvey
How to participate in #lingwiki even if you're not there in person.
A cute guide to linguistics stub sorting on Wikipedia, created with User:Keilana for linguistics enthusiasts who aren't sure if they have enough knowledge to edit: bit.ly/wugsorting.
The #lingwiki hashtag on twitter - where online editathons are centred, but you can tweet your contributions, suggestions, or questions there any time!
The grant that I received from Wikimedia Inspire for the May, July, and October editathons below. (See the report about the completed grant here.)
The travel grant that I received from Wikimedia for an intensive mini-course about Wikipedia for endangered languages at CoLang, June 2016. See also my report for the now-completed grant.

Editathons and #lingwiki

Art+Feminism 2014, 2015, 2016

I'm not really an art person, but I attended these local editathons because I figured I could help with the tech side and I wanted to learn how to organize my own for linguistics. I ended up doing a considerable amount of facilitation with new users, especially at the first one, and joining the local organizational committee for Art+Feminism Montreal 2015, 2016, etc.

January 2015 #lingwiki - Portland, Oregon

I organized an editathon at the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting in Portland, Oregon. We had 21 participants and a further 6 online via the #lingwiki hashtag. Here's a full report, including links to all 41 articles edited.

March 2015 #lingwiki - Online, with satellite events in Australia, Singapore, Spain

Editathon via the #lingwiki hashtag on the last weekend in March (28-29), plus linguists in Canberra, Singapore, and Madrid who organized spinoff events in their areas! Here's the report, including links to all 54 articles edited.

May 2015 #lingwiki - Ottawa

I organized an editathon at the Canadian Linguistics Association annual meeting in Ottawa, with parallel editing activity on the #lingwiki hashtag. Here's the report, including links to all 43 articles edited.

The French version of the lingwiki editathon slides, created with the support of the CLA, can be found at bit.ly/lingwikifr.

July 2015 #lingwiki x 4 - Chicago

I organized four editathons to take place on the four Wednesdays of the LSA Summer Institute in July in Chicago. I also did a seminar on how to have your linguistics class edit Wikipedia during the first week of the Institute.

Here's the report, including links to all 50 articles edited. The slides from the seminar on how to have your linguistics class edit Wikipedia can be found at bit.ly/lingwikiclass.

October 2015 #lingwiki x 3 in Montreal and Toronto (+ Kingston)

I organized an editathon at NELS in Montreal and NWAV in Toronto, with parallel editing activity on the #lingwiki hashtag.

Here's the report, which also ended up including an editathon with linguistics undergrads at Queen's, using the stub sorting guide at bit.ly/wugsorting.

January 2016 #lingwiki - Washington DC

I organized a second editathon at the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting, which in 2016 was in Washington, DC. 26 participants created or improved 11 articles (see full report).

May 2016 #lingwiki - London

I facilitated an editathon at Queen Mary University London, where 11 participants worked on 9 articles in 5 languages (or 72 articles depending on how you count). Here's the full report. (I also met some lovely folks from Wikimedia UK!)

June 2016 #lingwiki x 2 weeks - Fairbanks, Alaska

I co-taught a week-long workshop on wikis and Wikipedia for endangered languages with User:loztron at CoLang, the institute on collaborative language research in Fairbanks, Alaska. The slides we created for the workshop are CC-BY and located here:

This workshop was supported by a travel grant from Wikimedia (grant report here), and involved 18 participants who edited a total of 39 or 218 articles, depending on how you count (list of articles edited here).

January 2017 #lingwiki & panel - Austin, Texas

I'm organizing a third editathon at the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting, which in 2017 is in Austin, Texas.

My history with wikis and Wikipedia

In 2006 and 2007 I used to fix typos, add links between corresponding articles in different languages, and do various smallish edits, first under an IP address and then under a different, pseudonymous, account (now long untouched). Although I then took a long hiatus from editing, I retained the habit of time-wasting by extensive reading of Wikipedia/Wikimedia meta pages, which has now turned out to be useful.

In 2011 and 2012 I contributed to several grammar wikis for linguistics field methods classes/documentation projects. Two of them are password-protected (one of which was for CoLang 2012), but the other can be viewed here at migmaq.org. I did quite a bit of informal training of linguists to use wikis at CoLang and was an admin/organizer of the migmaq.org wiki.

I created this account in 2014 at the first Art+Feminism editathon, and have since been editing intermittently, although I'm primarily using it as a hub for organizing in-person editathons.

External links

Personal website, for all my linguistics-related activities
Blog - see especially my #lingwiki tag