Submissions:2025/Editing in Remote Areas: Challenges and Opportunities
This submission has been noted and is pending review for WikiConference North America 2025.
Title:
- Editing in Remote Areas: Challenges and Opportunities
Type of session:
- Lecture (15-30 min)
Session theme(s):
- Missing pieces, Future of Wikipedia
Abstract:
Even in Canada and the US, Wikimedia projects continues to have content gaps in and about remote areas. During my work travel to northern and remote parts of Canada in February 2025, I received funding from Wikimedia Canada to rent a car and drove over 600 km (370 mi) to take geographical photos (e.g. rivers, islands) from four predominantly-Indigenous communities above the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories and upload these photos to Wikimedia Commons. In addition, Wikidata entries and Wikivoyage pages were also updated based on the information gathered. I will share my experience from this editing activity (plus previous editing experience while in northern parts of Canada) on what works and what technical tools are needed to improve to ease the editing experience. The main challenges from editing in remote areas include unreliable/slow internet connection, lack of offline tools, contents written from an outsider's perspective, difficulty to add oral history, inaccurate Wikidata entries and others. Furthermore, I will talk about why Geonotice and CentralNotice perform less effectively in remote areas. The opportunities for editing contents include adding/updating coverage of remote areas (particularly off-road), interest from local communities (especially Indigenous peoples) who wish to write about their lands and peoples from their perspective and improve traveller safety and support local businesses (for Wikivoyage). These editing efforts will help address systematic bias from these areas.
Author name(s):
Wikimedia username(s):
- OhanaUnited
Affiliated organization(s):
- Toronto WikiClub
Estimated length of session
- 20 mins
Will you be presenting remotely?
- I will present in-person
Okay to livestream?
- Livestreaming is okay
Previously presented?
- No
Special requests: