When you work in a university, you frequently receive proposals that want students (and sometimes academics) to be "free labour" for some worthy (or not-so-worthy cause) without much regard to how the student benefits in terms of their program of study. As much as I am personally committed to Wikipedia and to feminism, if someone had approached me in my university with such a proposal, I would have said that it might be reasonable to expect a student in a writing or digital communications course to contribute to Wikipedia (or Facebook or ...) as part of that course, but that I would need to see a much stronger case for it in a course about feminism.
Would you regard it as reasonable if a driving instructor required their students to contribute to Wikipedia articles on road safety as a condition of receiving their driver's license? Or a doctor required Wikipedia articles before providing treatment? Why is it any different for a student to be required to write Wikipedia articles? Offering students the *alternative* of writing for Wikipedia in lieu of a traditional essay assignment would be a far more acceptable proposal. But I would expect someone competent in Wikipedia would be available to provide those students with the skills to do so (but I assume this is the intention). And I would see nothing wrong with inviting students in a feminist course to participate in a feminist edit-a-thon or similar activity so long as it was clear it was independent to their studies (i.e. no coercion). Kerry _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
