From Norman Newton in Inverness comes news of an ambitious initiative from the WEA’s Highland Local Association, involving sponsorship of a training course in partnership with Wikimedia UK.
Forgotten Stories of the Highlands arose out of the recognition that local history projects and courses in the Highlands, often (but not always) run by the WEA, had generated lots of information about people and places who were significant locally but not well documented.
In particular, a series of community projects on women’s suffrage and also World War One, often involving research in contemporary newspapers and other contemporary documents, highlighted the possibilities of making this research more widely available. Susan Kruse, a local WEA Member and Tutor, started compiling possible Wikipedia entries but it was not until recently that an opportunity became available to develop these ideas further.
Ann MacInnes, a member of the WEA for four decades, represented the Highlands on WEA committees locally and nationally, including the Scottish Committee and WEA UK Council and other committees.
Thanks to the generosity of her family after Ann’s death in 2023, we have been able to set up a free training course on preparing and editing Wikipedia articles, with 12 people enrolled. Some of us are existing WEA members and three of us work as tour guides, bringing a wealth of local knowledge and experience. Susan Kruse led a couple of introductory sessions on the basic skills needed and on the basic policies of Wikipedia, while more detailed training was provided by the Wikimedia UK Programme Manager Sara Thomas, who has Highland family connections and took a personal interest in our project, guiding our efforts and tempering our ambition with pragmatic examples of how to navigate the editorial process.
An innovative feature of our Wikipedia training is that there is a three-week gap between training sessions, giving us the time and space to practice the detailed procedures needed to become a Wikipedia editor. With one more session to go, we now need to have ten minor edits or amendments accepted and will then be in a position to create a new entry. We have all been given an experienced Wikipedia editor as a mentor who will guide us further in the process of becoming an accepted member of the Wikipedia community.
It would be interesting to hear from any WEA staff or members who have had some experience of Wikipedia editing, or from anybody who would like to know more about our project and is thinking of doing something similar in their area.
Norman Newton
[email protected]
