2023:Program/WikiWomen/RKWR8R-#VisibleWikiWomen Lab: fostering multilingual and decolonizing structured data narratives on Wikimedia Commons

The following is a mirror of what are publicly available details of submission made at the call for proposal platform, Pretalx. Any changes here may be overwritten by a bot while syncing updates from Pretalx (RKWR8R). Changes are monitored and may be updated into Pretalx if they do not change the context of the submission (i.e. correcting typographical errors).

Title: #VisibleWikiWomen Lab: fostering multilingual and decolonizing structured data narratives on Wikimedia Commons

Speakers:

Whose Knowledge?

We are a global campaign to center the knowledge of marginalized communities (the majority of the world) on the internet. 3/4 of the online population of the world today comes from the global South – from Asia, from Africa, from Latin America. And nearly half all women are online. Yet most public knowledge online has so far been written by white men from Europe and North America. To address this, we work particularly with women, people of color, LGBTQI communities, indigenous peoples and others from the Global South/Global Majority to build and represent more of all of our own knowledge online.

Pretalx link

Etherpad link

Room: Room 311

Start time: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 10:34:00 +0800

End time: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 11:14:00 +0800

Type: No (pretalx) session type id specified

Track: No (pretalx) track id specified

Submission state: confirmed

Duration: 40 minutes

Do not record: false

Presentation language: en

Abstract & description

Abstract

This workshop will be centered in action and experimentation, while approaching Structured Data on Commons (SDC) critically and creatively. The #VisibleWikiWomen campaign, which has brought to Wikimedia Commons more than 8000 images of women and non-binary people from all over the world in the past five years, will be our lab to experiment and better understand issues around visual and data gender gap, accessibility and multilinguality in structured data.

Description

Structured data is at the core of how the internet works. One important feature of SD on Commons (SDC) is multilinguality, which “allows people to easily translate content and provides labels in over 300 languages which are added automatically”. Most importantly, one of the aims of SDC is to improve image accessibility by providing “alt text, text descriptions and other information that makes content more accessible to users with specific needs”. It also has the potential to inform AI systems for image recognition, and this is increasingly relevant, since editors in different Wikimedia projects are starting getting automated suggestions through Structured Data Across Wikimedia.

Tackling access/accessibility issues tends to be one of the most neglected aspects of sociotechnical optimization on the internet, yet it is key to knowledge and language justice. Given that only a fraction of online public knowledge is produced on or by women, Black and Brown people, LGBTQI folks, Indigenous communities, and peoples from the Global South, in languages that are not English or mostly European colonial languages, we ask: how can we build anti-oppressive, multilingual, and decolonizing narratives for digital imagery?

To address this question, we will conduct a participatory workshop centered in action and experimentation, while approaching SDC critically and creatively. The #VisibleWikiWomen campaign, which has brought to Wikimedia Commons more than 8000 images of women and non-binary people from all over the world in the last five years, will be our lab to experiment and better understand issues around accessibility and multilinguality in structured data.

This workshop will be a hand-on session in which participants will add/edit SDC components like alternative text and images descriptions and depictions in English and other languages, followed by a time for sharing reflections around the narratives and points of views from where we describe and portray ourselves and other people from marginalized communities.

We want to explore the possibilities, limitations, and impact of a project that centers the knowledge and experience of women, Black and Brown people, LGBTQI folks, people with disabilities, Indigenous communities, and communities from the Global South/Global Majority as authors of their own image metadata.

Further details

Qn. How does your session relate to the event themes: Diversity, Collaboration Future?

Diversity, multilinguality and accessibility on SDC is where knowledge as a service and knowledge equity meet. This workshop will help participants to learn how SDC allows for multiple marginalized communities to access and contribute to multilingual and accessible free knowledge.

Our goal with this project is to offer the movement critical inputs on how to collaborate in building inclusive and diverse user experiences, foster equitable innovation in free knowledge and create a feminist, decolonized and anti-oppressive framing for the future of SDC and SDAW.

Qn. What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?

Some experience will be needed

Qn. What is the most appropriate format for this session?

• Onsite in Singapore
• Remote online participation, livestreamed
• Remote from a satellite event
• Hybrid with some participants in Singapore and others dialing in remotely
• Pre-recorded and available on demand