Wikipedia:Meetup/Online edit-a-thon on climate change - November 2020

“Wiki4Climate”: A week of editing on climate change topics from 24 November - 1 December 2020. (Edit on 8 December 2020: this particular edit-a-thon has now ended but the Wiki4Climate initiative is ongoing and you can continue to collaborate using our Slack channel to jointly edit Wikipedia articles on climate change topics. Our twitter handle is @Wiki4Climate. Our e-mail address is: wiki@southsouthnorth.org)

Wiki4Climate opening session with 78 participants - group photos (24 November 2020)

This was the project meet-up page for an online edit-a-thon on climate change topics, called “Wiki4Climate”. This edit-a-thon took place online from 24 November until 1 December 2020. It aimed to mobilise a community of climate change professionals (researchers, practitioners and communicators), climate organisers, and existing Wikipedia editors and volunteers to edit and update climate change articles on Wikipedia. This initiative was organised by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) and Future Climate for Africa (FCFA).

This event had four specific goals;

To enhance climate change related content on Wikipedia, particularly related to the Global South,
To increase awareness on the value of contributing to the platform,
To enhance the confidence and skills of climate change professionals to edit Wikipedia, and
To build a community of climate change editors, particularly women and editors from the Global South.

Anyone can take part in this event provided you have a reliable internet connection, an interest in climate change, and a desire to improve Wikipedia content or share research.

You are free to commit according to the time you have available. You do not need to attend for the whole week. You can choose to edit for ten minutes a day, or every day for the entire week. If you are able to add one sentence or a paragraph, improve one lead or simply add a few robust references, you will be making an important contribution.

We particularly encouraged participants from the Global South and women to participate as editors in this event. We wanted to help reduce the major gaps on Wikipedia, such as the Gender Gap, and encouraged voices from less-represented groups to be heard in the global knowledge commons.

Recordings from two live sessions (launch webinar, opening webinar) which we held for this edit-a-thon are available in this Youtube Playlist by CDKN. Presentation slides from these events and further information is available here.

This event followed the Friendly Space policy for conduct.

Questions about the event? Email: wiki@southsouthnorth.org

Help...! I have never edited Wikipedia before!

We highly recommend a guide called How to contribute climate change information to Wikipedia which we (CDKN and FCFA) published in October 2020. It shares guidance and tips for new editors. Jump straight to Chapter 4: How to edit Wikipedia.

How to get started with Wikipedia

Create a Wikipedia username (see Section 4.4 in our guide for important information).
Make sure you understand the Wikipedia rules and styles before attempting to add any content (see Section 4.2 in our guide: "Five principles to guide Wikipedia editors").
Adjust your preferences in Wikipedia so that you get e-mail notifications when someone writes on your talk page, or when a page that you have on your watchlist is being changed. Also adjust your preferences in Wikipedia so that both editors tabs are visible side by side, i.e. the "edit" and the "edit source" tabs. See here for more information: tips for novice Wikipedia editors. The purpose of watchlists is explained here.
Read the list of do's and dont's for new or experienced editors: List of do's and dont's

Tutorial videos

If you are more of the "visual, moving pictures and audio" type learner, you might enjoy these tutorial videos which we have put together in our Youtube Playlist for you:

How to make your first edits in Wikipedia.
First steps in Wikipedia editing: talk pages, editing, watchlist, preferences, history...
How to insert references and images to Wikipedia articles.
How to copy a reference inside a Wikipedia article, how to adjust image size.
How and why to create a REDIRECT in Wikipedia.
Inserting references: page numbers, adding from ISBN number, copying references.

If you require more videos on specific topics, just e-mail us: wiki@southsouthnorth.org. There are also plenty more Wikipedia editing videos available on Youtube, just search for "Wikipedia tutorials", for example videos by The Wiki Show.

We also have further videos which are recordings from various Zoom training sessions we held for this edit-a-thon, see the Youtube Playlist by CDKN. Included in the Playlist are:

Launch Webinar of Wikipedia editing guide for climate change topics: How to contribute climate change information to Wikipedia (by EBclimate, Sadads and others) - 1:23 hours:minutes (presentation slides here)
Wiki4Climate opening session (by EBclimate, Mcnlisa and others) - 1:55 hours:minutes (presentation slides here)
Introduction to Wikipedia and editing basics (by Phoebe), a segment cut out of the opening session webinar - 30 minutes
How to get started with Wikipedia editing for this edit-a-thon (by EMsmile), a segment cut out of the opening session webinar - 7 minutes

How to best participate in this edit-a-thon

Join our Wiki4Climate Slack Channel to interact with other participants and with experienced volunteers who are on hand to provide guidance. (update in June 2021: the Slack channel is still available but is a lot less active now compared to the time of the edit-a-thon in November 2021)
After joining the Slack channel please put your Wikipedia user name in brackets behind your profile name so that we know who is who in real life and in Wikipedia life.
Locate your own Wikipedia talk page. You can find it at the top right after logging in, it's the tab called "talk". A talk page might look like this. Talk pages are the Number 1 tool to communicate with other Wikipedians. Put your talk page on your watchlist by clicking on the star at the top right to make it a blue star.
React to the welcome message on your talk page by posting a little reply, thereby making your very first edit in Wikipedia! Make sure you sign your response with the four tildes which look like this: ~~~~. More details about talk pages are here. If your talk page is empty (no welcome message yet) then please tell us in the Zoom channel that you didn't receive your welcome message yet and we will rectify it.
Put your name next to one or several articles in the tables below to make a little commitment to yourself and others what you're going to work on this week. Note: this page can only be edited with the "source editor", not with the visual editor - don't be alarmed, just give it a go.
Write on the talk page of your article of interest to let others know what you intend on changing. More details about talk pages are here.
Optional: Write in the Slack channel “editing-comments-and-questions” what articles you plan to focus on, or tell us what you have already worked on and edited, as the week progresses. Interact with the others and enjoy meeting new people and working in this collaborative environment!

Once you have done these initial steps you can continue with:

Choose more Wikipedia climate change articles that interest you and that requires improvement and check what information is already covered there.
Decide what you want to add or change.
Click "edit" (for the visual editor) and start editing. See Section 4.6: "How to make an edit"). Only make small changes at first and save your changes very frequently, including an edit summary, to give others a chance to review what you have done.
Do not copy and paste chunks of text, but instead write sentences in your own words, with reference to back up what you are saying. Do not add content directly from publications or websites that are under copyright (see: Copyrights in Wikipedia). You need to paraphrase that content and cite the source.
When writing, use language that is easy to understand for a layperson, especially for a person who does not have English as their first language.

Six recommended tasks

CDKN and FCFA have been working closely with the WikiProject Climate Change to identify activities for the edit-a-thon. Many of the actions below are drawn from their suggestions for small to medium tasks for improving climate change content on Wikipedia. The table below outlines six actions to help improve Wikipedia articles. It might look a bit overwhelming, but you can easily select just one, two or more tasks that are suitable for your background by clicking on the sorting arrows at the top of the table.

If you want to know how a "perfect" Wikipedia article should look like, take a look at Wikipedia's featured articles. A featured article is the best quality article within Wikipedia. The Climate change article is a featured article (there is still room for improvement though!). See further examples here: Wikipedia:Featured articles.

Table 1: Proposed six tasks to improve Wikipedia articles
#	Task (action)	Details, steps and tips	Suitable for which type of volunteer
1	Adding reliable citations to articles	All Wikipedia articles need citations (references to published work) -- every fact and piece of information should have a reliable source. This means that finding and adding citations is an important task. You can start by reading WikiProject Climate Change’s guide to reliable sources for climate change related articles. You can find citations for assertions not referenced, or delete unsupported assertions. Steps: To add a citation to an existing article, we recommend using the “citation hunt” tool, which finds articles lacking in citations. See the Citation Hunt for climate change articles on Wikipedia. Search the literature to see if there's more current information available than is currently cited in the articles. Preference is given to reputable sources, literature reviews; Newspaper articles or blog posts are not ideal but can be OK. Posts from discussion forums are not allowed. Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) are highly reliable, as they are a systematic review of the latest available science and technical information on climate change. Adding citations from the latest IPCC Assessment Reports (currently the Fifth Assessment Report) and Special Reports (Special Reports on Land, the Ocean and Cryosphere, and Global Warming of 1.5 ºC were released in 2019) is particularly encouraged. However, please make sure you follow these standard rules for IPCC citations. Tips: Go to page 31 of our guide for step-by-step instructions for how to add a citation. Adding references (or citations) is also explained here. Tutorial videos showing how references are available in this Youtube Playlist.	Novice editor, with some knowledge about climate change topics
2	Improve language, readability and length of the lead of the articles	What Wikipedia calls the "Lead" is the piece of text that appears first in the article, just before the table of contents. We want those leads to be the highest quality possible. Many articles have leads that are way too short and are not good summaries of the article. However, these are the most read parts of a Wikipedia article -- with most readers stopping after the lead. Steps: Ensure that the lead is like an "executive summary" for the article (similar to an abstract for a journal paper) Ensure the lead has exactly one image (not more than one) and has up to 4 paragraphs (each paragraph no longer than 6 lines). Include wiki links for key words (internal links so readers can click and go to other Wikipedia pages). Use easy to understand, short clear sentences (say less than 20 words). Tips: Guidance from Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section See Section 4.6 and 4.2 of our guide: "How to make an edit" and "Five principles to guide Wikipedia editors". Tutorial videos showing how to edit an article are available in this Youtube Playlist.	Novice editor, with English writing skills and good understanding of Wikipedia’s style and rules
3	Improving language and readability of parts or the entire article	You do not need to restrict yourself to adding new material. You can edit existing content to improve the language and readability. Steps: Replace long words with short words whenever possible. Replace passive voice with active voice. Make long sentences shorter or break them into two sentences. Reduce paragraph lengths to 4-6 lines. You can check the impact of your work by using this tool (webfx) or this tool (online utility) which gives you various readability scores for either a whole website or just a block of text. Paste in the web address of the revised article to get the new readability score. The Hemingway App is also a useful tool for improving readability. Is the current readability score (Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease) OK? Rule of thumb: aim for higher than 55. Tips: Tips on improving readability: here. See Section 4.6 of our guide: "How to make an edit". Tutorial videos showing how to edit an article are available in this Youtube Playlist.	Novice editor, with English writing skills and good understanding of Wikipedia’s style and rules
4	Adding more or better figures, images, videos or wiki links (internal links that connect articles)	Images, figures and graphs are especially important for climate change topics, but many articles lack these. Search the literature, internet and Wikimedia Commons to see if there are more maps, figures, infographics and alike that could be added to the articles (they need to be under the open access licence CC-BY SA). Steps: It is easier to add images that are already in Wikimedia Commons than to add your own images. Try searching for images using Special:MediaSearch. If you want to add new images, you can only add your own images if you own the copyright and are willing to release them under an open access licence. You can also add Wiki links from one Wikipedia article to another (see here for more information). Tips: How to add images is explained in detail here. Guidance from Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Adding images improves the encyclopedia Tutorial videos showing how to add images are available in this Youtube Playlist.	Novice editor
5	Expand articles that are about climate change topics (in the tables below)	Often articles in the tables below will have sections or information, but that information might not be very thorough or useful. Steps: Read the articles involved, and look for sections with less than 2 paragraphs of information. Ask yourself “what else would I expect to find in this section” or “what would I like to learn about this topic”. Look for new sources that you can read to learn about that aspect of the topic. Expand the section, by adding new or insightful information found from the sources. Add examples, sources, projects and other content related to developing countries. Tips: See Section 4.6 of our guide: "How to make an edit". Tutorial videos showing how to edit an article are available in this Youtube Playlist.	Some editing practice, with some knowledge of the topic, moderate research experience
6	Adding more content about countries in the Global South	One of the objectives of this edit-a-thon is to give more visibility to how communities and countries in the Global South are affected by and responding to climate change. Steps: To start, you can see if an article makes a reference to countries in the Global South. If it doesn't, but if it should, think about how you can add that content. Tips: See Section 4.6 of our guide: "How to make an edit". Tutorial videos showing how to edit an article are available in this Youtube Playlist.	Some editing practice, with knowledge about climate change in developing countries

Articles to work on

A list of some of the climate change-related Wikipedia articles that require improvement are included in the tables below according to specific topic areas and gaps. Again this draws from WikiProject Climate Change’s guide on small to medium edits, and bigger tasks for more experienced editors here. This is not an exhaustive list of climate change articles given the cross-cutting nature of the topic. We suggest that you do some research to find any other specific articles that may also interest you and that require improvement. The list has been provided to make it easier to know some key gaps and what articles already exist on climate change. It does not mean, however, that the other Wikipedia articles are "out of bounds".

We have grouped the articles by the following themes in the tables below:

Country and climate articles
"Climate change in Country X or Region X" articles
Adaptation and impacts articles
Climate change and society articles
Agriculture, food and water articles (with a connection to climate change impacts)
Climate finance articles
Mitigation and energy articles

Country and climate articles

A lot more people read the articles about specific countries than the general articles about climate change. By adding more contextually relevant information to those articles, you can help connect climate change, which can be an abstract concept, with people’s sense of place. This is a useful activity to get started with editing. Here is an example: The article Climate change in Pakistan starts with "Climate change is expected to cause wide reaching effects on Pakistan." and yet the country article on Pakistan doesn't mention climate change even once. Let's change that!

Good examples where climate change is already included are the articles for Senegal, Ghana and Suriname (but each of those, the information on climate change is integrated in a slightly different way).

The country articles are meant to follow a certain template which is explained here. The template so far does not have an explicit section on climate but it comes under "geography". This is something we could discuss further with WikiProjects Countries here.

To help you, we have included a table of some country articles where there are a large number of people from these places attending the edit-a-thon. In most cases you would only have to added 1-3 sentences about climate change in that particular country and then link to the relevant sub-article if it already exists (like Climate change in Pakistan).

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Table 2: Proposed country and climate articles to work on
#	Article	Daily view rates	Quality rating (as provided on talk page)	Locked?	People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1	Argentina	7044	B	Locked (novices cannot edit)
2	Bangladesh	9,409	B	Locked (novices cannot edit)
3	Cameroon	2,960	FA (featured article) - best	Locked (novices can edit but edits will be reviewed first)
4	Ethiopia	8,310	B		Sarisha
5	Ghana (climate change already included, do take a look)	5,064	B
6	India	25,610	FA (featured article) - best	Locked (novices cannot edit)	Birendra rai
7	Climate of India (a sub-article to the India article)	1672	B
8	Climate of Asia (a parent article to Climate of India article); Note 1	261	Start
9	Kenya	3,732	B	Locked (novices cannot edit)
10	Namibia	3,030	B		Rossouw
11	Nepal	5,239	B	Locked (novices cannot edit)	Kaustuvraj
12	Nigeria	10,394	B	Locked (novices cannot edit)
13	Peru	4,437	C	Locked (novices can edit but edits will be reviewed first)
14	Climate of Peru (a sub-article to the Peru article)	119	C
15	Senegal (climate change already included, do take a look)	3,079	C		BethMackay
16	South Africa	10,344	C	Locked (novices cannot edit)
17	Tanzania	4,635	C		BethMackay
18	The Gambia	1,892	C
19	Venezuela	5,731	C	Locked (novices cannot edit)

Note 1: Compare with Climate of Africa which already has a section on "climate change" (being an excerpt of Climate change in Africa) whereas Climate of Asia does not yet have a section on "climate change".

"Climate change in Country X or Region X" articles

Many articles on how climate change will affect different regions and countries need expansion, and many rated as “start” articles that need development. Working to expand the articles listed in Climate Change by Country or Region is a valuable task. Click into that category to find articles for a particular country that interests you. For example the article about Abuja does not mention climate change at all. Yet a quick google search shows it is one of the most vulnerable growing cities in Africa (see World Economic Forum). The Abuja article should summarise the effects of climate change in the city and connect with a new article about climate change in Nigeria.

The WikiProject Climate Change has outlined some useful steps to contribute to these articles. Read more about these here.

Steps for contributing:

Find your local community’s Wikipedia article. You can search for the name of your city, county, state or province, or country.
Expand the articles with key topics or concepts in scholarship that aren’t already covered yet in the article. Consider following the suggested article structure documented here.
Look for out-of-date information (anything older than 3-4 years) and see if you can find a new source that allows you to update it.
Search within the article for the concept of “Climate Change” or “Global Warming” (use the Control+F keys).
If there is no mention, go to the “climate”, “geography” or "environment" section of the article.
In a separate tab, search Google or Google news, and search for articles describing the impact of climate change in your specific area.
Read the piece about how your local community will be affected by climate change, and add a summary to the article
Make sure to cite the source by clicking “Cite” in the visual editor, and generating a citation.
Write an edit summary saying what you did (i.e. “added climate change to article”)
Click Publish!

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Table 3: Proposed "Climate change in XX" articles to work on (climate-focused country and regional articles)
#	Article	Daily view rates	Quality rating (as provided on talk page)	People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1	Climate change in Africa	103	B	Rwebogora, BethMackay
2	Climate change in Argentina	10	Start	Rwebogora, Dolphyb
3	Climate change in Bangladesh	67	Start	Rwebogora, Dolphyb, VM98
4	Climate change in Ghana	6	Start	Rwebogora, Dolphyb
5	Climate change in Mexico (note this article is not yet linked from Mexico)	24	C	Rwebogora, Dolphyb
6	Climate change in Pakistan	55	C	Dolphyb
7	Climate change in Senegal	6	Start	Dolphyb
8	Climate change in Sri Lanka	10	C	Kerri1992
9	Climate change in South Africa	10	C	Sirine.M96
10	Environmental issues in Southern Africa	76	Start	Sarisha86
11	Climate change in Turkey	21	C	Severyan33, Ksitson
12	Climate change in Kenya	NA (New article in Nov 2020)	NA (New article in Nov 2020)	Gbadegesin Muhammed, ClaireBD

Adaptation and impacts articles

Help address the major gaps in terms of adaptation to climate change. Many participants have also expressed an interest in working on adaptation as well as impacts-related topics. The table below includes some of the main articles in this category. You can also find climate adaptation topics here.

Some previous work to inspire you: At the Africa climate change edit-a-thon, volunteers added a new section to the Climate change adaptation article on adaptation in Africa (with sub-sections on northern, western, eastern and southern Africa); and a new section was also created on adaptation policy, which was populated with examples from across the African continent. Africa-relevant sources were also added to the external links section, which previously only included geographically-specific pointers to North American and European examples.
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Table 4: Proposed adaptation and impacts articles to work on
#	Article	Daily view rates	Quality rating (as provided on talk page)	People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1	Climate change adaptation	215	C	EMsmile, Mcnlisa, Jordanbkinder
2	Climate change adaptation in Bangladesh	9	C	VM98
3	Climate change adaptation in Nepal	12	Start	Kaustuvraj
4	Coastal flooding	85	C	Sirine.M96
5	Ecosystem-based adaptation	14	C	Rwebogora
6	Flood	2503	B - this article is locked, cannot be edited by novices
7	Effects of climate change	600 (recent name change from "effects of global warming")	B	Jordanbkinder
8	Natural disaster	3352	C	EMsmile
9	Reforestation	333	C	Rwebogora
10	Sea level rise	901	GA (good article)	Mcnlisa
11	Wildfire	1199	GA (good article)
12	Effects of climate change on South Asia	76	C	VM98, Kaustuvraj
13	Regional effects of climate change	62	C
14	Climate change (Note 1)	6500	FA (featured article - best) - this article is locked, cannot be edited by novices	EMsmile
15	Disaster risk reduction (DRR)	244	C	ASRASR

Note 1: This is a high impact article and should only be tackled by experienced editors. What needs doing:

More developing country examples - for example in the section of impacts on people an African photo and caption is needed
The mitigation section is also so much longer than adaptation - despite there being separate articles for both topics (mitigation and adaptation sections should be evenly weighted).
Look for ways to improve readability.

Climate change and society articles

Understanding the societal aspects of climate change is critical for understanding and effectively responding to the climate crisis. This includes how climate change impacts disproportionately affects different social groups and genders, the interactions between climate change and poverty, and the ethical and political dimensions of climate change. This group of articles needs further expansion and more examples and sources from the Global South.

You can highlight gender and social inclusion issues in the various climate change topics (for example, by sector, industry or geography), specifically how climate change will disproportionately affect different groups and the role of women - their needs, concerns and leadership in climate action. If this topic interests you might consider editing articles identified by the Climate Justice Task Force.

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Table 5: Proposed climate change and society articles to work on
#	Article	Daily view rates	Quality rating (as provided on talk page)	People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1	Climate change and cities	New article	Start	Mcnlisa, BethMackay, Rwebogora
2	Climate change and gender	26	C	Gbadegesin_Muhammed, MELA-CC2050, MyteriousWikiEditor, Nahida21972
3	Climate change and indigenous peoples	32	C	Jordanbkinder, Nahida21972
4	Climate change and poverty	53	C	Sirine.M96
5	Climate communication	16	C	Mcnlisa, BethMackay, EBclimate, Lualo
6	Climate justice	167	C	BethMackay, Jordanbkinder, Rwebogora, Nahida21972
7	Environmental migrant	184	C	Nahida21972 VM98
8	Poverty	1,966	B
9	Women and agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa	14	Start	Nahida21972, 555Grace
10	Effects of climate change on humans	263	C	EMsmile, Nahida21972, Newcurtains
11	Climate services	New article	Not yet created	KevinShore19 (Note: the new article will be initially developed here: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User:KevinShore19/sandbox)
12	Developing countries (section about climate change needs work)	2157	C	MduToit74

Agriculture, food and water articles (with a connection to climate change impacts)

Climate change is set to dramatically alter our agriculture and food systems and water availability. Many agriculture, food and water-related articles do not adequately cover climate change issues.

We recommend expanding the articles about agriculture through several ways:

Improving the lead section of agricultural articles to include mention of climate change impacts with citations on that kind of agricultural topic
Expanding key topics related to climate change in the article, i.e. impacts on land-use practices, water scarcity, expected extreme weather impacts, etc.
When it's a general topic, add examples of global south content where possible.

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Table 6: Proposed agriculture, food, water articles to work on (with a connection to climate change impacts)
#	Article	Daily view rates	Quality rating (as provided on talk page)	People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1	Agriculture in Ghana	62	Start
2	Agriculture in Nigeria	174	Start	Nsebobo
3	Agriculture in India	1,204	C	Rwebogora
4	Carbon farming	48	C	Rwebogora
5	Climate change and agriculture	317	B	MELA-CC2050, 555Grace, Newcurtains
6	Fisheries and climate change	1	C	Rwebogora
7	Drought	825	C	EMsmile, Rwebogora
8	Food security	870	B
9	Smallholder farming	151	Start	Njogoh
10	Water conflict	193	C
11	Water in Africa	39	Start	Rwebogora
12	Water scarcity	762	B
13	Water scarcity in Africa	98	C

Climate finance articles

Climate finance is another gap and below are some articles that need further development.
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Table 7: Proposed climate finance articles to work on
#	Article	Daily view rates	Quality rating (as provided on talk page)	People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1	Climate finance	31	Start	Rwebogora
2	Climate risk insurance	New article	Stub
3	Green Climate Fund	164	B	EMsmile

Mitigation and energy articles

Edit this table

Table 8: Proposed mitigation and energy articles
#	Article	Daily view rates	Quality rating (as provided on talk page)	People who want to work on this article (there is no limit here)
1	Climate change mitigation / Climate action	427	B	Jordanbkinder
2	Bioenergy	144	Start	Daniele Pugliesi
3	Biofuel	843	C
4	Efficient energy use	302	C
5	Energy policy	54	C	Rwebogora
6	Energy storage	451	C	Rwebogora
7	Renewable energy	2,091	B - Locked (can't be edited by novices)
8	Sustainable energy	3,651	C	EMsmile; Femkemilene

Reporting after the event

Quantifiable outputs

The outputs were analyzed with event metrics and with the event's Dashboard. The two tools give slightly different results for some of the parameters. In general, the dashboard gives higher numbers for "articles edited" and "article views".

Three users were removed from the analysis because they are long-term active Wikipedians and also edited many articles that were not related to climate change: Sadads, Stanjourdan, Phoebe. Removing these three persons meant that the figures for "articles edited" and "article views" dropped a bit. It is wonderful to have active, long-term editors participate in edit-a-thons. The only small problem with very active editors is related to the statistical analysis: during the week of an edit-a-thon they usually work on a variety of topics, not just climate change ones but it is not easily possible to only include their climate change related edits in the analysis.

Data recorded by Event Metrics

The outputs were analyzed with event metrics by creating this event and logging English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

Settings:

Time period used in the analysis: 19 November to 4 December 2020
Wikis analysed: English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons

Contributions:

Pages created: 29 (actual value: 5, see explanation below)
Pages improved: 286 (actual value: 229, see explanation below)
Edits made: 2.3k
Uploaded files: 34
Bytes changed: 582 K

Impact:

Views to pages created: 1 K
Average daily views to pages improved: 352.8 K
Average daily views to uploaded files: 13.9 K
Unique pages with uploaded files: 30
Uploaded files in use:30

Participation:

Participants: 118
New editors: 72
Retention after 7 days (beginning 7 days after the event): 2

Data recorded by Dashboard

The event's Dashboard was useful during the event to have an overview of who is editing and how much. The dashboard's data for this event is provided here for the time period 19 November to 4 December 2020 for the English Wikipedia (data from 16 December 2020):

Articles created: 23 (actual value: 5, see explanation below)
Articles edited: 270 (actual value: 229, see explanation below)
Edits, in total: 6.86 K
Registered editors: 118
Words added: 119 K
References added: 923
Article views: 6.91 M (the way the Dashboard seems to work is that this figure will continue to rise over time; the value here is for 16 December 2020)
Wikimedia Commons uploads: 35

Reports and blog posts about the event

What I learnt from Wiki4Climate online edit-a-thon - My reflections on the experiences gathered at the Wiki4Climate online edit-a-thon. By Sumana Banerjee, India, User:GoluBanner11
Wiki4Climate - Improving the global knowledge on climate change through Wikipedia - Blog post on website of FCFA on 8 December 2020

New Wikipedia articles created

We did not focus on creating new articles during this event but rather on improving existing articles. Nevertheless, five articles were created during the event. The analytical tools gave a higher number of 29 because some participants also created articles that were not relevant for our topic (e.g. on African athletes). Also the software did not pick up those articles that only existed as a redirect to another page. The following five articles were created:

Climate change and cities
Climate change in Kenya (was a redirect page before the edit-a-thon)
Climate change in Nigeria
Climate change in Tanzania (was a redirect page before the edit-a-thon)
High Council on Climate

Prize winners

The ten volunteers who have made the most valuable contributions to climate change related topics in the English Wikipedia during the edit-a-thon are listed below. The prize winners were announced by Dr. Musonda Xoliswa Mumba (United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi) in a video call on 1 December 2020 (recording available here on Youtube: https://youtu.be/3ShOFQ0d2m8). Amongst the prize winners were six women, and all winners were from the Global South:

Muhammed, User:Gbadegesin Muhammed - Nigeria (male); had previously also won a prize in the Wiki loves SDGs edit-a-thon
Adolphus, User:Dolphyb- Nigera (male)
Karina, User:Hsomak - Colombia (female)
Sirine, User:Sirine.M96 - Lebanon (female)
Precious, User:Obiorah_Precious_Oby - Nigeria (female); had previously also won a prize in the Wiki loves SDGs edit-a-thon
Karyna, User:Kerri1992 - Lebanon (female)
Rozai, User:Schezwan - India (male)
Fatima, User:Tima93Lb - Lebanon (female); had previously also won a prize in the Wiki loves SDGs edit-a-thon, under the name of User:Fatima993
Vidur, User:VM98 - India (male)
Juliana, User:555Grace - Uganda (female)

Participants

We had 121 participants signed up in the event's Dashboard (compared to 278 people who had responded to the call for participation and added their names to an e-mail list). About 68 volunteers out of these 121 people (56%) contributed to climate change related topics in the English Wikipedia during the edit-a-thon - some with a lot of edits, some with only two or three edits. Volunteers who made at least ten good edits in the English Wikipedia during the edit-a-thon received a certificate of participation (24 volunteers requested a certificate, and 22 were rewarded one).

It is estimated that about 51% of these 68 active editors were female, and 72% were from developing countries (Global South), as per the table below (our target had been 50% female and 75% from Global South). Note that participants did not have to reveal their gender or location which means that for about 20% of participants we did not know these parameters. We also determined that 75% of the 68 active editors were new to Wikipedia editing.

The list below shows participants who made edits during this edit-a-thon, in alphabetical order:

Articles improved

The Eventmetrics tools provided a list of 286 articles that were improved during the event by participants. Of those, 57 articles were removed manually because their topics were not relevant to climate change. For example, two editors did some parallel work on biographies of Nigerian athletes or politicians from a range of countries. Another editor changed wikilinks to "biomass" in several articles on various animals. Those articles were removed from the analysis. This left 229 articles that were improved during the event, and these are shown in the table below.

We had proposed 82 articles to be edited (our proposed list is shown further down below). 90% of our proposed 82 articles were indeed edited during this event which is a good result.

Table A: Articles that were improved during this event.
#	Article title	In our proposed article list of 82 articles?	Should have been included (or for next time)?	Edits during event	Bytes changed during event	Avg. daily pageviews	Incoming links
1	Climate change in Sri Lanka	yes		125	29529	21	9
2	Humidity	no		9	26457	1261	1480
3	Climate change in Kenya	yes		179	24047	17	11
4	Climate change in South Africa	yes		109	17571	24	121
5	Women in climate change	no		42	17337	11	6
6	Climate change and gender	yes		47	16245	35	330
7	Climate change in Australia	no		36	16091	138	428
8	Climate change in Pakistan	yes		60	13646	89	214
9	Climate change in Tanzania	yes		21	12452	3	11
10	Climate change in Turkey	yes		88	12176	42	38
11	Water in Africa	yes		103	11582	87	14
12	Climate change mitigation	yes		32	11412	423	1257
13	Climate change and cities	yes		37	10655	12	362
14	Smallholding	yes		31	10546	164	639
15	Effects of climate change on human health	yes		28	9280	161	331
16	Climate change in Senegal	yes		45	8894	13	64
17	UNDP South Africa	no		12	8340	4	1
18	List of countries by total renewable water resources	no		4	8190	280	44
19	Climate change and agriculture	yes		54	8161	332	464
20	Effects of climate change on South Asia	yes		22	8116	98	444
21	Water scarcity in Africa	yes		22	7952	114	17
22	Water conflict	yes		13	7184	183	190
23	COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana	no		39	7103	246	803
24	Climate change adaptation	yes		21	6994	207	453
25	Climate-smart agriculture	no	yes	6	6931	22	8
26	Environmental migrant	yes		22	6581	199	359
27	José Benito Vives de Andréis Marine and Coastal Research Institute	no		23	6062	2	9
28	Climate justice	yes		31	5996	184	363
29	Climate change adaptation in Nepal	yes		26	5987	17	3
30	Climate change in Bangladesh	yes		44	5582	81	23
31	United States	no		81	5374	41260	456774
32	Environmental issues in Antigua and Barbuda	no		8	5245	5	8
33	Fossil fuel divestment	no		12	5222	98	398
34	Ghana Meteorological Agency	no		26	5153	10	2
35	Disaster risk reduction	yes		31	4693	244	121
36	Agriculture in Nigeria	yes		33	4647	211	281
37	Enhanced weathering	no		3	4141	45	21
38	India	yes		38	3877	26521	182686
39	Climate change and poverty	yes		46	3860	62	338
40	Ghana Climate innovation centre	no		10	3331	3	2
41	Earth Hour	no		14	2814	236	131
42	Coastal flooding	yes		60	2746	101	389
43	2018–20 Southern Africa drought	no		10	2726	43	4
44	Greenhouse gas	no	yes	22	2716	2729	2113
45	Geography of Bangladesh	no		8	2694	288	333
46	Southern Ocean	no		12	2622	1010	3651
47	Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Colombia)	no		7	2535	4	93
48	Undernutrition in children	no		4	2405	34	32
49	Antarctic Peninsula	no		4	2347	223	2471
50	Climate of India	yes		23	2302	1597	1548
51	Climate finance	yes		14	2275	35	333
52	Food security	yes		15	2207	957	1276
53	Social impact of YouTube	no		3	2051	156	72
54	Developing country	yes		23	1897	2418	1214
55	Electric vehicle	no		14	1891	1014	1249
56	Climate change and indigenous peoples	yes		41	1878	34	330
57	Climate change in the Netherlands	no		6	1834	6	12
58	Climate change in Ghana	yes		14	1774	10	222
59	Climate of Delhi	no		5	1720	321	7
60	Sundarbans National Park	no		3	1691	536	1062
61	El Niño	no		4	1678	1436	763
62	Climate change in Africa	yes		42	1670	100	345
63	Agroforestry	no	yes	6	1663	285	583
64	Geothermal energy	no		12	1560	1079	691
65	WASH	no		3	1505	174	102
66	Lightning	no		7	1464	1406	1758
67	Lake Malawi	no		7	1454	366	782
68	Women and agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa	yes		54	1299	17	2
69	Clearing (geography)	no		1	1298	21	22
70	Climate and Development Knowledge Network	no		2	1278	4	12
71	The Gambia	yes		16	1165	2209	5130
72	Climate change in Mexico	yes		27	1158	26	140
73	Energy security	no	yes	8	1154	97	388
74	Renewable energy	yes		16	1115	2190	3443
75	Economics of climate change mitigation	no	yes	6	1107	17	33
76	Tanzania	yes		28	1099	4425	19585
77	Geography of Lebanon	no		11	1095	106	142
78	Flood	yes		3	1062	1705	2138
79	Climate change in Argentina	yes		13	1054	16	5
80	Ghana Institute of Journalism	no		2	1040	20	92
81	Environmental issues in Colombia	no		8	1037	26	153
82	East Africa	no		4	1012	1092	3573
83	Kaluki Paul Mutuku	no		9	1000	3	0
84	Koës	no		2	942	4	12
85	Deforestation in Brazil	no		6	933	168	131
86	Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest	no		11	909	483	77
87	Planet of the Humans	no		22	903	464	14
88	World Health Organization response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa	no		3	903	3	1
89	Denmark	no		9	900	7243	67383
90	Nkosilathi Nyathi	no		2	895	2	0
91	Switzerland	no		9	857	10164	89919
92	Hydrofluorocarbon	no		1	854	139	73
93	Solar power in Australia	no		6	844	111	365
94	Nina Gualinga	no		4	834	19	4
95	Photosynthesis	no		5	821	4248	2314
96	South Africa	yes		11	803	11573	81638
97	Luxembourg	no		18	781	5589	20515
98	United Kingdom	no		30	763	27734	221679
99	Bioenergy	yes		11	740	159	303
100	University of Ghana	no		4	727	201	1030
101	Renewable energy in developing countries	no	yes	6	716	58	16
102	Sudan	no		12	705	3895	12590
103	France	no		16	704	11177	238291
104	Climate change in Taiwan	no		3	696	7	10
105	Effects of climate change on island nations	no	yes	5	673	98	16
106	Poverty	yes		6	672	2068	2894
107	Ecosia	no		3	649	618	81
108	Reforestation	yes		5	639	367	1344
109	Breakthrough Energy	no		14	631	103	2
110	Regional effects of climate change	yes		3	618	185	325
111	Climate change in China	no		3	586	127	83
112	Natural disaster	yes		28	576	2695	899
113	Climate of Brazil	no		2	561	223	700
114	Agriculture in Senegal	no		1	559	21	101
115	Environmental issues in Africa	yes		1	531	50	14
116	Amina J. Mohammed	no		6	516	372	409
117	Diesel emissions scandal	no		4	499	102	8
118	Carbon farming	yes		7	489	50	11
119	Agriculture in Ghana	yes		5	489	60	305
120	Goldman Sachs	no		7	487	2422	2307
121	Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Ghana	no		2	467	8	71
122	Efficient energy use	yes		5	434	300	1222
123	National Board for Small-Scale Industries	no		1	429	12	8
124	Effects of climate change	yes		17	425	784	340
125	Vanessa Nakate	no		3	414	52	36
126	Energy policy of India	no		4	399	221	323
127	Climate of Asia	yes		19	393	226	75
128	Sustainability	no		7	388	1445	2552
129	Bangladesh	yes		22	386	9450	23486
130	Agriculture in Namibia	no		2	364	17	66
131	Deforestation and climate change	no	yes	3	348	174	380
132	Red Line (Namibia)	no		2	343	6	4
133	Climate change in Canada	no		5	336	92	33
134	Drought	yes		9	316	879	2505
135	Ann Henderson-Sellers	no		1	297	2	15
136	Ocean colonization	no		5	263	61	47
137	European Climate Change Programme	no		3	251	8	19
138	Ministry of Climate Change (Pakistan)	no		6	250	31	56
139	Climate change	yes		20	226	4891	5698
140	Geography of Namibia	no		2	226	47	98
141	Environmental Performance Index	no		6	223	352	178
142	Energy policy	yes		11	219	63	492
143	ExxonMobil	no		15	215	1463	1427
144	Special Report on Emissions Scenarios	no		1	207	71	41
145	Bali Declaration by Climate Scientists	no		1	196	1	3
146	Namibia	no		21	188	4407	13242
147	WAP	no		12	171	352	0
148	Environmental impact of the energy industry	no		2	154	72	227
149	Climate change in Algeria	no		4	153	10	11
150	Energy policy of China	no		2	141	79	551
151	Solar energy	no		4	136	1572	1482
152	University of Environment and Sustainable Development	no		3	133	9	0
153	Agriculture in Tanzania	no		4	132	77	184
154	Energy Task Force	no		4	131	10	13
155	Effects of climate change on oceans	no	yes	1	123	91	1
156	Climate change in Belgium	no		1	121	3	13
157	Climate change in Minnesota	no		5	115	5	366
158	Water supply and sanitation in Namibia	no		4	109	19	111
159	Deforestation in Nigeria	no		3	101	44	43
160	Lanternfish	no		6	100	285	209
161	Deglaciation	no		1	99	24	100
162	Energy in South Africa	no		5	95	35	221
163	C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group	no		2	92	116	60
164	Water in New Zealand	no		3	87	12	148
165	Geography of South Africa	no		5	86	207	210
166	Order of the Niger	no		1	80	87	166
167	Climate risk	no	yes	1	75	34	357
168	Climate change and fisheries	yes		2	69	24	0
169	Airborne fraction	no		1	69	5	2
170	Climate change in the Caribbean	no		6	65	60	326
171	NamWater	no		3	63	3	9
172	Climate of Australia	no		5	61	913	224
173	Biofuel	yes		5	54	911	1477
174	ConocoPhillips	no		7	48	307	687
175	Spring bloom	no		2	46	20	108
176	Ecosystem-based adaptation	yes		2	44	17	9
177	Social relation	no		2	27	413	199
178	Co-production (society)	no		3	24	15	143
179	Mission Innovation	no		3	24	9	4
180	Reclaimed water	no		2	24	200	704
181	Water supply and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa	no		5	22	11	103
182	Heat of combustion	no		4	10	803	101
183	Climate change in Antarctica	no		4	10	46	6
184	Fuzzy number	no		1	6	33	55
185	Anne M. Thompson	no		1	0	1	2
186	Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019	no		1	-9	30	6
187	Stratospheric sulfur aerosols	no		1	-11	44	16
188	Seawater	no		6	-22	779	1088
189	Antarctica	no		3	-26	4976	11799
190	Biomass	no		3	-26	989	2182
191	Grazing	no		2	-36	207	1140
192	Roundabout PlayPump	no		1	-36	29	7
193	Climate of the United States	no		4	-45	791	83
194	European Investment Bank	no		4	-49	197	1053
195	Desertification	no	yes	4	-77	735	1281
196	Energy policy of the United Kingdom	no		3	-99	53	360
197	Mesozoic	no		4	-106	1010	2377
198	Wildfire	yes		20	-121	971	2440
199	Drew Shindell	yes		2	-123	3	7
200	Complex adaptive system	no		2	-124	183	218
201	Gavin Schmidt	no		2	-124	12	46
202	Share taxi	no		6	-126	97	466
203	Energy storage	yes		9	-127	459	791
204	Arctic methane emissions	no		2	-170	163	445
205	Austria	no		7	-189	6591	79250
206	Earth	no	yes	14	-195	8871	9431
207	Kenya	yes		13	-260	4159	28190
208	Environmental issues in Southern Africa	yes		39	-273	47	4
209	Chevron Corporation	no		8	-302	1055	1537
210	Permafrost	no		7	-327	744	852
211	Occidental Petroleum	no		11	-427	399	531
212	Senegal	yes		23	-544	3461	14907
213	Climate change in the United States	no		6	-893	123	131
214	Nigeria	yes		10	-988	8469	36536
215	Sustainable energy	yes		61	-1125	3712	889
216	Ethiopia	yes		59	-1375	10804	18405
217	Effects of climate change on humans	yes		12	-1584	354	330
218	Iran	no		68	-1712	9091	104531
219	Australia	no		16	-2029	22396	164056
220	Sustainable Development Goals	no		17	-2051	4424	1450
221	Ghana	yes		14	-2708	5866	23403
222	Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change	no	yes	5	-3595	674	1581
223	British Empire	no		78	-4276	7802	10922
224	Water scarcity	yes		32	-5128	773	902
225	Agriculture in India	yes		19	-6212	1468	408
226	Karnataka	no		21	-12019	3705	13879
227	Water resources	no	yes	22	-13798	1011	480
228	Environmental racism	no		20	-21957	393	344
229	Environmental impact of aviation	no		125	-54482	328	469

Logistics and key events

Video about a preparatory event one year earlier: face-to-face edit-a-thon "Africa Climate Change" in August 2019: Africa Climate Change edit-a-thon.

Date, time and location

Date and time: Starting on 24 November 11:00 (GMT) until 1 December 2020 12:30 (GMT).
Location: Online.
Sign up here

The event will include the following:

Opening Zoom session on 24th November from 11:00-12.30 GMT to welcome and orientate participants, share why CDKN and FCFA are hosting the event, and offer some essential editing basics to get everyone started.
Daily check-ins and coffee chats (via Zoom) with fellow volunteers and experienced Wikipedia editors to get advice, give updates and share experiences, held from 11:00- 13:00 GMT on 25th, 26th, 27th and 30th November.
Virtual workroom (online platform) moderated by a Wikipedia expert to answer any questions that may arise as you are editing. The online platform we will be using is Slack and you can join here.
Closing Zoom session on 1st December from 11:00-12.30 GMT to close the edit-a-thon, reflect on progress, announce prize winners, and discuss how to keep in touch and contribute beyond this edit-a-thon.

Registration

Step 1: Register your interest in the event here. From here we will email you reminders and next steps for the event.
Step 2: Create your Wikipedia account here or log into Wikipedia if you already have an account. If you have a problem with a blocked IP address, please email us at: wiki@southsouthnorth.org
Step 3: While logged in to Wikipedia, register here on our Wiki4Climate Dashboard for the event. This gives us an overview of all edits made during this edit-a-thon.
Step 4: Join our Slack Channel using this link. We will use the Slack Channel to coordinate activities, collaborate with others, and answer you questions. If you have problems with using Slack, email us at: wiki@southsouthnorth.org.
Step 5 (recommended for best results): Attend the opening webinar on 24 November and daily check-ins and coffee chats during 24 November to 1 December if you have time (times and links will be announced on the Slack Channel).

Languages

We recognise the importance of contributing climate change information to the different language Wikipedia’s and encourage participants of Wiki4Climate to do so.

However, at this time we only have the capacity to provide instructional guidance and evaluate edits in English. Hence prizes (see below) will only be awarded to participants who edit English Wikipedia and all the Zoom sessions will also be held in English. Should a group of editors wish to edit in the same language (other than English) we encourage you to work together and assist each other on Slack.

Organisers and contacts

Main coordinators: CDKN and FCFA.
Meet the team: The main team members involved are User:EMsmile, User:EBclimate, User:BethMackay, User:Mcnlisa, and User:TiffChalm100. More information about the team is available in the Wiki4Climate starter pack.
Contact details: wiki@southsouthnorth.org

This event follows on from the Africa Climate Change edit-a-thon (view this dashboard for more about that event's impact).

Prizes and certificates

We will provide certificates for participants who make at least 10 good edits to the English Wikipedia on climate change topics over the course of the week. A "good edit" is one that does not need to be reverted.

Furthermore, a total of 10 participants will receive a prize of USD 50 in vouchers (exchanged in local currency where applicable).

The 10 prizes will be allocated as follows:

At least six of the ten prizes will be awarded to female participants, and at least six will be awarded to participants from the Global South.
We will look favourably towards the "most improved” climate change editors and are planning to give at least three prizes to people who new to Wikipedia editing (i.e. people who have started Wikipedia editing only this year or even only on 24 November 2020!).

The most valuable contributions will be judged by a combination of the following criteria:

The quality of the edit, including depth of information added
The quantity of the edits
Providing information related to the Global South
Bonus points will be given for editors who have added content relating to gender and social inclusion concerns, i.e. climate justice, where it is appreciated that people are affected differently by the impacts of weather and climate change, and benefit differently and have different contributions to make in terms of climate solutions

The prize winners will be selected by the end of Monday 30th November and announced at the end of the edit-a-thon where they will be asked to participate in the closing Zoom session. The organisers will determine the winners and to make this judgement, they will carefully review the volunteers' contributions as per the data collected in the event's dashboard. The judgement decision is final and cannot be disputed.

You can only be eligible for the prize if you are editing while logged into Wikipedia, if you are editing English Wikipedia, and if you have registered for the event's dashboard - see above under registration. This means anonymous edits cannot be counted and neither can edits be counted of someone who did not register for the dashboard. Double check that you are registered by taking a look at the list of editors here.

Participants

You can see who else has registered for this event by clicking on the Dashboard here.

Encouraging contributions from climate change researchers

We are encouraging participants from the climate change community (practitioners, communicators and researchers) to use this opportunity to start editing Wikipedia and contribute research to key climate change pages.

Encouraging female editors and editors from the Global South

We particularly encourage participants from the Global South and women to participate as editors in this event. We want to help reduce the major gaps on Wikipedia, such as the Gender Gap, and encourage voices from less-represented groups to be more heard in the global knowledge commons.

Wikimedia Community at large

We encourage anyone from the Wikimedia Community to participate in this event, in particular members of the WikiProject Climate change and Wikimedians for Sustainable Development group.

Social media outreach

You can also help with advertising the event on social media (see hashtags and example tweets below)

Hashtags: Primary hashtag: #Wiki4Climate Secondary hashtags you can use: #Wikipedia #ClimateChange #GetInvolved #Volunteer #SignUp. Please help us promote this project on twitter or other social media.
Shortened URL to this page: bit.ly/35i07jk
Possible tweets to advertise this event:
- This week, I am working with volunteers from around the world in an exciting online edit-a-thon where we'll edit @Wikipedia articles on climate change. Join us, #volunteer & be a part of an exciting opportunity! #Wiki4Climate
- #DidYouKnow that a large majority of climate change articles on @Wikipedia lack content & examples from the Global South? Join me any time from 24 Nov - 1 Dec for our online edit-a-thon and help us to change this! #Wiki4Climate
- Are you a #ClimateChange professional from the Global South? Join me any time from 24Nov - 1Dec to tackle #Wikipedia’s lack of Global South contributors #Wiki4Climate
- Do you have #climatechange content to share, but have never considered using @Wikipedia as an outreach channel? Register now for the #Wiki4Climate edit-a-thon