End of The Record
Back in 2021 I interned with Wikimedia Australia and noticed some of my favourite bands and record labels didn't have pages on Wikipedia.
That's when we decided to run a small project to get more Australian music on Wikipedia, but the idea quickly grew.
Thanks to Wikimedia Australia's Caddie Brain, the Australia Council for the Arts heard what we wanted to do and gave us funding to run The Record: Australian Music On Wikipedia, initially as a pilot and eventually extending it until June 2023.
Overall we created over 100 new Wikipedia articles and trained 46 people on how to edit and contribute to Wikipedia themselves.
The Pilot : Dec 2021-June 2022
Beginning with an in-person event during Melbourne Music Week in 2021, we ran a total of four edit-a-thon's to show people how to edit Wikipedia and create new Wikipedia articles about Australian music.
Two were in-person in Melbourne and Geelong, and two were held online.
Each event was introduced by a guest speaker, before we showed how to edit Wikipedia and worked from a list of new articles to create, with suggested references.
To make sure we covered a broad range of musical genres, each event had a theme, with country music, art and experimental music, and musicians from Geelong all given our attention.
Across these four events 39 participants learnt how to edit Wikipedia and assisted in the creation of 22 new Wikipedia articles and improved an additional 59.
More articles were created outside of the events, with a total of 50 new Wikipedia articles created during this period.
The Extension: July 2022-June 2023
After the success of The Pilot, we were given additional funding to extend the project another year and ran more in-person events as well as two residencies.
The first resident was me, and was hosted by the Australian Music Vault and Australian Performing Arts Collection.
New Wikipedia pages were added and improved thanks to being given access to their collections. You can read more about it here.
The second resident was Bianca Valentino and was hosted by the State Library of Queensland.
This residency had a focus on First Nations music and musicians. You can read more about it here.
We also hosted an information session on how culturally diverse communities are using Wikipedia, with guests from Australia, New Zealend, and Nigeria, that has since been watched over 90 times on YouTube.
Finally, we ran more editing events to create and improve Wikipedia articles about Australian music.
One was run online, while two more were run in-person, in Brisbane and Sydney.
Across the Extension 34 participants learnt how to edit Wikipedia and assisted in the creation of 11 new Wikipedia articles and improved an additional 163.
Outcomes
In total 73 people contributed, 33 articles were created, 222 articles edited, and 36 images uploaded. Additional Wikipedia articles were created outside of the events by participants, making a total of 101 counted.
Because Wikipedia articles need references to prove someone is notable, we commissioned four music journalists to write long form articles about underrepresented or emerging Australian artists.
They were:
- Silent Jay by Will Brewster - Published by Australian Music Vault.
- Lady Lash by Rhianna Patrick - Published by Australian Music Vault.
- Red Dust & Salt Water - Nola Lauch talks about her Jalgany project by Sosefina Fuamoli - Published in Rhythms magazine, Issue 312 July/Aug 2022, p48
- The pioneering women of Australian music media by Liz Giuffre - Published by The Music (Scheduled to be published September 2023)
The Record: Australian Music On Wikipedia
Paste in stats and charts https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yc1Jl4S8mNWS9aYeMEYB6PS9geSqujltwM7VIRj9cCM/edit
What worked and what didn't
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Will The Record play again?
Although The Record project has ended, Wikimedia Australia is very interested to see it continue as it has generated enormous enthusiasm from across Australia and even overseas.
Likewise, Wikimedia Australia will continue to run residencies so another music related one would be easy to get going.
At the end of August I'm leaving my role at Wikimedia Australia, but I'm sure we'll see more music related events in the future.