Speculum: Characterizing the creation, curation, reproduction, and neglect of women’s health information on the English language Wikipedia

“The encyclopaedia was traditionally a mirror of the world (a speculum)—of how it was, of how it should be.” Andrew Brown, 2011 Wikipedia is one of the most powerful and ubiquitous information sources in our world today. Content from the English language Wikipedia—the oldest and largest of more than 300 language Wikipedias—populates a range of information systems, topping Google search results and shaping the responses of intelligent assistants like Siri and Alexa. In recent years, the online encyclopedia has also become a prominent source of health information for both patients and practitioners. Wikipedia, however, is not without its problems. Although Wikipedia purports to be the encyclopedia “anyone can edit,” as Ford & Wajcman observe, “not everyone does” (2017). By best counts, more than 80% of Wikipedians are men (Hill & Shaw, 2013). This demographic skew in participation has come to be known as the gender gap. The gender gap in participation has led researchers and Wikipedians alike to ask if who edits Wikipedia results in related gaps in content. Given what we know about Wikipedia’s gender gap, what does the encyclopedia have to say about women’s health? Who is creating, curating, and controlling women’s health information on the English language Wikipedia? Does it matter? What else might matter? In my dissertation, I adapt object biography—a material culture practice used in anthropology—to reconstruct the life-history of a selection of women’s health articles on the English language Wikipedia (n=5). Drawing from article revision histories, talk page discussions, trace data, interviews with editors (n=15 …