The Guardian view on Wikipedia’s female volunteers: a hive heroism that changes history | Editorial

In the week of International Women's Day, raise a glass to the unpaid contributors who are putting so many unsung lives on the map

The dictionary definition of heroism does not usually extend to people who work away anonymously, and for no money, for the reputational benefit of others. But this is what growing numbers of largely female researchers have been doing, in an attempt to rebalance the historical record on Wikipedia in favour of women. In a relatively rare instance of one breaking cover, the British archaeologist and curator LucyMoore, who has just finished a project to add a woman from every country in the world, has called for more volunteers to roll up their sleeves and contribute.

The challenge is a large one. As of this month, according to the site itself, just under 20% of nearly 2m biographies on Wikipedia are of women, though this is a marked improvement on the 15.5% reported in an academic paper 10 years ago. That paper led to the creation of Women in Red, which now involves hundreds of volunteers around the world. Their project is to turn red links" - marking a mention of someone for whom a page does not exist - into blue ones that lead to entries documenting their lives.