Growing up with easy access to the Internet grants the privilege of experiencing effortless knowledge and high availability of information. Wikipedia is an example of 21st century cooperation and collaboration. For many, it represents a beacon of free information and self-education. Some might credit it for charting wider participation in the movement towards free content and open resources.

Yet Wikipedia remains a tool of power and privilege, absent for many as societal myths perpetuate in the lives of children. As children are exposed to the Internet at earlier ages, their comprehension and correlation to the real world is in the context of living in a digitized society. In simpler words, everything they ever know always has technology, tablets, smart-phones, and smart devices present. There is no split experience of going from have-nots to haves.

For me, the split experience was my experience. As I became older, information became within click’s reach and a moment of patience. In prior generations, factual information existed in factual places, such as a library or a home study (for those privileged to own encyclopedias in their homes as children). Caught without any reference to support or dissent against a societal myth, the truth remained far enough out of reach for only the most motivated (and privileged) to continue searching for truth.

Today, this process takes seconds. From devices in pockets to sitting at desks. Desks now conveniently feature a computer workstation over “old school” writing utensils, books, and paper. Externally-verified information is available for those who seek truth or supporting evidence to define their own understanding of truth (additionally, misinformation is equally spreadable depending on prior motivations, but will not be covered in this short opinion).

If the answers are so near and available, it enables increased self-awareness among youth. The Internet’s ludicrous goals of a more interconnected species came not boldly, but subtly. It crept into our culture and perception of the world. As more gratis and factual information (academic work, scientific research, investigative reporting, and others, often under free licenses) creeps into the search-able Internet, answers remain convenient with a few taps on an LCD screen. Perhaps today’s youth, privileged to early Internet exposure, have subconsciously understood their perception of information as naturally free and available (with different understandings of what is true or false). For those searching for secularism, the true science remains easy to find and discover.

And thus, the root of the issue. What is the role of privilege? What early childhood development possibilities are created within information-rich societies? Are children better able to cast away their own doubts and suspicions? Do they avoid buying into a system designed to feed from them?

But what of the contrary? What is the experience to go without this privilege? It can be lack of access to information. The perception of information is opposite of naturally free and available, but costly and hidden. The odds are stacked higher against you because of poor accessibility to tools and resources.

But is access to free knowledge like Wikipedia truly inaccessible for even the most impoverished? Since even some of the poorest countries have better access to smart-phones than piped water, exposure to the wider Internet (including Wikipedia) is inevitable. But the timing is late. The critical period of early childhood development is missed. Early childhood development has three phases: conception, the first 1000 days (birth to three years old), and pre-school / pre-primary years. The brain of a child is most sensitive, almost like a sponge, in those first 1000 days. Researchers defend this period’s impact on child-society and community cohesion as critical, even influencing the neurobiology of peace.¹ So then what of those who have the privilege of exposure to technology in those first 1000 days? What of the billions, nearly trillion, dollars of advertising that slip through the cracks of what these children are exposed to? Are we subtly being written before language is even learned?

In this way, the open and closed systems compete in the Internet state. There are positive and negative qualities from both free information and black-box systems in information-rich societies. Wikipedia is a privilege, but it is only one small part of something bigger. A privilege of truth. A privilege of access. A privilege of self-liberation.

¹ Britto, Pia. “Building Brains, Building Futures.” Online webinar, UNICEF, 24 January 2018. Keynote address.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash.

A series of heavy noreasters hit the US east coast over the last couple weeks. This coincided with my travel dates back to Rochester, NY. While we didn’t have flooding, we had a lot of snow. A lot of snow means canceled flights.

As I made my way through border control in Dublin, Ireland on March 7, I discovered my connection to New York City would likely be canceled. A meander from baggage claim to the check-in desk confirmed this. Fortunately, Aer Lingus had no issue putting me up in a hotel overnight with dinner and breakfast to catch the next flight to New York the next day.

While waiting in airport queues, a friend happened to retweet a local event happening in Dublin the next day.

For International Women's Day on Thursday, we'll be celebrating Female Firsts in medicine with @RCSILibrary https://t.co/RvIHtwAhys
Saturday, we have our @artandfeminism event in @UCC, celebrating our Irish and local female artists from 12-3pm https://t.co/ZMpKQOSR3q pic.twitter.com/0G7Kn3zpS6

— Wikimedia Community Ireland (@WikimediaIE) March 5, 2018

The event was a local Wikimedia meet-up to celebrate International Women’s Day. Participants would create and edit Wikipedia pages for influential women in the history of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. After digging deeper, I found out the event was 30 minutes away from my hotel from 09:30 to 12:30. My flight was at 16:10.

I put in my RSVP.

Meet the Wikimedia Ireland community 🔗

In an opportunistic stroke of fate, I would spend my extended layover for my first time in Dublin learning and listening about role model women in the Irish medicine community. I didn’t know it yet, but I would also take part in writing some of the history too!

#WomenOnWalls 🔗

The first part of the morning was an introduction to editing on Wikipedia and establishing the focus for edits.

The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) started a new campaign to promote influential women in the history of the university. There is a historical board room in a prominent place on its campus. Inside the board room, there are portraits of influential people in the history of RCSI. But all of them are men. This makes it difficult for women to have role models or inspiration of women like them who “made it” in science and medicine.

On the contrary, there was also no shortage of influential women in the history of RCSI. Part of the morning was an introduction to primary sources that explained the pivotal work of female Irish doctors and pediatricians throughout the 20th century. After hearing about these inspirational women, it was a wonder – why were none of them represented in the board room?

This was actually the focus for the edit-a-thon. Recently, RCSI commissioned new portraits for some of the influential women alumnae. Half of the portraits in the board room would be relocated and replaced by the new portraits. This was part of their #WomenOnWalls campaign.

Discovering Victoria Coffey 🔗

After an introduction to the sources available and how to edit on Wikipedia, we began the editing. Organizers encouraged participants to improve an existing page first, since most of the participants were first-time editors.

Since I had some experience with Mediawiki mark-up and do a lot of writing, I decided to write a new page. There were a list of suggested women alumnae to write about. After hearing about Victoria Coffey, I decided to focus my two hours of writing on her legacy.

Who is Victoria Coffey? 🔗

Victoria Coffey was an Irish pediatrician. She was an alumna of RCSI, and one of the first to research sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Coffey spent most of her time in medicine researching and studying congenital abnormalities in infants and pediatrics. Later in her life, she founded the Faculty of Paediatrics at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1981 and was the first female president of the Irish Paediatric Society.

Writing her Wikipedia page 🔗

With the help and guidance of the Wikimedia Ireland and RCSI staff, I found resources to research and learn more about Victoria Coffey. While some public sources were available, I was also provided with a primary source from a paid online Irish encyclopedia.

From there, I had the basis to begin writing a stub for her biography. I created an infobox to summarize some of her contributions, wrote a paragraph on her life, and left external links for someone to expand and write more in the future.

You can find her Wikipedia page online now. Since its creation, it was viewed nearly 100 times, edited five times, and edited by three people.

Thank you RCSI and Wikimedia Ireland! 🔗

In a strange and opportunistic stroke of fate, I was lucky to meet this local community and work with a room of inspiring women in medicine (students, alumnae, and faculty) on lowering the wiki gap of women on Wikipedia. It was a privilege to take part and learn a unique kind of history for Ireland in my short stay in Dublin.

Thank you for this great experience, RCSI and Wikimedia Ireland!

I’m not sure if this will make me anticipate flight cancellations more or less from now on.