A group of two dozen volunteers and new recruits gathered in a central London classroom last week to tackle a neglected topic on the world's largest online encyclopedia: the global arms industry. Armed with laptops, the participants took part in a "wikithon"—an in-person, collective Wikipedia editing event—to bring more detailed information about the defense sector into the public domain.
While Wikipedia operates on the open-editing adage that anyone can contribute, its day-to-day maintenance relies on roughly 270,000 active volunteers. Historically, subjects touching on the global south, notable women, and specialized technical industries have often been sidelined. During last week's session, attendees ranging from veteran editors in their 70s to first-time student contributors focused their efforts on expanding and updating pages covering sensitive military-industrial subjects, including defense contractor Palantir, the Pentagon's Project Maven, and Polish explosives manufacturer Nitro-Chem.
