Through its research, Adidas found the site is currently heavily male-dominated; at present, only 18% of all biographies on Wikipedia relate to women and out of the football-related ones, only 3.5% reference female players.
Furthermore, male players from the England football team have on average 150% more space on their profiles, compared to the England Women’s squad.
In order to tackle this issue, Adidas has announced a new project. By working with women’s sports writers, the brand aims to identify and create biographies for over 200 women who are having a big impact in sport, and who currently don’t feature on the site.
Alongside Wikimedia UK (owners of Wikipedia), female sports writers, journalists and athletes, the first 100 have been added, including Florrie Redford of Dick Kerr ladies.
“We firmly believe that ‘you need to see her to be her,’ so we decided to bring the history of women’s football to Wikipedia – and make a collective commitment to keep writing the inspiring stories of women’s sport and sportswomen as they happen.”
Hmmm. As much as I want to believe a massive sportswear corporation really does care about the social issues surrounding the difference between men's and women's football, I rather think the more realistic reason a massive sportswear corporation really cares about this issue to the point of "partnering" with Wikipedia to fix them, is the monetary value of both the immediate PR boost, and future sales if (and someone should tell them it is a big if) it really does increase awareness and participation, both by players and fans.“We’re delighted to be partnering with adidas for this project, to shine a light on women footballers and their achievements,” said Lucy Crompton-Reid, CEO of Wikimedia UK.
It would be ridiculous to think the WMF or the Wikipedians would be blind to these potential conflicts of interest, so it has to be assumed they have decided that in this case, their usually quite vehement opposition to the idea Wikipedia exists to serve the interests of private corporations, can safely be put aside for the greater good, without damaging their own brand.
A dangerous game to be playing. Not only do you have to be absolutely sure that Adidas won't accidentally or on purpose engage in the sort of promotional editing strategies uncovered so often in various scandals, you have to be sure the unwitting volunteers aren't similarly induced (the page listing the missing biographies is already titled and shortcoded in a way that promotes Adidas). No it to mention there is just a general ick factor to learning a Wikipedia biography has come into being with the help of Adidas. This news article mentions Florrie Redford as the first product of this new partnership, and of course that biography's talk page now includes a backing to the article via the media mentions template.
A rather obvious issue seems to also be the nominal independence of these sports writers now "working with" Adidas to presumably act as the reliable sources on whose research/coverage these biographies will be based. Is anyone tracking who they are, at the very least? Again, would Wikipedia really be prepared to set aside its vehement stance against potentially compromised sources, if the potential payoff is so great? And if athletes are "working with" Adidas to get Wikipedia coverage, that raises even more serious issues.
The long term implications of big brands seeing "partnerships" with Wikipedia as a revenue generator, don't bear thinking about.
