ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the encyclopedia decides what counts as knowledge through the policy of notability and as other guidelines. Since many women receive less press coverage than their male counterparts, Wikipedia’s representation of women is plagued by a larger systemic gender bias. In this manner, the notability policy is a double-edged sword, as it both acts as a gatekeeper against “everyone needing a page” and also keeps out potentially important biographies due to its reliance on independent journalistic coverage. Through an exploration of the exclusionary practices of Wikipedia, as well as adjacent issues regarding larger systemic information access and representation issues, this chapter explores the encyclopedia’s often-problematic system of knowledge representation.
