WIKIPEDIA may be one of the best used websites in the world. But the online encyclopedia has a gender problem, according to a group of Glasgow historians who have organised an edit-a-thon event to try to address some glaring gaps in online information about women of the Clydeside.

The Strong Women of Clydeside Wikipedia Edit-a-thon organised by Govan’s Hidden Histories – a team of artists, activists and amateur historians led by Tara S Beall - was also supported by Wikimedia UK, which says it recognises the problem and has launched a series of global initiatives in an attempt to rectify it.

In 2011 the Wikimedia Foundation found that only 15 percent of biographies on English Wikipedia are about women and less than 10 percent of contributors are female.

Those attending yesterday's event at the Glasgow Women's Library yesterday were given training and worked on a "hit list".

They were tasked with improving the entries for the likes of Glasgow suffragettes Mary Barbour, Helen Crawfurd and Agnes Dollan.

Among other work was creating pages for others including Lady Dinah Elizabeth Pearce from Govan who founded the Pierce Institute and other organisations such as the Women's Peace Crusade and Glasgow Women's Housing Association.

Beall said she was inspired to organise the event while doing research for Glasgow University in partnership with the Riverside Museum to look at the role of women in protest movements in and around Govan. As she and the rest of her team found many women and women-led organisations had little or no digital presence.

She said: "As recently as 2014 if you Googled [Scottish Suffragette and activist] you would find that there was no Wiki page and very little else either."

"I'm glad to say that has changed but there are many other important women that are not represented. There are not so much gaps as chasms.

"This event has multiple aims. Firstly it will upskill the team and others who are interested, it will help us create a hit list and it will also allow us, where possible, to include stories of women in their own words.

"Our list is pretty ambitious but we know that when the Glasgow Women's Library closes its doors for the day the work to address the appalling under-representation of women on Wikipedia will not end."

Sara Thomas, Wikimedian-in-Residence for Museums Galleries Scotland, said that similar events had been held at the National Galleries of Scotland, to ensure the artists from its Modern Scottish Women exhibition all had Wikipedia pages – only half did prior to the editing session. Another allowed local historians to work on the entry for Mary Barbour, an activist best-known for her role in the 1915 Govan rent strikes.

"Wikimedia has been aware for a while that there is a gender gap, both in terms of people editing and the content itself," said Thomas.

"The stated aim of Wikipedia is to make the sum of all of human knowledge available online. If there is a gender imbalance when it is clearly not achieving that. It is the 7th most popular website in the world and if some content is not available then we are missing a trick."

Lucy Crompton-Reid, chief executive of Wikimedia UK, said addressing inequality and bias and increasing diversity was an key aspect of the organisation's strategy. She added: "The event at Glasgow Women’s Library is part of our wider drive to increase the number of female contributors to the Wikimedia projects, and to improve the quantity and quality of coverage about women, and their works and achievements."