Cross posted this to my blog at
http://ozziesport.com/2011/07/why-dont-people-edit-wikipedia-small-survey-r…
I tend to be a bit obsessive. An issue that keeps cropping up in my personal
sphere is women editing Wikipedia. Various reasons keep being offered as to
why women don’t edit, if their reasons are different from those of men, if
women don’t edit because they don’t have time as they are too busy taking
care of their families, etc. I wanted to know why women and men in my
particular peer group didn’t edit Wikipedia. Thus, I posted surveys to my
Facebook and to my LiveJournal. The raw data, as of 10:13am American Central
Standard time could be found at
Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/notes/laura-hale/if-you-dont-edit-wikip…
, LiveJournal <http://partly-bouncy.livejournal.com/923973.html>. Please
feel free to continue to vote. If I have bigger samples, I can always update
this. I had responses from 22 people, 12 males and 10 females. This isn’t
necessarily a representative sample and if I was looking for that, I’d try
much harder to get a larger response from a bigger group of people. I don’t
think you can necessarily extrapolate out much from this, except to have it
help confirm other smaller samples.As a side note, the Facebook poll allows
people to add their own responses. (The sample size isn’t statistically
significant for one thing and one response can really change the
percentages.) People have and it is possible that people may have chosen
responses had they been available. In any case, on with the findings.
There were several options offered that no one selected. Those answers have
not been included as the totals would have been 0% and given the small
sample size, it didn’t seem as relevant.
ResponseAllMaleFemaleAll %Male %Female %The atmosphere on Wikipedia is not
conducive to random user editing.104645.5%33.3%60.0%I have better things to
do.83636.4%16.7%60.0%Not enough time to contribute.52322.7%16.7%30.0%I don’t
want to research citations to support my edits. I can fix grammar/typos.421
18.2%25.0%10.0%I know people who were treated poorly. Why subject myself to
that?32113.6%16.7%10.0%There is no community.2209.1%16.7%0.0%They keep
deleting my edits.2009.1%16.7%0.0%The editing window is confusing and I
don’t understand the markup.1114.5%0.0%10.0%I used to edit but people
treated me poorly so I quit.1204.5%8.3%0.0%After being overwritten
incorrectly, with no dialogue as to why, & just knowing1104.5%8.3%0.0%
There are some differences in responses between men and women, which appears
to support the general conclusion that men and women have different reasons
for (not) contributing to Wikipedia and that gender specific type engagement
may be needed. One of the arguments that I’ve heard is that women would like
to contribute to Wikipedia but they just do not have the time because they
need to take care of their families. This small sample appears to suggest
this isn’t the case: Women, much more than men in this sample, just have
better things to do. I’ve talked to a few women in this sample about this to
try to understand what better things they have to do, because I’ve heard the
argument that women do use this type of technology and some people don’t
understand why, if women do blogging and other online content creation, why
they don’t contribute to Wikipedia. In this particular sample, the women I
talked to explained it to me as they have a set of things they prioritise in
what they do. In the case of one non-contributor, they do contribute to
another wiki that immediately ties into her interests. Beyond that, she has
learned that her contributions have value and that value can be realised by
getting paid for them by writing for sites like associated content and
squidoo. There isn’t the inherent value that can be realised when
contributing to Wikipedia, so why should she spend the time contributing?
This appears to be supported because of the six who said they have better
things to do, only one female also said she didn’t have enough time to
contribute.
A lot of the answers appear to have to do with community and negative
interactions. Six women answered yes to “The atmosphere on Wikipedia is not
conducive to random user editing.” as a reason why they don’t edit. This
compares to only four of the twelve men. This was a common theme when I
talked some of the women in this sample: The community is not supportive,
things get undone, there aren’t people helping guide new contributors and
serving as mentors. There isn’t much positive feedback. If you run into
problems, you have to go ask for it yourself and then you get in trouble for
canvassing. More experiences editors are involved in areas and they don’t do
anything when it looks like there are obvious problems to the random female
editor. The situation reminds me a bit of wikiHow. I haven’t edited there in
a while, but I’ve generally highly respected what Jack Herrick and other
admins have done with their wiki culture as a whole. They make welcoming a
big thing. They provide lots of positive feedback. They appear to work on
community. They offer ways to get recognition for your contributions. People
involved in running it have always seemed highly accessible, even if they
aren’t. wikiHow also appears to place a priority on civility that English
Wikipedia only gives lip service to. Evidence? Become a wikiHow
Admin<http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-wikiHow-Admin> states
a criteria of being an admin: *Empathy and kindness – Admins exist to serve
the broader community of editors and readers. A demonstrated history of
treating others with kindness and mutual respect is a necessity.*
Beyond those two of The atmosphere on Wikipedia is not conducive to random
user editing. and I have better things to do with my time., no answer had
more than 50% of the female response… and worth noting, women had that. The
male respondents didn’t have a voting block similar to that. The largest
male response was The atmosphere on Wikipedia is not conducive to random
user editing., with 33% answering that as a reason. The next largest male
block I don’t want to research citations to support my edits. I can fix
grammar/typos. , with 25% citing that as a reason. That response is not
necessarily a community response, suggesting community problems so much as
content policy and I don’t know how to address that.
I’d love to do a bigger survey with more results, see if responses change
with more respondents. I do think it supports the idea that lack of time is
not the major reason that women don’t contribute and that technology and the
format discourage women from contributing. Only one female cited that as an
issue. A refocus and reprioritisation may be needed if the goal is to
increase female contributions to English Wikipedia.
*I post and then two more people vote, one male and one female. If I get
another ten total responses, I’ll update with new totals.*
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blog:
ozziesport.com