Our current IEG grantee for research on female editing, Mssemantics (Amanda), may have something to say, although she may want to wait until she feels she has adequate data from her research.
In any case, I'm going to encourage Mssemantics to participate on the discussion on this list or at least listen to it.
Thanks for thinking of me, Pine. I’ve been lurking on this list for quite some time. I posted about my IEG—asking for feedback and for interview/focus group participants—but, otherwise, I’ve kept quiet.
Pine is right: I’d rather have adequate data before I contribute. Thus far, I’ve interviewed 18 Wikipedians who edit EN and self-identify as women. I’d like to do several more interviews and a few focus groups—with all genders as I believe it’s important
to have representation of different opinions, perspectives, and stories. I also plan to do a thematic analysis of the archives of this mailing list to understand better how the community has constructed the story of the gender gap, asking whether this list
has been a safe, cooperative space or a site of conflict (or both—as it most likely has been from what I’ve seen) and how that struggle has been handled, etc. I’ll be looking at program evaluations of editing events geared toward addressing the gender gap,
user’s edit counts, etc.
So, yes, more data. :)
However, I will say that, thus far, what I’ve heard, seen, read, etc. points toward cultural problems—some aided and abetted by policies, some aided and abetted by underlying technologies. Although my project is called “Women and Wikipedia,” I’m also concerned
with how the dominant culture on EN may be discouraging participation amongst those (all genders) who aren’t part of it.
I’ll have much more to say—including some design suggestions—after November/December. But, for now, thank you for the privilege of listening. Please, anyone, feel free to reach out to me personally if you’d like to chat, too.
Best,
Mssemantics/Amanda
From: Pine W <
wiki.pine@gmail.com>
Reply-To: "Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participation of women within Wikimedia projects." <
gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Thursday, July 3, 2014 at 1:50 AM
To: "Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participation of women within Wikimedia projects." <
gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] men on lists
Hi Moriel and others,
Do you have a list of "realistic changes" in mind for the community?
I hear almost no one say that the typical state of (in)civility on wiki or on Wikimedia-l is good enough or that people are being hypersensitive, so I get the sense that there's a lot of agreement that we have a cultural problem. Ideas for solutions seem to
be in short supply, so any "realistic changes" that you can suggest would be good to hear, either on this list or in IdeaLab.
If there are issues other than civility and the occasional trolling, I think it would be good to have a list of those. Then everyone can be looking at the same set of problems and be thinking about how to address them.
Our current IEG grantee for research on female editing, Mssemantics (Amanda), may have something to say, although she may want to wait until she feels she has adequate data from her research.
In any case, I'm going to encourage Mssemantics to participate on the discussion on this list or at least listen to it.
Pine