From: Pete Forsyth <pete.public.email(a)gmail.com>
To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects
<gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tue, February 22, 2011 5:49:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Emails to friends, lists to encourage participation
Whoops. I just re-read Carol's message -- I had misunderstood at first. If this
is an effort to recruit *brand new* contributors (as opposed to retaining those
who have dabbled), the research I cited above doesn't really apply :)
But, I do think the findings of the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative would be
informative;[1] Carol, I'm not sure if you've had contact with this program or
not.
But in general, it ties in with what Sue brought up: people brand new to
Wikipedia often need a *lot* of support and advice before they start to get
their legs. So directing them to educational resources, and establishing a
"cafe" type space to ask questions and build a sense of community, would
certainly be helpful in keeping with what we've learned from our outreach
efforts.
And personalizing the message a little bit, tailoring it to the specific woman's
interests by suggesting articles she may want to edit, couldn't hurt either!
If you really want to ease new recruits into Wikipedia, you wouldn't send them
straight to Wikipedia. Create the cafe space on Meta and use it as welcoming
committee and a place to ask for general guidance without bringing in the
turf-battle baggage. Plus since there are not a large number of women who
understand the wikis, we would be better off consolidating ourselves there
instead splitting up by language where perhaps our voices might be drowned out
in a local forum.
Also try and start them off outside of the Wikipedia's where they can get a
handle on the interface and mark-up without having a creative investment in the
content they are working on. I would recommend proof-reading on Wikisource [1]
for the most timid, as you only very occasionally have a completely ambiguous
decision to make and if you do the first proofread it is guaranteed that another
person will check all you work during validation. You could watchlist the pages
see the validation happen and check the diff to see if any of your work was
corrected or not. It is really a good introduction to wikis for those who want
confirmation they are doing things right at first. I am sure Commons and other
wikis have many gnomish tasks that will get new recruits used to how to work on
wikis. Also send people to do peer reviews at the Wikipedias. They can give
feedback on articles that interest them and begin getting used to the to
interaction with people who are invested in the articles they worked on while
nearly being guaranteed a positive interaction. Then they will feel more
comfortable changing things in Wikipedia articles and better able to understand
what is going on when their edits are challenged.
There is more to even Wikipedia the writing articles. I am personally a
terrible writer and only make a great deal of work for people when significantly
edit articles. I am rather good at peer reviews. I have an excellent
understanding of text-based copyright issues. I am a decent mediator.
People need to be sent to work on their passions with their personal strengths,
not just told in a blanket fashion to write some articles.
Birgitte SB
[1]
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikisource/en/wiki/Wikisource:Proofread_of_the…
Click on the work listed for the month (Ornithological biography, or an account
of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, volume 1) and then
pick one of the numbers highlighted in yellow on the target page.