[Foundation-l] A question for American Wikimedians

[Milos Rancic]

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 17:31, Przykuta <przykuta at o2.pl> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:African_American_Wikipedians
>
> 146 who use template {{User afr-amer}} on user pages. i don't know who is active in wp

After looking into the number of American, Polish and Serbian
Wikipedians, I thought that the numbers are interesting. However,
those numbers mean nothing:

* 3,561 are categorizing themselves as American Wikipedians [1];
population 300M+, English is native
* 1,779 as Wikipedians in California [7][8]; population: 36M, English is native
* 1,450 as Australian Wikipedians[4]; population 22M, English is native
* 921 as British Wikipedians [10]; population 62M, English is native
* 689 as French Wikipedians [12]; population 65M, English is not native
* 616 as English Wikipedians [11]; population 51M, English is native
* 561 as Polish Wikipedians [3]; population 38M, English is not native
* 146 as African American Wikipedians; population 38M, English is native.
* 101 as Wikipedians in San Francisco [9]; population 3/4M, English is native
* 68 as German Wikipedians [5][6]; population 81M, English is not native
* 24 as Serbian Wikipedians [2]; population 7M, English is not native

I tried to make put some other factors, but nothing has sense. There
is no consistency in the way on which Wikipedians are identifying
themselves ethnically, nationally or locally. It depends on particular
culture. (I used population of particular territories, not ethnic
population, but it won't change proportions significantly if ethnic
populations would be used.)

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 19:17, Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 18 November 2010 05:47, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Sue mentioned tech-centricity of Wikimedia community. I would say that
>> it is a good enough explanation for less women and less African
>> Americans in Wikimedian community. But, disproportion in the case of
>> African Americans is much bigger than disproportion in the case of
>> American women. Note, also, that not all American women inside of
>> Wikimedia community have tech background. So, logical question is:
>> Are there numbers which confirm that there are significantly less
>> African Americans with tech jobs than American women?
>
> Yes: click the link I sent.
>
> African-Americans make up 7.1% of tech company employees nationwide;
> women make up 22.7%.

The numbers are according to the tech workforce, not according to the
population. African Americans stay better than women, actually: 7.1%
is 59% of 12% and 22.7% is 45% of 50%.

Inside of the other private email I've got an interesting data related
to Twitter usage. American Twitter population consists 25% of African
Americans, which is more than twice more than their population [13].
With some theories why is it so [14].

The most worrying theory is: "The median age for black Americans
(according to the 2000 census) is 30 years old, a full seven years
younger than for white Americans. Black people therefore make up a
relatively higher percentage of the population within the most
relevant age groups -- Twitter is most popular amongst 25-34
year-olds."

It says, as it is confirmed at least in East and South-East Asia, that
we have a big problem, which would be just bigger as time is passing.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_Wikipedians
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Serbian_Wikipedians
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Polish_Wikipedians
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Serbian_Wikipedians
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:German_Wikipedians
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_from_Germany
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_in_California
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_from_California
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_Area
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_Wikipedians
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_Wikipedians
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_Wikipedians
[13] http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-whos-using-twitter-2010-4
[14] http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-study-results-2010-4