[Gendergap] Hello and ten specific recommendations for increasing the number of female editors

[James Salsman]

Risker/Anne wrote:

> I'm not seeing the connection between female editors and multilateral tax havens....

In developing countries the gender pay gap is very often worse than in
the developing world.  Can you imagine what it would be like to have
six kids and be entirely dependent on the generosity of men to feed
them?  Many women in the developing world face that situation while
the richest corporations and individuals in their society reduce their
tax bills sometimes more than 90% because they are able to take
advantage of tax haven shelters. That lost income is preventing social
services to women.

A multilateral tax haven treaty is supported by almost all of the OECD
countries with the notable exception of the United States of America.
As U.S. citizens and residents we should be profoundly ashamed that we
are living in a society which promotes such tax shelters when --
according to the peer reviewed secondary epidemiological sources cited
on http://equalitytrust.org -- income inequality is the root cause
limiting over 23 quality of life measures including gender pay
equality, infant mortality, lifespan, educational attainment, and
obesity -- the latter being the most sharply increasing preventable
cause of death for both men and women, and which the U.S. government
lies about (see http://3.ly/CDClied for further details.)

Please write the U.S. Secretary of State Clinton, President Obama, and
your U.S. Senators asking for a multilateral tax haven treaty for
greater income equality worldwide. I have a dream where Sue and Jimmy
lobby Congress specifically on this issue for a week.  I bet Fox News
would be unlikely to cover that.

> 3. Revive Esperanza and the Association of Editors' Advocates with a
> focus on editor mentoring;
>
> Well, no, let's *not* bring those back.

There are a lot of people who were in favor of them when they were
eliminated.  Do you think that the Campus Ambassador program is likely
to reach more people?  I don't.  I think the Campus Ambassador program
is great, but I would hate to see the on-wiki resources and enthusiasm
currently mothballed not utilized to provide mentoring to new people
of all ages and genders simply because someone is working on a new
off-wiki program for mentoring some people in the higher education
community.  What do you think the greatest drawbacks of those
organizations were?

Fred Bauder wrote:

>> 10.  Remove WP:NOTHOWTO because it is used to argue against topic
>> notability but not well respected.
>
> This is a policy I have never agreed with along with the one exiling recipes.

I thought they were the same, or at least were at one time.

> But how does it relate to women?
>
> Actually I do know as my mother was a collector of both recipes and
> household howtos, but I would still like to hear your take. Howto can
> also be howto fix brakes or use a chain saw.

Firstly, some females want to know how to fix brakes and use a chain
saw.  The reason is not always evident, but even if no female ever did
those things, it would give them an economic advantage to select brake
repair or lumber services to understand the procedures. But the reason
I proposed the suggestion is because earlier on this email list
someone pointed out how the many rules forbidding topic inclusion were
being used to argue against womens' issues.  Let's trim those which
aren't grounded in a rational basis.

Off-list someone asked privately:

> Could you please at least briefly explain on-list the relevance of
> items 4-10 to the list topic?

Sure, I've already covered numbers 4 (tax haven treaty) and 10  above, so:

5. Less javascript for mobile devices -- Given that mobile devices are
often less expensive, and low end mobile devices are less capable of
rendering complex javascript correctly, supporting low end, less
expensive devices is more likely to benefit women more than men in
cultures with a gender income gap.

6. Simple language wikipedias in languages other than English -- Women
are more often responsible for raising children so content appropriate
for beginning language learners is more likely to benefit women more
than men.

7. Low stakes instructional assessment content in Moodle's GIFT --
Assessment questions can be used to guide people to the appropriate
level of content, as explained on p. 8 of
http://talknicer.com/wm10ca.pdf in addition to providing an automated,
background third party process of anonymous review of facts in order
to maintain a database of such assessment questions.  Therefore, low
stakes assessment content will make simple language wikipedias more
effective by providing a means to guide learners to their appropriate
level content, and prevent male editors from ganging up to influence
the outcome of gender-specific disputes concerning the answers to
various questions.

8. Audio upload with rtmplite and gnash -- Again, since women are
usually disproportionately stuck with child education requirements,
content which assists beginning language learners is more likely to
help women than men. http://es.wiktionary.org/wiki/hola still doesn't
have an audio recording, so how to you expect anyone to learn
pronunciation from non-English wiktionaries?

9. Most popular related articles -- this is another feature which can
help beginning learners find content appropriate to their vocabulary
level, and thus will tend to benefit women saddled with greater
educational responsibilities disproportionately.  For example, lets
say you were confused by the math formulae in the [[Cosine]] article.
If a list of most popular related articles were displayed,
[[Triangle]] and [[Trigonometry]] might figure prominently on it, and
would tend to help you find a much simpler or more comprehensive
background article, respectively. This feature was already about half
implemented by a student who I recruited for last year's Google Summer
of Code, but who was rejected because the other Mentors said that the
work would probably be too difficult. (The part that the other Mentors
said would be too difficult was already completed by the student I
recruited while the decision to reject the project was being made.) I
hope the Foundation will kindly accept that student's project this
year.  I would think that it would be a matter of common decency to
apologize when such a mistake is made.

Most popular related articles also addresses two or three of the
factors identified on
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:091207_QOTW.png but I expect
that those are gender neutral.  I tried to sort the ten
recommendations roughly by how firstly female editor specific, and
secondly gender specific, that their improvement outcomes would likely
be.

On the issue of sexualized content being discussed under a different
subject heading, I feel compelled to point out that the peer reviewed
secondary literature on the topic reports that children exposed to
even the very worst pornography are less likely both to be sexually
victimized and to commit sexual assault. Please see
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2005to2009/2009-pornography-acceptance-crime.html
and http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2010-porn.html
 That very ironic, sexually charged, gender related information is in
fact a subtopic of birth control pertaining to teen pregnancy and
parenthood, which is why I hope the Foundation will support a
concerted and perhaps paid effort to bring birth control related
articles to featured status.

Best regards,
James Salsman