Two things:
- Kaldari, I think I'm failing to communicate the propensity issue I was referring to earlier. Suffice it to say that we still have a propensity problem when we only look at those users who choose to set their gender preference. In fact, this was the scenario I had in mind when I brought up the problem. - J-Mo, I like the suggestion of micro-surveys. I made it to Kaldari earlier on the trello card. I agree that this might be confusing/concerning to our users. I wonder if we might explore ways to improve such a survey. For example, we might include the gender question in the signup form for a small percentage of newly registered users. I'm used to (optionally) setting my gender at signup so that the UI will use the right pronouns.
-Aaron
On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 10:32 PM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:
The results of the microsurvey are at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Gender_micro-survey
This was a survey of new account holders (not necessarily editors). The results were 67% male, 22% female, 11% prefer not to say. I think the survey was useful in that it let us know that the gender gap exists as early as the account sign-up funnel.
Kaldari
On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 1:25 PM, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
I believe we did a one-question gender microsurvey before (linked to one of the new-user features?). I don't know whether the data was useful or not, but I do remember the act of asking the question itself got some pushback as being invasive/unwelcoming/weirdly communicated/etc. (and I can certainly symapthise with this)
So as well as the value of the data, we should consider whether the act/method of asking is going to have knock-on effects on what we're trying to measure.
Andrew.
On 28 August 2014 20:55, Jonathan Morgan jmorgan@wikimedia.org wrote:
Stepping back...
We all seem to agree that user-set gender preference is a problematic measure. We don't trust it. We can come up with plausible hypotheses
for why
someone would mis-report their gender. And we can be almost certain
it's not
a representative sample.
Do we have any ideas for what a better measure would be? Seems to me
that
we're dealing with self-report data no matter what. But perhaps a more explicit elicitation would be better? Folks have suggested a
one-question
gender microsurvey before. Of course that will come with its own
sources of
bias, and I don't quite see how we can control for them.
Given that it would be useful to have some data on gendered editing
patterns
(whether we share it publicly or not), what are our options?
- Jonathan
On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 10:03 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:
And because I know someone is going to point this out... Actually, restricting the data to only editors who have explicitly set their
gender
would not completely control for changes in the rate of setting the preference since that rate could change differently for men and women.
It
would at least help to control for overall changes in the rate, for
example,
due to the change in the interface that Steven mentioned.
Kaldari
On Aug 28, 2014, at 9:50 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org
wrote:
We could restrict the query to only look at editors who had explicitly
set
their gender preference. That would control for changes in the rate of setting the preference. The data would then only be biased by users
who had
explicitly set their gender to the incorrect gender, which I imagine
would
be a very small percentage.
Also, I would like to point out that even our most fundamental metrics
are
affected by similar biases and inconsistencies. For example, the rate
of new
editors is polluted by long-time IP editors who suddenly decide to
create an
account. If there is an increase in IP editors converting to registered editors, it can mislead us into thinking that we are suddenly
attracting a
lot of new editors. This is just one of many examples I'm sure you're already familiar with.
To answer your question though, I think if we notice something
interesting
in the data (especially a downward trend), we would start a discussion
about
it (as we would with any interesting data) and hopefully inspire
someone to
dig deeper. Right now though we are mostly in the dark. See, for
example,
Phoebe's most recent email to the gendergap list lamenting the lack of research and data.
Kaldari
On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 1:43 AM, Aaron Halfaker <
ahalfaker@wikimedia.org>
wrote:
I think the biggest problem is this:
Let's say that we see the proportion of users who set their gender preference to female falling. Is that because women are becoming less likely to set their gender preference or because the ratio is actually becoming more extreme?
Let's say that we see a trend in the messy data. What do we do about that? Do we assume that it is a change in the actual ratio? Do we
assume
that it is a change in the propensity of females to set their gender preference and there's nothing for us to do? Or do we then decide
that it
is important for us to gather good data so that we can actually know
what's
going on?
-Aaron
On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 4:50 AM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari@wikimedia.org
wrote:
On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 9:53 AM, Leila Zia leila@wikimedia.org
wrote:
> > 1. We look at the self-reported gender data and do some simple > observations. > Pros: > + we will have an updated view of the gender gap problem. > + we may spread seeds for further internal and/or external
research
> about it. > Cons: > - If simple observations are not communicated properly, they will > result in misinformation, that can possibly do more harm than good. > - The results will be very limited given that we know the data is > very limited and contains biases.
I would definitely like to avoid spreading misinformation, which is
why
I proposed only looking at the percentage change per month rather
than raw
numbers or raw percentages. The raw numbers are almost certainly
off-base
and would be much more likely to be latched onto by the public and
the
media. Percentage change per month is a less 'sexy' statistic, but
might
give us better clues about what's actually going on with the gender
gap over
time. It would also, for the first time, give us some window into
how new
features or issues may be actively affecting the gender gap. But
again, it
would only be a canary in a coal mine, not a tool to draw reliable conclusions from. For that, we need more extensive tools and
analysis.
> 2. We do extensive gender gap analysis internally. > Proper gender gap analysis, in a way that can result in meaningful > interventions (think products and features by us or the community)
requires
> one person from R&D to work on it almost full time for a long
period of time
> (at least six months, more probably a year). In this case, the
question
> becomes: How should we prioritize this question? Just to give you
some
> context: Which of the following areas should this one person from
R&D work
> on? > * reducing gender gap > * increasing editor diversity in terms of
nationality/language/...
> * increasing the number of active editors independent of gender > * identifying areas Wikipedia is covered the least and finding > editors who can contribute to those areas > * ...
I think it's very difficult to judge how to set those priorities
without
having more data. We know that the active editors number is on a
downward
trajectory. Is the nationality/language diversity increasing or
decreasing?
Is the gender gap increasing or decreasing? In cases where things are actively getting worse, we should set our priorities to address them
sooner,
but without knowing those trajectories it's impossible to say.
Kaldari
Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
-- Jonathan T. Morgan Learning Strategist Wikimedia Foundation User:Jmorgan (WMF) jmorgan@wikimedia.org
Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
Analytics mailing list Analytics@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics