Pete Forsyth made what I think is an interesting point on the Gendergap list.
Reproduced below, with his permission.
--- On Mon, 16/5/11, Pete Forsyth
<peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] [Commons-l] Fwd: Photo of the Day on Wikimedia Commons
> To: "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects"
<gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Monday, 16 May, 2011, 16:49
> In my opinion there's a large and
> pervasive problem behind today's controversy: in striking
> contrast to our core value of openness, it is very difficult
> to even *perceive* how important decisions like this are
> made. Both the technical and the editorial processes are
> pretty opaque to the average main page visitor.
>
> I suspect there are ways the Commons pages relating to
> Picture of the Day could be improved to make it clearer to
> the reader how decisions are made, and how to meaningfully
> participate in those processes.
>
> For instance, main page content could have a link named
> something like "how did this get here?" that would permit
> the reader to view the discussion that led to its inclusion
> on the main page. (This is just an off-the-cuff idea, to
> illustrate the general kind of usability changes I would
> like to explore.)
>
> To put it another way, the issue behind today's controversy
> that interests me most is access. Increasing the ability of
> a large and diverse group to participate in important
> decisions (like what gets featured on the main Commons page)
> is something that would both honor the basic values of our
> project, and (I believe) support better content decisions in
> the future.
>
> Anybody interested in tackling this issue?
> -Pete
>
