Gendergap February 2011

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93 participants
146 discussions

Wikipedia-specific suggestions (Re: Moderation?)
by KIZU Naoko 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 7:36 AM, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 14:11, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote: >> Should we discuss such problems or should such posts have been rejected >> by a moderator or the poster warned and required to revise their post? >> >> I have high toleration for disorder, but have found lately that wholesale >> deletion has been useful when I get behind. The conversations here have >> not been substantial or focused enough to command sustained attention. >> > I wouldn't mind seeing more moderation. I've just changed my > preferences to digest mode, which means I'm going to miss things, but > it was becoming too much and not focused enough. > > I wonder whether it would make sense to have two lists -- one for > Wikipedia-specific suggestions, and another for the broader issues. "Wikipedia-specific suggestions" seems better to be defined as English Wikipedia suggestions. It would be a good practice of thought why those questions came here, not to other and solid Wikipedia dedicated fora, wikipedia@lists. wikimedia.org or its sister EnWP specific list. Have you girls and guys never known those two lists? Or ...? > > Sarah > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > -- KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子 member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp

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Women4Wikipedia
by Collective Action 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

Hi all, I am an Australian mother who has begun a campaign to increase women's participation in Wikipedia in light of the recent media attention on the issue. I have set up a basic web site at http://women4wikipedia.net as a base to organise Womens Wikipedia Hackfests between now and International Womens Day (8 March). You can find previous chat transcripts at the site and other resources. I've also hooked Sue Francis up with Social Media Women (Sydney, Australia) to do an IWD presentation on Women4Wikipedia. I've begun hosting Twitter chats on the subject of Women & Wikipedia (our 3rd is Mon 21 Feb) and I think there is only another 3 before IWD by which time I hope that we'll have inspired some women to organise somen Womens Wikipedia Hackfests (before or after IWD is fine). Everyone is welcome to the weekly Twitter chats and I need all the help I can get. Given the recent article in Datamation on the Ada Initiative http://bit.ly/fih76w I thought it raised some interesting issues in terms of how women in open source is portrayed in the media. Mon 21 Chat will be on the topic of 'Sexism & Internet Security' What should women be aware of online & when editing Wikipedia? I thought it would be a good time to give out a few pointers on internet safety for women to combat some of the negative media coverage. It should be noted that I'm not a Wikipedia/technology expert so I can do with any help offered. I started this campaign for the very reason that you don't have to be an expert to edit Wikipedia and because I was so surprised at the low participation rates of women. Please find Twitter Chat times (Monday 9am UTC/GTM) at http://women4wikipedia.net or http://wthashtag.com/Women4wikipedia which you can also use to participate if you have a Twitter account. I am also building a list of articles edited or created by women on Wikipedia. We've only just begun and already have 2 more women Wikipedians. If you would like to add your contrib page to the list please email me or contact me via Twitter. It is to show people that women actually can and do edit Wikipedia. Thanks to Kathy O'Donnell for forwarding me links to this mailing list and pleased to meet you all! :-) regards Rosie Williams http://collectiveaction.com.au @collectiveact

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Fwd: [PRESS] Discovery News: Is There A Gender Gap Online?
by Sue Gardner 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sue Gardner <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org> Date: 16 February 2011 10:51 Subject: [PRESS] Discovery News: Is There A Gender Gap Online? To: Communications Committee <wmfcc-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Is There a Gender Gap Online? By Cristen Conger | Mon Feb 7, 2011 11:31 AM ET http://news.discovery.com/tech/is-there-a-gender-gap-online.html?print=true When the online encyclopedia Wikipedia recently celebrated its 10th birthday, media outlets highlighted its stunning growth, number of articles, range of topics -- and its contributor gender gap. A 2010 study co-sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation discovered that barely 15 percent of Wikipedia contributors are women, with the lion’s share of the articles being written, edited and updated by men in their mid-20s. “(Online) public contexts such as web forums and Wikipedia, especially if they’re associated with domains such as politics, technology, or knowledge, are still overwhelmingly male-dominated,” said Susan C. Herring, a professor of information science at Indiana University who specializes in online communication. “These domains are important, and women’s relatively lesser participation in them is potentially a cause for concern.” But that doesn’t mean women don’t have a presence on the Web. A few years ago, we wondered whether there was a gender gap in terms of who was getting online. A finding from the 2005 Pew Internet & American Life Project answered that. The widely publicized Pew survey found a slightly higher number of American women online than men. And in the current social networking age, the ladies are still leading the pack. Multiple surveys, including a 2010 comScore report, consistently show more female engagement on sites like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. So when it comes to gender and the Internet today, the more pertinent question isn’t whether more men or women are surfing the Net, but whether they’re surfing the Net differently. Take online communication, for instance. Real-world gender differences translate to differences in Internet interaction as well. “My research into the gender dynamics of online discussion forums found that men tend to be more adversarial, and to tolerate contentious debate, more than women,” Herring said. "Women, in contrast, tend to be more polite and supportive, as well as less assertive … and (they) tend to be turned off by contentiousness, and may avoid online environments that they perceive as contentious.” Those dynamics help explain why women have gravitated toward sharing on social networking sites while men move toward public domain content creation like Wikipedia, where articles can erupt with editing wars between contributors. “Sites such as Facebook are 'walled gardens' -- users can select their friends and in general have more control over who enters their online space than in open forums, where any random person can come along and harass them or start a flame war,” Herring explained. “Facebook and Twitter are also oriented towards sharing personal information and social exchange, which women and girls are more drawn to do than men and boys are.” Considering women’s active role on the Internet, online advertisers and sites are working to overcome certain gender barriers that have naturally arisen and finding new ways to attract larger female audiences. In the case of Wikipedia, for instance, founder Jimmy Wales along with the Wikimedia Foundation have set a goal to increase its female contributor base to 25 percent by 2015. And for younger generations growing up wired (or wireless) the ever-evolving Web landscape could become a more gender-neutral space with men and women equally engaged in social networking, content creation and collaboration. “The Web seems to be evolving towards a better overall gender balance,” Herring said. “That is, instead of mostly male environments, there are now some environments in which females participate very actively as well.” -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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one woman's response about why she stopped editing Wikipedia
by Lady of Shalott 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

The other day it occurred to me that a particular friend of mine could be a great contributor to Wikipedia, and so I asked her if she ever did. She said that she used to, and in fact started an article about a particular topic (a particular biological taxon - I won't be more specific at this point, but it is an extant article). I asked her if there was a particular reason she stopped, and her answer was, "Yes, the last time I tried to, though admittedly that has been a few years ago, I was unable to. I can't remember what the impediment was but I'm basically a lazy person. If I have to jump through even one hoop, I lose my passion." Now perhaps she tried to edit an article protected for a very good reason, or who knows what happened, but this event was enough to make her stop. I imagine she's not the only person to react this way. Is this reaction more typical of one sex than another? I have no idea. I just thought I'd throw it into the mix of known reasons some people don't edit Wikipedia. Aleta/LadyofShalott

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"Wikipedia: in search of women" at the Chicago Cultural Center
by Steven Walling 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

Forgive me if someone posted about this and I just missed it, but if not... Apparently today there was a public event in Chicago titled "Wikipedia: in search of women",[1] held at a discussion group sponsored by Illinois Humanities Council. Did anyone go to this or correspond with the event organizers? 1. http://www.prairie.org/events/24650/wikipedia-search-women -- Steven Walling Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org

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Gender Gap: Recapping some basics about what we're doing
by Sue Gardner 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

Hey folks, A colleague at another organization asked me if I'd write up a quick note recapping the basics about Wikipedia's gender gap and Wikimedia's response to it. I did it for him, and then thought it might make sense to also share it here. It's below. Thanks, Sue In January 2011, the New York Times published a story headlined “Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor List,” about the gender gap on Wikipedia. It was rooted in the finding, from a 2008 UNU-Merit survey developed in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation, that only 13% of Wikipedia editors are female. That piece prompted a flurry of other coverage, including six essays in the New York Times from academics and other experts, a series of commentaries in The Atlantic Monthly, opinion pieces in Canada’s national newspaper the Globe and Mail and in the Ottawa Citizen, and stories in Discover, Discovery News, Mother Jones magazine, Slate magazine, the NPR blog, the UK newspaper the Telegraph, The Village Voice, MSNBC, the Business Insider, TG Daily and the feminist blog Jezebel. Links at the bottom. None of that was an accident: we wanted the coverage, and we sought it out. The Wikimedia Foundation has been aware that Wikipedia had a gender gap, and we believe it’s a serious problem that needs to be fixed. Wikipedia’s vision is to contain “the sum of all human knowledge.” The premise is that everyone is invited to bring their crumb of knowledge to the table, and together those crumbs become a banquet. If women are underrepresented at the table, we can’t achieve the vision. So solving the gender gap is critical. But it's also very difficult. At Wikipedia, you don’t fix deeply-rooted cultural problems through top-down mandates: you do it through discussion. You need to have awareness that there’s a problem, develop a consensus that it matters, and instigate, facilitate and support efforts to fix it. This particular problem is complicated by the fact that solutions don’t lie entirely within the Wikipedia editorial community, because important voices are missing there. We knew we would need to bring in voices from outside, and support them in making themselves heard. Only then would we have a shot at achieving lasting cultural change. Hence the New York Times article. In January, Sue Gardner (Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director) and Moka Pantages (Wikimedia Foundation Global Communications Manager) used the occasion of Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary to have an off-the-record lunch with New York Times staff. At the lunch, we talked with them about our gender gap. We knew it would stimulate a big, public conversation. And it did: immediately after the story was published, we were flooded with media inquiries and offers of help. * Female columnists and bloggers pledged to try editing Wikipedia themselves, and urged their readers to do the same. Academic, feminist and women-in-technology groups started discussing on their internal lists how they can help. * Several prominent academics with specializations in gender and technology offered us their ideas about the origins of the problem. * An anthropologist offered to help the Wikimedia Foundation design a study to find out why so few women edit. * The Wikimedia Foundation launched a new public mailing list to talk about the issue: in its first two weeks it attracted 150+ members who’ve made 500+ posts to the list (35 per day). * A moderator at a popular online forum which has successfully solved its own gender problems shared what had worked for them. * Wikipedians conducted an analysis of editor self-identification as female across multiple language versions of the encyclopedia, resulting in the finding that the highest proportion of self-identified women is at the Russian Wikipedia, which is also the faster-growing Wikipedia. * Wikipedians created a Facebook group “Women at Wikipedia.” * Wikipedians have created special wiki-pages and wiki-projects aimed at brainstorming ideas for fixing the gender gap. * Wikipedians have proposed using International Women's Day, March 8, to kick off a special initiative inviting women to become Wikipedia editors. The staff of the Wikimedia Foundation is currently assessing how it could support that initiative with banner invitations and by helping experienced editors self-organize to mentor and support women who respond to that invitation. Current state: We've leveraged Wikipedia's visibility to develop public awareness of the gender gap, resulting in a flurry of decentralized activity in expected and unexpected forums, brainstorming potential solutions. Those forums include a healthy mix of women and men, and experienced Wikipedians and external perspectives. Some of the initiatives that have been proposed will fizzle out and have no impact. But some will flourish. In coming months, we hope to learn, with some cautious investment on the part of the Wikimedia Foundation, which catalyzing strategies can successfully increase female participation in Wikimedia projects. We have a 2015 goal to increase the percentage of female editors to 25%. As we get smarter about which strategies work, we will ramp up our investment. The initial global positive energy around and interest in this topic are giving us confidence that we can reach our goal. Links to some of the coverage: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=1&src=b… http://www.businessinsider.com/wikipedia-is-hampered-by-its-huge-gender-gap… http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/01/wikipedias-gender-problem http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/8293217/Why-Wikipedias-edit… http://www.tgdaily.com/software-brief/53845-85-of-wikipedia-entries-are-mad… http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2011/01/31/on-friendship-bracel… http://jezebel.com/5747740/why-wikipedia-needs-more-ladies http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Where-Are-All-the-Wiki… http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/01/31/133375307/facing-serious-gen… http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/31/5960810-dude-centric-wikipe… http://news.discovery.com/tech/is-there-a-gender-gap-online.html?print=true http://www.slate.com/id/2284501/pagenum/all/#p2 http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/world+according/4246585/story.html http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/02/where-are-the-women-in-wiki… http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/01/wikipedia_is_a.php -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Moderation?
by Sue Gardner 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

Hey folks, Erik Moeller, my deputy, created this group at my request, and so I'm its owner. To recap for anyone who doesn't know: this list was prompted by a January 31 New York Times story about Wikipedia's gender gap. The NY Times story prompted a lot of discussion among experienced Wikipedians, new editors, and external people such as researchers and academics. We created this list so that the discussion had somewhere to go -- because people wanted to help, and we wanted to give their energy and momentum a place to grow. Thus far, I haven't made any attempts to moderate or shape the conversation here in any way. People who are used to Wikimedia lists probably are finding the experience here pretty familiar -- the conversation is unstructured, wide-ranging, and there's no real quality control. People who are more used to non-Wikimedia lists might find it TOO uncontrolled, too noisy, too wide-ranging: I don't know. My hope when we started the list was that it would be a place where people could come together to share experiences and information about the causes of Wikipedia's gender gap, and kick around possible solutions. I hoped that, at worst, it could become a sort of talkfest and "centre of expertise" on the gender gap issue --- and at best, it would be a place where real work would happen (e.g., the Women Edit Wikipedia Month type stuff). I assumed it'd be a pretty loose conversation, with plenty of noise to the signal, and it would end up (like many of our lists) being supplemented by work on wiki pages. And that, I think, is pretty much how it's playing out. So I'm curious to know from the people here: 1) Is the conversation here pretty much what you expected? Is it better or worse than you expected -- and if so, in what ways? 2) Are you comfortable with this discusson being mostly unmoderated, or would you prefer that we had some simple behavioural rules-of-engagement? 3) Would anyone care to offer to help me moderate? The moderation has been pretty light so far: a few people with questions about how to do something, and a half-dozen posts stuck in the approval queue --- it's very easy stuff to handle. I am often in meetings though, or travelling, so I've felt bad when someone's question or post is pending for hours. If you want to help, let me know off-list :-) 4) Any other comments about what we're doing here -- including, ideas about how we can be more effective. Thanks, Sue -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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my intro
by Kath O'Donnell 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

hi, I'm kath. I've had a wikipedia account for a while but didn't use it until yesterday when I saw on twitter that only ~13% women are editing it. (I saw links to a twitter conference that I'd missed http://wthashtag.com/women4wikipedia) so I reset my password and read a few help pages and tried editing a few articles to fix things like references/links. I'm a digital tv engineer and use wikipedia every day, so I thought it's probably about time I joined in and started giving back. I liked reading the 'be bold' article - it reminds me of my fav saying 'make your own fun'. hoping to learn more & improve the collection of knowledge. not sure if I should be on this list considering how new I am, but I'll see how it goes. cheers kath user:kathodonnell

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Lost mail: self-identifying as female via Wikipedia preferences
by Sue Gardner 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

Hey folks, Somebody here sent me an off-list e-mail with data about Wikipedians self-identifying as female in their preferences: basically, the same information Joseph has blogged about (http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/). I was skimming fast through my inbox and tagged it as spam, and now it's disappeared from my spam folder. Whoever sent it, could you resend? I want to read it, to see if it had information additional to what Joseph posted, and I also want to thank you for sending it to me. I tagged it as spam by accident, partly because I didn't recognize your name. But I do appreciate you sending me the mail :-) Thanks, Sue Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Re: [Gendergap] Moderation?
by Susan Spencer 16 Feb '11

16 Feb '11

I agree with Sandy. The % of Wikipedia editors who are women is a completely different subject than pornography. I am a feminist. I am also inclined to be efficient. A month to call for Women editors without mentioning any specific topic will encourage women to contribute on any and every topic, which is the goal. When the efforts to increase women's participation is combined with women's history, pornography, language issues, etc. the message gets watered down and changes. The emphasis becomes the topics to be edited PLUS the gender of the editor. So since I am not an expert on feminist studies, I would not be more inclined to post. Do not try to address everything at the same time. You will not get the results you want. The separate threads so far encountered on this list: 1.) updating and increasing entries about women's history 2.) updating and increasing entries about feminist issues 3.) correcting existing entries that are offensive to most persons, not just women, and review/edit information, pictures, or drawings that exploit women, regardless of the the gender of who posted them 4.) ease of use of the Wikipedia interface 5.) gender and Manga child sexiness of the Wikipedia mascot 6.) gender differences in languages which are reflected in the Wikipedia interface for that language 7.) gathering empirical data to further guide our understanding of the Wikipedia gender gap, and to monitor any improvements in this gap as a result of the different campaigns to reduce the Wikipedia gender gap so that we know what is working and what is not. Let's do what the experts do: Separate these topics into different work groups and lists so that progress can be made on each. These subjects all have sexism as their root, but they are not all solvable at once. Define each, go after each. You can't defeat a big enormous blob. BTW - I am currently preparing my entries for the Wikipedia. I do not wish to be merely a commentator, I plan on becoming a participant. I'll let you know how that works out. - Susan Spencer Conklin > Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:33:35 +0000 > From: Sandra ordonez <sandratordonez(a)gmail.com> > Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Moderation? <snip> > > I didn't join this list because I'm confused of why sexism in the world > exists, nor did I join this list because I need a therapy outlet. I, like > many women, joined this list because we want to focus on something > practical > - closing the gender gap on Wikipedia. > <snip> > > Sandy >

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Gendergap February 2011