Thanks Ryan for your thoughts, I was waiting to hear more opinions but it
might just be that folks don't feel strongly one way or the other.
I'd like to weight in on a couple of "pros". You make a good point on the
scale of the project, (and this could be more than I can chew by myself),
but this portal might not need to be a gigantic meta project (and difficult
doesn't mean impossible :) , maybe we should look at this as a simpler
'dashboard", a space to help navigate the content and aggregate effort? (i
was editing/adding to a list on the French portal within 2 minutes of being
on it - the information was right there, easy to navigate, I saw something
was missing, done.)
I am not sure we should fear cannibalizing female contributors, I'd think
that the women already contributing are familiar with the wikipedia
environment, need no/less training, and already found their sweet spot, ie.
specific topics to work on based on their expertise or interest. The portal
idea is intended to attract and onboard new users to Wikipedia's not
shifting internal contributors, and even if we were to generate interest
from within it would likely be in addition and complementary to what they
are already doing. The loss of females is in part due to the general
attrition of the Wiki contributor-based, I think there is an opportunity
for small adjustments weather it's in how we display information or in
outreach efforts, that can help reverse the trend and attract a much needed
new user-base (female or male or minority...).
Is this the right group to be discussing this? I'd love to hear what the
folks here think, and if this worth discussing?
Sylvia