Gendergap October 2014

gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org

35 participants
39 discussions

WP:ANI on Disruption of Gender Gap Task Force
by Carol Moore dc 30 Nov '14

30 Nov '14

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incid… After multiple complaints by other editors about this, I decided to bring an ANI. It might not be the best constructed one possible. And maybe I'm not the best person to do it, being a little "too" outspoken (I even make jokes!) and "controversial" with too many enemies (guys who don't like women who stick to their opinions on hot topics?) But the project is so disrupted I cannot even put up the resources page because I know that it will be gutted down to zilch by one editor especially if I do. (He's been wikihounding me and reverting me for over a year and multiple complaints have come to naught.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carolmooredc/My_Sandbox_1 The community has to face the fact that this is the only Wikiproject under attack. Like I said, other projects don't permit it. Can you imagine if it were permitted on the Palestine or Israel wikiprojects and they were going at each other? Or the Christian and LGBT? Absurd... At least Mr. Wales agrees... sigh... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#WP:ANI_on_.E2.80.9Cdisr… CM

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Look who's in the paper!! :)
by Sarah Stierch 08 Nov '14

08 Nov '14

The super awesome WikiWoman Christine Meyer is! This is a most excellent article - thank you Christine for your ongoing work! http://www.inlander.com/spokane/writing-her-place/Content?oid=2372780 Sarah -- Sarah Stierch ----- Diverse and engaging consulting for your organization. www.sarahstierch.com

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Childcare at an edit-a-thon
by Monika Sengul-Jones 02 Nov '14

02 Nov '14

Hello all, I'm organizing a feminist edit-a-thon in Seattle at UW for February or early March. This event will be a conversation about media literacy and reading between the lines in light of the Wikipedia Gender Gap, an editing tutorial, and a space for editing/writing on missing entries. The event will be primarily geared for folks affiliated with the UW, but also for the public. As a feminist event, I'd like to provide childcare, particularly since it's likely the event might be happening on a Saturday. For those of you who have organized edit-a-thons before, how have you accommodated for dependents? If you've arranged childcare at edit-a-thons, would you be willing to share what you did and how it went? Please feel free to email me directly. Also, if there are any Wikimedians/pedians in Seattle who I haven't met, I'd love to be in touch. Happy Halloween all -- and thanks, as always, for a fiery and inspiring listserv and all the work many of you are doing. I've been a member on this list for a long time, and the contents of this list really do bring me joy -- and have also inspired action. Thanks. :) All the best, Monika www.monikasengul.com jones.monika(a)gmail.com On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 5:00 AM, <gendergap-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote: > Send Gendergap mailing list submissions to > gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > gendergap-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > gendergap-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Gendergap digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: University of Sydney women's #wikibomb (Roberta Wedge) > 2. Re: University of Sydney women's #wikibomb (Toby Hudson) > 3. Re: Look who's in the paper!! :) (Roberta Wedge) > 4. Re: Encouraging in the paper!! :) (Kathleen McCook) > 5. New wikipedia group for Los Angeles (Sarah Stierch) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 12:20:48 +0000 > From: Roberta Wedge <roberta.wedge(a)wikimedia.org.uk> > To: "Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the > participation of women within Wikimedia projects." > <gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [Gendergap] University of Sydney women's #wikibomb > Message-ID: > <CAAKod=Qc0JvwpJ2TOfyvLi7D2d2qWwhD39FeW7jERR= > 8EWtVXg(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Re COI for academics: I've recently come across Melodee Beals, a senior > lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University. Her userpage > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mhbeals> strikes me as an exemplar of > one way for academics to engage with Wikipedia. She has given thought and > space to making a declaration of interests, spelling out how she intends to > handle affiliations and her understanding of self-promotion. > > Declaration of interest: Dr Beals is the colleague of a friend of mine. > > Roberta > > ------------------------ > *Roberta Wedge* > *Gender Gap Project, **Wikimedia UK* > roberta.wedge(a)wikimedia.org.uk > 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT > +44 (0)20 7065 0921 > > Wikimedia UK is the British chapter of a global movement. We support, but > do not control, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and > other related Wikimedia projects. > Wikimedia UK is both a limited company (Registered No. 6741827) and a > charity (Registered No.1144513). > > Visit wikimedia.org.uk <http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/> and @wikimediauk > > On 30 October 2014 10:58, Toby Hudson <tobyyy(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Sydney/University_of_Sydney_… > > > > This is going to be big. There are 39 signed up (mostly female academics > > and students), but we are expecting nearer 100. > > > > How Wikipedians can help: > > > > We will have a decent number of experienced editors on site, but we will > > be stretched. Anyone who can provide online support 03:00-07:00 UTC > > tomorrow (Friday) would be much appreciated. Please add your name to the > > project page with a note so that we know who we can call on. Here's some > > ways you can help: > > > > 1. Any sandbox started by a wikibomb participant should be added to > *Category:University > > of Sydney Wikibomb 2014 > > < > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:University_of_Sydney_Wikibomb_2014>* > so > > that we can all find it. > > 2. Monitor *These Related Changes > > < > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChangesLinked/Wikipedia:Meetup/…>* > to > > look out for editors having trouble. > > 3. Write (kind) sandbox_talk page comments if you see *promotional > > language*. It seems that some participants are intending to write > > articles about their friend/colleague/boss. The organizing team now > all > > understand how much COI <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COI> > editing > > is discouraged, but I'm afraid academics are harder to herd than > cats. We > > are at least trying to ensure that everyone declares their employer on > > their userpage, and declares any COI they have on the article talk. > > 4. Assess articles' *readiness to move into mainspace* (also post a > > note on the talk page). Experienced Wikipedians will do these moves, > but > > for COI and general stress relief, it would be good to have third > party > > eyes over it. > > 5. *Categorize, prettify, wikidatify, wikiprojectify* ({{WP Australia > > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:WP_Australia>}}{{WP Biography > > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:WP_Biography>}} etc) any > > articles that do make it into mainspace. We will not have time to > > concentrate on any of these things. > > 6. *Ping me (99of9 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:99of9>)* > or > > another involved Wikipedian if you spot any problems. > > 7. Publicise on *Twitter (#Wikibomb)* with a link to the project page > > > > Thanks for helping! > > > > Toby/99of9 > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Gendergap mailing list > > Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > > > > >

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IEG - Community Notification
by Keilana 01 Nov '14

01 Nov '14

Dear Gendergap Mailing List friends, I wanted to let you all know about my IEG renewal request to further expand my successful program of workshop series and teaching. It's still a work in progress and I would be very interested in hearing feedback! Thanks all, Emily

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New wikipedia group for Los Angeles
by Sarah Stierch 31 Oct '14

31 Oct '14

On Facebook..started by a WikiWoman... yahoooooo https://www.facebook.com/groups/869710869719333/ If you're interested in what's happening in LA or you LIVE in LA, join the group! -- Sarah Stierch ----- Diverse and engaging consulting for your organization. www.sarahstierch.com

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Re: [Gendergap] Encouraging in the paper!! :)
by Kathleen McCook 30 Oct '14

30 Oct '14

I am going to share this with many women students. It gives courage. And it is correct in the minimal way many women who are included may be covered. Many can be upgraded. Thank you for this. --Kathleen On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Roberta Wedge < roberta.wedge(a)wikimedia.org.uk> wrote: > What a lovely article, really well contextualised. Congrats to interviewer > and interviewee. > Are there any British (or UK-based) women on this list who'd like to talk > to the press? WMUK can help put you in touch. Just let me know. > Roberta > > ------------------------ > *Roberta Wedge* > *Gender Gap Project, **Wikimedia UK* > roberta.wedge(a)wikimedia.org.uk > 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT > +44 (0)20 7065 0921 > > Wikimedia UK is the British chapter of a global movement. We support, but > do not control, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and > other related Wikimedia projects. > Wikimedia UK is both a limited company (Registered No. 6741827) and a > charity (Registered No.1144513). > > Visit wikimedia.org.uk <http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/> and @wikimediauk > > On 29 October 2014 22:55, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> The super awesome WikiWoman Christine Meyer is! >> >> This is a most excellent article - thank you Christine for your ongoing >> work! >> >> http://www.inlander.com/spokane/writing-her-place/Content?oid=2372780 >> >> Sarah >> >> -- >> >> Sarah Stierch >> >> ----- >> >> Diverse and engaging consulting for your organization. >> >> www.sarahstierch.com >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Gendergap mailing list >> Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > >

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University of Sydney women's #wikibomb
by Toby Hudson 30 Oct '14

30 Oct '14

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Sydney/University_of_Sydney_… This is going to be big. There are 39 signed up (mostly female academics and students), but we are expecting nearer 100. How Wikipedians can help: We will have a decent number of experienced editors on site, but we will be stretched. Anyone who can provide online support 03:00-07:00 UTC tomorrow (Friday) would be much appreciated. Please add your name to the project page with a note so that we know who we can call on. Here's some ways you can help: 1. Any sandbox started by a wikibomb participant should be added to *Category:University of Sydney Wikibomb 2014 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:University_of_Sydney_Wikibomb_2014>* so that we can all find it. 2. Monitor *These Related Changes <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChangesLinked/Wikipedia:Meetup/…>* to look out for editors having trouble. 3. Write (kind) sandbox_talk page comments if you see *promotional language*. It seems that some participants are intending to write articles about their friend/colleague/boss. The organizing team now all understand how much COI <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COI> editing is discouraged, but I'm afraid academics are harder to herd than cats. We are at least trying to ensure that everyone declares their employer on their userpage, and declares any COI they have on the article talk. 4. Assess articles' *readiness to move into mainspace* (also post a note on the talk page). Experienced Wikipedians will do these moves, but for COI and general stress relief, it would be good to have third party eyes over it. 5. *Categorize, prettify, wikidatify, wikiprojectify* ({{WP Australia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:WP_Australia>}}{{WP Biography <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:WP_Biography>}} etc) any articles that do make it into mainspace. We will not have time to concentrate on any of these things. 6. *Ping me (99of9 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:99of9>)* or another involved Wikipedian if you spot any problems. 7. Publicise on *Twitter (#Wikibomb)* with a link to the project page Thanks for helping! Toby/99of9

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Polish Wikipedia momument has two women
by Carol Moore dc 30 Oct '14

30 Oct '14

The final momument was unveiled and it looks like, and I was told, it has two, women in it. Yeah! https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomnik_Wikipedii_w_S%C5%82ubicach Article on Polish Wikipedia with photo Images.google search of "Polish monument Wikipedia" gets a couple more good photo returns.

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Percentage of articles about women artists vs # of articles about men, using Wikidata
by Jane Darnell 30 Oct '14

30 Oct '14

Hello, I am preparing some slides for the Dutch Wikiconference this Saturday and wanted to share some interesting data on female artists. This year I have been working on various museum collections of paintings, while continuing to work on painter biographies. I am a big user of the Dutch RKD database of artists, which Magnus has kindly placed in Mix-n-Match. Just using the matches I made and the automatic matches, it is now possible to see some interesting data on how artists are represented across wikis. The RKDartists database metadata was downloaded this year and contains 94,944 males and 60,282 females, or roughly 24% females, of which most were born after 1850. I have said before that part of the gendergap in the arts is caused by copyright issues (copyright-gap), and since most notable women artists were born after 1850, it would always appear that women are significantly less represented than men. The good news is that Wikimedia projects are much more welcoming to female artists than museum collections, where the percentage of women tends to be less than 3%. The data I have now shows that most Wikimedia projects have a percentage of women artist biographies that are well above 5%, or more than double what museums have on show. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Females_in_matched_RKDartists.jpg I gathered the data using autolist and various combinations of the queries below 1) claim[21:6581072] and claim[650] 2) claim[650] and link[enwiki] I assume similar results could be seen for the Joconde database, which I may do later. Best, Jane

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Re: [Gendergap] [Wiki-research-l] Research discussion: Visions for Wikipedia
by Kerry Raymond 28 Oct '14

28 Oct '14

I'm 100% with you both on this matter of having tried the obvious easy solutions. If I hear one more person to propose outreach as the solution to the gender gap or new editor retention, I think I will <insert threat of choice here>. I do a lot of outreach here in Australia and, yes, hand-holding works as long as you in the room with them but stops working once they are at the mercy of the community (who will "attack" even during the outreach). And also that kind of handholding is not scalable. We don't just need 10 new active editors; we need 10K or even 100K new active editors. It is indeed time to tackle the hard problem and that is changing the "crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere". The solution does not lie in training people to conform to that regime. Even if people are taught how to engage with it, if people don't enjoy the experience, of course they will walk away. Those of us still here are all probably as stubborn as mules and with the hides of rhinoceroses (or just enjoy being a bully safely hidden behind a pseudonym). Although "academic standards of publication" appears to held up as the ideal behind some of the Wikipedia quality guidelines, I must say they are higher standards than I've seen enforced at most journals or in most conferences. And certainly I've never seen the rigid enforcement of the nit-picking rules in the Manual of Style. I do think we are operating our own version of the Stanford Prison Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment only the difference is that they cancelled their experiment in about a week. Ours has been running for years .. The Wikipedia article above says . The results of the experiment have been argued to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support. "Quality control" is Wikipedia's legitimising ideology and our processes provide it with the social and institutional support. When did you ever see someone in an Article for Deletion discussion or similar say "let's look at the big picture here, the WMF have a strategic priority to reverse editor attrition or close the gender gap, let's consider our decision here with that in mind". No, it's always "we must decide this according to our rules", raising any other point is discouraged (you get slapped down for it). Of course, I question why WMF allows the community to make and enforce rules when the outcome appears to be working against their stated priorities. That's not strong governance, that's weakness. I don't think WMF needs to control everything top-down (and indeed it would not be scalable if they did) but they do need to set boundaries in some places in relation to the community's control over policy and process to ensure the success of the WMF strategic plan. For example, I would say that if a new editor creates a new article which isn't obviously spam/vandalism, does it really matter to let that article survive because it isn't notable enough according to the guidelines for that category of article. At the very least could we defer the discussion of deletion for a few months in the hope it is further developed to a better standard by then? Perhaps a two stage process, first communicate with the contributor(s) with *precise* concerns about how it needs to be improved and they have a month to do it, and that help is available (at the TeaHouse or wherever). (Feedback is often too vague, saying "not notable" is not helpful and saying WP:ANYTHING is not helpful either as it looks like a string of gibberish written like that and even if the link is clicked, the resulting page is full of jargon and often meaningless to the newbie). Maybe we should introduce a karma system (like Slashdot). You can only do certain actions if you have high karma. So "positive emotional" actions like thanking, wikilove, writing nice sentiment messages, making uncontested contributions to articles, etc earn you karma and only high karma people can take "negative emotional" actions (undoing - other than vandalism), proposing for deletion, voting to delete, because they reduce your karma etc. This might at least slow down the out-and-out bullies who engage in lots of "emotionally negative" behaviours . Kerry _____ From: wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Aaron Halfaker Sent: Tuesday, 21 October 2014 12:08 AM To: Pine W Cc: WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org; Editor Engagement; Rachel diCerbo; Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase theparticipation of women within Wikimedia projects.; Wiki Research-l; A mailing list for the Analytics Team at WMF and everybody who has aninterest in Wikipedia and analytics. Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Research discussion: Visions for Wikipedia Hey Pine, Thanks for prod'ing the conversation. See also the discussion about Wikipedia's decreasing adaptability on the Wikimedia analytics mailing list here: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/analytics/2014-October/002651.html IMO, the critical piece of evidence that English Wikipedia is suffering from a lack of adaptive flexibility is the lack of any substantial change to the treatment of newcomers since the massive decline in retention of good-faith newcomers started in 2007[2]. A secondary piece of evidence is the increasing resistance to policy/guideline (formalized norm) changes for all editors, but especially newcomers[3]. We've seen some follow-up work that suggests that Wikipedia's complexity itself is a barrier for new editors[7] and that these issues extend to spaces specifically designed to support newcomers' work[6]. There have been some interesting efforts to address the symptoms of the problem. For example, see WP:Teahouse[4], WP:Snuggle[5] and Onboarding Research[8]. Personally, I think that the way forward is to recognize that hard problems are hard because others have tried the easy/intuitive solutions already. I think it is time to dig in and understand the fundamental, socio-technical nature of Wikipedia. To that end, I'm working on building data resources of strategic importance (see [9, 10, 11, 12]). I'm also working towards experimenting with the effects of increased reflexive power by surfacing a value-added measurement service[13]. And of course, I'm advertising our socio-technical problems at research showcase like the one Pine linked and when giving talks (e.g. [14]) so that we can grow our army of wiki researchers. OMG WALL OF REFERENCES: 1. Halfaker, A., Geiger, R. S., Morgan, J. T., & Riedl, J. (2012). The rise and decline of an open collaboration system: How Wikipedia's reaction to popularity is causing its decline. American Behavioral Scientist, 0002764212469365. http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/halfak er13rise-preprint.pdf 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desirable_newcomer_survival_over_time.p ng from [1] Figure 4, pg. 12 3. Page 17, table 2 and the two pgs preceeding it. http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/halfak er13rise-preprint.pdf 4. Morgan, J. T., Bouterse, S., Walls, H., & Stierch, S. (2013, February). Tea and sympathy: crafting positive new user experiences on wikipedia. In Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work (pp. 839-848). ACM. http://jtmorgan.net/jtmorgan/files/morgan_cscw2013_final.pdf 5. Halfaker, A., Geiger, R. S., & Terveen, L. G. (2014, April). Snuggle: designing for efficient socialization and ideological critique. In Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 311-320). ACM. http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/Snuggle/halfaker14snuggle-p reprint.pdf 6. Schneider, J., Gelley, B. S., & Halfaker, A. (2014, August). Accept, decline, postpone: How newcomer productivity is reduced in English Wikipedia by pre-publication review. In Proceedings of The International Symposium on Open Collaboration (p. 26). ACM. http://cse.poly.edu/~gelley/acceptdecline.pdf 7. Ford, H., & Geiger, R. S. (2012, August). Writing up rather than writing down: Becoming wikipedia literate. In Proceedings of the Eighth Annual International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (p. 16). ACM. http://www.opensym.org/ws2012/p21wikisym2012.pdf 8. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Onboarding_new_Wikipedians 9. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Ideas/MediaWiki_events:_a_generaliz ed_public_event_datasource 10. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Editor_Interaction_Data_Extractio n_and_Visualization 11. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Automated_Notability_Detection 12. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Revision_scoring_as_a_service 13. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:WikiCredit 14. https://www.si.umich.edu/events/201409/icos-lecture-aaron-halfaker -Aaron On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 1:23 AM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote: Both of the presentations at the October Wikimedia Research Showcase were fascinating and I encourage everyone to watch them [1]. I would like to continue to discuss the themes from the showcase about Wikipedia's adaptability, viability, and diversity. Aaron's discussion about Wikipedia's ongoing internal adaptations, and the slowing of those adaptations, reminded me of this statement from MIT Technology Review in 2013 (and I recommend reading the whole article [2]): "The main source of those problems (with Wikipedia) is not mysterious. The loose collective running the site today, estimated to be 90 percent male, operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase partipcipation in Wikipedia and broaden its coverage." I would like to contrast that vision of Wikipedia with the vision presented by User:CatherineMunro (formatting tweaks by me), which I re-read when I need encouragement: "THIS IS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA One gateway to the wide garden of knowledge, where lies The deep rock of our past, in which we must delve The well of our future, The clear water we must leave untainted for those who come after us, The fertile earth, in which truth may grow in bright places, tended by many hands, And the broad fall of sunshine, warming our first steps toward knowing how much we do not know." How can we align ouselves less with the former vision and more with the latter? [3] I hope that we can continue to discuss these themes on the Research mailing list. Please contribute your thoughts and questions there. Regards, Pine [1] youtube.com/watch?v=-We4GZbH3Iw [2] http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedi a/ [3] Lest this at first seem to be impossible, I will borrow and tweak a quote from from George Bernard Shaw and later used by John F. Kennedy: "Some people see things as they are and say, 'Why?' Let us dream things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"

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Gendergap October 2014