Romaine Wiki says about women, participating as editors on Wikipedia:
>They expect a social environment, with easy interaction, where they are
stimulated and can form groups to be able not to feel alone on the wiki and
to work together, >where they can get constructive feedback, where they can
follow easily what colleagues, friends and other people they know
personally are doing on Wikipedia. As >example, there is no way for people
to follow friends/colleagues on what they have written. There is no easy
way to say to a group of users (friends/colleagues) >you have written a new
article and you like suggestions. It is time for Wikipedia to go to the
next generation. It is time for Wikipedia getting social.
One can't remain anonymous AND be social on Wikipedia, not in the way
described above. I disagree, that women need this aspect of being social in
order to find editing compelling. I like limiting interactions to talk
pages, and occasional off-Wiki emails about side points. I have sent and
received maybe five off-wiki emails in two years of daily editing.
As for keeping up with certain people, I do like doing that! You can do
that by following an editor's edit history. I think you can even set it up
as an RSS feed and track it in a feed reader if you really want to. When I
write a new article, approve an AfC or find an article that I think needs
deletion and want to share or get additional insight, I just copy the
relevant URL, then email or send by Twitter DM to Wikipedia editors with
whom I am friends, if I don't think they'll see it on their talk page. It
is a way of easily sharing. I try not to do it a lot, as Wikipedia is not a
social network. It is fun, and validating to discuss things, and support
other editors, but that can usually be accomplished using user talk pages
and article talk pages very easily, as well as Wikipedia project pages.
Wikipedia would need to be something else, in order to become social in the
same way as Twitter or Pinterest or Facebook.
~FeralOink (Ellie Kesselman)