Hi Sue,

I appreciate your thorough and quick responses:-)

It's Friday night here in Australia so I'll chew over the questions and answers over the weekend. I find sitting back and thinking things over helpful.

I'm interested in what other people have to say too.

regards
Rosie Williams
http://women4wikipedia.net
http://collectiveaction.com.au
@collectiveact



> From: sgardner@wikimedia.org
> Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:21:43 -0700
> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] This list
> To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> CC: collective_action@hotmail.com
>
> Hi Rosie,
>
> I will take a crack at answering your questions, in-line below :-)
>
>
> On 17 March 2011 22:41, Collective Action <collective_action@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear Sue & All,
> >
> > I am yet to experience sexism on Wikipedia however my reading of this list
> > has only served to confuse me with regard to the gender gap issue. I am
> > hoping that someone can clarify the following points with some kind of
> > authority.
> >
> > Is there any consensus in the Wikipedia/Wikimedia heirarchy that the Gender
> > gap on Wikipedia is a problem that Wikipedia is trying to solve (apparently
> > with the help of this list)?
>
> I can't speak for the Wikipedia editorial volunteer hierarchy. But I
> can speak for the Wikimedia Foundation, and yes, we believe the gender
> gap is a problem that needs to be solved. Currently, 13% of Wikimedia
> editors self-identify as female [1], and we've set ourselves a target
> to double that by 2015.
>
> [1] 13% of respondents to the 2008 UNU-Merit Editor Survey said they
> are female. We believe that number is probably a little off, because
> although there was a healthy sample size, the methodology probably
> resulted in favouring of frequent editors. So the 13% may be a little
> skewed, but probably not too much.
>
>
>
> > Is there any consensus in the Wikipedia/Wikimedia heirarchy that women who
> > attempt to contribute to Wikipedia are likely to be subject to chronic
> > sexist remarks and that this is presumed to factor into the lower
> > participation rates of women?
>
> I don't think so, no. My personal belief (and my own experiences, and
> readings on-wiki) suggest to me that Wikimedians are significantly
> less overtly, explicitly sexist than non-Wikimedians. Many, many
> online cultures are blatantly misogynist: Wikimedia IMO is not. I'm
> not saying that sexist remarks never happen (and of course it depends
> what you define as sexist): I would expect that they do. But I don't
> think Wikimedia is a particularly sexualized culture; I don't think
> it's a culture that tends to stereotype and objectify, and I think
> most/many of the men on Wikipedia would recoil from overt sexism.
>
> That doesn't mean we don't behave in ways that deter women's
> participation: I think it's obvious that we do [2]. But I don't think
> that direct personal aggressive sexism is particularly present on
> Wikipedia.
>
> (It might be worth knowing that in about a month, we are going to put
> a new Editor Survey in the field, that includes a half-dozen questions
> about gender and sexism. That will be the first time we've surveyed
> editors, male and female, about their experiences and observations
> with regard to gender on the Wikimedia projects. So we'll see what
> gets reported.)
>
>
>
> > What is the responsibility of Wikipedia/Wikimedia in protecting individuals
> > from harrassment and in particular, any systemic abuse which is believed to
> > be endemic to Wikipedia?
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't police editors' behaviour on
> Wikipedia. Policing editors' behaviour is a responsibility of the
> Wikimedia editorial community, through dispute resolution mechanisms,
> the Arbitration Committee, and other avenues. (There are some people
> here who can talk about Arb Comm, for example.) The Wikimedia
> Foundation just couldn't possibly police it: there are 100,000 editors
> here working in 270+ languages, and we would never have the ability to
> investigate problems, nor to enforce compliance with behavioural
> standards. And ultimately, editors are online volunteers, and if they
> are unhappy or feel unsafe, they always have the ability to exercise
> their option to stop editing. At the end of the day, they have
> alternatives. They are here by choice, and they can leave if they
> want.
>
> Having said that, I do wish that the Wikimedia Foundation could do
> more to protect editors from harassment. I believe that only a very
> small number of editors has ever faced serious harassment, but I am
> aware of some instances in which it's occurred. We have, in a very
> small number of instances, offered advice and support of various
> kinds. But we can't be responsible for people's safety on Wikipedia,
> any more than Facebook, for example, can be responsible for people's
> safety there.
>
>
>
> > How does Wikipedia take responsibility to ensure that when people come to
> > Wikipedia to edit for the first time they are made aware of problems they
> > may encounter (both due to their gender and more generally) and the actions
> > they can take to address these issues?
>
> I think the usual advice to people joining online communities is that
> they should lurk for a while, read, and get the hang of things. I'm
> not aware of any special cautioning orientation materials for new
> people on Wikipedia. (Although as I write this, I do actually remember
> that when I first started editing, I stumbled across advice on how to
> remain anonymous, whether or not to use my real name, and some other
> bits and pieces. But I believe I found it by reading really widely and
> deeply; it wasn't collected together in one place.) It might actually
> be a really good project for this group: to aim to create a set of
> help materials for new female editors.
>
>
>
> > What are the roles of the Wikimedia/Wikipedia hierarchy here on the list and
> > do official representatives of these organisations have rights to determine
> > the debate here that go beyond the power of other list members?
>
> No, I don't think so. The Wikimedia Foundation staff who are on this
> list are present by their own choice, because they want to help.
> No-one's been assigned to be here, and no-one has any special
> authority to control the debate here. I am the list owner, and I think
> there are a couple of moderators as well, but I expect everything here
> will happen via consensus. I don't consider this to be a list "for"
> the Wikimedia Foundation; I consider it to be a list for the people
> here.
>
> I expect that the Wikimedia Foundation staff who are here joined
> because they want to know more about what female editors want and
> need. The people here from the staff are e.g., interface designers,
> community staff, product/strategy people, etc. who want to take
> women's views into consideration as they do their work. The women here
> aren't necessarily representative of people outside this list, but I
> expect staff here feel it's a good place to learn a little and maybe
> kick around ideas for feedback.
>
>
>
> > What, if any quality assaurance guidelines, structure or policy is behind
> > this list and the goal of reducing the gender gap on Wikipedia and the
> > relationship between the two?
>
> I'm not sure exactly what that question means, but I'll take a crack
> at it, and you can tell me if I've misunderstood what you're asking.
> There are no formal guidelines/structure/policy behind the list.
> Wikimedia lists typically operate in accordance within a set of loose
> conventions: basically, informal 'folk wisdom' -- AFAIK they've never
> been documented anywhere, and I myself learned them through
> observation over time. Generally speaking, with some partial
> exceptions: most of our lists are open to the public, anyone can join
> or leave any time, people are asked to remain civil but there is wide
> latitude for disagreement and debate, and off-topic discussion is
> discouraged but not entirely verboten. Some lists have expectations of
> privacy, but the archives for this list are public, so there should be
> no expectation of privacy here.
>
> Is that useful? It's funny: as I write all that I realize that of
> course none of it is obvious to people who haven't spent a lot of time
> in the Wikimedia community: you're reminding me of how frustrated I
> was three or four years ago, as I learned all those informal,
> unwritten, undocumented conventions. We really have a lot of work to
> do, if we want Wikimedia to become more porous, more penetrable :-)
>
> Anyway Rosie, I hope this helps. Feel free to follow up if anything's
> unclear, or if you think we should adjust/adapt, feel free to say that
> too. Other people should elaborate/refine my answers too, if they want
> :-)
>
> Thanks,
> Sue
>
>
> [2] Oh, I wanted to add this. Although I don't believe explicit overt
> sexism is particularly present on Wikipedia, I do think women face
> particular impediments due to their gender.
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation has identified a number of challenges that
> deter people from wanting to edit: the editing interface is too hard
> to use; deletions and reversions are climbing; the culture can be
> fighty; the culture isn't very welcoming/encouraging/supportive; and
> there are a lot of editorial policies and practices that people need
> to learn, in order to edit effectively. And, we speculate that there
> may be three issues particular to women, that explain their
> disproportionately low presence.
>
> * Some studies say women self-report as less technically confident
> than men. And, some research suggests that women may generally be
> inclined to use technology as a tool for working, with men generally
> more inclined to use it for fun. To the extent that this is true,
> MediaWiki’s lack of usability may have a disproportionately deterring
> effect on women. To be clear: the problem is the same for everyone,
> but it may affect women, on the whole, more than men. Obviously this
> isn't the case for existing, experienced female editors.
>
> * Research finds that women generally are more attuned to social cues
> than men: more damaged by disapproval, and more buoyed by support. We
> know that successful Wikimedians, whatever their gender, tend to be
> unusually insensitive to reproach. This suggests that in general women
> may tend to feel the lack of affirmation on Wikipedia more keenly than
> men do, and that warnings, reversions/deletions and a fighty culture
> may disproportionately deter women. This means that efforts to
> increase friendliness and a sense of warmth, and to reduce fightyness,
> will disproportionately increase retention of women. This problem is
> also the same for everyone, but may affect women somewhat more than it
> does men.
>
> * Deletions and reversions are damaging to all new editors, and may
> disproportionately damage women due to their attunement to social
> cues. However, it’s also possible that women’s contributions are in
> fact likelier than men’s to be unfairly reverted/deleted, due to
> systemic bias. This is a theory: there’s no hard data to support it.
> But it seems reasonable to assume that when editorial decisions (e.g.,
> determining notability, relevance, appropriate weight, neutrality,
> reliability of sources) are made primarily by men, women’s
> contributions may be likelier than men’s to be deemed non-notable, not
> relevant, inappropriately weighted, non-neutral or cited with
> unreliable sources. Certainly there is anecdotal evidence suggesting
> this is true: in the wake of the New York Times gender gap story, many
> women told stories online, in blog comments and discussion forums,
> saying this had happened to them.