Hello,

This is very interesting. Thank you for sharing. Please let us know if and when it can be shared more freely. I know a few people who'd want to read about this. I know I was surprised to read that we would be better off trying to recruit new editors than to focus on retention (very simplified).

A couple of points, none of which I've seen mentioned in this thread:

* no matter the numbers, it will take a lot of male editors to help engaging more female editors. Not only because if female editors were to concentrate on engaging other females, they would have less time editing, and not only because we have more male editors, but because this is not only a woman's issue. It's an issue of neutrality and dissemination of knowledge. If we can get more male editors to get behind this question, it will be much easier getting to the desired numbers.

* I wrote a blog post a few years ago, stating that if all the women who were named Elsa started editing Swedish Wikipedia actively (4 times a day = more than 100 edits a month), the gendergap would cease to exist. (https://wikimediasverige.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/varfor-skriver-inte-kvinnor-pa-wikipedia/) These kinds of numbers are telling, in that they convey a fairly common misconception: although we have a huge gendergap, the number of people actually editing Wikipedia is not that great. So in actual numbers, if we divide the effort between chapters and non-chapters and individual Wikipedians, I think it's possible to reach those numbers.

Anyway, great post and again, thanks.


Best wishes,

Lennart Guldbrandsson

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