When I did my oh so not scientific survey about women who edit Wikipedia last year (and it was not an official WMF survey, this was just done by me, a concerned editor, and the process has changed since then, so don't plan on doing your own without going through WMF research processes, now) this is what I discovered from women who had edited Wikipedia within the past year (up to that point in 2011):

83% of respondents started participating because they like the idea of volunteering to share their knowledge and/or wanted to share their knowledge with a larger audience.

You can learn more about that here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Women_and_Wikimedia_Survey_2011#Why_did_these_respondents_start_participating_in_Wikimedia_projects.3F

Why do most people continue to edit?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Women_and_Wikimedia_Survey_2011#Why_do_these_respondents_continue_their_participation_in_Wikimedia_projects.3F

Every respondent said they liked volunteering and that they found it empowering.
    It's common knowledge amongst those involved in non-profit work that women devote more time to non-profit volunteering then men. How can we tap into that and let women know that they are contributing to a non-profit that has an international impact?

I asked why people stop contributing (and this survey did include some women who stopped editing perhaps in that one year period):

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Women_and_Wikimedia_Survey_2011#Sometimes_editors_activity_levels_fluctuate._What_are_some_of_the_reasons_why_respondents_don.27t_contribute_as_much_as_they_usually_do_or_used_to.3F

Usually it's because they are busy. The smallest group - 2% said because of sexualized environments on wiki spaces. Which has led me to believe in the red herring theory about porn and Wikipedia. I think it's concerning about model contracts and so forth, but, I think we have bigger fish to fry at this point. I think it's sexualized language and behavior that we need to be more concerned about - sexist comments and bad manners. (and of course, sexism can be experienced by people of any gender and has on Wikipedia.) But, that relies on culture change and allies within the community to shoot down behavior like that (civility!).

58% of participants said they had never been assaulted, attacked or been treated poorly by their Wikipedia colleagues. 33 percent said yes.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Women_and_Wikimedia_Survey_2011#Do_survey_participants_feel_they_have_been_assaulted.2C_attacked.2C_or_treated_poorly_by_colleagues_on_projects.3F

I did this survey because I wanted to know why women were editing. Not why women weren't. I took this as a sign that I needed to develop some sort of call for action, which encourages women to participate (something I am working on that is not yet public for my fellowship) that doesn't involve extensive time consumption at times, that the environment is probably worse for women who do find that sexualized content because they are looking at that content (duh, I'm going to find porny stuff when I search for doggy style or whatever or when i search for "cucumber" on commons because I know where to look. Most people who use Commons know that it's mainly used by Wikipedians, no one else - pregnancy is one prime recent example, but, that's one article out of 3 million+ on English wikipedia), and so I'd channel my energy into actions.

I still wholeheartedly believe that call for actions, making tasks simpler and easier to participate in, inviting women to participate online and offline, social activities and friendly easy to understand content is going to help.  (and help people of all genders participate - so far the Teahouse is helping retain editors, and that includes a large percentage of women who have came through the Teahouse, but how do we make it more known to more women?)

My opinion has come down to: stop searching, and start taking actions. Not all actions might succeed, but, it's up to us to find that out.

Stop bitching and start a revolution, as the old adage says :)

-Sarah
 


On 5/31/12 10:37 AM, Ryan Kaldari wrote:
On 5/30/12 7:19 PM, Béria Lima wrote:
I think that better than ask why people don't contribute, is better tell them why SHOULD they? For us is easier to pass by the fact that not everyone knows why they should contribute. We should give they as much info as possible to make them a contributor, not asking why they don't do it.

Contribution is almost always a question of motivation, if you don't motivate people to do it, they simply won't.

I think this is a good point. One of the most surprising results from our editor surveys was large disparity between the importance that men assign to editing Wikipedia and the importance that women assign to it. (A significantly higher percentage of men said they edit Wikipedia because it is important.) How is it possible that men and women view the importance of the exact same activity in dramatically different ways? I have a lot of theories, but I'd love to see more research into this.

Ryan Kaldari


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Sarah Stierch
Wikimedia Foundation Community Fellow
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