On 2/14/2011 6:00 PM, Oliver Keyes wrote:

"Men of course would be allowed to help and
learn, but doubtless there would be a low tolerance for questionable and
trolling behavior."
How nice of you to tolerate our barbarianism.

I believe that is a misrepresentation of what I said and what I meant.

Again, this comes down to "do we want to divide the community"? If it's behavioural issues within the community, the behaviour of the community has to change. Dissecting it will only cause greater problems further down the line.

It's a resource, not a division. It's an idea, not a demand. This is a brain storm. Feel free to come up with a better idea to help attract and keep women editors.

Portal - which I notice was just mentioned - is another good idea. I haven't had quite enough experience with both to have a strong opinion on whether one or the other would better.

I want to again take this opportunity to emphasise that we don't know why so few women edit compared to men. Is there any chance we could gather some statistically reliable data first, and come up with ideas on how to fix the (currently baseless) presuppositions later?

http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Former_Contributors_Survey_Results As I mentioned earlier today this shows that comments about removal of material, also were made by women in the NY Times debate and on this list. Obviously it's a feature of Wikipedia all newbies have to learn to deal with, but coming up with strategies to keep it from being a major reason for leaving would be a big help for men and women, who may take such rejection more personally, depending on how it is done.

And women in lots of off wiki articles and/or on this list have expressed that dealing with locker room or bar brawling attitudes and even hostility also is an important reasons women leave.

I don't think we need a four year long study to figure out a few of the major issues, while ignoring the experience, ideas and solutions of women who joined this list to share them.

Thanks.

Carol in dc