Hi Natacha,

Like you, find it a bit discouraging that there remain such large disparities in our diversity. WMF has been working on this issue for years, and while there have been some successful projects, my hunch is that the percentage of female contributors as a percentage of all contributors remains below 30%.

The population of contributors as a whole has been a subject of discouragement for me for many years. I'm hopeful that some of the work being done by the WMF Collaboration Team and WMF Research, with ORES and the upcoming changes to RC patrol, will help us to do a better job of identifying good-faith newcomers. However, I feel that the community may lacks sufficient human resources to do a thorough job with identifying good-faith newcomers and integrating them in a timely fashion.

Wikimedia in general is a usually serious and sometimes stressful activity, so I can understand why people would prefer to spend their time on their carefully cultivated social networks, engaging in fun hobbies, playing sports, or doing other activities that may be better for one's health. Sometimes I think myself that my own time on Wikimedia is not good for my health, and I wonder to what extent I should encourage other people to participate in this environment. Some parts of the environment are more encouraging than others, and I try to remind myself that I should spend at least as much time on nurturing the good as I do on trying to address problems.

Anyway, I wish that I knew what else to suggest. Perhaps Keilana, Rosie, or others will have some suggestions about how to increase the participation rate of female contributors to at least 30%.

Pine