On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 7:39 AM, Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight <rosiestep.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:

A big thank you to Netha for conducting the interview, and thanks to this list group for your support. I don't edit in a vacuum so knowing you are in my wikilife is important to me. Again, thank you.

Will my interview inspire more women to edit? Don't know. But I do know we need the press to spin out more positive stories about wikiwomen and why we edit and how we work it into our lives. The HufPo interview and the Slate GGTF piece were published on the same day. If a woman read both articles, how would it affect her decision to click the edit button? ... and if the reader were a man, how would it affect his decision? It would be interesting if citizen-journalists posted some youtubes asking Joe Public to read the 2 articles and then give an opinion on how likely they would be to click Wikipedia's edit button. This may be a good idea for an IEG... how press coverage of Wikipedia effects the decision to click the edit button. It interests me; would it interest others? Has it been done?

Interesting idea - I understand that some folks in the past have worried that talking about either the gender gap or editor decline in the press would make the issue worse, rather than encourage more people to get involved. One of the things Sarah and I talked about when the WikiWomen's Collaborative started was a desire to raise up more stories of real wikiwomen. I'm not sure how one would actually research a question like this, or if similar studies have been done for other communities in the past, but if you're interested why not start writing up the idea in IdeaLab and see where it goes?

Siko Bouterse
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

sbouterse@wikimedia.org

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

Donate or click the "edit" button today, and help us make it a reality!