From: Pete Forsyth <pete.public.email@gmail.com>
To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects <gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tue, February 22, 2011 5:49:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Emails to friends, lists to encourage participation

Whoops. I just re-read Carol's message -- I had misunderstood at first. If this is an effort to recruit *brand new* contributors (as opposed to retaining those who have dabbled), the research I cited above doesn't really apply :)

But, I do think the findings of the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative would be informative;[1] Carol, I'm not sure if you've had contact with this program or not.

But in general, it ties in with what Sue brought up: people brand new to Wikipedia often need a *lot* of support and advice before they start to get their legs. So directing them to educational resources, and establishing a "cafe" type space to ask questions and build a sense of community, would certainly be helpful in keeping with what we've learned from our outreach efforts.

And personalizing the message a little bit, tailoring it to the specific woman's interests by suggesting articles she may want to edit, couldn't hurt either!

If you really want to ease new recruits into Wikipedia, you wouldn't send them straight to Wikipedia. Create the cafe space on Meta and use it as welcoming committee and a place to ask for general guidance without bringing in the turf-battle baggage.  Plus since there are not a large number of women who understand the wikis, we would be better off consolidating ourselves there instead splitting up by language where perhaps our voices might be drowned out in a local forum.

Also try and start them off outside of the Wikipedia's where they can get a handle on the interface and mark-up without having a creative investment in the content they are working on.  I would recommend proof-reading on Wikisource [1] for the most timid, as you only very occasionally have a completely ambiguous decision to make and if you do the first proofread it is guaranteed that another person will check all you work during validation. You could watchlist the pages see the validation happen and check the diff to see if any of your work was corrected or not.  It is really a good introduction to wikis for those who want confirmation they are doing things right at first.  I am sure Commons and other wikis have many gnomish tasks that will get new recruits used to how to work on wikis.  Also send people to do peer reviews at the Wikipedias.  They can give feedback on articles that interest them and begin getting used to the to interaction with people who are invested in the articles they worked on while nearly being guaranteed a positive interaction. Then they will feel more comfortable changing things in Wikipedia articles and better able to understand what is going on when their edits are challenged. 

There is more to even Wikipedia the writing articles.  I am personally a terrible writer and only make a great deal of work for people when significantly edit articles.  I am rather good at peer reviews. I have an excellent understanding of text-based copyright issues. I am a decent mediator. 

People need to be sent to work on their passions with their personal strengths, not just told in a blanket fashion to write some articles.

Birgitte SB

[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikisource/en/wiki/Wikisource:Proofread_of_the_Month
Click on the work listed for the month (Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, volume 1) and then pick one of the numbers highlighted in yellow on the target page.