Kerry and all,
I've been thinking about much of what you wrote. Being in this list has
made me think about how to recruit and retain more female editors. I
attended Emily's training about how to conduct workshops and edit-athons in
Washington, D.C. last fall, which was a very valuable experience. Many
things germinated during the training, including Rosiestep's creation of
the Women Writers Project (I'm proud to say that I was present, in the same
room, when she created it) and the planning stages of the GA Cup, which was
hugely successful. There was an off-hand remark made during the training
that I think all the edit-athons and workshops that have occurred since has
borne out--that the most successful edit-athons in terms of recruiting new
editors have been reoccurring.
I wonder if the answer is the creation of editing clubs, something that has
been discussed here before. The reason I'm thinking this way is that I'm
preparing an educational session I'm leading at the end of April, at the
District 9 Toastmasters spring conference in Yakima, Washington. (I'm a
very active Toastmaster, like I'm a very active Wikipedian.) It won't be a
workshop about how to edit WP, but a more general session about how to more
effectively use WP to write speeches, although I am providing participants
with a resource list about editing. So I've been thinking about how being
a Toastmaster has made me a better WP editor, and how being an editor has
made me a better Toastmaster.
I'm starting to believe that a more effective way to recruit editors is to
create clubs like Toastmasters, which meet regularly (once or twice a
month) and have a core of 7 or 8 people. TM states that 20 members make a
healthy club, and they should know; they've been in existence for 90
years. I agree that editors are born, not made. (Which is ironic, because
TM's tag line is, "Where leaders are made.") Editing clubs, though, are
ways to find those folks, and to mentor them through the complex WP
policies. If they exist on college campuses, they can be folded into the
university's existing club structure. They can, like TM clubs, be held in
church basements or in hotel conference rooms or in hospital meeting rooms.
I get what you say about experienced editors have little patience with the
bungling newbies. However, if it weren't for a few more experienced
editors who mentored me through my bungling stage, I probably wouldn't be
here today. Adrienne Wadewitz, btw, was one of them. I think that we, as
experienced editors, have a responsibility to mentor newbies--to pay it
forward like others helped us when we were newbies. Shoot, I still need
it. For example, I'd say that I'm a very experienced editor, and I'm
stupid when it comes to creating tables. I'm getting assistance with that
as we speak, in my most recent FLC (
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_list_candidat…
).
Anyway, that's what I've been thinking.
Christine
User: Figureskatingfan
On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 1:01 AM, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Certainly my own experience with edit training and
edit-a-thons is
that, while people (both male and female) seem to enjoy the workshop, they
don’t come back for more. I increasingly share the view that Wikipedians
are born not made. I am not sure that outreach achieves very much, given it
is very difficult to scale. So, I am inclined to think that the best
investments are in nurturing new organic (as in “self-selecting”) editors
and maintaining the enthusiasm of the longer-terms editors. I think it is
ultimately “the community” that grinds all of us down in the long term.
I’ve heard it expressed in different ways by different folks. Some say
they’ve just sick of the vandalism fighting. Personally I did a very short
stint as a reviewer for Articles for Review because so many were of them
looked dubious notability and probably CoI that I thought why am I
bothering (the wrong attitude I know but at least know I understand why AfR
produces so few accepted articles – I think you either walk away or turn
into a Auto-Reject Reviewer). Others get tired of fixing problems created
by an endless stream of newbies making the same well-intentioned but
inappropriate edits. My personal peeve is the Lamington article which is
frequently changed to say it was invented in New Zealand, but with no
sources provided, in an article that currently documents every known early
mentions of lamingtons and shows all of them are Australian in origin
(sorry, Kiwis, but you need evidence to back up your persistent claims).
Others get tired of having run-ins with same grumpy old editors, the
gatekeepers, etc. The interaction between the
I’ve-really-had-enough-of-these-newbies and the
bumbling-but-well-intentioned newbie is clearly a bit part of the problem;
it seems one of them gets burned by the interaction (either the old hand
flays the newbie or the old hand gives and walks away)..
My solution is not female-specific, but I think we do have to recognise
that we have years of effort gone into many articles. The people who put
that effort in don’t want to keep dealing with the newbie edits on what is
often very stable text. I think we have to consider that it isn’t
appropriate to have immature editors messing with mature content. It would
be kinder to all parties if we could (automatically) flag text that has
achieved “maturity” and give it some semi-protection from the newcomers,
directing them to the talk page rather than direct edits to the page
itself. But let other articles or parts of articles that don’t have
maturity to be more able to directly edits by relative newcomers. How do we
measure maturity? I am not sure, but I think indicators are survival of
much of the text over a long period (disregarding short-lived reverted
edits), large number of editors who have contributed to the development of
this articles, large watchlist, .., these are machine-measurable things,
i.e. could be automated.
I think if we can prevent the interactions likely to be unpleasant then
maybe people can co-exist a little happier.
Kerry
_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please
visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
--
Christine
____________________
Christine W. Meyer
christinewmeyer(a)gmail.com
208/310-1549