In addition, I can imagine that exploring the category and looking at user pages might inspire the formulation of more detailed questions.
As an analogy, today I was reading a biography of political analyst Nate Silver, famous for being the first to call the 2008 U.S. presidential election. One of his earlier claims to fame, as a baseball statistician, was extending the work of Bill James, a famous baseball statistician. He looked for patterns in pitching performance that took into account physical characteristics -- e.g., height and weight.
I would guess that Silver's inspiration to start that project originated with the greater accessibility of data in his era (the 2000s) than James' era (the 1980s).
In other words: if you remove obstacles, surprising things can happen.
In one case, you can end up with a huge and fascinating encyclopedia.
Perhaps in another, you can end up with useful research about gender and Wikipedia.
Removing barriers isn't a measurable benefit in itself, but it can support the emergence of things that are beneficial.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Sep 24, 2012, at 4:02 PM, Emily Monroe wrote:
Well, I am a GED graduate on disability, if that helps.From,
Emily
On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 6:01 PM, John Vandenberg
<jayvdb@gmail.com> wrote:
Why do women start? Why do women quit? Is it different from reasons men quit?
Is there a sector where outreach has a higher conversion rate into
Wikipedian Women?
Is there an age bracket where outreach has a higher conversion rate
into Wikipedian Women?
(e.g.) I suspect that our women typically come from glam & education,
whereas our men typically come from IT & law.
--
John Vandenberg
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Pete Forsyth
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