On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 9:01 AM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/15/12 6:35 PM, Laura Hale wrote:
From a gender gap perspective of bringing in new
female contributors, I
would argue that Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga are much more important than
Imlay because Gaga and Bieber are of interest to and more accessible to a
greater audience than Imlay's article is. I would further argue that it is a
bit elitist to dismiss the importance of improving such articles like Bieber
and issues around such articles like Bieber while focusing on narrowly
scoped articles that are of limited interest and limited ability to attract
a large female audience. We might have issues of educational privilege and
class amongst participants here that mean we do not adequately address those
outside our own backgrounds.
Hi everyone. I don't think anyone is arguing the importance of Justin Bieber
and Lady Gaga and the attraction that primarily young women have towards
them. Those articles are also protected, meaning that young women who are
new to editing most likely wouldn't be able to edit them. I also could argue
that Lady Gaga could be used to also attract young gay boys into editing
too. :D (And Gaga is a good article, needing little improvement it seems!)
I believe it's the Twitter account focus that people are a bit confused by.
I have a feeling a lot of young women aren't going to be interested in
editing articles about the Twitter habits of their favorite celebrities, but
more so the life story of those people. Alas, I don't have any specific
research to back that theory though. I just am saying it from my own
experience as being having my own celebrity obsessions when I was a young
kid. I wouldn't quite go as far to say we have systemtic bias towards Bieber
or Gaga content, either. I think we all struggle with trying to maintain
articles about lesser known figures - whether scientists or sports figures.
But, in the spirit of "can o' worms" perhaps Twitter articles for
celebrities are a slippery slope. I have a feeling that if we get Bieber
Twitter then we get a Bieber's hair article too =) (technically his hair is
notable.)
We're way offtopic, but the original problem is solved so ...
Here is an example where I thought a separate article was uncalled for
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Savage_bibliography
The AFD is all but over, and I am shocked that so many people believe
that this author's collections works and media appearances are
separately notable. IMO Bieber's twitter account and Bieber's hair
are both more distinctly notable than Savage's collection of works.
people talk about Bieber's twitter account and Bieber's hair all the
time; they do not regularly talk about Savage's works as a collective.
Obviously, mileages vary greatly.
--
John Vandenberg