First, Sandy,
I totally agree with you - the few men who use negative locker room talk about women have caused the downfall of many women in management. The majority of men don't make statements like this, but they do let them be discussed. So good guys, stop being a part of the problem. Tell the insecure guys to shut up, that nobody wants to hear that stuff anymore.
Second, Miguel,
Thank you for pointing out that the gender gap exists all over the world.
You propose the Wikipedia site itself might be a problem, because women don't want to work with it because it isn't WYSIWYG. <*sigh*> The reasons being:
1. "men are a bit more obsessive in their work than women" 2. "maybe it's the look of the site, not attractive enough" 3. "women tend to focus their attention on people, instead of things, as men do"
#1 & #3 have been stated about women and work for over a century.
#2 --> Has a woman *actually* told you that she won't post to Wikipedia because she finds the interface too difficult? You're proposing that women don't want to post as experts because they don't want to be an expert in using a complex interface. Because of a deficiency with women, they don't want to become experts with a system that would allow them to post their expert opinion. I sense a catch-22 argument here. Reworking the Wikipedia interface is not really addressing the problem.
Another reason why "women don't want to ____ because ______" We should have a Wiki page on these bizarre reasons. If we put them in a long list it might not help anyone, but it might be humorous. We could just refer to reason #1054 or #782 or #11659 with links to the Wiki page. Good for a laugh. Women could post any new funnies, like "women aren't as obsessive about their work as men are". This might become the most popular set of pages on Wikipedia. Of course, it would probably attract trolls. So let's not.
To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a 'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that the world community accepts women as experts, and invites women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki can have a different logo for that month.
- Susan Spencer Conklin
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 01:55, Susan Spencer susan.spencer@gmail.com wrote:
To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a 'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that the world community accepts women as experts, and invites women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki can have a different logo for that month.
- Susan Spencer Conklin
Susan, I think this is a great idea. International Women's Day is on March 8. http://www.internationalwomensday.com/about.asp
Could we organize a women's edit month/week around that?
Sarah
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 3:59 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 01:55, Susan Spencer susan.spencer@gmail.com wrote:
To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a 'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that the world community accepts women as experts, and invites women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki can have a different logo for that month.
- Susan Spencer Conklin
Susan, I think this is a great idea. International Women's Day is on March 8. http://www.internationalwomensday.com/about.asp
Could we organize a women's edit month/week around that?
Sarah
This is definitely doable and happened in a limited way in the past.
The English Wikipedia DYK will pick theme related articles related to special dates such as International Women's Day. Last year they selected new articles that were related to women for the Main Page DYK section on this day. And the majority of the articles that I created last March for US Womens Histiory Month appeared as DYK on the Main Page.
This explains how the DYK special occasion holding area works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Did_you_know#Special_occasion_hol...
See this as an example of the notice that is left on the article talk page after the DYK appears.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Rhoda_Fox_Graves&diff=pre...
Last year during March at the last minute I asked Wikipedia English Military History Project editors to work on articles about women and got some people (mostly guys) interested.
Other types of Wikiprojects do the same type of thing. For example, Wikiquote selects daily quotes that are related to themes. Wikisource also selects new entries for their main page
I'm pretty sure that with better expose of the idea it would spread even farther to other language Wikipedia, and other WMF projects.
Sydney Poore (FloNight)
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 8:27 AM, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 3:59 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 01:55, Susan Spencer susan.spencer@gmail.com wrote:
To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a 'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that the world community accepts women as experts, and invites women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki can have a different logo for that month.
- Susan Spencer Conklin
Susan, I think this is a great idea. International Women's Day is on March 8. http://www.internationalwomensday.com/about.asp
Could we organize a women's edit month/week around that?
Sarah
This is definitely doable and happened in a limited way in the past.
The English Wikipedia DYK will pick theme related articles related to special dates such as International Women's Day. Last year they selected new articles that were related to women for the Main Page DYK section on this day. And the majority of the articles that I created last March for US Womens Histiory Month appeared as DYK on the Main Page.
This explains how the DYK special occasion holding area works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Did_you_know#Special_occasion_hol...
See this as an example of the notice that is left on the article talk page after the DYK appears.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Rhoda_Fox_Graves&diff=pre...
Last year during March at the last minute I asked Wikipedia English Military History Project editors to work on articles about women and got some people (mostly guys) interested.
Other types of Wikiprojects do the same type of thing. For example, Wikiquote selects daily quotes that are related to themes. Wikisource also selects new entries for their main page
I'm pretty sure that with better expose of the idea it would spread even farther to other language Wikipedia, and other WMF projects.
Sydney Poore (FloNight)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Recent_additions/2010/March#8_March_2...
These are the DYKs that ran last March 8. Many were related to women but not all. This would have most likely been because there were not enough new articles that met DYK criteria to fill the slots.
Sydney
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 07:27, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 3:59 AM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 01:55, Susan Spencer susan.spencer@gmail.com wrote:
To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a 'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that the world community accepts women as experts, and invites women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki can have a different logo for that month.
- Susan Spencer Conklin
Susan, I think this is a great idea. International Women's Day is on March 8. http://www.internationalwomensday.com/about.asp
Sarah
This is definitely doable and happened in a limited way in the past.
The English Wikipedia DYK will pick theme related articles related to special dates such as International Women's Day. Last year they selected new articles that were related to women for the Main Page DYK section on this day. And the majority of the articles that I created last March for US Womens Histiory Month appeared as DYK on the Main Page.
Sydney Poore (FloNight)
=
Is there time to organize a Wikipedia Women's Week centred around March 8, with the explicit aim of attracting more women editors?
The WP logo could be changed a little to include the Venus symbol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_symbol
We could organize women editors to act as a welcoming party, or mentors, to adopt new woman users during that week.
Should we separate off this thread so we have a header directly addressing it?
Sarah
Susan, I think this is a great idea. International Women's Day is on March 8.
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/about.asp
Could we organize a women's edit month/week around that?
Sarah
Just a note that, already, there have been efforts for the last several years to make sure that Main Page content, featured and otherwise, on March 8 reflects that, i.e., articles about women and women's history in TFA and DYK (and we could also, this year, find a similar FPC). It's similar to the coordinated Irish bursts we've done on March 17, and the Australia-related ones we did for New Year's Day.
Last year we had to go with an article about an Anglo-Saxon king as the Main Page FA for that day, but in 2009 we ran [[Harriet Tubman]].
There's plenty of time to get in a relevant request for such an article at WP:TFA/R, and maybe even to get something to featured status before then. And there is certainly time to get an FPC nom approved, if you can find one (there are always plenty out there, many we haven't done as Main Page photos and many FP or near FPC-quality pics that could be fixed up and promoted (just a warning, however, that you better really look closely at a photo and know what you're doing, because those FPC noms are the most brutal (not in terms of the reviewers' attitude, but their level of expectations) and exacting photo critiques I've seen on or offline.
At T:TDYK it would take one edit and a relevant new or newly 5x-expanded article meeting the criteria to start a section of submissions for March 8 that could and would be held there, over the usual time limit, until that date.
Daniel Case
Dear friends, Thank you for this inspiring dialogue. Inspired by the convergence of opinions, I believe it would be good to make a concrete difference in Wikipedia.
A suggestion I would like to share is to develop a number of articles (100,000? -in total in various languages) in 1 or 2 years (?) related to women. These articles may receive a symbol (eg an F inside a circle in red, pink?) Similarly (not in the procedure) to articles with a star. They could also be on a list, and that list, if possible, be composed of several languages.
For example: existing articles on Maria Curie, etc. articles with more biographies of women) articles on women's rights
articles on the role of women in indigenous religions (Pachamama, etc) or concepts (motherland, matria, etc)
A cross-sensitive women's proposal, which is poorly represented at editorial as well as thematic level.
Wikipedia would be proactive inviting both women and men to break this gap. At the same time this initiative can feminize Wikipedia progressively attracting more women as editors and have more female readers.
PatriciaUniversity of Leuven (projects on solidarity at UNESCO Chair on Building Sustainable Peace) --- On Tue, 2/8/11, Susan Spencer susan.spencer@gmail.com wrote:
From: Susan Spencer susan.spencer@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Gendergap] A pet peeve / cliche To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 11:55 PM
First, Sandy,
I totally agree with you - the few men who use negative locker room talk about women have caused the downfall of many women in management. The majority of men don't make statements like this,
but they do let them be discussed. So good guys, stop being a part of the problem. Tell the insecure guys to shut up, that nobody wants to hear that stuff anymore.
Second, Miguel,
Thank you for pointing out that the gender gap
exists all over the world.
You propose the Wikipedia site itself might be a problem, because women don't want to work with it because it isn't WYSIWYG. <*sigh*> The reasons being:
1. "men are a bit more obsessive in their work than women"
2. "maybe it's the look of the site, not attractive enough" 3. "women tend to focus their attention on people, instead of things, as men do"
#1 & #3 have been stated about women and work for over a century.
#2 --> Has a woman *actually* told you that she won't post to Wikipedia because she finds the interface too difficult? You're proposing that women don't want to post as experts because they don't want to be an expert in using a complex interface. Because of a deficiency with women, they don't want to become experts with a system that would allow them to post their expert opinion. I sense a catch-22 argument here.
Reworking the Wikipedia interface is not really addressing the problem.
Another reason why "women don't want to ____ because ______" We should have a Wiki page on these bizarre reasons. If we put them in a long list it might not help anyone, but
it might be humorous. We could just refer to reason #1054 or #782 or #11659 with links to the Wiki page. Good for a laugh. Women could post any new funnies, like "women aren't as obsessive about their work as men are".
This might become the most popular set of pages on Wikipedia. Of course, it would probably attract trolls. So let's not.
To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a 'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that the world community accepts women as experts, and invites
women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki can have a different logo for that month.
- Susan Spencer Conklin
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----
_______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
____________________________________________________________________________________ No need to miss a message. Get email on-the-go with Yahoo! Mail for Mobile. Get started. http://mobile.yahoo.com/mail
Although this is both US and English-centric (as usual), I would like to advertise that the current US Collaboration of the Month is Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (which gave women the right to vote). If anyone is blogging on the gender gap issue, this would be a good suggestion for where people could jump in. Until recently, the article was barely more than a stub.
Regarding Patricia's suggestion, I think this is a great idea. The new WikiProject Women's History is already making good headway on identifying articles that would be of interest. WikiProject Feminism also has a few worklists that could be added to the pot.
Ryan Kaldari
On 2/9/11 1:21 AM, patricia morales wrote:
Dear friends,
Thank you for this inspiring dialogue. Inspired by the convergence of opinions, I believe it would be good to make a concrete difference in Wikipedia.
A suggestion I would like to share is to develop a number of articles (100,000? -in total in various languages) in 1 or 2 years (?) related to women. These articles may receive a symbol (eg an F inside a circle in red, pink?) Similarly (not in the procedure) to articles with a star. They could also be on a list, and that list, if possible, be composed of several languages.
For example: existing articles on Maria Curie, etc. articles with more biographies of women) articles on women's rights articles on the role of women in indigenous religions (Pachamama, etc) or concepts (motherland, matria, etc)
A cross-sensitive women's proposal, which is poorly represented at editorial as well as thematic level.
Wikipedia would be proactive inviting both women and men to break this gap. At the same time this initiative can feminize Wikipedia progressively attracting more women as editors and have more female readers.
Patricia University of Leuven (projects on solidarity at UNESCO Chair on Building Sustainable Peace)
--- On *Tue, 2/8/11, Susan Spencer /susan.spencer@gmail.com/* wrote:
From: Susan Spencer <susan.spencer@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] A pet peeve / cliche To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 11:55 PM First, Sandy, I totally agree with you - the few men who use negative locker room talk about women have caused the downfall of many women in management. The majority of men don't make statements like this, but they do let them be discussed. So good guys, stop being a part of the problem. Tell the insecure guys to shut up, that nobody wants to hear that stuff anymore. Second, Miguel, Thank you for pointing out that the gender gap exists all over the world. You propose the Wikipedia site itself might be a problem, because women don't want to work with it because it isn't WYSIWYG. <*sigh*> The reasons being: 1. "men are a bit more obsessive in their work than women" 2. "maybe it's the look of the site, not attractive enough" 3. "women tend to focus their attention on people, instead of things, as men do" #1 & #3 have been stated about women and work for over a century. #2 --> Has a woman *actually* told you that she won't post to Wikipedia because she finds the interface too difficult? You're proposing that women don't want to post as experts because they don't want to be an expert in using a complex interface. Because of a deficiency with women, they don't want to become experts with a system that would allow them to post their expert opinion. I sense a catch-22 argument here. Reworking the Wikipedia interface is not really addressing the problem. Another reason why "women don't want to ____ because ______" We should have a Wiki page on these bizarre reasons. If we put them in a long list it might not help anyone, but it might be humorous. We could just refer to reason #1054 or #782 or #11659 with links to the Wiki page. Good for a laugh. Women could post any new funnies, like "women aren't as obsessive about their work as men are". This might become the most popular set of pages on Wikipedia. Of course, it would probably attract trolls. So let's not. To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a 'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that the world community accepts women as experts, and invites women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki can have a different logo for that month. - Susan Spencer Conklin -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org </mc/compose?to=Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
if we decide to do this, i totally will volunteer with pr/marketing, even. (ie, like a edit-athon day, so everyone in the world can do it.???) Maybe it can be like a weekly thing: Thursday Women Wikithon ...ofcourse we would need a rotation of people to man it, so they can provide guidance and answer questions.
- A virtually area where we can meet as a group (ie, to talk to new people, and answer their questions, and provide guidance. If we decide it would be IRC, then we would need very clear instructions so that people would know how to sign up.) Maybe we can even create a facebook page or group! 've seven see people answer questions in real time by uploading video answer, which is very personable.
- Post describing guidelines, as well as detailed directions on how to edit. (i'm sure this exists somewhere, and we can borrow and massage text).
- A landing page that we can link to social sites, and send to people...ie, where we announce the event(s) and have links to above docs too.
- A twitter/facebook schedule, so we can get word out. Maybe if we write the tweets, the foundation can send out for us? (i'm sure they have some type of twitter manager) ie, so we don't have to create a twitter account, cultivate followers, etc.
- Research contact info for various women groups/organizations that we can start reaching out to. For example, women in biology ass., or women in medieval history org.....We can even have different groups be our "guest" for a particular day. Ie, "this thursday our guest is "women in biology." who will be editing biology articles." This is kind of personal, and community like :) !
Just some ideas.......
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 6:01 PM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:
Although this is both US and English-centric (as usual), I would like to advertise that the current US Collaboration of the Month is Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (which gave women the right to vote). If anyone is blogging on the gender gap issue, this would be a good suggestion for where people could jump in. Until recently, the article was barely more than a stub.
Regarding Patricia's suggestion, I think this is a great idea. The new WikiProject Women's History is already making good headway on identifying articles that would be of interest. WikiProject Feminism also has a few worklists that could be added to the pot.
Ryan Kaldari
On 2/9/11 1:21 AM, patricia morales wrote:
Dear friends,
Thank you for this inspiring dialogue. Inspired by the convergence of opinions, I believe it would be good to make a concrete difference in Wikipedia.
A suggestion I would like to share is to develop a number of articles (100,000? -in total in various languages) in 1 or 2 years (?) related to women. These articles may receive a symbol (eg an F inside a circle in red, pink?) Similarly (not in the procedure) to articles with a star. They could also be on a list, and that list, if possible, be composed of several languages.
For example: existing articles on Maria Curie, etc. articles with more biographies of women) articles on women's rights articles on the role of women in indigenous religions (Pachamama, etc) or concepts (motherland, matria, etc)
A cross-sensitive women's proposal, which is poorly represented at editorial as well as thematic level.
Wikipedia would be proactive inviting both women and men to break this gap. At the same time this initiative can feminize Wikipedia progressively attracting more women as editors and have more female readers.
Patricia University of Leuven (projects on solidarity at UNESCO Chair on Building Sustainable Peace)
--- On *Tue, 2/8/11, Susan Spencer /susan.spencer@gmail.com/* wrote:
From: Susan Spencer <susan.spencer@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] A pet peeve / cliche To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 11:55 PM First, Sandy, I totally agree with you - the few men who use negative locker room talk about women have caused the downfall of many women in management. The majority of men don't make statements like this, but they do let them be discussed. So good guys, stop being a part of the problem. Tell the insecure guys to shut up, that nobody wants to hear that stuff anymore. Second, Miguel, Thank you for pointing out that the gender gap exists all over the world. You propose the Wikipedia site itself might be a problem, because women don't want to work with it because it isn't WYSIWYG. <*sigh*> The reasons being: 1. "men are a bit more obsessive in their work than women" 2. "maybe it's the look of the site, not attractive enough" 3. "women tend to focus their attention on people, instead of things, as men do" #1 & #3 have been stated about women and work for over a century. #2 --> Has a woman *actually* told you that she won't post to Wikipedia because she finds the interface too difficult? You're proposing that women don't want to post as experts because they don't want to be an expert in using a complex interface. Because of a deficiency with women, they don't want to become experts with a system that would allow them to post their expert opinion. I sense a catch-22 argument here. Reworking the Wikipedia interface is not really addressing the problem. Another reason why "women don't want to ____ because ______" We should have a Wiki page on these bizarre reasons. If we put them in a long list it might not help anyone, but it might be humorous. We could just refer to reason #1054 or #782 or #11659 with links to the Wiki page. Good for a laugh. Women could post any new funnies, like "women aren't as obsessive about their work as men are". This might become the most popular set of pages on Wikipedia. Of course, it would probably attract trolls. So let's not. To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a 'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that the world community accepts women as experts, and invites women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki can have a different logo for that month. - Susan Spencer Conklin -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org </mc/compose?to=Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
I very much like this idea, not only for the womany aspect, but for the public outreach aspect. Bloggers might be the go to people for this sort of thing; blogathons and "blog for X" type events are pretty common.
It would be paramount to have a bunch of experienced editors to staff any such events, to deal with markup and biting. (Something like this just strikes me as a buffet for newbie eaters; must have bouncers.)
If it works here, we could do it with other undercovered and under-represented groups. (First Peoples' Wikithon? Wikithon for Disability?)
Nepenthe
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 12:18 PM, Sandra ordonez sandratordonez@gmail.comwrote:
if we decide to do this, i totally will volunteer with pr/marketing, even. (ie, like a edit-athon day, so everyone in the world can do it.???) Maybe it can be like a weekly thing: Thursday Women Wikithon ...ofcourse we would need a rotation of people to man it, so they can provide guidance and answer questions.
- A virtually area where we can meet as a group (ie, to talk to new people,
and answer their questions, and provide guidance. If we decide it would be IRC, then we would need very clear instructions so that people would know how to sign up.) Maybe we can even create a facebook page or group! 've seven see people answer questions in real time by uploading video answer, which is very personable.
- Post describing guidelines, as well as detailed directions on how to
edit. (i'm sure this exists somewhere, and we can borrow and massage text).
- A landing page that we can link to social sites, and send to people...ie,
where we announce the event(s) and have links to above docs too.
- A twitter/facebook schedule, so we can get word out. Maybe if we write
the tweets, the foundation can send out for us? (i'm sure they have some type of twitter manager) ie, so we don't have to create a twitter account, cultivate followers, etc.
- Research contact info for various women groups/organizations that we can
start reaching out to. For example, women in biology ass., or women in medieval history org.....We can even have different groups be our "guest" for a particular day. Ie, "this thursday our guest is "women in biology." who will be editing biology articles." This is kind of personal, and community like :) !
Just some ideas.......
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 6:01 PM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.orgwrote:
Although this is both US and English-centric (as usual), I would like to advertise that the current US Collaboration of the Month is Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (which gave women the right to vote). If anyone is blogging on the gender gap issue, this would be a good suggestion for where people could jump in. Until recently, the article was barely more than a stub.
Regarding Patricia's suggestion, I think this is a great idea. The new WikiProject Women's History is already making good headway on identifying articles that would be of interest. WikiProject Feminism also has a few worklists that could be added to the pot.
Ryan Kaldari
On 2/9/11 1:21 AM, patricia morales wrote:
Dear friends,
Thank you for this inspiring dialogue. Inspired by the convergence of opinions, I believe it would be good to make a concrete difference in Wikipedia.
A suggestion I would like to share is to develop a number of articles (100,000? -in total in various languages) in 1 or 2 years (?) related to women. These articles may receive a symbol (eg an F inside a circle in red, pink?) Similarly (not in the procedure) to articles with a star. They could also be on a list, and that list, if possible, be composed of several languages.
For example: existing articles on Maria Curie, etc. articles with more biographies of women) articles on women's rights articles on the role of women in indigenous religions (Pachamama, etc) or concepts (motherland, matria, etc)
A cross-sensitive women's proposal, which is poorly represented at editorial as well as thematic level.
Wikipedia would be proactive inviting both women and men to break this gap. At the same time this initiative can feminize Wikipedia progressively attracting more women as editors and have more female readers.
Patricia University of Leuven (projects on solidarity at UNESCO Chair on Building Sustainable Peace)
--- On *Tue, 2/8/11, Susan Spencer /susan.spencer@gmail.com/* wrote:
From: Susan Spencer <susan.spencer@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] A pet peeve / cliche To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 11:55 PM First, Sandy, I totally agree with you - the few men who use negative locker room talk about women have caused the downfall of many women in management. The majority of men don't make statements like this, but they do let them be discussed. So good guys, stop being a part of the problem. Tell the insecure guys to shut up, that nobody wants to hear that stuff anymore. Second, Miguel, Thank you for pointing out that the gender gap exists all over the world. You propose the Wikipedia site itself might be a problem, because women don't want to work with it because it isn't WYSIWYG. <*sigh*> The reasons being: 1. "men are a bit more obsessive in their work than women" 2. "maybe it's the look of the site, not attractive enough" 3. "women tend to focus their attention on people, instead of things, as men do" #1 & #3 have been stated about women and work for over a century. #2 --> Has a woman *actually* told you that she won't post to Wikipedia because she finds the interface too difficult? You're proposing that women don't want to post as experts because they don't want to be an expert in using a complexinterface.
Because of a deficiency with women, they don't want to become experts with a system that would allow them to post their expert opinion. I sense a catch-22 argument here. Reworking the Wikipedia interface is not really addressing the problem. Another reason why "women don't want to ____ because ______" We should have a Wiki page on these bizarre reasons. If we put them in a long list it might not help anyone, but it might be humorous. We could just refer to reason #1054 or #782 or #11659 with links to the Wiki page. Good for a laugh. Women could post any new funnies, like "women aren't as obsessive about their work as men are". This might become the most popular set of pages on Wikipedia. Of course, it would probably attract trolls. So let's not. To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a 'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that the world community accepts women as experts, and invites women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki can have a different logo for that month. - Susan Spencer Conklin -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org </mc/compose?to=Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
-- Sandra Ordonez Web Astronaut
"Helping you rock out in the virtual world."
*www.collaborativenation.com*
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
It seems very interesting to create a female-friend space for overcoming gradually the gendergap. Some women would like to participate suggesting new topics, their interests (for example more articles on the women´s role in the African microeconomy, or female Nobel Awards, etc). They can provide some opinions or suggestions on the undercovered male-oriented use of language in articles or pictures of Wikipedia, etc. I believe that the leadership of this process has to be in various female hands, taking solidarity as a major principle. When we take a look at history, we can see that women primarily avoid the use of violence and war. Matriarcal peoples or ctonic religions (where there is an identification between the Earth and the woman) are interesting examples. I suggest 100.000 female-sensitive articles with a visible symbol (from sciences, history, literature, arts, ea). That would be good for the media and have a good impact for promoting women´s rights worldwide. Patricia
--- On Wed, 2/9/11, redacted null@null wrote:
From: redacted null@null Subject: Re: [Gendergap] [Gendergap : A suggestion: Towards 100.000 F. articles in Wikipedia To: "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Wednesday, February 9, 2011, 1:02 PM
I very much like this idea, not only for the womany aspect, but for the public outreach aspect. Bloggers might be the go to people for this sort of thing; blogathons and "blog for X" type events are pretty common.
It would be paramount to have a bunch of experienced editors to staff any such events, to deal with markup and biting. (Something like this just strikes me as a buffet for newbie eaters; must have bouncers.)
If it works here, we could do it with other undercovered and under-represented groups. (First Peoples' Wikithon? Wikithon for Disability?)
Nepenthe
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 12:18 PM, Sandra ordonez sandratordonez@gmail.com wrote:
if we decide to do this, i totally will volunteer with pr/marketing, even. (ie, like a edit-athon day, so everyone in the world can do it.???) Maybe it can be like a weekly thing: Thursday Women Wikithon ...ofcourse we would need a rotation of people to man it, so they can provide guidance and answer questions.
- A virtually area where we can meet as a group (ie, to talk to new people, and answer their questions, and provide guidance. If we decide it would be IRC, then we would need very clear instructions so that people would know how to sign up.) Maybe we can even create a facebook page or group! 've seven see people answer questions in real time by uploading video answer, which is very personable.
- Post describing guidelines, as well as detailed directions on how to edit. (i'm sure this exists somewhere, and we can borrow and massage text).
- A landing page that we can link to social sites, and send to people...ie, where we announce the event(s) and have links to above docs too.
- A twitter/facebook schedule, so we can get word out. Maybe if we write the tweets, the foundation can send out for us? (i'm sure they have some type of twitter manager) ie, so we don't have to create a twitter account, cultivate followers, etc.
- Research contact info for various women groups/organizations that we can start reaching out to. For example, women in biology ass., or women in medieval history org.....We can even have different groups be our "guest" for a particular day. Ie, "this thursday our guest is "women in biology." who will be editing biology articles." This is kind of personal, and community like :) !
Just some ideas.......
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 6:01 PM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:
Although this is both US and English-centric (as usual), I would like to
advertise that the current US Collaboration of the Month is Nineteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution (which gave women the right
to vote). If anyone is blogging on the gender gap issue, this would be a
good suggestion for where people could jump in. Until recently, the
article was barely more than a stub.
Regarding Patricia's suggestion, I think this is a great idea. The new
WikiProject Women's History is already making good headway on
identifying articles that would be of interest. WikiProject Feminism
also has a few worklists that could be added to the pot.
Ryan Kaldari
On 2/9/11 1:21 AM, patricia morales wrote:
Dear friends,
Thank you for this inspiring dialogue. Inspired by the convergence of
opinions, I believe it would be good to make a concrete difference in
Wikipedia.
A suggestion I would like to share is to develop a number of articles
(100,000? -in total in various languages) in 1 or 2 years (?) related
to women. These articles may receive a symbol (eg an F inside a circle
in red, pink?) Similarly (not in the procedure) to articles with a
star. They could also be on a list, and that list, if possible, be
composed of several languages.
For example:
existing articles on Maria Curie, etc.
articles with more biographies of women)
articles on women's rights
articles on the role of women in indigenous religions (Pachamama, etc)
or concepts (motherland, matria, etc)
A cross-sensitive women's proposal, which is poorly represented at
editorial as well as thematic level.
Wikipedia would be proactive inviting both women and men to break this
gap.
At the same time this initiative can feminize Wikipedia progressively
attracting more women as editors and have more female readers.
Patricia
University of Leuven (projects on solidarity at UNESCO Chair on
Building Sustainable Peace)
--- On *Tue, 2/8/11, Susan Spencer /susan.spencer@gmail.com/* wrote:
From: Susan Spencer susan.spencer@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] A pet peeve / cliche
To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 11:55 PM
First, Sandy,
I totally agree with you - the few men who
use negative locker room talk about women have
caused the downfall of many women in management.
The majority of men don't make statements like this,
but they do let them be discussed.
So good guys, stop being a part of the problem. Tell the
insecure guys to shut up, that nobody wants to hear that
stuff anymore.
Second, Miguel,
Thank you for pointing out that the gender gap
exists all over the world.
You propose the Wikipedia site itself might be a problem,
because women don't want to work with it because
it isn't WYSIWYG. <*sigh*>
The reasons being:
1. "men are a bit more obsessive in their work than women"
2. "maybe it's the look of the site, not attractive enough"
3. "women tend to focus their attention on people, instead of
things, as men do"
#1 & #3 have been stated about women and work for over a century.
#2 --> Has a woman *actually* told you that she won't post to
Wikipedia because she finds the interface too difficult?
You're proposing that women don't want to post as experts
because they don't want to be an expert in using a complex interface.
Because of a deficiency with women, they don't want to become
experts with a system that would allow them to post their
expert opinion.
I sense a catch-22 argument here.
Reworking the Wikipedia interface is not really addressing the
problem.
Another reason why "women don't want to ____ because ______"
We should have a Wiki page on these bizarre reasons.
If we put them in a long list it might not help anyone, but
it might be humorous. We could just refer to reason #1054
or #782 or #11659 with links to the Wiki page. Good for
a laugh. Women could post any new funnies, like "women
aren't as obsessive about their work as men are".
This might become the most popular set of pages on Wikipedia.
Of course, it would probably attract trolls. So let's not.
To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a
'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner
about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that
the world community accepts women as experts, and invites
women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't.
I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki
can have a different logo for that month.
- Susan Spencer Conklin
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----
_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 9:26 PM, patricia morales < mariadelcarmenpatricia@yahoo.com> wrote:
It seems very interesting to create a female-friend space for overcoming gradually the gendergap. Some women would like to participate suggesting new topics, their interests (for example more articles on the women´s role in the African microeconomy, or female Nobel Awards, etc). They can provide some opinions or suggestions on the undercovered male-oriented use of language in articles or pictures of Wikipedia, etc.
I believe that the leadership of this process has to be in various female hands, taking solidarity as a major principle. When we take a look at history, we can see that women primarily avoid the use of violence and war. Matriarcal peoples or ctonic religions (where there is an identification between the Earth and the woman) are interesting examples.
The thing that worries me about this suggestion is that it's effectively
sectioning off and segregating a portion of wikipedia's community. Solidarity is all well and good, but if the idea is to encourage more women to get involved in the community, the answer can't be to disect that community.
I agree with Oliver - a female-friendly space need not, and should not, be a space with no males allowed. It should simply be one with everyone behaving in a manner friendly to females, and there's nothing in that that says at least some men are unwilling or unable to do that. If we start gating off areas of the wiki, we're not doing women any favors.
-Karen
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 9:26 PM, patricia morales < mariadelcarmenpatricia@yahoo.com> wrote:
It seems very interesting to create a female-friend space for overcoming gradually the gendergap. Some women would like to participate suggesting new topics, their interests (for example more articles on the women´s role in the African microeconomy, or female Nobel Awards, etc). They can provide some opinions or suggestions on the undercovered male-oriented use of language in articles or pictures of Wikipedia, etc.
I believe that the leadership of this process has to be in various female hands, taking solidarity as a major principle. When we take a look at history, we can see that women primarily avoid the use of violence and war. Matriarcal peoples or ctonic religions (where there is an identification between the Earth and the woman) are interesting examples.
The thing that worries me about this suggestion is that it's effectively
sectioning off and segregating a portion of wikipedia's community. Solidarity is all well and good, but if the idea is to encourage more women to get involved in the community, the answer can't be to disect that community.
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Everyone is very welcome!I would like to explain what I trying to say. The idea was only to emphasise the participatory role of women in this process. There are several historical gaps (black people, women, young people, "underdeveloped" countries, ea.) and suddenly people want to solve them, and at the same time exclude the group to be benefited in the process. Patricia --- On Wed, 2/9/11, ChaoticFluffy chaoticfluffy@gmail.com wrote:
From: ChaoticFluffy chaoticfluffy@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Gendergap] [Gendergap : A suggestion: Towards 100.000 F. articles in Wikipedia To: "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Wednesday, February 9, 2011, 1:43 PM
I agree with Oliver - a female-friendly space need not, and should not, be a space with no males allowed. It should simply be one with everyone behaving in a manner friendly to females, and there's nothing in that that says at least some men are unwilling or unable to do that. If we start gating off areas of the wiki, we're not doing women any favors.
-Karen
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 9:26 PM, patricia morales mariadelcarmenpatricia@yahoo.com wrote:
It seems very interesting to create a female-friend space for overcoming gradually the gendergap. Some women would like to participate suggesting new topics, their interests (for example more articles on the women´s role in the African microeconomy, or female Nobel Awards, etc). They can provide some opinions or suggestions on the undercovered male-oriented use of language in articles or pictures of Wikipedia, etc.
I believe that the leadership of this process has to be in various female hands, taking solidarity as a major principle. When we take a look at history, we can see that women primarily avoid the use of violence and war. Matriarcal peoples or ctonic religions (where there is an identification between the Earth and the woman) are interesting examples.
The thing that worries me about this suggestion is that it's effectively sectioning off and segregating a portion of wikipedia's community. Solidarity is all well and good, but if the idea is to encourage more women to get involved in the community, the answer can't be to disect that community.
_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----
_______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 9:57 PM, patricia morales < mariadelcarmenpatricia@yahoo.com> wrote:
Everyone is very welcome! I would like to explain what I trying to say. The idea was only to emphasise the participatory role of women in this process. There are several historical gaps (black people, women, young people, "underdeveloped" countries, ea.) and suddenly people want to solve them, and at the same time exclude the group to be benefited in the process.
Patricia
I don't think anyone was suggesting excluding the benefited group (nor,
really, is there any evidence *young people* is an area we lack contribution from :P). At no point was saying "women can't get involved in this process" discussed - that'd be counterproductive. Your idea of having dedicated female-friendly areas seems contradictory. 1) it segregates the community, 2) if the main community isn't female-friendly, we should be tackling that, not trying to shield people from the issues and 3) if the main community isn't female friendly, bringing potential female editors into a "female-friendly" niche environment and then dropping them in the main community seems rather akin to the story of itsy-bitsy spider and his waterspout.
Dear Oliver,
I believe it is constructive to reply you, for improving the quality of dialogue.
When I use the world `female-friendly space what I is inclusive, constructive, a dialogue (following the rules of argumentation) that allows scientific articles, ea.
Take a look at these examples:
If we talk about a child-friendly hotel we refer to a family hotel where the space is adequate for every member of the family (we don’t talk about a kindergarten or about a niche). It is talked about a place that meets the challenge of a deficit or historical gap.
Other interesting examples are:
Women-friendly companies (for ex. Dell, HP, Abbot, ea. taking needs of working mothers)
Child-friendly justice (initiative by the European Council for giving better access to justice)
When I talked about historical gaps (I talked from an historical point of view and not about Wikipedia)...
I have the impression that my words in your reply were unintentionally modified and lost the original sense of the proposal.
If you read with more time and without adding meanings or changing words my suggestions, it would be better for improving them. It is about maximise efforts and get better results.
I believe Wikipedia can create a rich dialogue for overcoming gendergap and become a pioneer for promoting women´s rights.
--- On Wed, 2/9/11, Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com wrote:
From: Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Gendergap] [Gendergap : A suggestion: Towards 100.000 F. articles in Wikipedia To: "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Wednesday, February 9, 2011, 2:02 PM
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 9:57 PM, patricia morales mariadelcarmenpatricia@yahoo.com wrote:
Everyone is very welcome!I would like to explain what I trying to say. The idea was only to emphasise the participatory role of women in this process. There are several historical gaps (black people, women, young people, "underdeveloped" countries, ea.) and suddenly people want to solve them, and at the same time exclude the group to be benefited in the process.
Patricia I don't think anyone was suggesting excluding the benefited group (nor, really, is there any evidence young people is an area we lack contribution from :P). At no point was saying "women can't get involved in this process" discussed - that'd be counterproductive. Your idea of having dedicated female-friendly areas seems contradictory. 1) it segregates the community, 2) if the main community isn't female-friendly, we should be tackling that, not trying to shield people from the issues and 3) if the main community isn't female friendly, bringing potential female editors into a "female-friendly" niche environment and then dropping them in the main community seems rather akin to the story of itsy-bitsy spider and his waterspout.
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----
_______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 12:19 PM, patricia morales < mariadelcarmenpatricia@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear Oliver,
I believe it is constructive to reply you, for improving the quality of dialogue.
When I use the world `female-friendly space what I is inclusive, constructive, a dialogue (following the rules of argumentation) that allows scientific articles, ea.
Take a look at these examples:
If we talk about a child-friendly hotel we refer to a family hotel where the space is adequate for every member of the family (we don’t talk about a kindergarten or about a niche). It is talked about a place that meets the challenge of a deficit or historical gap.
Other interesting examples are:
Women-friendly companies (for ex. Dell, HP, Abbot, ea. taking needs of working mothers)
Child-friendly justice (initiative by the European Council for giving better access to justice)
When I talked about historical gaps (I talked from an historical point of view and not about Wikipedia)...
I have the impression that my words in your reply were unintentionally modified and lost the original sense of the proposal.
If you read with more time and without adding meanings or changing words my suggestions, it would be better for improving them. It is about maximise efforts and get better results.
That's fair enough - as it happens, that language wasn't the language I was opposed to. Your statement that "I believe that the leadership of this process has to be in various female hands, taking solidarity as a major principle. When we take a look at history, we can see that women primarily avoid the use of violence and war" was the awkward one, and the one that led to a critique of what sounded like gender-dominant segregation. We cannot and should not and won't even consider excluding women from this process, but suggesting that, by default, women should be *prima facie* assumed to be more useful in the process than men (and for that matter that men are by default warlike barbarians) is not going to help matters.
Well, what Patricia said is that, historically, "women primarily avoided the use of violence and war". And it's true! That's not the same as "men are by default warlike barbarians". It's like if I say: "we have a tail bone, which prehistorically was a tail", and I deduce that we have a tail like monkeys. I don't know if history could have been different, for example, with men taking care of the family and women fighting, but I'm inclined to think not. :)
Miguel Ángel
On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 12:19 PM, patricia morales mariadelcarmenpatricia@yahoo.com wrote: Dear Oliver,
I believe it is constructive to reply you, for improving the quality of dialogue.
When I use the world `female-friendly space what I is inclusive, constructive, a dialogue (following the rules of argumentation) that allows scientific articles, ea.
Take a look at these examples:
If we talk about a child-friendly hotel we refer to a family hotel where the space is adequate for every member of the family (we don’t talk about a kindergarten or about a niche). It is talked about a place that meets the challenge of a deficit or historical gap.
Other interesting examples are:
Women-friendly companies (for ex. Dell, HP, Abbot, ea. taking needs of working mothers)
Child-friendly justice (initiative by the European Council for giving better access to justice)
When I talked about historical gaps (I talked from an historical point of view and not about Wikipedia)...
I have the impression that my words in your reply were unintentionally modified and lost the original sense of the proposal. If you read with more time and without adding meanings or changing words my suggestions, it would be better for improving them. It is about maximise efforts and get better results.
That's fair enough - as it happens, that language wasn't the language I was opposed to. Your statement that "I believe that the leadership of this process has to be in various female hands, taking solidarity as a major principle. When we take a look at history, we can see that women primarily avoid the use of violence and war" was the awkward one, and the one that led to a critique of what sounded like gender-dominant segregation. We cannot and should not and won't even consider excluding women from this process, but suggesting that, by default, women should be prima facie assumed to be more useful in the process than men (and for that matter that men are by default warlike barbarians) is not going to help matters.
Thank you Miguel for your kind email. I would like to use a comparison with the numbers for replying the last email of Oliver. If I say women historically have avoided the use of violence or war, I am saying just that and no more than that. If I say no even number is a prime number, I am saying that and not that every odd number is a prime number. Patricia --- On Thu, 2/10/11, Miguelinito miguelinito@gmail.com wrote:
From: Miguelinito miguelinito@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Gendergap] [Gendergap : A suggestion: Towards 100.000 F. articles in Wikipedia To: "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Thursday, February 10, 2011, 4:38 AM
Well, what Patricia said is that, historically, "women primarily avoided the use of violence and war". And it's true! That's not the same as "men are by default warlike barbarians". It's like if I say: "we have a tail bone, which prehistorically was a tail", and I deduce that we have a tail like monkeys. I don't know if history could have been different, for example, with men taking care of the family and women fighting, but I'm inclined to think not. :)
Miguel Ángel
On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 12:19 PM, patricia morales mariadelcarmenpatricia@yahoo.com wrote: Dear Oliver,
I believe it is constructive to reply you, for improving the quality of dialogue.
When I use the world `female-friendly space what I is inclusive, constructive, a dialogue (following the rules of argumentation) that allows scientific articles, ea. Take a look at these examples: If we talk about a child-friendly hotel we refer to a family hotel where the space is adequate for every member of the family (we don’t talk about a kindergarten or about a niche). It is talked about a place that meets the challenge of a deficit or historical gap. Other interesting examples are: Women-friendly companies (for ex. Dell, HP, Abbot, ea. taking needs of working mothers) Child-friendly justice (initiative by the European Council for giving better access to justice) When I talked about historical gaps (I talked from an historical point of view and not about Wikipedia)...
I have the impression that my words in your reply were unintentionally modified and lost the original sense of the proposal. If you read with more time and without adding meanings or changing words my suggestions, it would be better for improving them. It is about maximise efforts and get better results.
That's fair enough - as it happens, that language wasn't the language I was opposed to. Your statement that "I believe that the leadership of this process has to be in various female hands, taking solidarity as a major principle. When we take a look at history, we can see that women primarily avoid the use of violence and war" was the awkward one, and the one that led to a critique of what sounded like gender-dominant segregation. We cannot and should not and won't even consider excluding women from this process, but suggesting that, by default, women should be prima facie assumed to be more useful in the process than men (and for that matter that men are by default warlike barbarians) is not going to help matters.
_______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 2:08 PM, patricia morales < mariadelcarmenpatricia@yahoo.com> wrote:
Thank you Miguel for your kind email.
I would like to use a comparison with the numbers for replying the last email of Oliver.
If I say women historically have avoided the use of violence or war, I am saying just that and no more than that.
If I say no even number is a prime number, I am saying that and not that every odd number is a prime number.
Then the question in response is "why is that worth bringing up if not to
infer things?". I would suggest we move any discussion about this to emails between us rather than bombarding the entire mailing list with debate and counter-debate.
Dear Oliver, We are in a social network for considering the gendergap and searching together good estrategies for meeting this challenge.To be in this public dialogue is to share a promenade towards the advance of wisdom.If we have a good suggestion for enriching this conversation, do that in a public way. The article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllogism will give you good information for considering without any problem the proposals of the others in the logical reasoning.
best regards,Patricia --- On Thu, 2/10/11, Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com wrote:
From: Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Gendergap] [Gendergap : A suggestion: Towards 100.000 F. articles in Wikipedia To: "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Thursday, February 10, 2011, 6:10 AM
On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 2:08 PM, patricia morales mariadelcarmenpatricia@yahoo.com wrote:
Thank you Miguel for your kind email. I would like to use a comparison with the numbers for replying the last email of Oliver.
If I say women historically have avoided the use of violence or war, I am saying just that and no more than that. If I say no even number is a prime number, I am saying that and not that every odd number is a prime number.
Then the question in response is "why is that worth bringing up if not to infer things?". I would suggest we move any discussion about this to emails between us rather than bombarding the entire mailing list with debate and counter-debate.
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----
_______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
While i understand that while Ur trying to attract a demographic u should
This is just a minor detail: It occurred to me that the gender gap solution project could be promoted somewhere as a ship. We all are in the ship, the ship is sailing to a new world where men are waiting, and the best thing is that... ship is female! :)
Miguel Ángel
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Estimado patricia,
Con fecha miércoles, 09 de febrero de 2011, 10:21:28, escribió:
Dear friends,
Thank you for this inspiring dialogue. Inspired by the convergence of opinions, I believe it would be good to make a concrete difference in Wikipedia.
A suggestion I would like to share is to develop a number of articles (100,000? -in total in various languages) in 1 or 2 years (?) related to women. These articles may receive a symbol (eg an F inside a circle in red, pink?) Similarly (not in the procedure) to articles with a star. They could also be on a list, and that list, if possible, be composed of several languages.
For example: existing articles on Maria Curie, etc. articles with more biographies of women) articles on women's rights articles on the role of women in indigenous religions (Pachamama, etc) or concepts (motherland, matria, etc)
A cross-sensitive women's proposal, which is poorly represented at editorial as well as thematic level.
Wikipedia would be proactive inviting both women and men to break this gap. At the same time this initiative can feminize Wikipedia progressively attracting more women as editors and have more female readers.
Patricia University of Leuven (projects on solidarity at UNESCO Chair on Building Sustainable Peace)
[I'm resending this message because it wasn't well formatted before.]
I'm glad I made you comment on me. That means -in my opinion- that you're concerned, and that also means that maybe I hit on the wound.
As I said in an earlier post, in a capitalist system women play men's roles. That's not bad, of course, that just means that they are changing their nature to be "equal" to men. In China happend just the opposite: men changed their nature to be "equal" to women. Have you ever had a row with a Chinese man? And I mean a Chinese man with a Chinese mentality, not somebody who adapted to the capitalist system.
For me those things are clearer because I'm living just in the middle of the two worlds, i.e., China and the United States.
What would it be the solution? Maybe, a middle point, just what happened in the famous Spanish story of Don Quixote: they changed themselves reciprocally.
Of course, this is an utopia. Who am I to change the world? I'm not important :)
Regards
----------------------------------------------------------------------- (ORIGINAL MESSAGE)
Second, Miguel,
Thank you for pointing out that the gender gap exists all over the world.
You propose the Wikipedia site itself might be a problem, because women don't want to work with it because it isn't WYSIWYG. <*sigh*> The reasons being:
1. "men are a bit more obsessive in their work than women" 2. "maybe it's the look of the site, not attractive enough" 3. "women tend to focus their attention on people, instead of things, as men do"
#1 & #3 have been stated about women and work for over a century.
#2 --> Has a woman *actually* told you that she won't post to Wikipedia because she finds the interface too difficult? You're proposing that women don't want to post as experts because they don't want to be an expert in using a complex interface. Because of a deficiency with women, they don't want to become experts with a system that would allow them to post their expert opinion. I sense a catch-22 argument here. Reworking the Wikipedia interface is not really addressing the problem.
Another reason why "women don't want to ____ because ______" We should have a Wiki page on these bizarre reasons. If we put them in a long list it might not help anyone, but it might be humorous. We could just refer to reason #1054 or #782 or #11659 with links to the Wiki page. Good for a laugh. Women could post any new funnies, like "women aren't as obsessive about their work as men are". This might become the most popular set of pages on Wikipedia. Of course, it would probably attract trolls. So let's not.
To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a 'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that the world community accepts women as experts, and invites women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki can have a different logo for that month.
- Susan Spencer Conklin
Hi Susan, hi Miguel,
I agree with Susan that you have to be very, very careful using "women are like this, men are like that" stereotypes, and I believe that most statements in Miguels list are untrue (thank you anyway, Miguel, it was a thought-provoking impulse and interesting to read). If some of them are true, they are true not due to "the nature of women". Instead, they are self-fulfilling prophecies: because these stereotypes exist, women are socialized to comply with them, and so they become true, and so the stereotypes continue, and so they continue to be true...
So I do think that there is a chance that reworking the interface might help! If little girls get puppets, and boys get computers, and a lot of people tell the little girls that they are more interested in people and flowers than in programming and expect them to behave accordingly, and provide excuses if they are not good with computers (while they tell the little boys to just go figure it out), chances are very good that there are a lot of women out there who would benefit very much from a wysiwyg-editor. Including me, my mother and my sister, by the way.
It's just important that this is not because "women just are like that", but because we live in a society that makes them like that.
Best, Lena
#2 --> Has a woman *actually* told you that she won't post to Wikipedia because she finds the interface too difficult? You're proposing that women don't want to post as experts because they don't want to be an expert in using a complex interface. Because of a deficiency with women, they don't want to become experts with a system that would allow them to post their expert opinion. I sense a catch-22 argument here. Reworking the Wikipedia interface is not really addressing the problem.
Another reason why "women don't want to ____ because ______" We should have a Wiki page on these bizarre reasons. If we put them in a long list it might not help anyone, but it might be humorous. We could just refer to reason #1054 or #782 or #11659 with links to the Wiki page. Good for a laugh. Women could post any new funnies, like "women aren't as obsessive about their work as men are". This might become the most popular set of pages on Wikipedia. Of course, it would probably attract trolls. So let's not.
To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a 'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner about it on every Wiki page during the month. It validates that the world community accepts women as experts, and invites women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't. I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki can have a different logo for that month.
- Susan Spencer Conklin
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Lena wrote:
chances are very good that there are a lot of women out there who would benefit very much from a wysiwyg-editor. Including me, my mother and my sister, by the way.
I comment:
I do remember that when the first Mac was introduced, bringing the GUI to the market, it did find a lot more female customers and regular users than any personal computer had up to that point (More male users, too, but the female user base grew by a much larger proportion).
Daniel Case
Hello, Lena, and thank you too.
I agree with you; maybe most statements in the list I posted are untrue. In fact, I'm not sure if there are out there any serious research on that field of knowledge. I suppose that, in time, science will unveal the secrets of our brains and then we'll be able to tell things with a scientifical base. By now, all we can do is create mailing lists like this one to try to guess what we really don't know.
It's possible that I'm completely wrong; anyway, the hypothesis that we still carry some evolutionary traces from our troglodyte past in our brains appears to me as plausible. In fact, recent investigations by Robert Provine about laughter revealed marked differences between men and women patterns, and also a strong relationship between laughter and speech (he specifically stated that laughter and trickling were the first way of communication that appeared in the human being, inherited from the ancestors and later replaced by language.
But, as human beings, we always have a "sixth sense", or some kind of intuition about ourselves that make certain things appear to us as believable. Dogs inherited the pack behaviour from wolves, why should it be different for human beings?
And another question would be: should we retain our biological inheritance or should we "pass to the next chapter" in evolution and override those traces, if any exist?
Regards
Miguel Ángel
Hi Susan, hi Miguel,
I agree with Susan that you have to be very, very careful using "women are like this, men are like that" stereotypes, and I believe that most statements in Miguels list are untrue (thank you anyway, Miguel, it was a thought-provoking impulse and interesting to read). If some of them are true, they are true not due to "the nature of women". Instead, they are self-fulfilling prophecies: because these stereotypes exist, women are socialized to comply with them, and so they become true, and so the stereotypes continue, and so they continue to be true...
So I do think that there is a chance that reworking the interface might help! If little girls get puppets, and boys get computers, and a lot of people tell the little girls that they are more interested in people and flowers than in programming and expect them to behave accordingly, and provide excuses if they are not good with computers (while they tell the little boys to just go figure it out), chances are very good that there are a lot of women out there who would benefit very much from a wysiwyg-editor. Including me, my mother and my sister, by the way.
It's just important that this is not because "women just are like that", but because we live in a society that makes them like that.
Best, Lena