Hi all;
Is there any up-to-date statistical tools monitoring gender gap? I have started this basic one[1], and I'm thinking about an analysis of male-female biographies ratio between Wikipedias.
Suggestions and links to tools are welcome.
Regards, emijrp
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 6:59 PM, emijrp emijrp@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all;
Is there any up-to-date statistical tools monitoring gender gap? I have started this basic one[1], and I'm thinking about an analysis of male-female biographies ratio between Wikipedias.
Suggestions and links to tools are welcome.
Regards, emijrp
That's very interesting, thank you (and somewhat depressing).
Sarah
On 2/1/12 5:39 PM, Sarah wrote:
That's very interesting, thank you (and somewhat depressing).
Sarah
Yeah, it just shows that we need to take action. Imagine if every Wikimedia contributor on this list, took a few hours and invited a friend, colleague or family member to contribute to a Project? As someone who has done a survey that just continued to solidify the depressing state of women and Wikimedia, and thinks about it probably more than a person should...I just get sick of it at this point. I want to see increase, damnit. :( No more same old bad news.
I think it's funny to see that WikiNews has no women. Even though /This Month in GLAM/ and /The Signpost/ both have contributors. Also interesting that Commons has a steady amount of women who make edits. I think I could probably name them all off the top of my head. Or....I wonder how many of those women are new contributors who upload an image and then never come back (since you have to have an account to upload).
What else are people seeing in their chosen languages that might be interesting? Anything surprising?
Anyplace on Wiki where women really do dominate in this data?
-Sarah
2012/2/2 Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com
On 2/1/12 5:39 PM, Sarah wrote:
That's very interesting, thank you (and somewhat depressing).
Sarah
Yeah, it just shows that we need to take action.
We need to take action if a low number of women means a bias in encyclopedic contents. Not just because numbers are low. That is why I want to count how many female biographies there are and other measures to discover if it exists a bias in content.
Imagine if every Wikimedia contributor on this list, took a few hours and invited a friend, colleague or family member to contribute to a Project?
We have to invite men and women. Every editor is welcome.
By the way, you can't invite 1000 women that a day after leave because they don't understand how to edit (usability) or other reason. First, you have to understand why women leave. When you solves that, every woman that arrives, will continue editing "forever". You won't need to invite them.
As someone who has done a survey that just continued to solidify the depressing state of women and Wikimedia, and thinks about it probably more than a person should...I just get sick of it at this point. I want to see increase, damnit. :( No more same old bad news.
Well, it may be sad, but we have to study this from a calm side.
I think it's funny to see that WikiNews has no women. Even though *This Month in GLAM* and *The Signpost* both have contributors. Also interesting that Commons has a steady amount of women who make edits. I think I could probably name them all off the top of my head. Or....I wonder how many of those women are new contributors who upload an image and then never come back (since you have to have an account to upload).
What else are people seeing in their chosen languages that might be interesting? Anything surprising?
No. Only a few examples where women are 15-25% of edits some days but in small Wikipedias or sister projects. They are not representative.
Anyplace on Wiki where women really do dominate in this data?
No.
-Sarah
Regards, Emily
-- *Sarah Stierch* *Wikimedia Foundation Community Fellow*
Support the sharing of free knowledge around the world: donate todayhttps://donate.wikimedia.org/
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On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 11:05 AM, emijrp emijrp@gmail.com wrote:
2012/2/2 Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com
... What else are people seeing in their chosen languages that might be interesting? Anything surprising?
No. Only a few examples where women are 15-25% of edits some days but in small Wikipedias or sister projects. They are not representative.
I think (hope..) you might find a high female participate rate even if you aggregate across all of the Wikisource projects.
Don't be depress Sarah if female participation remains low. Even if Wikipedia was a perfect place without any bias, it would still be a project from the "real world" were lot of forces prevent women from editing : lower confidence in themselves, less free time, lower access to education.
We can't change the world, juste make our small environnement a little less unjust.
Caroline
2012/2/2 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com
On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 11:05 AM, emijrp emijrp@gmail.com wrote:
2012/2/2 Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com
... What else are people seeing in their chosen languages that might be interesting? Anything surprising?
No. Only a few examples where women are 15-25% of edits some days but in small Wikipedias or sister projects. They are not representative.
I think (hope..) you might find a high female participate rate even if you aggregate across all of the Wikisource projects.
-- John Vandenberg
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On 2/2/2012 3:03 AM, Caroline Becker wrote:
Don't be depress Sarah if female participation remains low. Even if Wikipedia was a perfect place without any bias, it would still be a project from the "real world" were lot of forces prevent women from editing : lower confidence in themselves, less free time, lower access to education.
We can't change the world, juste make our small environnement a little less unjust.
Caroline
Particularly making it more acceptable to raise the issues of harassment, double standards and systematic bias in various dispute situations in terms of sex.
So far I've been lucky that in the most negative situations others did raise it and call it out, if not on my sex, at least on political or admin vs. editor basis. When I brought up the sex bias issue I was ignored or ridiculed.
Of course, it helps if women (acknowledged being so or not) spend more time commenting on ANI or Wikiquette or other places where civility and sometimes even sex bias issues raised. I've been on latter lately here and there; not on former in quite a while.
CM
Here is the accumulate by project family http://toolserver.org/~emijrp/wmcharts/wmchart0013.html Wikiquote, Wikisource and Wikiversity are the winners.
2012/2/2 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com
On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 11:05 AM, emijrp emijrp@gmail.com wrote:
2012/2/2 Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com
... What else are people seeing in their chosen languages that might be interesting? Anything surprising?
No. Only a few examples where women are 15-25% of edits some days but in small Wikipedias or sister projects. They are not representative.
I think (hope..) you might find a high female participate rate even if you aggregate across all of the Wikisource projects.
-- John Vandenberg
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 9:05 PM, emijrp emijrp@gmail.com wrote:
By the way, you can't invite 1000 women that a day after leave because they don't understand how to edit (usability) or other reason. First, you have to understand why women leave. When you solves that, every woman that arrives, will continue editing "forever". You won't need to invite them.
I agree with this point, and I wonder whether we're approaching outreach from the wrong perspective. We are asking "what is good for Wikipedia?" when we should be asking "what is good for the women we want to sign up?" If we create an environment in which they can thrive, then they'll come and they'll stay, and we won't have to keep begging them to join us.
But we have serious problems in the community. I've been on wikibreak for a few months, during which time I barely looked at Wikipedia (the English Wikipedia). When I did start to look again, I saw a community that is really fracturing. Lots of serious incivility, old grudges being played out in various places, and what one editor called regular Leninist purges. None of this is new, but it's getting worse. Plus, too many rules too rigidly enforced, too many confusing templates, and a push for quality that often boils down to endless nitpicking. And the most off-putting thing of all -- you spend hours, days or weeks on a piece of work only to see someone come along and casually destroy it.
It is causing established editors to leave or reduce their involvement, including some of the few women we have. Old editors are leaving for the same reasons new editors are failing to arrive or stay. As I've argued many times, we need less outreach and more "inreach".
Can we persuade the Foundation to be more hands-on in dealing with the existing issues, rather than outreach?
For example, I'm thinking it could offer a $15,000 prize for an essay that best gives us insight into the problems -- competition widely advertised, and open to anyone, including non-Wikimedians -- judging panel to be composed of Foundation employees. Perhaps a major publisher could be persuaded to publish the winning entry as an extra incentive.
I'm also thinking the Foundation could hire a consultant on how to fix toxic communities. We are basically confronting a kind of workplace bullying as the essence of the problem, and there are plenty of people around who specialize in that. We tried to persuade the Foundation some years ago to hire a consultant on how to handle harassment, but it didn't work out. I think if we had done that, quite a few of the issues we see now might have turned out differently.
I wonder whether the Foundation feels conflicted in this. On the one hand, they want to promote the idea that "Wikipedia is wonderful. Come and join us!" On the other hand, acknowledging the community's problems too openly puts out the opposite of that message. So we end up not getting the kind of all-out, top-down push for community health that we need.
Sarah
Thanks Sarah!
Nina Sendt fra min iPhone
Den 2. feb. 2012 kl. 22:15 skrev Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com:
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 9:05 PM, emijrp emijrp@gmail.com wrote:
By the way, you can't invite 1000 women that a day after leave because they don't understand how to edit (usability) or other reason. First, you have to understand why women leave. When you solves that, every woman that arrives, will continue editing "forever". You won't need to invite them.
I agree with this point, and I wonder whether we're approaching outreach from the wrong perspective. We are asking "what is good for Wikipedia?" when we should be asking "what is good for the women we want to sign up?" If we create an environment in which they can thrive, then they'll come and they'll stay, and we won't have to keep begging them to join us.
But we have serious problems in the community. I've been on wikibreak for a few months, during which time I barely looked at Wikipedia (the English Wikipedia). When I did start to look again, I saw a community that is really fracturing. Lots of serious incivility, old grudges being played out in various places, and what one editor called regular Leninist purges. None of this is new, but it's getting worse. Plus, too many rules too rigidly enforced, too many confusing templates, and a push for quality that often boils down to endless nitpicking. And the most off-putting thing of all -- you spend hours, days or weeks on a piece of work only to see someone come along and casually destroy it.
It is causing established editors to leave or reduce their involvement, including some of the few women we have. Old editors are leaving for the same reasons new editors are failing to arrive or stay. As I've argued many times, we need less outreach and more "inreach".
Can we persuade the Foundation to be more hands-on in dealing with the existing issues, rather than outreach?
For example, I'm thinking it could offer a $15,000 prize for an essay that best gives us insight into the problems -- competition widely advertised, and open to anyone, including non-Wikimedians -- judging panel to be composed of Foundation employees. Perhaps a major publisher could be persuaded to publish the winning entry as an extra incentive.
I'm also thinking the Foundation could hire a consultant on how to fix toxic communities. We are basically confronting a kind of workplace bullying as the essence of the problem, and there are plenty of people around who specialize in that. We tried to persuade the Foundation some years ago to hire a consultant on how to handle harassment, but it didn't work out. I think if we had done that, quite a few of the issues we see now might have turned out differently.
I wonder whether the Foundation feels conflicted in this. On the one hand, they want to promote the idea that "Wikipedia is wonderful. Come and join us!" On the other hand, acknowledging the community's problems too openly puts out the opposite of that message. So we end up not getting the kind of all-out, top-down push for community health that we need.
Sarah
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 1:59 PM, emijrp emijrp@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all;
Is there any up-to-date statistical tools monitoring gender gap? I have started this basic one[1], and I'm thinking about an analysis of male-female biographies ratio between Wikipedias.
Suggestions and links to tools are welcome.
See previous thread http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2011-December/002250.html
for issues regarding any kind of analysis based on the user preference data. I'd suggest adding a strong disclaimer to this effect, otherwise people are likely to draw incorrect conclusions from it.
On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 8:59 AM, emijrp emijrp@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all;
Is there any up-to-date statistical tools monitoring gender gap? I have started this basic one[1], and I'm thinking about an analysis of male-female biographies ratio between Wikipedias.
Suggestions and links to tools are welcome.
Regards, emijrp
Great tool. The following projects have good female participation:
plwikisource_p dewikisource_p eswikisource_p frwikisource_p
enwikisource_p itwikisource_p
(does anyone notice a common theme ... ;P)
dewikinews_p dewikiversity_p frwikibooks_p frwiktionary_p
It would be nice to have a list of projects ranked by female participation rate, using this metric and others that people devise.
-- John Vandenberg
2012/2/1 emijrp emijrp@gmail.com
... and I'm thinking about an analysis of male-female biographies ratio between Wikipedias.
After an analysis of a sample of 364k biographies where ~44% of them where classified using he/she his/her word occurences, it shows only 6.2% of female biographies on English Wikipedia. These results are preliminar, has anyone done a similar approach before? I don't want to reinvent the wheel.
On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 7:38 PM, emijrp emijrp@gmail.com wrote:
2012/2/1 emijrp emijrp@gmail.com
... and I'm thinking about an analysis of male-female biographies ratio between Wikipedias.
After an analysis of a sample of 364k biographies where ~44% of them where classified using he/she his/her word occurences, it shows only 6.2% of female biographies on English Wikipedia. These results are preliminar, has anyone done a similar approach before? I don't want to reinvent the wheel.
(1) Check the paper by Lauren Rhue and Joseph Reagle "Gender Bias in Wikipedia and Britannica" http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/social/wikipedia/gender-bias-in-wp-eb.html
The method of crawling the sites, the large size of the comparison, and the guessing of genders were interesting technical challenges that once addressed permitted us to write (...) We conclude that Wikipedia provides better coverage and longer articles, that Wikipedia typically has more articles on women than Britannica in absolute terms, but Wikipedia articles on women are more likely to be missing than articles on men relative to Britannica. For both reference works, article length did not consistently differ by gender.
(2) Cultural bias in Wikipedia content on famous persons by Ewa S. Callahan, Susan C. Herring http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.21577/full This study examines the extent to which content and perspectives vary across cultures by comparing articles about famous persons in the Polish and English editions of Wikipedia. (I don't remember if and how much they emphasise gender in their analysis and I think they do mainly manual coding but I'm not sure, anyway worth checking)
On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 5:38 AM, emijrp emijrp@gmail.com wrote:
2012/2/1 emijrp emijrp@gmail.com
... and I'm thinking about an analysis of male-female biographies ratio between Wikipedias.
After an analysis of a sample of 364k biographies where ~44% of them where classified using he/she his/her word occurences, it shows only 6.2% of female biographies on English Wikipedia. These results are preliminar, has anyone done a similar approach before? I don't want to reinvent the wheel.
I believe at one point John Vandenberg developed a statistical tool that allowed us to determine the percentage of male vs female Australian female sport competitors (identified through the use of categories) who had the meta data in their biographies completed. Not quite the same thing, but was still extremely useful in the context of us identifying areas needing work.
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:59 PM, emijrp emijrp@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all;
Is there any up-to-date statistical tools monitoring gender gap? I have started this basic one[1], and I'm thinking about an analysis of male-female biographies ratio between Wikipedias.
Suggestions and links to tools are welcome.
I think, keeping in mind what Erik pointed out about the bias of such a statistics, that it would be extremely interesting to be able to compare those numbers (disclosed male or female) with non identified gender. For all we know, females might make the bulk of that number, so that would give a little perspective.
Also, I just realized that with SUL, the gender is not passed from one wiki to the other, and frankly, I doubt people revisit their preferences for each wiki (my account is active on 108 wikis... I'm never gonna change all of those !*) they do 100 edits on. Just a caveat.
Cheers,
Delphine *Talking of which, fr wiki just gained a female editor, cos I had never thought of changing that setting, one way or the other. ;-)
On 2/5/12 11:14 AM, Delphine Ménard wrote:
I think, keeping in mind what Erik pointed out about the bias of such a statistics, that it would be extremely interesting to be able to compare those numbers (disclosed male or female) with non identified gender. For all we know, females might make the bulk of that number, so that would give a little perspective. Also, I just realized that with SUL, the gender is not passed from one wiki to the other, and frankly, I doubt people revisit their preferences for each wiki (my account is active on 108 wikis... I'm never gonna change all of those !*) they do 100 edits on. Just a caveat. Cheers, Delphine *Talking of which, fr wiki just gained a female editor, cos I had never thought of changing that setting, one way or the other. ;-)
Delphine - thanks for letting us know that they don't carry over. I never knew that! I'll probably change mine as I travel across wiki's :)
-Sarah
2012/2/5 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com
Also, I just realized that with SUL, the gender is not passed from one wiki to the other, and frankly, I doubt people revisit their preferences for each wiki (my account is active on 108 wikis... I'm never gonna change all of those !*) they do 100 edits on. Just a caveat.
Yes, but people use (mainly) only a Wikipedia as home project, and they modify the preferences if they are interested in doing it. I edit in many other Wikipedias too, but only 1 or 2 edits every week/month. That tiny contributions doesn't change a bit of the graph lines. I don't have the real figures, but I doubt it affects more than 5% of disclosed gender edits.