Of interest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/us/21mit.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=t...
M
Yes, this quote is of particular interest:
"And stereotypes remain: women must navigate a narrow acceptable personality range, as one female professor said, that is neither too aggressive nor too soft. Said another woman: I am not patient and understanding. Im busy and ambitious.
Despite an effort to educate colleagues about bias in letters of recommendation for tenure, those for men tend to focus on intellect while those for women dwell on temperament."
We need to be clear that anyone can edit, or otherwise contribute, to Wikipedia provided their "contributions" are not a pronounced net loss; a configuration orders of magnitude removed from tenure at MIT where 'No one is hired without what Marc A. Kastner, the dean of the School of Science, called off-scale recommendations from at least 15 scholars outside M.I.T.' In practice that means we routinely put up with performances that are sub-optimal based on the nature of the software which permits ready correction of error. Essentially all we ask is that the editor not be so disorganized or destructive that obvious harm to the project results.
We could change that, and perhaps are in the process of changing it, but if we are an elite, our expertise lies in managing a well-meaning, but not expert, crowd.
Fred