The other day it occurred to me that a particular friend of mine could be a great contributor to Wikipedia, and so I asked her if she ever did. She said that she used to, and in fact started an article about a particular topic (a particular biological taxon - I won't be more specific at this point, but it is an extant article). I asked her if there was a particular reason she stopped, and her answer was,
"Yes, the last time I tried to, though admittedly that has been a few years ago, I was unable to. I can't remember what the impediment was but I'm basically a lazy person. If I have to jump through even one hoop, I lose my passion."
Now perhaps she tried to edit an article protected for a very good reason, or who knows what happened, but this event was enough to make her stop. I imagine she's not the only person to react this way. Is this reaction more typical of one sex than another? I have no idea. I just thought I'd throw it into the mix of known reasons some people don't edit Wikipedia.
Aleta/LadyofShalott
Interestingly, Howie Fung's survey (which was conducted without a gender entry) identified "complexity" of the editing process, be it through the GUI or the editorial hoop-jumping, to be one of the two most prominent reasons for users retiring or leaving the community disenchanted. This kind of links in with that.
On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 3:28 AM, Lady of Shalott <ladyofshalott.wp@gmail.com
wrote:
The other day it occurred to me that a particular friend of mine could be a great contributor to Wikipedia, and so I asked her if she ever did. She said that she used to, and in fact started an article about a particular topic (a particular biological taxon - I won't be more specific at this point, but it is an extant article). I asked her if there was a particular reason she stopped, and her answer was,
"Yes, the last time I tried to, though admittedly that has been a few years ago, I was unable to. I can't remember what the impediment was but I'm basically a lazy person. If I have to jump through even one hoop, I lose my passion."
Now perhaps she tried to edit an article protected for a very good reason, or who knows what happened, but this event was enough to make her stop. I imagine she's not the only person to react this way. Is this reaction more typical of one sex than another? I have no idea. I just thought I'd throw it into the mix of known reasons some people don't edit Wikipedia.
Aleta/LadyofShalott
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On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 7:28 PM, Lady of Shalott <ladyofshalott.wp@gmail.com
wrote:
The other day it occurred to me that a particular friend of mine could be a great contributor to Wikipedia, and so I asked her if she ever did. She said that she used to, and in fact started an article about a particular topic (a particular biological taxon - I won't be more specific at this point, but it is an extant article). I asked her if there was a particular reason she stopped, and her answer was,
"Yes, the last time I tried to, though admittedly that has been a few years ago, I was unable to. I can't remember what the impediment was but I'm basically a lazy person. If I have to jump through even one hoop, I lose my passion."
Now perhaps she tried to edit an article protected for a very good reason, or who knows what happened, but this event was enough to make her stop. I imagine she's not the only person to react this way. Is this reaction more typical of one sex than another? I have no idea. I just thought I'd throw it into the mix of known reasons some people don't edit Wikipedia.
Aleta/LadyofShalott
These kinds of stories are really important. I added a red link on Meta for a page where we can collect anecdotes just like this.[1]
I know the Geek Feminism wiki has a ton of examples from outside Wikipedia. This sort of history is less about cataloging all the transgressions or errors of the past, I think, than providing compelling, personal stories we can point to when people ask, "So what? I've never seen X situation."
I don't think they need to be all negative either. *Sometimes *Wikipedia gets it right. ;-) We should point out what that looks like too.
1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_gap#Research http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_gap#Research
The gender-gap is still present at European universities. At a conference on woman and philosophy at the University of Leuven (1,60 % of female professors in philosophy on that time) a successful woman (of business) from the public suggested to promote a kind of coaching for female scientists as a catalyst for diminishing the gender-gap.
When there is good will and good capacity of more female editors, it would be interesting to offer a kind of personal coaching for new female editors (or other underrepresented groups).
A team (of course it can be mixed) would be trained by WP for orienting adequately and politely the potentially future contributors. It can happen that later the result of the coaching will produce an article, an article made in cooperation, the suggestion of a new topic (that the new contributor could not formulate adequately), ea. The most important thing is that this person with good will and capacity receives a positively humane reply. That is in fact my experience in WP and I am very grateful to a male friend (in my case) for motivating me to publish in WP.
Patricia --- On Wed, 2/16/11, Lady of Shalott ladyofshalott.wp@gmail.com wrote:
From: Lady of Shalott ladyofshalott.wp@gmail.com Subject: [Gendergap] one woman's response about why she stopped editing Wikipedia To: "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 7:28 PM
The other day it occurred to me that a particular friend of mine could be a great contributor to Wikipedia, and so I asked her if she ever did. She said that she used to, and in fact started an article about a particular topic (a particular biological taxon - I won't be more specific at this point, but it is an extant article). I asked her if there was a particular reason she stopped, and her answer was,
"Yes, the last time I tried to, though admittedly that has been a few years ago, I was unable to. I can't remember what the impediment was but I'm basically a lazy person. If I have to jump through even one hoop, I lose my passion."
Now perhaps she tried to edit an article protected for a very good reason, or who knows what happened, but this event was enough to make her stop. I imagine she's not the only person to react this way. Is this reaction more typical of one sex than another? I have no idea. I just thought I'd throw it into the mix of known reasons some people don't edit Wikipedia.
Aleta/LadyofShalott
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