Is that addressed to me? Not sure. In any event, the first link doesn't seem to me either a "lack of civility" or a "gender gap issue," but rather another one of the tens of thousands of more or less unimportant conversations that happen backstage at Wikipedia by people killing time in between contributing to the encyclopedia.
That said...
(1) Political organizing should happen off wiki, not on wiki. This is just as true for WikiProject Conservatism as it is for WikiProject Gender Gap Task Force. Wikipedia is not the place. Go for it, just not there.
(2) GGTF misfired by obsessively identifying with civility patrolling as its primary function. At a minimum, that is putting the cart before the horse. Going further: I would argue that it is an an absolutely misplaced predilection, that a very low-importance contributing factor to WP editor gender disparity has been elevated into The Main Reason without statistical evidence. It's a hot-button topic at WP and it was a fight poorly chosen.
(3) Here's what needs to happen:
*A. Quantify and track the actual gender gap at WP over time.* Anecdotally, female participation at events like Wikimania is significantly greater than the 1F:7M ratio that would be anticipated from the estimated ratio of registered editors. Does this mean that the differential is exaggerated due to an undercount or under-self-reporting of female editors? Why are there not annual estimates made and tracked by WMF or by GGTF itself?
*B. Survey to determine the actual reasons for participation or non-participation.* This is something GGTF can do. Analyze the editing patterns of randomly selected female and male Wikipedians, as well as those who decline gender identification. Then get in touch with each of these three sets to identify what they feel are the strengths and fundamental problems of the Wikipedia experience. Similarly, poll the M/F/Decline To Answer pools who fall inactive for six months as to the cause of their non-participation.
*C. Coordinate pro-active recruitment.* Edit-a-thons, university outreach, etc. targeting new female participants. This is the main way that gender disparity will be overcome — one new editor at a time.
*D. Targeted, organized mentoring.* Watch the new editor pool and target female newcomers. Help them through the learning curve. Too often newcomers of both genders are left isolated; bring them into the community.
Count — Survey — Recruit — Teach.
Tim Davenport "Carrite" on WP Corvallis, OR
=====
Not sure if this will produce a new thread or attach to the existing one
(I've checked my spam folder, there's nothing there) but anyway....
Tim: I just wondered whether you regard this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic...
...as a lack of civility or a gender gap issue?
In particular this comment:
"...As has been indicated on the talk page of the proposed decision, repeatedly, there is some question as to exactly which women this group seems to be reaching out toward, specifically, whether it is more or less of a more or less radical feminist perspective...."
I thought it summed up in a nutshell what the GGTF was really up
against. It's a kind of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism * Are you now or have you ever been a feminist who believes that sex work is the opposite of feminism? Anyone who answers yes that question is judged to be a "radical", a subversive who wants to push POV and therefore they are fair game.
On WP's list of feminists there were a very odd mish-mash of categories
of feminist https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=54413... and lots of names missing e.g. Gail Dines. I did a major rewrite to organize it chronologically and it meant that "anti-pornography feminists", "anti-prostitution feminists" and "socialist feminists" could go onto the list https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=54566...
The list has recently been changed to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feminists and I'm working with a couple of editors to see how we can improve it further.
I've largely avoided trouble by sticking to admin based work such as
this, and similar work: Cleaning up bibliographies, e.g. Joseph Schumpeter, from this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=63356... to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=63434... Creating an article for the International Association for Feminist Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Association_for_Feminist_Economi... and improving the article for the Human Development and Capability Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_and_Capability_Association then creating biographies for past presidents of IAFFE and fellows of the HDCA. Adding DOBs to notable scholars and then adding them to Wiki's calendar (births).
These organisations / individuals argues against sex work on the grounds
of the perception of women that is generated (i.e. as a thing / object). The problem with the MRA, pro-porn, pro-sex work POV is they have no problem with anti-porn etc. POV provided it is in a box labelled "mad" or "religious" with a sub-text that the only people that could possibly support that POV are from the moral right and are probably racist and homophobic as well. The other problem that the MRA have is that, human development and capability, which includes feminist economics / inequality / care work etc. collectively constitutes a 'single broad topic' (WP:SPATG), so they are unable to stop editors, who wish to edit in this area, from doing so. The natural place for this work is within the Gender Studies project. Which is why they write nonsense like this: http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/fighting-wikipedia-corruption-censorshi... (if there were really the kind of censorship that they are talking about on WP then there would be no Pornography Project).
Any attempt to show 3 distinct POVs
(a) Pro-sex work (b) Right-wing anti-sex work (on moral / judgemental grounds), and (c) Left-wing anti-sex work (on negative perception grounds) - the POV that dare not speak its name ... is met with a steel fist hammered onto the table.
I made a video for use in the article "sex wars", an article which is
all about the separation between (b) and (c) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feminist_sex_wars&oldid=54699... It was deleted instantly on the grounds that the "Video makes little sense and does not add to informational value of article." I dispute that it "makes little sense" and why does it even need to add informational value? Why can't it just be to add aesthetics to the article as pictures and videos often are?
As soon as I step off the path of admin related tasks that the MRA-mob
can't get me for, and stray into article content I am jumped on, obstensibly for technical reasons but they are almost exclusively by editors whose other edits are connected to porn and sex-positive feminism, who have pretty much hijacked the Feminism project and they are trying to do as much damage as possible to the Gender Studies project as they can as well.
It may be time for an article on "fourth-wave feminism" which is
separate to the "history of feminism", but the article would have to say that the term is used by both (a) and (c), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism#Fourth_Wave . You're not supposed to mention (c), you're only supposed to mention (a) and (b) - and then arch your eyebrows at the moral and out-of-touch group that is (b). Anyone trying to create it would run into the MRA trying to lump (b) and (c) together. The talk page would be full of stuff like, "well the article should say that, 'group (b) have been called fourth-wave, but it is just a very, few number of places and the term is far more attributed to group (a) than any other group of feminists'.
This message is longer than I originally intended it to be but I do
think that there are a lot of well meaning editors on WP who are either unaware or a bit naïve when it comes the antics of the people that we are talking about. It is also naïve to think that they are not co-ordinating their handiwork off-wiki.
Marie
On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 2:40 PM, Tim Davenport shoehutch@gmail.com wrote:
(1) Political organizing should happen off wiki, not on wiki. This is just as true for WikiProject Conservatism as it is for WikiProject Gender Gap Task Force. Wikipedia is not the place. Go for it, just not there.
It's not political organizing and the two projects you identify are fundamentally different. A conservatism wikiproject is aimed at ensuring complete coverage of topics related to political conservatism; its an encyclopedic, content project. The GGTF is a very different project, with content development as *a* goal but the primary objective is addressing the identified and well supported gender gap in the editing population. Developing a more diverse and representative body of editors is not a *political* goal.
(2) GGTF misfired by obsessively identifying with civility patrolling as its primary function. At a minimum, that is putting the cart before the horse. Going further: I would argue that it is an an absolutely misplaced predilection, that a very low-importance contributing factor to WP editor gender disparity has been elevated into The Main Reason without statistical evidence. It's a hot-button topic at WP and it was a fight poorly chosen.
Someone else will chime into citations but certainly it is commonly reported by users, and in the press, that the sometimes toxic cultural atmosphere on Wikipedia contributes to deterring female editors. With this conclusion in hand, it is completely reasonable for a task force trying to make the project more comfortable for women to address instances of sexist language and sex-related incivility.
(3) Here's what needs to happen:
*A. Quantify and track the actual gender gap at WP over time.* Anecdotally, female participation at events like Wikimania is significantly greater than the 1F:7M ratio that would be anticipated from the estimated ratio of registered editors. Does this mean that the differential is exaggerated due to an undercount or under-self-reporting of female editors? Why are there not annual estimates made and tracked by WMF or by GGTF itself?
The ability of any outside group to do mass surveys on Wikipedia or any Wikimedia project is limited, but the WMF has done several surveys which have included gender statistics. They have consistently shown a massive gender disparity; whether the ratio is 9% or 10% or 13%, it is far away from the gender split of the Internet as a whole or other Web 2.0 properties. The surveys may have problems, some may be old, there may be an issue with people who decline to identify. But regardless, and despite your repeated requests for an accurate count, there is and can be no question that a very large gender gap does exist.
*C. Coordinate pro-active recruitment.* Edit-a-thons, university outreach, etc. targeting new female participants. This is the main way that gender disparity will be overcome — one new editor at a time.
Edit-a-thons and university outreach have been done by chapters and the WMF, as well as other groups of users, for years. None have shown a sustained impact around developing new editors, and certainly none can scale enough to address the gender gap.
*D. Targeted, organized mentoring.* Watch the new editor pool and target female newcomers. Help them through the learning curve. Too often newcomers of both genders are left isolated; bring them into the community.
As above. It's nice that you extend the benefit of doubt to Eric Corbett (or Mr. Corbett, as you say), and presume to his credit that his use of some words is down to ignorance or provincialism. I only wish that you might extend the same benefit to those you label "disruptionists", or at least merely consider that they have been hounded and pressured by critics into the sort of frustration that might provoke outbursts by anyone.
A. All the studies on female participation come up with low percentages around 10% plus or minus a few percent. Of course, it is possible that in all of the studies the women are choosing not to self-identify. It is an inherent difficulty in any study if people choose to not reveal information. But we know women make up large proportions of social media users, so if womens participation in Wikipedia is actually higher than studies show due to reluctance to self-identify, it begs the question of why they are so unwilling to self-identify in the content of Wikipedia but not in other contexts. Either way, it points to some problem. The last Wikimania recently released data that does show a higher level of female participation, about 1 in 3, I think. It would be interesting to see how the male/female numbers break down across the various types of attendees, e.g. WMF staff, Chapter members, event organisers, etc. My suspicion is that women are in higher proportion among staffers, chapters, etc and this skews the Wikimania participation. I dont know how scholarships are awarded and whether women are at any advantage in that process.
B. A very interesting research paper http://files.grouplens.org/papers/wp-gender-wikisym2011.pdf shows that women are less likely to survive the newbie stage than men. But, perhaps contrary to what many expected, their data does not suggest that women are more easily discouraged by being reverted (they show men and womens survival rates in the face of reversion are similar) but that more womens edits are reverted than mens edits and this is the cause of higher attrition among women. This has caused me to wonder if women as newbies are more attracted to articles where the risk of reversion is higher perhaps because there are more policies to be considered (e.g. biographies of living people, noting that women are predominantly the purchasers of celebrity magazines which deal mostly in content related to living people). The paper does show that men and women edit in different areas (men are more likely to edit in geography and science for example) but the analysis is too high level to answer my question. The other inherent limitation in any study of newbies that there is nothing in the initial signup to Wikipedia that asks you about your gender (even optionally) so very few newbies are self-identifying as either male or female at that time. So, its actually very hard to study the non-surviving female newbies because you cant find them. This often means our study of the experiences of newbies is based heavily on those who are still around later to be studied or surveyed which introduces survivor bias into the study. So this may be a consideration in relation to the findings of this paper. Interview studies keep pointing to women not liking the abrasive environment of Wikipedia. Civility is a part of that issue. Although I think its not so much about the use of specific words, but rather a general culture of aggression. The people who use the swear words are simply much easier to spot and hold up as examples of the broader problem than those who engage in equally aggressive behaviour but do so citing [[WP:Policy]] and use the undo-button.
C. In relation to pro-active recruitment, I do a lot of that here in Australia, edit training and edit-a-thons. While some of the edit-a-thons have targeted women participants and are therefore predominantly women, edit training events are generally not so targeted and attract both women and men. From all of that I believe that women are not inherently disinterested in contributing to Wikipedia. However, these events do not seem to create ongoing editors (whether female or male) and this experience is not unique. A recent survey by the foundation found that this is the case all over the world. Generally, the one-event approach to edit training isnt sufficient. Greater success seems to come from regular events usually in a university/college setting, but regular events are a challenge to resource with volunteers (we have other things that have to be done in our lives). Interestingly, most of the people who currently attend our sessions are middle aged and older. Many struggle with the markup; I hope the visual editor will address some of that problem. So I think we need to look at diversity in terms of age as well as gender. But I dont think outreach is really the answer because it cannot be done at the necessary scale. Its not that we need to have a team of mentors, we need everyone to be willing to help one another.
D. One thing I learn from our outreach is that many of the newbies (male and female) have unpleasant experiences even during the outreach events as well as soon afterwards. Their edits are reverted (for what seems to me to be no justifiable reason), new articles being speedily deleted or splashed with messages about policies they dont know about and dont comprehend, or left in an eternal limbo of rejection in Article for Creation. These folks are all good faith and they are all newcomers but the policies of assume good faith and dont bite the newbies are completely ignored. We have many editors who are very aggressive. I have no idea if they are just angry with the world as a whole, or actually enjoy bullying the newbies. While obviously there are benefits to a culture of mentoring, even when I am in hand-holding edit-training mode (about as mentoring as it gets and I provide my contact details off-wiki as well as on-wiki for any follow-up), its difficult for me to justify to them why the newbies edits are being undone because the edits simply arent that bad. The situation makes me very angry. It is not as if it is the same small pool of editors creating these problems where maybe one could try to take action against them. It seems that we have such a huge pool of aggressive editors that our newbies will randomly attract the attention of one of them. (Or it may be that some bullying personalities are actively on the lookout for victims and newbies are a soft target).
So, all in all, I think if we need to go back to first principles the encyclopaedia anyone can edit and see that the aggressive nature of the community is working against this intention and seek to curb that aggression. I think curbing the aggression would result in more editors both male and female. So in that light, I would have to say that I find the ArbCom decision distressing as it appears to acknowledge and reinforce that the aggressive culture is both dominant and should continue to be so.
Kerry
_____
From: gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Tim Davenport Sent: Tuesday, 2 December 2014 5:40 AM To: Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Gendergap] Moving Forward
Is that addressed to me? Not sure. In any event, the first link doesn't seem to me either a "lack of civility" or a "gender gap issue," but rather another one of the tens of thousands of more or less unimportant conversations that happen backstage at Wikipedia by people killing time in between contributing to the encyclopedia.
That said...
(1) Political organizing should happen off wiki, not on wiki. This is just as true for WikiProject Conservatism as it is for WikiProject Gender Gap Task Force. Wikipedia is not the place. Go for it, just not there.
(2) GGTF misfired by obsessively identifying with civility patrolling as its primary function. At a minimum, that is putting the cart before the horse. Going further: I would argue that it is an an absolutely misplaced predilection, that a very low-importance contributing factor to WP editor gender disparity has been elevated into The Main Reason without statistical evidence. It's a hot-button topic at WP and it was a fight poorly chosen.
(3) Here's what needs to happen:
A. Quantify and track the actual gender gap at WP over time. Anecdotally, female participation at events like Wikimania is significantly greater than the 1F:7M ratio that would be anticipated from the estimated ratio of registered editors. Does this mean that the differential is exaggerated due to an undercount or under-self-reporting of female editors? Why are there not annual estimates made and tracked by WMF or by GGTF itself?
B. Survey to determine the actual reasons for participation or non-participation. This is something GGTF can do. Analyze the editing patterns of randomly selected female and male Wikipedians, as well as those who decline gender identification. Then get in touch with each of these three sets to identify what they feel are the strengths and fundamental problems of the Wikipedia experience. Similarly, poll the M/F/Decline To Answer pools who fall inactive for six months as to the cause of their non-participation.
C. Coordinate pro-active recruitment. Edit-a-thons, university outreach, etc. targeting new female participants. This is the main way that gender disparity will be overcome one new editor at a time.
D. Targeted, organized mentoring. Watch the new editor pool and target female newcomers. Help them through the learning curve. Too often newcomers of both genders are left isolated; bring them into the community.
Count Survey Recruit Teach.
Tim Davenport
"Carrite" on WP
Corvallis, OR
=====
Not sure if this will produce a new thread or attach to the existing one
(I've checked my spam folder, there's nothing there) but anyway....
Tim: I just wondered whether you regard this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemi c_bias/Gender_gap_task_force#Moving_forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic _bias/Gender_gap_task_force#Moving_forward
...as a lack of civility or a gender gap issue?
In particular this comment:
"...As has been indicated on the talk page of the proposed decision, repeatedly, there is some question as to exactly which women this group seems to be reaching out toward, specifically, whether it is more or less of a more or less radical feminist perspective...."
I thought it summed up in a nutshell what the GGTF was really up against.
It's a kind of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism * Are you now or have you ever been a feminist who believes that sex work is the opposite of feminism? Anyone who answers yes that question is judged to be a "radical", a subversive who wants to push POV and therefore they are fair game.
On WP's list of feminists there were a very odd mish-mash of categories
of feminist https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=54413679 0 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=54413... and lots of names missing e.g. Gail Dines. I did a major rewrite to organize it chronologically and it meant that "anti-pornography feminists", "anti-prostitution feminists" and "socialist feminists" could go onto the list https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=54566772 7 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=54566...
The list has recently been changed to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feminists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feminists and I'm working with a couple of editors to see how we can improve it further.
I've largely avoided trouble by sticking to admin based work such as
this, and similar work: Cleaning up bibliographies, e.g. Joseph Schumpeter, from this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=63356603 4#Major_works https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=63356... #Major_works to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=63434390 9#Major_works https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=63434... #Major_works Creating an article for the International Association for Feminist Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Association_for_Feminist_Econom ics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Association_for_Feminist_Economi cs and improving the article for the Human Development and Capability Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_and_Capability_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_and_Capability_Association then creating biographies for past presidents of IAFFE and fellows of the HDCA. Adding DOBs to notable scholars and then adding them to Wiki's calendar (births).
These organisations / individuals argues against sex work on the grounds
of the perception of women that is generated (i.e. as a thing / object). The problem with the MRA, pro-porn, pro-sex work POV is they have no problem with anti-porn etc. POV provided it is in a box labelled "mad" or "religious" with a sub-text that the only people that could possibly support that POV are from the moral right and are probably racist and homophobic as well. The other problem that the MRA have is that, human development and capability, which includes feminist economics / inequality / care work etc. collectively constitutes a 'single broad topic' (WP:SPATG), so they are unable to stop editors, who wish to edit in this area, from doing so. The natural place for this work is within the Gender Studies project. Which is why they write nonsense like this: http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/fighting-wikipedia-corruption-censorsh ip/ http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/fighting-wikipedia-corruption-censorshi p/ (if there were really the kind of censorship that they are talking about on WP then there would be no Pornography Project).
Any attempt to show 3 distinct POVs
(a) Pro-sex work (b) Right-wing anti-sex work (on moral / judgemental grounds), and (c) Left-wing anti-sex work (on negative perception grounds) - the POV that dare not speak its name ... is met with a steel fist hammered onto the table.
I made a video for use in the article "sex wars", an article which is
all about the separation between (b) and (c) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feminist_sex_wars&oldid=54699519 0 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feminist_sex_wars&oldid=54699... It was deleted instantly on the grounds that the "Video makes little sense and does not add to informational value of article." I dispute that it "makes little sense" and why does it even need to add informational value? Why can't it just be to add aesthetics to the article as pictures and videos often are?
As soon as I step off the path of admin related tasks that the MRA-mob
can't get me for, and stray into article content I am jumped on, obstensibly for technical reasons but they are almost exclusively by editors whose other edits are connected to porn and sex-positive feminism, who have pretty much hijacked the Feminism project and they are trying to do as much damage as possible to the Gender Studies project as they can as well.
It may be time for an article on "fourth-wave feminism" which is
separate to the "history of feminism", but the article would have to say that the term is used by both (a) and (c), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism#Fourth_Wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism#Fourth_Wave . You're not supposed to mention (c), you're only supposed to mention (a) and (b) - and then arch your eyebrows at the moral and out-of-touch group that is (b). Anyone trying to create it would run into the MRA trying to lump (b) and (c) together. The talk page would be full of stuff like, "well the article should say that, 'group (b) have been called fourth-wave, but it is just a very, few number of places and the term is far more attributed to group (a) than any other group of feminists'.
This message is longer than I originally intended it to be but I do
think that there are a lot of well meaning editors on WP who are either unaware or a bit naïve when it comes the antics of the people that we are talking about. It is also naïve to think that they are not co-ordinating their handiwork off-wiki.
Marie
You make many good points, Kerry, that speak for themselves. This reply merely addresses one of them: the availability of data.
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 2:05 AM, Kerry Raymond kerry.raymond@gmail.com wrote:
- All the studies on female participation come up with low
percentages around 10% plus or minus a few percent. Of course, it is possible that in all of the studies the women are choosing not to self-identify. It is an inherent difficulty in any study if people choose to not reveal information. But we know women make up large proportions of social media users, so if women’s participation in Wikipedia is actually higher than studies show due to reluctance to self-identify, it begs the question of why they are so unwilling to self-identify in the content of Wikipedia but not in other contexts. Either way, it points to some problem. The last Wikimania recently released data that does show a higher level of female participation, about 1 in 3, I think.
I am not aware of any such survey data released at Wikimania. (A submission highlighting that only 6% of contributors to the Dutch Wikipedia are women was rejected[1].)
I wonder whether you are remembering a statistic about attendance at Wikimania itself, in which case it may be interesting to note that female Wikimedians appear to value situations providing an opportunity for real, face-to-face contact more than male Wikimedians do, and are statistically more likely to attend such events than male contributors.
Several of you are mentioning the importance of regularly updated gender split data.
To recap, past survey results for female participation were:
· 12.64% in the 2010 UNU survey[2], · 8.5% and 9% in the 2011 editor surveys[3][4], and · 16.1% in the re-analysis of the UNU survey data by Shaw and Hill (2013, apparently done without the input of the original study authors; note that Hill serves on the Wikimedia Foundation advisory board).[5]
The 2012 results remain unreported to date.
For the record, on 4 March 2013 (21 months ago), Tilman Bayer said[7] in response to an inquiry on Meta,
---o0o---
Beckie and I have been working on the data during the last few days, and we hope we can wrap this up soon. In any case, we still have the ambition of keeping the timespan between the conclusion of the survey and the publication of the first results shorter than in the preceding editors survey. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tbayer_(WMF) (talk https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Tbayer_(WMF)) 21:13, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
---o0o---
There have been half a dozen inquiries from Wikimedians on Meta for the 2012 editor survey's gender split data over the past few weeks[6]:
· 30 August 2014 by Fæ and myself · 4 September 2014 by SlimVirgin · 25 November 2014 by myself · 27 November 2014 by myself · 28 November 2014 by Kathleen McCook
This is in addition to multiple inquiries for this data made on this list, and on Tilman's user talk pages in his home wiki.
There has not been a single reply to any of these queries to date from Tilman or anyone else in the Foundation.
It would be great if members of this list could individually help find out why this data is not being released, and indeed why the Foundation appears to have stopped running editor surveys altogether – another question that has been asked and remained unanswered[7] – and then report back here with any information they are able to glean.
I am sorry if my going on about this comes across as pushy, but I am frankly mystified why it is so difficult to receive answers to such questions.
Andreas
[1] http://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Women_on_Wikipedia [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20130821015449/http://www.wikipediasurvey.org/do... [3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Editor_Survey_Report_-_... [4] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_editors_are_predominantly_... [5] http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0065782 [6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Tbayer_(WMF)#2012_editor_survey, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012#L... [7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012#H...
Yes I was referring to the attendance figures at Wikimania as being about 1 in 3 in response to Tim Davenports comment that female participation at Wikimania being higher than reported female participation on-wiki. Now Ive found the link again, the data shows 36% female registrations:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimania_2014_Participant_Survey_-_Dat a_Summary.pdf
Yes, it would be nice to see what the 2012 survey data shows.
Kerry
_____
From: Andreas Kolbe [mailto:jayen466@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, 2 December 2014 8:53 PM To: Kerry Raymond; Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participation of women within Wikimedia projects. Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Moving Forward
You make many good points, Kerry, that speak for themselves. This reply merely addresses one of them: the availability of data.
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 2:05 AM, Kerry Raymond kerry.raymond@gmail.com wrote:
A. All the studies on female participation come up with low percentages around 10% plus or minus a few percent. Of course, it is possible that in all of the studies the women are choosing not to self-identify. It is an inherent difficulty in any study if people choose to not reveal information. But we know women make up large proportions of social media users, so if womens participation in Wikipedia is actually higher than studies show due to reluctance to self-identify, it begs the question of why they are so unwilling to self-identify in the content of Wikipedia but not in other contexts. Either way, it points to some problem. The last Wikimania recently released data that does show a higher level of female participation, about 1 in 3, I think.
I am not aware of any such survey data released at Wikimania. (A submission highlighting that only 6% of contributors to the Dutch Wikipedia are women was rejected[1].)
I wonder whether you are remembering a statistic about attendance at Wikimania itself, in which case it may be interesting to note that female Wikimedians appear to value situations providing an opportunity for real, face-to-face contact more than male Wikimedians do, and are statistically more likely to attend such events than male contributors.
Several of you are mentioning the importance of regularly updated gender split data.
To recap, past survey results for female participation were:
· 12.64% in the 2010 UNU survey[2],
· 8.5% and 9% in the 2011 editor surveys[3][4], and
· 16.1% in the re-analysis of the UNU survey data by Shaw and Hill (2013, apparently done without the input of the original study authors; note that Hill serves on the Wikimedia Foundation advisory board).[5]
The 2012 results remain unreported to date.
For the record, on 4 March 2013 (21 months ago), Tilman Bayer said[7] in response to an inquiry on Meta,
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Beckie and I have been working on the data during the last few days, and we hope we can wrap this up soon. In any case, we still have the ambition of keeping the timespan between the conclusion of the survey and the publication of the first results shorter than in the preceding editors survey. Regards, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tbayer_(WMF) Tbayer (WMF) ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Tbayer_(WMF) talk) 21:13, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
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There have been half a dozen inquiries from Wikimedians on Meta for the 2012 editor survey's gender split data over the past few weeks[6]:
· 30 August 2014 by Fæ and myself
· 4 September 2014 by SlimVirgin
· 25 November 2014 by myself
· 27 November 2014 by myself
· 28 November 2014 by Kathleen McCook
This is in addition to multiple inquiries for this data made on this list, and on Tilman's user talk pages in his home wiki.
There has not been a single reply to any of these queries to date from Tilman or anyone else in the Foundation.
It would be great if members of this list could individually help find out why this data is not being released, and indeed why the Foundation appears to have stopped running editor surveys altogether another question that has been asked and remained unanswered[7] and then report back here with any information they are able to glean.
I am sorry if my going on about this comes across as pushy, but I am frankly mystified why it is so difficult to receive answers to such questions.
Andreas
[1] http://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Women_on_Wikipedia
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20130821015449/http://www.wikipediasurvey.org/do cs/Wikipedia_Overview_15March2010-FINAL.pdf#page8 https://web.archive.org/web/20130821015449/http:/www.wikipediasurvey.org/do cs/Wikipedia_Overview_15March2010-FINAL.pdf#page8
[3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Editor_Survey_Report_-_ April_2011.pdf https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Editor_Survey_Report_- _April_2011.pdf&page=3 &page=3
[4] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_editors_are_predominantly_ male_EN.svg
[5] http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0065782
[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Tbayer_(WMF)#2012_editor_survey, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012#L ooking_for_survey_results
[7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_Editor_Survey_2012#H ow_long