I put my name down as a volunteer back in October - October 7, to be precise. On New Year's Eve I asked the simple question: Is it possible to start a Wikipedia project that's open to women, or people who identify as women? There are a handful of people on this list who are opposed to the idea, but I for one would have loved such a thing when I first started actively editing. Further, upon reading WP:PROJECT and nothing jumps out at as prohibiting a WP:WOMEN project. Sarah Stierch suggested proposing it. Heather Walls, who designed the Teahouse, could maybe help to make a similar, women-only space? I would be very much interested in helping with such a project, but I don't know where to start. *First thing*, I suppose, would be a broad survey to see if other Wikipedia women would be interested in a project tasked by women, for women, to recruit, encourage, and support other women editors. *Not* about any specific topics, or points-of-view - because I think women's interests and POVs are as varied as men's - but to increase the numbers of women editing, and to provide a refuge when you just want to talk *with other women* about whatever it is you want to talk about that's WP related. Because even though I believe we may share interests and POVs with men, I think (and the evidence shows) that women *in general* (that is, far more women than men) prefer a different communication style than has developed here under 85% to 90% male participation. Lightbreather On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 11:06 AM, Siko Bouterse <sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

This is indeed a significant proposal, and one that could turn out to be very positive. In the past, some proposals, like Visual Editor and Media Viewer, that turned out to be unpopular, were touted as being an answer to the gender gap. I fear not much thought was put into these assertions--all the women I know avoid the Visual Editor, and the in-house tests with Media Viewer that happened to be done with women did not show it easy for them to find basic information like image filename, copyright status, or camera info. But still it turned out to be some negative press for the Gender Gap Task Force participants, when they were challenged by some other users to explain these unpopular proposals that they had had nothing to do with. I was looking at the notes for the September metrics meeting, and the conversations surrounding Slide 17, about the how to use the huge leverage of the grants program to achieve movement goals. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarter… There is already a huge grantmaking infrastructure in place, why is it not being used to promote the Foundation's gender goals with those who are already on the ground and involved in the process? It could start very small, merely by adding a section to every grant application for an explanation of how the grant is expected to impact gender diversity. This something that is commonly done for government proposals. If a government entity wants to promote environment standards, they ask for an environmental statement as part of the project proposal. If a project is adjacent to a wetland, they ask for a waterfowl impact statement. A gender statement would do two things: it would help identify programs that are already successful in integrating women into their programs, and it would provide incentive to programs that have not given the question a great deal of thought. This might quite possibly start a valuable dialogue about best practices. How many comments have you seen on Wikipedia by people who think you can make a program attractive to women just by dumbing it down and providing some fluffy bunnies? Getting some of this discussion out into the open and onto the more formal format of a grant proposal might spur a little more realistic thinking about how to promote gender diversity. My personal belief is that you cannot address the problem of gender diversity in a vacuum. It has to be part of a general package: how to attract academics, how to attract male users who have a collaborative work style, how to work with people who edit from work environments that have non-discrimination polices, how to retain the editors you already have. When you can figure out how to make Wikipedia work for these groups, it will work for women as well. On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 1:48 PM, Siko Bouterse <sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: