Thanks Jason. I enjoyed reading this, though the conclusions remind me of _Seeing Like a State_. Not all edits, editors, and subcommunities are equal. Trying to shift about contributors en masse in a way that is convenient for large organizations (or for those of us who like crunching large datasets :) can be a total failure in practice.

Let's set up a new space where we can experiment with fast influxes of newbies. The current large projects are not suited for this.

If we create a new space (workspace, namespace, knowledgespace) for people to develop a different sort of knowledge, or in a different way, that would be amenable to participation by tens of thousands of new users and would not directly interfere with existing workflows: then a new founder effect, tone, and creator network could develop in tandem with existing communities. In that scenario, we could have a surge of new editors, and could perhaps help them find one another and form groups and figure things out as they go. And these could be recruited specifically from communities that currently are unwelcome or feel underrepresented.

If we want to prevent some groups from 'taking charge' and blocking or pushing out groups they don't agree with, this new workspace might benefit from supporting multiple drafts of the same idea, or multiple separate groups that can all have their own policies. The current framework on the larger wikis of One Complete System, having lots of policy to read before getting involved, and veterans chastising newbies for getting things wrong, is not amenable to any rapid influx.

SJ

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 12:47 PM, Siko Bouterse sbouterse@wikimedia.org wrote:

Super interesting, thanks for sharing Jason.

"Can Wikipedia increase the number of new female editors four-fold and increase new editor retention four-fold every month for three years?"

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 9:29 AM, Joseph Reagle joseph.2011@reagle.org wrote:

...

Interesting!

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I like the idea of experimenting with new knowledgespaces, with new workflows to support them. With enough investment in design, I think this could be done on a large scale right in the project namespace of English Wikipedia.

Thanks, Pharos

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 1:36 PM, Sarah (SV) slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 10:00 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:

...

Thanks Jason. I enjoyed reading this, though the conclusions remind me of _Seeing Like a State_. Not all edits, editors, and subcommunities are equal. Trying to shift about contributors en masse in a way that is convenient for large organizations (or for those of us who like crunching large datasets :) can be a total failure in practice.

Let's set up a new space where we can experiment with fast influxes of newbies. The current large projects are not suited for this.

​I believe good design is a key issue for editor attraction and

retention, so that we can produce professional-looking articles we can be proud of and want to write. I would also love to see the Foundation redesign the front page. It's hard for the community to take the lead when it comes to design, and it seems to fall off the radar when people discuss editor retention and gender gap.

Sarah

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Hello,

This is very interesting. Thank you for sharing. Please let us know if and when it can be shared more freely. I know a few people who'd want to read about this. I know I was surprised to read that we would be better off trying to recruit new editors than to focus on retention (very simplified).

A couple of points, none of which I've seen mentioned in this thread:

* no matter the numbers, it will take a lot of male editors to help engaging more female editors. Not only because if female editors were to concentrate on engaging other females, they would have less time editing, and not only because we have more male editors, but because this is not only a woman's issue. It's an issue of neutrality and dissemination of knowledge. If we can get more male editors to get behind this question, it will be much easier getting to the desired numbers.

* I wrote a blog post a few years ago, stating that if all the women who were named Elsa started editing Swedish Wikipedia actively (4 times a day = more than 100 edits a month), the gendergap would cease to exist. (https://wikimediasverige.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/varfor-skriver-inte-kvinno...) These kinds of numbers are telling, in that they convey a fairly common misconception: although we have a huge gendergap, the number of people actually editing Wikipedia is not that great. So in actual numbers, if we divide the effort between chapters and non-chapters and individual Wikipedians, I think it's possible to reach those numbers.

Anyway, great post and again, thanks.

Best wishes,

Lennart Guldbrandsson

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Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2015 13:51:31 -0400 From: pharosofalexandria@gmail.com To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Gendergap] What would it take to Close the Gender Gap?

I like the idea of experimenting with new knowledgespaces, with new workflows to support them. With enough investment in design, I think this could be done on a large scale right in the project namespace of English Wikipedia. Thanks,Pharos On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 1:36 PM, Sarah (SV) slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 10:00 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Jason. I enjoyed reading this, though the conclusions remind me of _Seeing Like a State_. Not all edits, editors, and subcommunities are equal. Trying to shift about contributors en masse in a way that is convenient for large organizations (or for those of us who like crunching large datasets :) can be a total failure in practice. Let's set up a new space where we can experiment with fast influxes of newbies. The current large projects are not suited for this. ​I believe good design is a key issue for editor attraction and retention, so that we can produce professional-looking articles we can be proud of and want to write. I would also love to see the Foundation redesign the front page. It's hard for the community to take the lead when it comes to design, and it seems to fall off the radar when people discuss editor retention and gender gap.

Sarah

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"Seeing like a state" refers to the idea that scientifically created govt programs can fix things. However, most a created by and for special interest and thus their inability to foresee the inevitable negative consequences or adjust quickly to them.

However, nonprofit and profit businesses usually have more flexibility, at least til they become too big. So trying to come up with new programs like Samuel proposes below is more feasible. I've suggested similar things in the past, but others doubted Wikimedia would take it on and otherwise it would take quite a bit of financial and organizational expertise.

Of course mere numbers will not solve the problem. Even having to 25 or 35% women would not necessarily increase the quality of the product if the women ended up having to spend too much time quarreling with male editors who resent their editing, should it disagree with theirs, or just because such assertive female activity annoys them. Of course, that's still a major reason women don't last long at Wikipedia anyway.

On 6/1/2015 1:00 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:

Thanks Jason. I enjoyed reading this, though the conclusions remind me of _Seeing Like a State_. Not all edits, editors, and subcommunities are equal. Trying to shift about contributors en masse in a way that is convenient for large organizations (or for those of us who like crunching large datasets :) can be a total failure in practice.

Let's set up a new space where we can experiment with fast influxes of newbies. The current large projects are not suited for this.

If we create a new space (workspace, namespace, knowledgespace) for people to develop a different sort of knowledge, or in a different way, that would be amenable to participation by tens of thousands of new users and would not directly interfere with existing workflows: then a new founder effect, tone, and creator network could develop in tandem with existing communities. In that scenario, we could have a surge of new editors, and could perhaps help them find one another and form groups and figure things out as they go. And these could be recruited specifically from communities that currently are unwelcome or feel underrepresented.

If we want to prevent some groups from 'taking charge' and blocking or pushing out groups they don't agree with, this new workspace might benefit from supporting multiple drafts of the same idea, or multiple separate groups that can all have their own policies. The current framework on the larger wikis of One Complete System, having lots of policy to read before getting involved, and veterans chastising newbies for getting things wrong, is not amenable to any rapid influx.

SJ

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 12:47 PM, Siko Bouterse <sbouterse@wikimedia.org mailto:sbouterse@wikimedia.org> wrote:

Super interesting, thanks for sharing Jason.

"Can Wikipedia increase the number of new female editors four-fold
and increase new editor retention four-fold every month for three
years?"

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 9:29 AM, Joseph Reagle
<joseph.2011@reagle.org <mailto:joseph.2011@reagle.org>> wrote:

    Interesting!