Hey folks,
A colleague at another organization asked me if I'd write up a quick note recapping the basics about Wikipedia's gender gap and Wikimedia's response to it. I did it for him, and then thought it might make sense to also share it here.
It's below.
Thanks, Sue
In January 2011, the New York Times published a story headlined “Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor List,” about the gender gap on Wikipedia. It was rooted in the finding, from a 2008 UNU-Merit survey developed in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation, that only 13% of Wikipedia editors are female.
That piece prompted a flurry of other coverage, including six essays in the New York Times from academics and other experts, a series of commentaries in The Atlantic Monthly, opinion pieces in Canada’s national newspaper the Globe and Mail and in the Ottawa Citizen, and stories in Discover, Discovery News, Mother Jones magazine, Slate magazine, the NPR blog, the UK newspaper the Telegraph, The Village Voice, MSNBC, the Business Insider, TG Daily and the feminist blog Jezebel. Links at the bottom.
None of that was an accident: we wanted the coverage, and we sought it out.
The Wikimedia Foundation has been aware that Wikipedia had a gender gap, and we believe it’s a serious problem that needs to be fixed. Wikipedia’s vision is to contain “the sum of all human knowledge.” The premise is that everyone is invited to bring their crumb of knowledge to the table, and together those crumbs become a banquet. If women are underrepresented at the table, we can’t achieve the vision. So solving the gender gap is critical.
But it's also very difficult. At Wikipedia, you don’t fix deeply-rooted cultural problems through top-down mandates: you do it through discussion. You need to have awareness that there’s a problem, develop a consensus that it matters, and instigate, facilitate and support efforts to fix it.
This particular problem is complicated by the fact that solutions don’t lie entirely within the Wikipedia editorial community, because important voices are missing there. We knew we would need to bring in voices from outside, and support them in making themselves heard. Only then would we have a shot at achieving lasting cultural change. Hence the New York Times article.
In January, Sue Gardner (Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director) and Moka Pantages (Wikimedia Foundation Global Communications Manager) used the occasion of Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary to have an off-the-record lunch with New York Times staff. At the lunch, we talked with them about our gender gap. We knew it would stimulate a big, public conversation. And it did: immediately after the story was published, we were flooded with media inquiries and offers of help.
* Female columnists and bloggers pledged to try editing Wikipedia themselves, and urged their readers to do the same. Academic, feminist and women-in-technology groups started discussing on their internal lists how they can help.
* Several prominent academics with specializations in gender and technology offered us their ideas about the origins of the problem.
* An anthropologist offered to help the Wikimedia Foundation design a study to find out why so few women edit.
* The Wikimedia Foundation launched a new public mailing list to talk about the issue: in its first two weeks it attracted 150+ members who’ve made 500+ posts to the list (35 per day).
* A moderator at a popular online forum which has successfully solved its own gender problems shared what had worked for them.
* Wikipedians conducted an analysis of editor self-identification as female across multiple language versions of the encyclopedia, resulting in the finding that the highest proportion of self-identified women is at the Russian Wikipedia, which is also the faster-growing Wikipedia.
* Wikipedians created a Facebook group “Women at Wikipedia.”
* Wikipedians have created special wiki-pages and wiki-projects aimed at brainstorming ideas for fixing the gender gap.
* Wikipedians have proposed using International Women's Day, March 8, to kick off a special initiative inviting women to become Wikipedia editors. The staff of the Wikimedia Foundation is currently assessing how it could support that initiative with banner invitations and by helping experienced editors self-organize to mentor and support women who respond to that invitation.
Current state: We've leveraged Wikipedia's visibility to develop public awareness of the gender gap, resulting in a flurry of decentralized activity in expected and unexpected forums, brainstorming potential solutions. Those forums include a healthy mix of women and men, and experienced Wikipedians and external perspectives.
Some of the initiatives that have been proposed will fizzle out and have no impact. But some will flourish. In coming months, we hope to learn, with some cautious investment on the part of the Wikimedia Foundation, which catalyzing strategies can successfully increase female participation in Wikimedia projects. We have a 2015 goal to increase the percentage of female editors to 25%. As we get smarter about which strategies work, we will ramp up our investment. The initial global positive energy around and interest in this topic are giving us confidence that we can reach our goal.
Links to some of the coverage:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=1&src=bu... http://www.businessinsider.com/wikipedia-is-hampered-by-its-huge-gender-gap-... http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/01/wikipedias-gender-problem http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/8293217/Why-Wikipedias-edito... http://www.tgdaily.com/software-brief/53845-85-of-wikipedia-entries-are-made... http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2011/01/31/on-friendship-bracele... http://jezebel.com/5747740/why-wikipedia-needs-more-ladies http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Where-Are-All-the-Wiki-... http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/01/31/133375307/facing-serious-gend... http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/31/5960810-dude-centric-wikiped... http://news.discovery.com/tech/is-there-a-gender-gap-online.html?print=true http://www.slate.com/id/2284501/pagenum/all/#p2 http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/world+according/4246585/story.html http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/02/where-are-the-women-in-wikip... http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/01/wikipedia_is_a.php
-- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation
415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
So the foundation actively sought out negative publicity to spur us into action, rather than attempting to deal with the problem internally first?
On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 1:19 AM, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hey folks,
A colleague at another organization asked me if I'd write up a quick note recapping the basics about Wikipedia's gender gap and Wikimedia's response to it. I did it for him, and then thought it might make sense to also share it here.
It's below.
Thanks, Sue
In January 2011, the New York Times published a story headlined “Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor List,” about the gender gap on Wikipedia. It was rooted in the finding, from a 2008 UNU-Merit survey developed in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation, that only 13% of Wikipedia editors are female.
That piece prompted a flurry of other coverage, including six essays in the New York Times from academics and other experts, a series of commentaries in The Atlantic Monthly, opinion pieces in Canada’s national newspaper the Globe and Mail and in the Ottawa Citizen, and stories in Discover, Discovery News, Mother Jones magazine, Slate magazine, the NPR blog, the UK newspaper the Telegraph, The Village Voice, MSNBC, the Business Insider, TG Daily and the feminist blog Jezebel. Links at the bottom.
None of that was an accident: we wanted the coverage, and we sought it out.
The Wikimedia Foundation has been aware that Wikipedia had a gender gap, and we believe it’s a serious problem that needs to be fixed. Wikipedia’s vision is to contain “the sum of all human knowledge.” The premise is that everyone is invited to bring their crumb of knowledge to the table, and together those crumbs become a banquet. If women are underrepresented at the table, we can’t achieve the vision. So solving the gender gap is critical.
But it's also very difficult. At Wikipedia, you don’t fix deeply-rooted cultural problems through top-down mandates: you do it through discussion. You need to have awareness that there’s a problem, develop a consensus that it matters, and instigate, facilitate and support efforts to fix it.
This particular problem is complicated by the fact that solutions don’t lie entirely within the Wikipedia editorial community, because important voices are missing there. We knew we would need to bring in voices from outside, and support them in making themselves heard. Only then would we have a shot at achieving lasting cultural change. Hence the New York Times article.
In January, Sue Gardner (Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director) and Moka Pantages (Wikimedia Foundation Global Communications Manager) used the occasion of Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary to have an off-the-record lunch with New York Times staff. At the lunch, we talked with them about our gender gap. We knew it would stimulate a big, public conversation. And it did: immediately after the story was published, we were flooded with media inquiries and offers of help.
- Female columnists and bloggers pledged to try editing Wikipedia
themselves, and urged their readers to do the same. Academic, feminist and women-in-technology groups started discussing on their internal lists how they can help.
- Several prominent academics with specializations in gender and
technology offered us their ideas about the origins of the problem.
- An anthropologist offered to help the Wikimedia Foundation design a
study to find out why so few women edit.
- The Wikimedia Foundation launched a new public mailing list to talk
about the issue: in its first two weeks it attracted 150+ members who’ve made 500+ posts to the list (35 per day).
- A moderator at a popular online forum which has successfully solved
its own gender problems shared what had worked for them.
- Wikipedians conducted an analysis of editor self-identification as
female across multiple language versions of the encyclopedia, resulting in the finding that the highest proportion of self-identified women is at the Russian Wikipedia, which is also the faster-growing Wikipedia.
Wikipedians created a Facebook group “Women at Wikipedia.”
Wikipedians have created special wiki-pages and wiki-projects aimed
at brainstorming ideas for fixing the gender gap.
- Wikipedians have proposed using International Women's Day, March 8,
to kick off a special initiative inviting women to become Wikipedia editors. The staff of the Wikimedia Foundation is currently assessing how it could support that initiative with banner invitations and by helping experienced editors self-organize to mentor and support women who respond to that invitation.
Current state: We've leveraged Wikipedia's visibility to develop public awareness of the gender gap, resulting in a flurry of decentralized activity in expected and unexpected forums, brainstorming potential solutions. Those forums include a healthy mix of women and men, and experienced Wikipedians and external perspectives.
Some of the initiatives that have been proposed will fizzle out and have no impact. But some will flourish. In coming months, we hope to learn, with some cautious investment on the part of the Wikimedia Foundation, which catalyzing strategies can successfully increase female participation in Wikimedia projects. We have a 2015 goal to increase the percentage of female editors to 25%. As we get smarter about which strategies work, we will ramp up our investment. The initial global positive energy around and interest in this topic are giving us confidence that we can reach our goal.
Links to some of the coverage:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=1&src=bu...
http://www.businessinsider.com/wikipedia-is-hampered-by-its-huge-gender-gap-... http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/01/wikipedias-gender-problem
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/8293217/Why-Wikipedias-edito...
http://www.tgdaily.com/software-brief/53845-85-of-wikipedia-entries-are-made...
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2011/01/31/on-friendship-bracele... http://jezebel.com/5747740/why-wikipedia-needs-more-ladies
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Where-Are-All-the-Wiki-...
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/01/31/133375307/facing-serious-gend...
http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/31/5960810-dude-centric-wikiped... http://news.discovery.com/tech/is-there-a-gender-gap-online.html?print=true http://www.slate.com/id/2284501/pagenum/all/#p2 http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/world+according/4246585/story.html
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/02/where-are-the-women-in-wikip... http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/01/wikipedia_is_a.php
-- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation
415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On 16 February 2011 17:27, Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com wrote:
So the foundation actively sought out negative publicity to spur us into action, rather than attempting to deal with the problem internally first?
Why do you think the publicity was negative? I didn't find it negative, at all.
I actually found it quite heartwarming. A common theme of the coverage was "how can we help."
Thanks, Sue
Reading some of the links (I'd only seen the NYT article and a few other pages - thanks for providing all of it) I do see your point, but it does seem like trying to resolve it internally would have been a better first step (unless there *was* some attempt to do so that went completely over my head. I have a habit of missing things like that and then putting my foot in it).
We've got a lot of suggestions here, some of them very good, but the problem is that we don't have any hard data on what it is specifically that attracts men rather than women. I did suggest something to get that data, but it seems to have sunk into the archives like a stone. It seems like the priority should be working out what the disease is rather than frantically scrambling to treat the symptoms.
On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 1:33 AM, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 16 February 2011 17:27, Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com wrote:
So the foundation actively sought out negative publicity to spur us into action, rather than attempting to deal with the problem internally first?
Why do you think the publicity was negative? I didn't find it negative, at all.
I actually found it quite heartwarming. A common theme of the coverage was "how can we help."
Thanks, Sue
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On 16 February 2011 17:38, Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com wrote:
Reading some of the links (I'd only seen the NYT article and a few other pages - thanks for providing all of it) I do see your point, but it does seem like trying to resolve it internally would have been a better first step (unless there was some attempt to do so that went completely over my head. I have a habit of missing things like that and then putting my foot in it).
Don't worry, you haven't put your foot in it :-)
But the fact of the gender gap's been known internally for more than a year, right, since the results of the UNU-Merit study were published. It's been thoroughly discussed on e.g., the strategy wiki.
I think lots of individual community members have been working to help fix the problem (for example, there are lots of wiki-projects, some of them listed on our meta pages). My general view is that more action, more awareness, more people helping, is good not bad :-)
We've got a lot of suggestions here, some of them very good, but the problem is that we don't have any hard data on what it is specifically that attracts men rather than women. I did suggest something to get that data, but it seems to have sunk into the archives like a stone. It seems like the priority should be working out what the disease is rather than frantically scrambling to treat the symptoms.
I'm actually, in spare moments here and there, pulling together a blog post that attempts to summarize what research exists, and what we can learn from it. But I don't think your suggestion has gone unnoticed. For example, I know that quite a few Wikimedia Foundation staff lurk here, and some of them work in research. They also talk with other researchers, inside the projects and outside. And Joseph Reagle is here, and my understanding is that gender is the focus of his research on Wikipedia, right now. I expect that the questions that have been raised here are very likely to turn up in surveys and studies over the next few months :-)
Brilliant! I was thinking of writing it up formally and sending it to the relevant foundation people via a friend who can be trusted to weed out silly ideas; would that be a good thing to do, or a waste of both my and their time?
On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 1:46 AM, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 16 February 2011 17:38, Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com wrote:
Reading some of the links (I'd only seen the NYT article and a few other pages - thanks for providing all of it) I do see your point, but it does seem like trying to resolve it internally would have been a better first step (unless there was some attempt to do so that went completely over my head. I have a habit of missing things like that and then putting my foot
in
it).
Don't worry, you haven't put your foot in it :-)
But the fact of the gender gap's been known internally for more than a year, right, since the results of the UNU-Merit study were published. It's been thoroughly discussed on e.g., the strategy wiki.
I think lots of individual community members have been working to help fix the problem (for example, there are lots of wiki-projects, some of them listed on our meta pages). My general view is that more action, more awareness, more people helping, is good not bad :-)
We've got a lot of suggestions here, some of them very good, but the
problem
is that we don't have any hard data on what it is specifically that
attracts
men rather than women. I did suggest something to get that data, but it seems to have sunk into the archives like a stone. It seems like the priority should be working out what the disease is rather than
frantically
scrambling to treat the symptoms.
I'm actually, in spare moments here and there, pulling together a blog post that attempts to summarize what research exists, and what we can learn from it. But I don't think your suggestion has gone unnoticed. For example, I know that quite a few Wikimedia Foundation staff lurk here, and some of them work in research. They also talk with other researchers, inside the projects and outside. And Joseph Reagle is here, and my understanding is that gender is the focus of his research on Wikipedia, right now. I expect that the questions that have been raised here are very likely to turn up in surveys and studies over the next few months :-)
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On 16 February 2011 17:50, Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com wrote:
Brilliant! I was thinking of writing it up formally and sending it to the relevant foundation people via a friend who can be trusted to weed out silly ideas; would that be a good thing to do, or a waste of both my and their time?
No, do it! It'd be helpful :-)
Just to nitpick a little in case you send the post anywhere else: the Facebook group is named "Wikipedia Women". <insert witty quip about mailing lists not being wikis />
:) Aleta
On 2/16/11, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 16 February 2011 17:50, Oliver Keyes scire.facias@gmail.com wrote:
Brilliant! I was thinking of writing it up formally and sending it to the relevant foundation people via a friend who can be trusted to weed out silly ideas; would that be a good thing to do, or a waste of both my and their time?
No, do it! It'd be helpful :-)
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On 2/16/11 8:38 PM, Oliver Keyes wrote:
Reading some of the links (I'd only seen the NYT article and a few other pages - thanks for providing all of it) I do see your point, but it does seem like trying to resolve it internally would have been a better first step (unless there /was/ some attempt to do so that went completely over my head. I have a habit of missing things like that and then putting my foot in it).
I think the publicity has been part of resolving the problem, and an important part at that. It's what got the discussion going internally, and it is also what has raised awareness among those outside the community who we want to bring into the fold. And since part of what we are doing here is trying to recruit a larger female editor base, I suspect that any community-driven discussion would have eventually concluded that we needed to reach out to the public by engaging the media about our problem.
Dominic