Hi everyone,

My name is Karen Petersen and I have never done anything with Wikipedia. If you are looking for all reasons contributing to the gender gap, perhaps I have one.

I have often thought of exploring opportunities to write/edit for the organization, but insecurity got the best of me: Who did I think I was to be part of this bigger-than-life movement? And as an English major who formerly worked in TV news and freelanced on occasion, would I even qualify? It seemed very intimidating.

So I saw the article and signed up to be part of the discussion; I had no idea what I was in for! It seems as if there is some whole underground Wiki-world. If it wasn't intimidating before, it certainly is now. And that is not even taking the crazy mascot into account.

There it is, my simple - almost too simple - reason for at least part of the problem (to those who see the gender gap as a problem).

Best, Karen ------Original Message------ From: Fred Bauder Sender: gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org ReplyTo: fredbaud@fairpoint.net ReplyTo: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects Subject: [Gendergap] Commentary in The Independent Sent: Feb 6, 2011 8:35 PM

This crap is very far from productive editing that focuses on adding information from reliable resources to a reference work:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/wikipedia-...

Fred

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