I agree it is difficult in Wikipedia to:
- measure bias in number, size, quality of articles
- correlate bias in articles to skewed demographics of editors contributing
to those articles (probably adjusted by frequency, size, or nature of edits)
- determine if editors creating observable bias in the articles are doing
so deliberately or unconsciously
- postulate ways to address the bias
But since we are here to discuss research, then let's discuss what would be a set of experiments that would help to answer these questions?
What would be great would be a set survey of the top 5000 (i.e. the group that Laura is already working with) where they were asked basic questions about the fields they edited in and their perception of gender bias, then half way through they were presented with their rating by Laura's work, then another set of questions relating to gender bias.
Suitably phrased questions could be used to discover: (a) whether they're a priori aware of the apparent bias (b) whether they are surprised at the gender balance in their articles discovered by Laura's work (c) whether they see the gender balance as an issue (d) whether they are aware of any untapped or under-utilised resources for women's articles in their fields (e) whether they are interested in working to combat apparent bias ....
cheers stuart