In 2011 the project was only ten years old, four more years is time for big changes to have occurred. Changes we know something about include the repercussions of the transition from manual vandal fighting to predominately automated vandalism rejection. This may have had more subtle implications than the obvious one of the reduction in raw edit count. In 2011 we had an admin cadre still dominated by admins appointed in the era when "good vandal fighter" was sufficient qualification to pass RFA. Four years on the admin corps has changed by not changing. Roughly a fifth of our remaining admins have been appointed in the last four years, but through a process with a very different de facto criteria than before, and of course the vast majority of our admins are now four years older than in 2011. If the theory is true that vandal fighting was very attractive to teenage boys, then in 2011 our youngest admins might still not have been legally adult. Nowadays I doubt if we have many admins who are undergraduates.
Sometimes the dialogue within the movement can look like a bunch of over confident thirty something's talking at a bunch of grey beards who they think are adolescents and who think they are being hectored by young pups straight out of college. An editor survey would test theories such as the greying of the pedia, and as with any occasion when one has ones first look in the mirror after a long gap, it would tell us much about ourselves.
Another reason for doing another editor survey, and indeed a former editor's survey, is that some of us have been trying to fix the Gendergap for years, it would be nice to see if our efforts have had any impact. It could even test the theory that the community is more abrasive towards women. We know that we are less successful at recruiting female editors than male ones, I'm not sure if we have tested whether we are more successful at retaining established male editors than female ones, and if so whether we are losing women because they are lured away or driven away.
Regards
Jonathan Cardy
On 15 Feb 2015, at 08:34, koltzenburg@w4w.net wrote:
ah, thanks, GerardM,
so -- if I read your reaction correctly -- the underlying hypothesis on which it is based says that much has changed (or may have) since those old days? What information do you base this hypothesis on?
my main point, anyway, is to cast a doubt as to the methods used in such statistical work and interpretation of the outcome, any comments on that?
see also "Clearly, we need to measure some things, but we also need to be highly skeptical of what we choose to measure, how we do so, and what we do with the resulting data." Joseph M. Reagle Jr. (17 December 2014), Measure, manage, manipulate, http://reagle.org/joseph/pelican/social/measure-manage-manipulate.html
best, Claudia koltzenburg@w4w.net My GPG-Key-ID: DDD21523 ---------- Original Message ----------- From:Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com To:Research into Wikimedia content and communities <wiki-research- l@lists.wikimedia.org> Sent:Sun, 15 Feb 2015 08:05:24 +0100 Subject:Re: [Wiki-research-l] a cautious note on gender stats Re: Fwd: [Gendergap] Wikipedia readers
Hoi, Obviously I know. My point is that when we talk about diversity, it is because it was recognised as a problem ... When papers of 2011 are quoted in 2015 when diversity is mentioned, it does not give us a clue if the problem is as bad, worse or very much improved. Consequently it is very much beside the point. Thanks, GerardM
On 15 February 2015 at 07:48, koltzenburg@w4w.net wrote:
Hi GerardM,
why not have a guess ;-)
Claudia ---------- Original Message ----------- From:Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com To:Research into Wikimedia content and communities <wiki-research- l@lists.wikimedia.org> Sent:Sat, 14 Feb 2015 18:42:08 +0100 Subject:Re: [Wiki-research-l] a cautious note on gender stats Re: Fwd: [Gendergap] Wikipedia readers
Hoi, What year are we living ? Thanks, GerardM
On 14 February 2015 at 17:24, koltzenburg@w4w.net wrote:
my2cents re figures on percentages (... in a gender binary
paradigm),
well...
I'd suggest to take into account User:Pundit's thoughtful
considerations,
author of: Jemielniak, Dariusz (2014), Common knowledge? An
ethnography
of Wikipedia, Stanford University Press, pp. 14-15
Dariusz Jemielniak writes: "According to Wikipedia Editors Study, published in 2011, 91
percent of
all Wikipedia editors are male ([reference to a study of 2011] This
figure
may not be accurate, since it is based on a voluntary online survey advertised to 31,699 registered users and resulting on 5,073
complete
and
valid responses [...] it is possible that male editors are more likely
to
respond than female editors. Similarly, a study of self-declarations
of
gender showing only 16 percent are female editors (Lam et al. 2011)
may be
distorted, since more females may choose not to reveal their gender
in
a
community perceived as male dominated."
additionally, asserting status and flaunting seniority (also described by Jemielniak at the end of the paragraph previous to the one
quoted
above)
is generally perceived to be a commonly employed trick to resist
any
changes;
and, last but not least, one might argue that the group perceived as "in power" might feel to find strongly unbalanced outcomes most
rewarding,
and hence might tend to publish them as widely as possible and not
least
quote from them persistently, too...
any rebuttals from stats experts here?
best, Claudia koltzenburg@w4w.net My GPG-Key-ID: DDD21523
---------- Original Message ----------- From:Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com To:Research into Wikimedia content and communities <wiki-
research-
l@lists.wikimedia.org> Sent:Sat, 14 Feb 2015 10:49:29 +0100 Subject:[Wiki-research-l] Fwd: [Gendergap] Wikipedia readers
Forwarding here in case anyone has information that could benefit Yana ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com Date: Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 9:44 AM Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Wikipedia readers To: "Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participation of women within Wikimedia projects." < gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org>
In 2013 the Dutch Wikimedia chapter hired an external party to conduct a survey and the results (translated to English) are here:
https://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Motivaction_report_translation_v02.pd
f
The study was split into two parts; one on the contributors and one on the "users", aka readers. Users were 50/50 male female (page 51), contributors were 88% male, 6% female, and 6% would not say (page 26)
On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 8:11 AM, Yana Welinder yana@wikimedia.org wrote:
> Hi all, > > What are some good studies of the gender of Wikipedia
readers?
> > Thanks, > Yana > > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org > To manage your subscription preferences, including
unsubscribing,
please
> visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
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