Hi Leila,
Thanks for your thoughts.
Having just read Troy Vettese's very powerful essay, Sexism in the Academy (
), I wish
this were a top priority.
I stumbled upon a study today--it came up in the Washington Post's
excellent series on gender bias in political science. The authors look at a
set of award winning political science books and the gender imbalance in
the citations drawn from google scholar. I'm linking the piece here in
case anyone on this list is interested now, or in the future, in how the
patterns on Wikipedia compare.
Washington Post piece: "There’s a gender gap in who wins political science
book awards – and in how widely they’re cited"
"Just as significantly, women’s award-winning books receive fewer scholarly
citations than men’s award-winning volumes — and this disparity has grown,
rather than shrunk, in recent years. Over the entire period, APSA
award-winning volumes by women averaged 43 percent fewer citations per year
than those by male authors."
Paper: "Winning awards and gaining recognition: An impact analysis of APSA
section book prizes"
Best,
Greg
On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 3:44 PM <wiki-research-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: gender balance of wikipedia citations (Greg)
2. Re: gender balance of wikipedia citations (Leila Zia)
3. Wikimania 2019 disinformation meetup follow-up (Leila Zia)
4. Upcoming Research Newsletter (special issue on gender gap
research): New papers open for review (Mohammed Sadat Abdulai)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2019 09:57:15 -0700
From: Greg <thenatureprogram(a)gmail.com>
To: wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] gender balance of wikipedia citations
Message-ID:
<CAOO9DNuSYzzaVwcdqiWA7pj671z3N43XOSwv6DtW0SxWg=
L8GQ(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Hi Kerry,
Those are all very interesting ways to look at this. I was thinking mostly
along the lines of your first bullet point, but I'd be interested in
research in any of those areas.
Thanks,
Greg
On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 5:00 AM <
wiki-research-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. gender balance of wikipedia citations (Greg)
2. Re: gender balance of wikipedia citations (Kerry Raymond)
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2019 20:19:18 -0700
From: Greg <thenatureprogram(a)gmail.com>
To: wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wiki-research-l] gender balance of wikipedia citations
Message-ID:
<
CAOO9DNtY+oDO5oQrMZeG1NZE-kYNYLWnTD6acHeYTbYeGk8k2Q(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Greetings!
I was looking for information about the gender balance of Wikipedia
citations and no one I've asked knows of any work on this topic. Do you?
I think this is an important question.
Here's what I've learned so far:
Wikipedia citations are currently in the form of text strings. There is
also an initiative to place citations in an annotated structured
repository
(wikicite). I do not know the current status of
wikicite or if/when this
could be used for this inquiry--either to examine all, or a sensible
subset
of the citations.
My perspective is that understanding the gender balance is necessary and
urgent. The balance could be better, the same, or worse than the citation
balances we already know, and the scale of the effect is quite large.
Is this a line of inquiry that the wikimedia/wikicite community is
interested in pursuing? If so, what is the best way to get started? Does
the WMF have the resources and interest to look into this matter inhouse?
Thanks for your thoughts.
Greg
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2019 13:53:45 +1000
From: "Kerry Raymond" <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>
To: "'Research into Wikimedia content and communities'"
<wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] gender balance of wikipedia citations
Message-ID: <00ed01d5589d$33e31ed0$9ba95c70$(a)gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Could you elaborate a bit more on what you mean by the gender balance of
citations?
Are you talking about:
* proportion of male vs female authors of the source material used as
citations in arbitrary articles>
* the quality/quantity of citations in biography articles of men vs
women?
* the quality/quantity of citations in articles
that are gendered by some
other criteria (e.g. reader interest, romantic comedy vs action film)?
Kerry
-----Original Message-----
From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:
wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org]
On Behalf Of Greg
Sent: Thursday, 22 August 2019 1:19 PM
To: wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wiki-research-l] gender balance of wikipedia citations
Greetings!
I was looking for information about the gender balance of Wikipedia
citations and no one I've asked knows of any work on this topic. Do you?
I think this is an important question.
Here's what I've learned so far:
Wikipedia citations are currently in the form of text strings. There is
also an initiative to place citations in an annotated structured
repository
(wikicite). I do not know the current status of
wikicite or if/when this
could be used for this inquiry--either to examine all, or a sensible
subset
of the citations.
My perspective is that understanding the gender balance is necessary and
urgent. The balance could be better, the same, or worse than the citation
balances we already know, and the scale of the effect is quite large.
Is this a line of inquiry that the wikimedia/wikicite community is
interested in pursuing? If so, what is the best way to get started? Does
the WMF have the resources and interest to look into this matter inhouse?
Thanks for your thoughts.
Greg
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------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2019 10:43:51 -0700
From: Leila Zia <leila(a)wikimedia.org>
To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities
<wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] gender balance of wikipedia citations
Message-ID:
<CAK0Oe2uCo70_=ma2b=2d+fvr4GseEVxOP0sh=
ELNOpKdCuUfqA(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Hi Greg,
A few comments if you're going to go with "proportion of male vs
female authors of the source material used as citations in arbitrary
articles":
* Please differentiate between sex (female, male, ...) and gender
(woman, man, ...). My understanding from your initial email is that
you want to stay focused on gender, not sex.
* Unless you have reliable sources about the gender of an author, I
would not recommend trying to predict what the gender is. (As you may
know, this is not uncommon in social media studies, for example, to
predict the gender of the author based on their image or their name.
These approaches introduce biases and social challenges.)
* Re your question about whether WMF has resources to look into this
question in-house: I can't speak for the whole of WMF, however, I can
share more about the Research team's direction. As part of our future
work, we would like to "help contributors monitor violations of core
content policies and assess information reliability and bias both
granularly and at scale". [1] The question you proposed can fall under
assessing bias in content (considering citations as part of the
content). I expect us to focus first on the piece about violations of
core content policies and information reliability and come back to the
bias question later. As a result, we won't have bandwidth to do your
proposal in-house at the moment. Sorry about that.
I hope this helps.
Best,
Leila
[1] Section 2 of our Knowledge Integrity whitepaper:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Knowledge_Integrity_-_W…
On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 9:57 AM Greg <thenatureprogram(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Kerry,
Those are all very interesting ways to look at this. I was thinking
mostly
along the lines of your first bullet point, but
I'd be interested in
research in any of those areas.
Thanks,
Greg
On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 5:00 AM <
wiki-research-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> Send Wiki-research-l mailing list submissions to
> wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> wiki-research-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> wiki-research-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Wiki-research-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. gender balance of wikipedia citations (Greg)
> 2. Re: gender balance of wikipedia citations (Kerry Raymond)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2019 20:19:18 -0700
> From: Greg <thenatureprogram(a)gmail.com>
> To: wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wiki-research-l] gender balance of wikipedia citations
> Message-ID:
> <
> CAOO9DNtY+oDO5oQrMZeG1NZE-kYNYLWnTD6acHeYTbYeGk8k2Q(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Greetings!
>
> I was looking for information about the gender balance of Wikipedia
> citations and no one I've asked knows of any work on this topic. Do
you?
>
> I think this is an important question.
>
> Here's what I've learned so far:
>
> Wikipedia citations are currently in the form of text strings. There is
> also an initiative to place citations in an annotated structured
repository
> (wikicite). I do not know the current status
of wikicite or if/when
this
> could be used for this inquiry--either to
examine all, or a sensible
subset
> of the citations.
>
> My perspective is that understanding the gender balance is necessary
and
> urgent. The balance could be better, the
same, or worse than the
citation
> balances we already know, and the scale of
the effect is quite large.
>
> Is this a line of inquiry that the wikimedia/wikicite community is
> interested in pursuing? If so, what is the best way to get started?
Does
> the WMF have the resources and interest to
look into this matter
inhouse?
>
> Thanks for your thoughts.
>
> Greg
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2019 13:53:45 +1000
> From: "Kerry Raymond" <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>
> To: "'Research into Wikimedia content and communities'"
> <wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] gender balance of wikipedia citations
> Message-ID: <00ed01d5589d$33e31ed0$9ba95c70$(a)gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Could you elaborate a bit more on what you mean by the gender balance
of
> citations?
>
> Are you talking about:
>
> * proportion of male vs female authors of the source material used as
> citations in arbitrary articles>
> * the quality/quantity of citations in biography articles of men vs
women?
> * the quality/quantity of citations in
articles that are gendered by
some
> other criteria (e.g. reader interest,
romantic comedy vs action film)?
>
> Kerry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:
wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org]
> On Behalf Of Greg
> Sent: Thursday, 22 August 2019 1:19 PM
> To: wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wiki-research-l] gender balance of wikipedia citations
>
> Greetings!
>
> I was looking for information about the gender balance of Wikipedia
> citations and no one I've asked knows of any work on this topic. Do
you?
>
> I think this is an important question.
>
> Here's what I've learned so far:
>
> Wikipedia citations are currently in the form of text strings. There is
> also an initiative to place citations in an annotated structured
repository
> (wikicite). I do not know the current status
of wikicite or if/when
this
> could be used for this inquiry--either to
examine all, or a sensible
subset
> of the citations.
>
> My perspective is that understanding the gender balance is necessary
and
> urgent. The balance could be better, the
same, or worse than the
citation
> balances we already know, and the scale of
the effect is quite large.
>
> Is this a line of inquiry that the wikimedia/wikicite community is
> interested in pursuing? If so, what is the best way to get started?
Does
> the WMF have the resources and interest to
look into this matter
inhouse?
Thanks for your thoughts.
Greg
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2019 13:36:17 -0700
From: Leila Zia <leila(a)wikimedia.org>
To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities
<wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wiki-research-l] Wikimania 2019 disinformation meetup
follow-up
Message-ID:
<CAK0Oe2sodYJpkuhSqgo3dtfDr=
NQ5EK1TdH16F6BOkTyFho9Rg(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Hi,
This message is for those of you who attended the disinformation
meet-up [0] in Wikimania 2019 [1] or others who may be interested.
* The notes from our meet-up are now posted in the bottom of the page [0].
* I was tasked to see if
space.wmflabs.org is the place for us to
continue conversations about this topic. The answer is yes. Thanks to
the help of Elena Lappen, we now have a dedicated subcategory for
disinformation:
https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/c/research/disinformation . Feel
free to subscribe, watch, and/or post new topics if you're involved in
this space.
* If you are new to this conversation, please read the purpose of the
subcategory at
https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/about-the-disinformation-category/949
and welcome! :)
Best,
Leila
[0]
https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Meetups/Disinformation
[1]
https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Program
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2019 22:43:53 +0000 (UTC)
From: Mohammed Sadat Abdulai <masssly(a)ymail.com>
To: Research Into Wikimedia Content and Communities
<wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wiki-research-l] Upcoming Research Newsletter (special issue
on gender gap research): New papers open for review
Message-ID: <1625269943.668598.1566513833343(a)mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hi everyone,
We’re preparing for the August 2019 research newsletter and looking for
contributors. Please take a look at
https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/WRN201908 and add your name next to any
paper you are interested in covering. Our target publication date is on 31
August 11:59 UTC. As usual, short notes and one-paragraph reviews are most
welcome.
For the August edition, we are planning a special issue focusing mainly
on recent gender gap/gender bias research. (Upcoming special issues topics
may include health and education.) There are about 20 papers from this area
on our todo list which will all be covered in the August issue, either as a
mere list item or - with your help - in form of a more informative writeup
or review. They include:
- Analyzing Gender Stereotyping in Bollywood Movies
- Breaking the glass ceiling on Wikipedia| journal
- Breastfeeding, Authority, and Genre: Women's Ethos in Wikipedia and
Blogs
- Cyberfeminism on Wikipedia: Visibility and deliberation in feminist
Wikiprojects
- Gender and deletion on Wikipedia
- Gender imbalance and Wikipedia
- Gender Markers in Wikipedia Usernames
- How do students trust Wikipedia? An examination across genders
- Investigating the Gender Pronoun Gap in Wikipedia
- It’s Not What You Think: Gender Bias in Information about Fortune
1000 CEOs on Wikipedia
- Mapping and Bridging the Gender Gap: An Ethnographic Study of Indian
Wikipedians and Their Motivations to Contribute
- People Who Can Take It: How Women Wikipedians Negotiate and Navigate
Safety
- Redressing Gender Inequities on Wikipedia Through an Editathon
- Similar Gaps, Different Origins? Women Readers and Editors at Greek
Wikipedia
- Simulation Experiments on (the Absence of) Ratings Bias in Reputation
Systems
- The Gendered Presentation of Professions on Wikipedia
- Who Counts as a Notable Sociologist on Wikipedia? Gender, Race, and
the “Professor Test”
- Who Wants to Read This?: A Method for Measuring Topical
Representativeness in User Generated Content Systems
- Women and Wikipedia. Diversifying Editors and Enhancing Content
through Library Edit-a-Thons
Masssly and Tilman Bayer
[1] Research:Newsletter - Meta[2] WikiResearch (@WikiResearch) on Twitter
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