Stan Shebs wrote
The hazard of asserting that women editors have something similarly distinctive to bring to WP, by virtue of gender alone, is that one is playing right into the stereotype of "women's topics" or "female viewpoints", and risks creating a sort of "pink collar" ghetto in WP that new female editors would be subtly (or not-so-subtly) steered towards.
The argument is broken.
Sure, creating the editorial equivalent of traditional newspapers' Women's Pages is not only a generation out of date and patronising, it is nothing anyone with WP experience would want anything to do with.
But WP is a voluntary organisation, first and foremost. Discouraging women in any way is shooting ourselves in the feet, big time. Not just because slant in topic coverage will be harder to correct. But because women are (on average) better quality volunteers. Why else did we elect Angela and Anthere to the Board?
Charles
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charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Stan Shebs wrote
The hazard of asserting that women editors have something similarly distinctive to bring to WP, by virtue of gender alone, is that one is playing right into the stereotype of "women's topics" or "female viewpoints", and risks creating a sort of "pink collar" ghetto in WP that new female editors would be subtly (or not-so-subtly) steered towards.
The argument is broken.
Sure, creating the editorial equivalent of traditional newspapers' Women's Pages is not only a generation out of date and patronising, it is nothing anyone with WP experience would want anything to do with.
But WP is a voluntary organisation, first and foremost. Discouraging women in any way is shooting ourselves in the feet, big time. Not just because slant in topic coverage will be harder to correct. But because women are (on average) better quality volunteers. Why else did we elect Angela and Anthere to the Board?
I absolutely agree. I'm speaking purely to the systemic bias point, valiantly trying to stay on-topic for this thread. :-)
My gut feeling on this is that there is some systemic bias in topics of interest to women, but that it's subtle and going to be hard to write down as a project a la Africa coverage. As I mentioned earlier, our right person to write in depth about blowdryers is not the daily user who has only anecdotal unsourced comments to relate, but the nerd who collects books on the subject or the retired engineer who used to design them - but how do you advertise the interest without getting into a big fight about stereotypes? Nobody gets accused of any -ism for building up a list of Gabon-related topics.
Stan
Stan Shebs wrote:
charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Stan Shebs wrote
The hazard of asserting that women editors have something similarly distinctive to bring to WP, by virtue of gender alone, is that one is playing right into the stereotype of "women's topics" or "female viewpoints", and risks creating a sort of "pink collar" ghetto in WP that new female editors would be subtly (or not-so-subtly) steered towards.
The argument is broken.
Sure, creating the editorial equivalent of traditional newspapers' Women's Pages is not only a generation out of date and patronising, it is nothing anyone with WP experience would want anything to do with.
But WP is a voluntary organisation, first and foremost. Discouraging women in any way is shooting ourselves in the feet, big time. Not just because slant in topic coverage will be harder to correct. But because women are (on average) better quality volunteers. Why else did we elect Angela and Anthere to the Board?
I absolutely agree. I'm speaking purely to the systemic bias point, valiantly trying to stay on-topic for this thread. :-)
My gut feeling on this is that there is some systemic bias in topics of interest to women, but that it's subtle and going to be hard to write down as a project a la Africa coverage. As I mentioned earlier, our right person to write in depth about blowdryers is not the daily user who has only anecdotal unsourced comments to relate, but the nerd who collects books on the subject or the retired engineer who used to design them - but how do you advertise the interest without getting into a big fight about stereotypes? Nobody gets accused of any -ism for building up a list of Gabon-related topics.
Stan
It appears to me there are two topics here (worth staying on, anyway): systemic bias as regards articles, which I don't see specific evidence of, although along with Stan I have a bit of a "gut feeling" about, although I entered this thread to protest Blowdryers as a "woman's" topic. The second topic on this thread could be categorized as subtle discouragement of women in general, which I didn't realize existed until this thread. I agree with Fred that dialogs can be productive, and while I have no clue as to any bias in coverage or methods to address them, I feel we have made some progress on looking at and trying to resolve the issue of overall subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) bias against women contributors. I have no diffs to offer, as someone requested - I personally have not experienced much sexism, but that may be because so many people think I'm male.
-kc-
Responses to several subthreads, all mixed up:
So, Alphax said something... ill-considered at best. If I hadn't been one of the first to see the post, I wouldn't have responded, either, not out of intimidation but because I don't see the need to pile on. It was a tactless and ill-judged posting, and someone should have said something about it; someone did and I don't see the need for *everyone* to, particularly if it had been then left and everyone went on talking about the primary topic of the thread.
It's interesting for me to read of the private responses kc has received: I find it hard to think of myself feeling intimidated at the thought of responding to that, and I normally consider myself more timid than most. If I ever feel intimidated on the list (and sometimes I do), it's because I think I'm less knowledgeable about the subject being discussed or because I have a very unpopular opinion; this feeling is not unique to Wikimedia lists, and not even different for me on mostly-female lists. I'm surprised to hear of so many women feeling intimidated over concerns of sexism here because I simply haven't experienced it -- or perhaps I have and am oblivious to it.
(As for the idea that any criticism of the position that there is bias here would be held as evidence of misogyny -- if the criticism expressed so far were more genuine and less antagonistic it would be better received. Responding antagonistically and then holding up the fact that you were attacked for it does not help make the argument that reasonable criticism also would be attacked.)
I don't know of any of our policies in particular that are unfriendly to women, and so I don't know how they would be changed to be more female-friendly. If I do see a problem it is with the users and their interactions and not with the policies themselves, which seem fairly neutral; I'd like to see examples of policies and processes that others believe *are* harmful in this way.
If anything, I think "female" topics (whatever they may be) would be more welcoming -- less contentious, fewer people fighting over them. (Aside from the hot-buttons: abortion, etc.) My own areas of interest are for the most part uncontentious; I don't know that I would have the patience to stick around long if my primary interests were hot-button politics or religion, where personal beliefs, characteristics, and affiliations of all sorts are brought into the unending arguments.
The thread has gone somewhat off the original topic in discussing the extreme harassment against female editors, which, yes, I have experienced as well. Everyone agrees that it's horrible and generally that the people who engage in it should be banned into oblivion. However, I don't think that it is Wikipedia policy or process enabling it, save that Wikipedia is part of the internet and that sadly a woman who reveals her gender online is probably going to be harassed; really the only way to avoid it anywhere is anonymity. (Men have been harassed this way on WP too, though it's indeed less common, and they are only targeted by plain creepy jerks, not creepy jerk misogynists.)
The coverage issues that the thread started with are more interesting to me. Why are topics that are traditionally of female interest, whatever they are, less well-covered? My completely-unsupported-by-evidence anecdotal conjecture is that the intersection of people interested in those topics with the people who spend a lot of time online and think it would be enjoyable to edit an online encyclopedia is somewhat less than that with, say, those who are interested in computing and military history. (I'm not one of the people, incidentally: I have little knowledge of many traditionally female-interest topics, which is part of why I spend so much time online in the first place.)
And I don't know that changing the way we work is the way to change that -- we have to bring them here first. It seems that they don't care much that we exist, or realize that they can edit, or know what the policies are that they might object to; if we want these subjects covered I would suggest reaching out to the places where enthusiasts of these topics share information (magazines, specialty forums, etc) and helping them get started, maybe even encouraging them to adapt or release material they've already written elsewhere. But as far as I can tell the potential writers aren't even here to do that.
-Kat
On 11/25/06, Kat Walsh mindspillage@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
And I don't know that changing the way we work is the way to change that -- we have to bring them here first. It seems that they don't care much that we exist, or realize that they can edit, or know what the policies are that they might object to; if we want these subjects covered I would suggest reaching out to the places where enthusiasts of these topics share information (magazines, specialty forums, etc) and helping them get started, maybe even encouraging them to adapt or release material they've already written elsewhere.
I don't fully agree on this point.
I believe that while bringing in people who like X to write about X is a good start, it will not be enough to produce even coverage.
There will always be subjects which are important but where the intersection of people who are interested, whom are willing, and whom are able to write free content will be small.
So in parallel to finding ways to attract a wider spectrum of regular volunteer contributors, we should also be exploring a number of other solutions:
# Encouraging our existing volunteers to write about things they don't care about but which we can generally agree that we ought to cover well. ## Admittedly, we already do this to an extent but there is certainly more we can do.
# We're already raising money for the substantial operating costs of the projects, and there have already been of grants to create for content on non-wikipedia projects (wikibooks for example). It would be possible for us to get some folks paid to work full time writing and improving content where we have insufficient volunteer resources available. ## This will require having a good picture of what we need done. The various content projects have done a lot of work which will help us, but I'm not sure that we have enough lined up to actually go about hiring people to do the work.
Both of the two options classes I've proposed are both more actionable than the vague suggestion to "bring more users of class X" and I have more confidence that both are more likely to bring about the desired outcome (better coverage).
So while I'm not opposed to bringing in a broader spectrum of volunteers, I think should treat such an effort as distinct from an effort to improve the evenness of our coverage.
On 11/26/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
# Encouraging our existing volunteers to write about things they don't care about but which we can generally agree that we ought to cover well. ## Admittedly, we already do this to an extent but there is certainly more we can do.
Not really. Most wikipedia volunteers are here to write about the stuff they are interested in. They are not interested in major work beyond that. Sometimes the boarders can be bent (so you are interested in wars? How about the wars of Africa?). Sometimes they cannot be.
Further problems is that sometimes you need particular bits of knowledge to write about things. Hard to write much about say Mauritania without being able to read Arabic and french (which is a pity because the results of the last elections came out on Thursday and [[Politics of Mauritania]] need uprating).
# We're already raising money for the substantial operating costs of the projects, and there have already been of grants to create for content on non-wikipedia projects (wikibooks for example). It would be possible for us to get some folks paid to work full time writing and improving content where we have insufficient volunteer resources available. ## This will require having a good picture of what we need done. The various content projects have done a lot of work which will help us, but I'm not sure that we have enough lined up to actually go about hiring people to do the work.
Working with people paid to edit is going to be problematical since you would likely have to pay them to do more than write.
On 11/25/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/26/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
# Encouraging our existing volunteers to write about things they don't care about but which we can generally agree that we ought to cover well. ## Admittedly, we already do this to an extent but there is certainly more we can do.
Not really. Most wikipedia volunteers are here to write about the stuff they are interested in. They are not interested in major work beyond that. Sometimes the boarders can be bent (so you are interested in wars? How about the wars of Africa?). Sometimes they cannot be.
Further problems is that sometimes you need particular bits of knowledge to write about things. Hard to write much about say Mauritania without being able to read Arabic and french (which is a pity because the results of the last elections came out on Thursday and [[Politics of Mauritania]] need uprating).
If your writing is totally dependant on what you know, then you probably have a [[WP:NOR]] related problem.
A side effect of NOR is that completely disinterested parties should be able to do a job of similar quality to our interested writers, although perhaps with a somewhat greater expenditure of energy.
... and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to expend energy. We call our contributors volunteers for a reason. Are people vacationing at Disney land called 'volunteers'? :)
We do see evidence of folks working on subjects that are not primary interests to them... I saw it in the last danny contest, but I'm sure there are many other examples.
Working with people paid to edit is going to be problematical since you would likely have to pay them to do more than write.
I do not claim that it's trivial. Only that it's actionable. ... We don't really know what to expect. It's my thought that on many of the subjects that need work it will be fairly easy... if anyone cared enough to fight over the content of the article then the article probably wouldn't stink. If this turns out to be true, then our policy for paid writers could be to tell them to just walk away from any subject where community interest presents an obstacle to their efforts.
On 11/26/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
If your writing is totally dependant on what you know, then you probably have a [[WP:NOR]] related problem.
Not at all. most people don't do much in the way of OR.
A side effect of NOR is that completely disinterested parties should be able to do a job of similar quality to our interested writers, although perhaps with a somewhat greater expenditure of energy.
Evidences suggest otherwise.
... and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to expend energy. We call our contributors volunteers for a reason. Are people vacationing at Disney land called 'volunteers'? :)
We do see evidence of folks working on subjects that are not primary interests to them... I saw it in the last danny contest, but I'm sure there are many other examples.
The Danny contest was won by the mililtry history guys.
I do not claim that it's trivial. Only that it's actionable. ... We don't really know what to expect. It's my thought that on many of the subjects that need work it will be fairly easy... if anyone cared enough to fight over the content of the article then the article probably wouldn't stink. If this turns out to be true, then our policy for paid writers could be to tell them to just walk away from any subject where community interest presents an obstacle to their efforts.
So we can't even be sure of getting what we paid for. Mercenry editors are of little use to us.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
There will always be subjects which are important but where the intersection of people who are interested, whom are willing, and whom are able to write free content will be small.
So in parallel to finding ways to attract a wider spectrum of regular volunteer contributors, we should also be exploring a number of other solutions:
# Encouraging our existing volunteers to write about things they don't care about but which we can generally agree that we ought to cover well.
We already have some Wikipedians wanting more experts. This is the opposite to what you propose. Writing about things that you don't care about is not easy. Try doing such an article from scratch. You can find a book and write about what's in there, but your lack of background will quickly become apparent.
# We're already raising money for the substantial operating costs of the projects, and there have already been of grants to create for content on non-wikipedia projects (wikibooks for example). It would be possible for us to get some folks paid to work full time writing and improving content where we have insufficient volunteer resources available. ## This will require having a good picture of what we need done. The various content projects have done a lot of work which will help us, but I'm not sure that we have enough lined up to actually go about hiring people to do the work.
Both of the two options classes I've proposed are both more actionable than the vague suggestion to "bring more users of class X" and I have more confidence that both are more likely to bring about the desired outcome (better coverage).
So while I'm not opposed to bringing in a broader spectrum of volunteers, I think should treat such an effort as distinct from an effort to improve the evenness of our coverage.
Paying people to write articles would be a whole new ballgame, and probably very un-wiki.. There would be no more effective way of creating a class of vested interests with certain visions of how they want the project to look. We all want better coverage, but at what cost?
Ec
It's not very wiki-like, you're right, but Wikipedia actually began with one of the founders getting paid to write articles.
--Ryan W.
On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
There will always be subjects which are important but where the intersection of people who are interested, whom are willing, and whom are able to write free content will be small.
So in parallel to finding ways to attract a wider spectrum of regular volunteer contributors, we should also be exploring a number of other solutions:
# Encouraging our existing volunteers to write about things they don't care about but which we can generally agree that we ought to cover well.
We already have some Wikipedians wanting more experts. This is the opposite to what you propose. Writing about things that you don't care about is not easy. Try doing such an article from scratch. You can find a book and write about what's in there, but your lack of background will quickly become apparent.
# We're already raising money for the substantial operating costs of the projects, and there have already been of grants to create for content on non-wikipedia projects (wikibooks for example). It would be possible for us to get some folks paid to work full time writing and improving content where we have insufficient volunteer resources available. ## This will require having a good picture of what we need done. The various content projects have done a lot of work which will help us, but I'm not sure that we have enough lined up to actually go about hiring people to do the work.
Both of the two options classes I've proposed are both more actionable than the vague suggestion to "bring more users of class X" and I have more confidence that both are more likely to bring about the desired outcome (better coverage).
So while I'm not opposed to bringing in a broader spectrum of volunteers, I think should treat such an effort as distinct from an effort to improve the evenness of our coverage.
Paying people to write articles would be a whole new ballgame, and probably very un-wiki.. There would be no more effective way of creating a class of vested interests with certain visions of how they want the project to look. We all want better coverage, but at what cost?
Ec
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This is true enough, and there were brief experiments at paying people to write in Ossetian and Bambara. At this advanced stage, however, we can look backi at Larry's work as getting the ball rolling to the point where there would be enough material for us to be noticed. There are probably some lesser known languages where paying people for a limited time would have a similar effect.
In the long run we need to recognize that the work done by our hordes of volunteers has most often been damn good. We will always have pockets that are full of problems, and we shouldn't dwell on these negatives in the overall evaluation.
Ec
Ryan Wetherell wrote:
It's not very wiki-like, you're right, but Wikipedia actually began with one of the founders getting paid to write articles.
On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Paying people to write articles would be a whole new ballgame, and probably very un-wiki.. There would be no more effective way of creating a class of vested interests with certain visions of how they want the project to look. We all want better coverage, but at what cost?
On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Paying people to write articles would be a whole new ballgame, and probably very un-wiki.. There would be no more effective way of creating a class of vested interests with certain visions of how they want the project to look. We all want better coverage, but at what cost?
Don't be so foolish to deny that there are already people being paid to edit...
The question in my mind is: Will more people be paid to advance the public good in cooperation with the larger community of contributors, or will more people be paid to advance private interests in opposition and through subverison of the communities interests.
Done right, I think such an adventure could do a lot to strengthen our community and leave us better prepared to cope with the results of people paid to edit for less noble goals.
At least were we to embark on that particular journey we would do with sensitivity and understanding of the risks. In no way should any such measure be itself used as a mechanism for control. The purpose of paid writers would be .. to write. And any such arrangement should be structured to avoid the creation of such interests. For example, it would be reasonable that you get paid just as equally if the community goes and removes your work.
You didn't elaborate much on your position, but I don't buy yet your claim of vested interests. Who cares more about controlling Wikipedia? Some nationalist who spends his every free moment working without pay to shape Wikipedias coverage, or some working person punching a time clock and writing a bunch of material selected by someone else?
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Paying people to write articles would be a whole new ballgame, and probably very un-wiki.. There would be no more effective way of creating a class of vested interests with certain visions of how they want the project to look. We all want better coverage, but at what cost?
Don't be so foolish to deny that there are already people being paid to edit...
It would be generally unsound for me to try to prove that something like that doesn't happen, but I am probably safe to say that it doesn't happen on any kind of large public scale. Nevertheless whether something is happening, and the implications of it happening are two separate issues.
The question in my mind is: Will more people be paid to advance the public good in cooperation with the larger community of contributors, or will more people be paid to advance private interests in opposition and through subverison of the communities interests.
Private payments in support of private interests are less dangerous than direct subsidies from Wikimedia. We know they are outsiders. Direct payment can too easily suggest that the payee has the WMF stamp of approval, or somehow states the "official" POV for his selected topics.
Done right, I think such an adventure could do a lot to strengthen our community and leave us better prepared to cope with the results of people paid to edit for less noble goals.
More than likely it will strenghthen the community in opposition to the mercenaries.
At least were we to embark on that particular journey we would do with sensitivity and understanding of the risks. In no way should any such measure be itself used as a mechanism for control. The purpose of paid writers would be .. to write. And any such arrangement should be structured to avoid the creation of such interests. For example, it would be reasonable that you get paid just as equally if the community goes and removes your work.
These would all be important considerations. Preventing the rise of vested and controlling interests would require great insight. Time-limited (perhaps three months), non-renewable contracts could be a factor.
You didn't elaborate much on your position, but I don't buy yet your claim of vested interests. Who cares more about controlling Wikipedia? Some nationalist who spends his every free moment working without pay to shape Wikipedias coverage, or some working person punching a time clock and writing a bunch of material selected by someone else?
Those nationalists are out there where you can watch them. Vested interests are a kind of dependancy relationship. Maintaining the status quo allows them to collect dividends in whatever form may be relevant. A regular paycheque is one form of such dividend. Volunteers can also become dependent on paid staff to carry out certain tasks to the point that some tasks are set-aside because there is paid staff to do them.
Ec
A little grist for the mill, blog posts by feminist academics who are Wikipedia outsiders or near outsiders:
http://badgerbag.typepad.com/badgerbag/2006/08/feminist_histor.html
http://smg.typepad.com/smg/2006/09/wiki_wiki.html
-Ragesoss
On 26/11/06, Sage Ross sage.ross@yale.edu wrote:
A little grist for the mill, blog posts by feminist academics who are Wikipedia outsiders or near outsiders: http://badgerbag.typepad.com/badgerbag/2006/08/feminist_histor.html http://smg.typepad.com/smg/2006/09/wiki_wiki.html
Ah, thank you so very much. These are just the sort of things I was looking for. I'll see what can be done to round up contributors to alleviate the systemic bias.
- d.
On 12/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Ah, thank you so very much. These are just the sort of things I was looking for. I'll see what can be done to round up contributors to alleviate the systemic bias.
The postings are also interesting from the point-of-view of finding what turns off qualified people from contributing Wikipedia.
Unsurprisingly, both blogs mention that the whole 'notability' mess is a big barrier, and a big part of our systemic bias. We keep things that appeal to the average Wikipedian and try to delete things the average Wikipedian has never heard of. Sure, most of the time an expert new editor will be able to save their new article with sufficient argument and sourcing, but the prospect of that argument being necessary is enough to turn people off.
The "West of the Moon: blog entry also mentions some other aspects. It confirms my suspicions that infoboxes and tables are off-putting to those not familiar with them (or at least, not used to editing structured markup) - she mentions wanting to fix the [[Alabama]] infobox. Advanced markup appeals to the established contributor and the computer-geek, but the more complicated the markup the more challenging it is for outsiders to make the first steps to becoming Wikipedia contributors.
In both cases, having to deal with the petty squabbling puts them off. I'm not sure whether this can easily be fixed, though.
-Matt
Kat Walsh wrote:
Responses to several subthreads, all mixed up:
So, Alphax said something... ill-considered at best. If I hadn't been one of the first to see the post, I wouldn't have responded, either, not out of intimidation but because I don't see the need to pile on. It was a tactless and ill-judged posting, and someone should have said something about it; someone did and I don't see the need for *everyone* to, particularly if it had been then left and everyone went on talking about the primary topic of the thread.
It's interesting for me to read of the private responses kc has received: I find it hard to think of myself feeling intimidated at the thought of responding to that, and I normally consider myself more timid than most. If I ever feel intimidated on the list (and sometimes I do), it's because I think I'm less knowledgeable about the subject being discussed or because I have a very unpopular opinion; this feeling is not unique to Wikimedia lists, and not even different for me on mostly-female lists. I'm surprised to hear of so many women feeling intimidated over concerns of sexism here because I simply haven't experienced it -- or perhaps I have and am oblivious to it.
I find your analysis of this thread refreshing To some extent we all experience some level of intimidation. Unpopular opinions tend to be not very well received, and sometimes the responses can be quite out of proportion. Knowing this we resist jumping into some threads.
(As for the idea that any criticism of the position that there is bias here would be held as evidence of misogyny -- if the criticism expressed so far were more genuine and less antagonistic it would be better received. Responding antagonistically and then holding up the fact that you were attacked for it does not help make the argument that reasonable criticism also would be attacked.)
Absolutely. Masculine hysteria abounds. Sexist and often boorish comments are hysterically interpreted as misogyny. Claims that someone has said something wrong are elaborated into claims of lying. Investigations of possible copyvios are treated as outright certainties. Statements are often sprinkled with that greatest of attack words, "obviously."
I don't know of any of our policies in particular that are unfriendly to women, and so I don't know how they would be changed to be more female-friendly. If I do see a problem it is with the users and their interactions and not with the policies themselves, which seem fairly neutral; I'd like to see examples of policies and processes that others believe *are* harmful in this way.
I again agree. What often appears female-unfriendly is the masculine tone with which some issues are pursued, whether or not women are involved or mentioned. The absolute certainty and immutability of some views is not consistent with the more feminine tendency toward negotiation and accomodation. The punitve attitude that everything would be so much better if only we acted more harshly with offenders often leaves little room for new win-win solutions. For sure, there will always be people who need to be banned, but in a remedial environment it is done out of a real need to improve the community rather than to get rid of petty annoyances.
The thread has gone somewhat off the original topic in discussing the extreme harassment against female editors, which, yes, I have experienced as well. Everyone agrees that it's horrible and generally that the people who engage in it should be banned into oblivion. However, I don't think that it is Wikipedia policy or process enabling it, save that Wikipedia is part of the internet and that sadly a woman who reveals her gender online is probably going to be harassed; really the only way to avoid it anywhere is anonymity. (Men have been harassed this way on WP too, though it's indeed less common, and they are only targeted by plain creepy jerks, not creepy jerk misogynists.)
One still needs to distinguish between the very poor manners of sexist comments in a mailing list, and the offline extremes applied by the stalkers.
The coverage issues that the thread started with are more interesting to me. Why are topics that are traditionally of female interest, whatever they are, less well-covered? My completely-unsupported-by-evidence anecdotal conjecture is that the intersection of people interested in those topics with the people who spend a lot of time online and think it would be enjoyable to edit an online encyclopedia is somewhat less than that with, say, those who are interested in computing and military history. (I'm not one of the people, incidentally: I have little knowledge of many traditionally female-interest topics, which is part of why I spend so much time online in the first place.)
With patience people (women?) will eventually arrive to deal with these topics. There are plenty of women's magazines in supermarket magazine racks, so there must be authors to produce all that. We need to remember too that cooking may be stereotypically considered as a female topic, yet there was a protracted dispute about having recipes in Wikipedia. It could be intimidating to believe that other such topics could be treated as not worthy of a proper encyclopedia.
And I don't know that changing the way we work is the way to change that -- we have to bring them here first. It seems that they don't care much that we exist, or realize that they can edit, or know what the policies are that they might object to; if we want these subjects covered I would suggest reaching out to the places where enthusiasts of these topics share information (magazines, specialty forums, etc) and helping them get started, maybe even encouraging them to adapt or release material they've already written elsewhere. But as far as I can tell the potential writers aren't even here to do that.
Yes, it just takes patience.
Ec
Kat Walsh wrote:
The coverage issues that the thread started with are more interesting to me. Why are topics that are traditionally of female interest, whatever they are, less well-covered? My completely-unsupported-by-evidence anecdotal conjecture is that the intersection of people interested in those topics with the people who spend a lot of time online and think it would be enjoyable to edit an online encyclopedia is somewhat less than that with, say, those who are interested in computing and military history.
Hmm, it occurs to me that if the dateless geeks learn enough about blowdryers and such to write articles, they have excellent conversation starters for the women they've always been tongue-tied with before. A little risky though - sometime after "Hi, I notice you're wearing Prada - DYK that Prada..." one would have to get in "No, I'm not gay, just a Wikipedian".
:-)
Stan
Agreed...very good points.
On 11/25/06, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Stan Shebs wrote
The hazard of asserting that women editors have something similarly distinctive to bring to WP, by virtue of gender alone, is that one is playing right into the stereotype of "women's topics" or "female viewpoints", and risks creating a sort of "pink collar" ghetto in WP that new female editors would be subtly (or not-so-subtly) steered
towards.
The argument is broken.
Sure, creating the editorial equivalent of traditional newspapers' Women's Pages is not only a generation out of date and patronising, it is nothing anyone with WP experience would want anything to do with.
But WP is a voluntary organisation, first and foremost. Discouraging women in any way is shooting ourselves in the feet, big time. Not just because slant in topic coverage will be harder to correct. But because women are (on average) better quality volunteers. Why else did we elect Angela and Anthere to the Board?
Charles
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