On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 2:38 PM, Jami Mathewson <jami@wikiedu.org> wrote:
I mentioned to Dan a while back that I would find it super useful if gender (for those who self-identify on their user accounts) were incorporated into the cohort information on Wikimetrics
Hi Jami,
Do you mean the gender specified in a user's preferences?
Especially with the current design,[1] I would encourage us not to rely on this preference as an accurate representation of the gender distribution of Wikimedia accounts.
The purpose of this preference is for software localization, not developing a profile of users. Consider that users have to wade through Preferences in order to find this, and there is little incentive for them to fuss with it if their language doesn't have a grammatical gender. It's not likely to be reliable data on the topic. Tighe's approach is probably much more accurate, especially when dealing with new editors.