[Gendergap] [Gendergap : A suggestion: Towards 100.000 F. articles in Wikipedia

[Ryan Kaldari]

Although this is both US and English-centric (as usual), I would like to 
advertise that the current US Collaboration of the Month is Nineteenth 
Amendment to the United States Constitution (which gave women the right 
to vote). If anyone is blogging on the gender gap issue, this would be a 
good suggestion for where people could jump in. Until recently, the 
article was barely more than a stub.

Regarding Patricia's suggestion, I think this is a great idea. The new 
WikiProject Women's History is already making good headway on 
identifying articles that would be of interest. WikiProject Feminism 
also has a few worklists that could be added to the pot.

Ryan Kaldari

On 2/9/11 1:21 AM, patricia morales wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> Thank you for this inspiring dialogue. Inspired by the convergence of 
> opinions, I believe it would be good to make a concrete difference in 
> Wikipedia.
>
> A suggestion I would like to share is to develop a number of articles 
> (100,000? -in total in various languages) in 1 or 2 years (?) related 
> to women. These articles may receive a symbol (eg an F inside a circle 
> in red, pink?) Similarly (not in the procedure) to articles with a 
> star. They could also be on a list, and that list, if possible, be 
> composed of several languages.
>
> For example:
> existing articles on Maria Curie, etc.
> articles with more biographies of women)
> articles on women's rights
> articles on the role of women in indigenous religions (Pachamama, etc) 
> or concepts (motherland, matria, etc)
>
> A cross-sensitive women's proposal, which is poorly represented at 
> editorial as well as thematic level.
>
> Wikipedia would be proactive inviting both women and men to break this 
> gap.
> At the same time this initiative can feminize Wikipedia progressively 
> attracting more women as editors and have more female readers.
>
>
> Patricia
> University of Leuven (projects on solidarity at UNESCO Chair on 
> Building Sustainable Peace)
>
> --- On *Tue, 2/8/11, Susan Spencer /<susan.spencer at gmail.com>/* wrote:
>
>
>     From: Susan Spencer <susan.spencer at gmail.com>
>     Subject: Re: [Gendergap] A pet peeve / cliche
>     To: gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org
>     Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 11:55 PM
>
>     First, Sandy,
>
>     I totally agree with you - the few men who
>     use negative locker room talk about women have
>     caused the downfall of many women in management.
>     The majority of men don't make statements like this,
>     but they do let them be discussed.
>     So good guys, stop being a part of the problem.  Tell the
>     insecure guys to shut up, that nobody wants to hear that
>     stuff anymore.
>
>     Second, Miguel,
>
>     Thank you for pointing out that the gender gap
>     exists all over the world.
>
>     You propose the Wikipedia site itself might be a problem,
>     because women don't want to work with it because
>     it isn't WYSIWYG. <*sigh*>
>     The reasons being:
>
>     1. "men are a bit more obsessive in their work than women"
>     2. "maybe it's the look of the site, not attractive enough"
>     3. "women tend to focus their attention on people, instead of
>     things, as men do"
>
>     #1 & #3 have been stated about women and work for over a century.
>
>     #2 --> Has a woman *actually* told you that she won't post to
>     Wikipedia because she finds the interface too difficult?
>     You're proposing that women don't want to post as experts
>     because they don't want to be an expert in using a complex interface.
>     Because of a deficiency with women, they don't want to become
>     experts with a system that would allow them to post their
>     expert opinion.
>     I sense a catch-22 argument here.
>     Reworking the Wikipedia interface is not really addressing the
>     problem.
>
>     Another reason why "women don't want to ____ because ______"
>     We should have a Wiki page on these bizarre reasons.
>     If we put them in a long list it might not help anyone, but
>     it might be humorous.  We could just refer to reason #1054
>     or #782 or #11659 with links to the Wiki page.  Good for
>     a laugh.  Women could post any new funnies, like "women
>     aren't as obsessive about their work as men are".
>     This might become the most popular set of pages on Wikipedia.
>     Of course, it would probably attract trolls. So let's not.
>
>     To have a serious response to the problem, let's have a
>     'Women Post to Wiki' month, and have a banner
>     about it on every Wiki page during the month.  It validates that
>     the world community accepts women as experts, and invites
>     women to post who may have thought about it before, but didn't.
>     I love that Google has different logos every day. Wiki
>     can have a different logo for that month.
>
>     - Susan Spencer Conklin
>
>
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