[Gendergap] one woman's response about why she stopped editing Wikipedia

[Steven Walling]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 7:28 PM, Lady of Shalott <ladyofshalott.wp at gmail.com
> wrote:

> The other day it occurred to me that a particular friend of mine could
> be a great contributor to Wikipedia, and so I asked her if she ever
> did. She said that she used to, and in fact started an article about a
> particular topic (a particular biological taxon - I won't be more
> specific at this point, but it is an extant article).  I asked her if
> there was a particular reason she stopped, and her answer was,
>
> "Yes, the last time I tried to, though admittedly that has been a few
> years ago, I was unable to. I can't remember what the impediment was
> but I'm basically a lazy person. If I have to jump through even one
> hoop, I lose my passion."
>
> Now perhaps she tried to edit an article protected for a very good
> reason, or who knows what happened, but this event was enough to make
> her stop. I imagine she's not the only person to react this way. Is
> this reaction more typical of one sex than another? I have no idea. I
> just thought I'd throw it into the mix of known reasons some people
> don't edit Wikipedia.
>
> Aleta/LadyofShalott
>
>
These kinds of stories are really important. I added a red link on Meta for
a page where we can collect anecdotes just like this.[1]

I know the Geek Feminism wiki has a ton of examples from outside Wikipedia.
This sort of history is less about cataloging all the transgressions or
errors of the past, I think, than providing compelling, personal stories we
can point to when people ask, "So what? I've never seen X situation."

I don't think they need to be all negative either. *Sometimes *Wikipedia
gets it right. ;-) We should point out what that looks like too.

1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_gap#Research
 <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_gap#Research>
-- 
Steven Walling
Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org
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