[Gendergap] This list

[Sue Gardner]

Hi Rosie,

I will take a crack at answering your questions, in-line below :-)


On 17 March 2011 22:41, Collective Action <collective_action at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Sue & All,
>
> I am yet to experience sexism on Wikipedia however my reading of this list
> has only served to confuse me with regard to the gender gap issue. I am
> hoping that someone can clarify the following points with some kind of
> authority.
>
> Is there any consensus in the Wikipedia/Wikimedia heirarchy that the Gender
> gap on Wikipedia is a problem that Wikipedia is trying to solve (apparently
> with the help of this list)?

I can't speak for the Wikipedia editorial volunteer hierarchy. But I
can speak for the Wikimedia Foundation, and yes, we believe the gender
gap is a problem that needs to be solved. Currently, 13% of Wikimedia
editors self-identify as female [1], and we've set ourselves a target
to double that by 2015.

[1] 13% of respondents to the 2008 UNU-Merit Editor Survey said they
are female. We believe that number is probably a little off, because
although there was a healthy sample size, the methodology probably
resulted in favouring of frequent editors. So the 13% may be a little
skewed, but probably not too much.



> Is there any consensus in the Wikipedia/Wikimedia heirarchy that women who
> attempt to contribute to Wikipedia are likely to be subject to chronic
> sexist remarks and that this is presumed to factor into the lower
> participation rates of women?

I don't think so, no. My personal belief (and my own experiences, and
readings on-wiki) suggest to me that Wikimedians are significantly
less overtly, explicitly sexist than non-Wikimedians. Many, many
online cultures are blatantly misogynist: Wikimedia IMO is not. I'm
not saying that sexist remarks never happen (and of course it depends
what you define as sexist): I would expect that they do. But I don't
think Wikimedia is a particularly sexualized culture; I don't think
it's a culture that tends to stereotype and objectify, and I think
most/many of the men on Wikipedia would recoil from overt sexism.

That doesn't mean we don't behave in ways that deter women's
participation: I think it's obvious that we do [2]. But I don't think
that direct personal aggressive sexism is particularly present on
Wikipedia.

(It might be worth knowing that in about a month, we are going to put
a new Editor Survey in the field, that includes a half-dozen questions
about gender and sexism. That will be the first time we've surveyed
editors, male and female, about their experiences and observations
with regard to gender on the Wikimedia projects. So we'll see what
gets reported.)



> What is the responsibility of Wikipedia/Wikimedia in protecting individuals
> from harrassment and in particular, any systemic abuse which is believed to
> be endemic to Wikipedia?

The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't police editors' behaviour on
Wikipedia. Policing editors' behaviour is a responsibility of the
Wikimedia editorial community, through dispute resolution mechanisms,
the Arbitration Committee, and other avenues. (There are some people
here who can talk about Arb Comm, for example.) The Wikimedia
Foundation just couldn't possibly police it: there are 100,000 editors
here working in 270+ languages, and we would never have the ability to
investigate problems, nor to enforce compliance with behavioural
standards. And ultimately, editors are online volunteers, and if they
are unhappy or feel unsafe, they always have the ability to exercise
their option to stop editing. At the end of the day, they have
alternatives. They are here by choice, and they can leave if they
want.

Having said that, I do wish that the Wikimedia Foundation could do
more to protect editors from harassment. I believe that only a very
small number of editors has ever faced serious harassment, but I am
aware of some instances in which it's occurred. We have, in a very
small number of instances, offered advice and support of various
kinds. But we can't be responsible for people's safety on Wikipedia,
any more than Facebook, for example, can be responsible for people's
safety there.



> How does Wikipedia take responsibility to ensure that when people come to
> Wikipedia to edit for the first time they are made aware of problems they
> may encounter (both due to their gender and more generally) and the actions
> they can take to address these issues?

I think the usual advice to people joining online communities is that
they should lurk for a while, read, and get the hang of things. I'm
not aware of any special cautioning orientation materials for new
people on Wikipedia. (Although as I write this, I do actually remember
that when I first started editing, I stumbled across advice on how to
remain anonymous, whether or not to use my real name, and some other
bits and pieces. But I believe I found it by reading really widely and
deeply; it wasn't collected together in one place.) It might actually
be a really good project for this group: to aim to create a set of
help materials for new female editors.



> What are the roles of the Wikimedia/Wikipedia hierarchy here on the list and
> do official representatives of these organisations have rights to determine
> the debate here that go beyond the power of other list members?

No, I don't think so. The Wikimedia Foundation staff who are on this
list are present by their own choice, because they want to help.
No-one's been assigned to be here, and no-one has any special
authority to control the debate here. I am the list owner, and I think
there are a couple of moderators as well, but I expect everything here
will happen via consensus. I don't consider this to be a list "for"
the Wikimedia Foundation; I consider it to be a list for the people
here.

I expect that the Wikimedia Foundation staff who are here joined
because they want to know more about what female editors want and
need. The people here from the staff are e.g., interface designers,
community staff, product/strategy people, etc. who want to take
women's views into consideration as they do their work. The women here
aren't necessarily representative of people outside this list, but I
expect staff here feel it's a good place to learn a little and maybe
kick around ideas for feedback.



> What, if any quality assaurance guidelines, structure or policy is behind
> this list and the goal of reducing the gender gap on Wikipedia and the
> relationship between the two?

I'm not sure exactly what that question means, but I'll take a crack
at it, and you can tell me if I've misunderstood what you're asking.
There are no formal guidelines/structure/policy behind the list.
Wikimedia lists typically operate in accordance within a set of loose
conventions: basically, informal 'folk wisdom' -- AFAIK they've never
been documented anywhere, and I myself learned them through
observation over time. Generally speaking, with some partial
exceptions: most of our lists are open to the public, anyone can join
or leave any time, people are asked to remain civil but there is wide
latitude for disagreement and debate, and off-topic discussion is
discouraged but not entirely verboten. Some lists have expectations of
privacy, but the archives for this list are public, so there should be
no expectation of privacy here.

Is that useful? It's funny: as I write all that I realize that of
course none of it is obvious to people who haven't spent a lot of time
in the Wikimedia community: you're reminding me of how frustrated I
was three or four years ago, as I learned all those informal,
unwritten, undocumented conventions. We really have a lot of work to
do, if we want Wikimedia to become more porous, more penetrable :-)

Anyway Rosie, I hope this helps. Feel free to follow up if anything's
unclear, or if you think we should adjust/adapt, feel free to say that
too. Other people should elaborate/refine my answers too, if they want
:-)

Thanks,
Sue


[2] Oh, I wanted to add this. Although I don't believe explicit overt
sexism is particularly present on Wikipedia, I do think women face
particular impediments due to their gender.

The Wikimedia Foundation has identified a number of challenges that
deter people from wanting to edit: the editing interface is too hard
to use; deletions and reversions are climbing; the culture can be
fighty; the culture isn't very welcoming/encouraging/supportive; and
there are a lot of editorial policies and practices that people need
to learn, in order to edit effectively.  And, we speculate that there
may be three issues particular to women, that explain their
disproportionately low presence.

* Some studies say women self-report as less technically confident
than men. And, some research suggests that women may generally be
inclined to use technology as a tool for working, with men generally
more inclined to use it for fun. To the extent that this is true,
MediaWiki’s lack of usability may have a disproportionately deterring
effect on women. To be clear: the problem is the same for everyone,
but it may affect women, on the whole, more than men. Obviously this
isn't the case for existing, experienced female editors.

* Research finds that women generally are more attuned to social cues
than men: more damaged by disapproval, and more buoyed by support. We
know that successful Wikimedians, whatever their gender, tend to be
unusually insensitive to reproach. This suggests that in general women
may tend to feel the lack of affirmation on Wikipedia more keenly than
men do, and that warnings, reversions/deletions and a fighty culture
may disproportionately deter women. This means that efforts to
increase friendliness and a sense of warmth, and to reduce fightyness,
will disproportionately increase retention of women. This problem is
also the same for everyone, but may affect women somewhat more than it
does men.

* Deletions and reversions are damaging to all new editors, and may
disproportionately damage women due to their attunement to social
cues. However, it’s also possible that women’s contributions are in
fact likelier than men’s to be unfairly reverted/deleted, due to
systemic bias. This is a theory: there’s no hard data to support it.
But it seems reasonable to assume that when editorial decisions (e.g.,
determining notability, relevance, appropriate weight, neutrality,
reliability of sources) are made primarily by men, women’s
contributions may be likelier than men’s to be deemed non-notable, not
relevant, inappropriately weighted, non-neutral or cited with
unreliable sources. Certainly there is anecdotal evidence suggesting
this is true: in the wake of the New York Times gender gap story, many
women told stories online, in blog comments and discussion forums,
saying this had happened to them.