Well I for one feel the category system is broken, though as I have delved deeper into it I realize it was probably never working to begin with. Sexism is as good as any other reason to do something about it, and if we gain one or two more outraged female editors, then I think we'll be the better for it. Is there somewhere we can go to hype up this discussion even more and keep it in the press?
2013/5/2, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
Commentary in The Daily Dot.
http://www.dailydot.com/society/wikipedia-sexism-problem-sue-gardner/
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Wikipedia found itself squirming uncomfortably last week after charges of systemic sexism drew heat from media outlets across the world and sparked widespread outrage on social media.
Yet according to the head of Wikimedia, the nonprofit that runs the encyclopedia, the whole sexism kerfuffle shows the system actually works.
[...]
Gardner begins backing herself into a corner of contradictions. She claims Wikipedians are "a vastly more diverse group than the staff of any newsroom or library or archive, past or present."
That statement is demonstrably false: Wikipedia is overwhelmingly young, white, and male. Its users are as diverse as the readership of Maxim.
[...]
"In this instance the system worked," Gardner writes. "Filipacchi saw something on Wikipedia that she thought was wrong. She drew attention to it. Now it’s being discussed and fixed. That’s how Wikipedia works."
If that's the system, then it's broken. Women should have never been cut from that list. And they probably wouldn't have, if only more than 10 percent of editors on the biggest encyclopedia in history were women in the first place.
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He's right.