[WikiEN-l] NY Times article on gender gap in Wikipedia contributors

[Charles Matthews]

On 31/01/2011 14:00, Marc Riddell wrote:
> on 1/31/11 7:30 AM, Charles Matthews at charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
> wrote:
>> As an advocate of keeping "user friendliness" and "friendliness" issues
>> separate in discussing enWP,
> I don't agree with you here, Charles. The tone of interaction, including
> "friendliness", should be appropriate for any interactive forum related to
> the Project. That is how the tone of a culture is established, encouraged
> and maintained.

But I think you misunderstand: "user friendliness" is a term applied to 
software and interfaces, not communities.
>> I'd like to note that the "gender gap" is basically a friendliness issue.
> You are right here if you mean that, in a male-dominated culture,
> "friendliness" implies weakness.
>
>> It is all very well setting targets, but
>> unless interactions become more polite and helpful on the site, it is
>> hard to see how they are to be achieved.
> Agreed!
>
>> I'm not convinced that the
>> community generally get it about this point.
> If "more polite and helpful" interactions are a desired goal for the
> Project, how to you propose we help the larger Community to "get it"?
>
>
There are a number of steps, perhaps none sufficient in itself.

Admins carry a heavy burden in calming matters down, and being 
"helpful". Unfortunately RfA has got out of hand, and the evidence is 
(as I was shown recently) that the criteria used five years ago probably 
promoted more suitable people than those used in the past couple of 
years. So that is one area needing active reform. We probably need to 
renew the "essays" (position papers) around the site, taking into 
account the fact that WP has been around for a decade and has not gone 
into the meltdown many predicted. That's to try to take the "shrill" 
edge off numerous discussions. (I don't think the strategy wiki managed 
that.)

We need to bear down on the civility issue: this has been problematic in 
the past, as some of us know, but it still matters. Interaction problems 
require a problem-solving approach, and more should be done through 
existing dispute resolution channels, rather than AN/I which seems to 
represent the problem itself (lack of a measured approach - people are 
not "incidents") rather than the solution.

I have stated my views on site politics on this list not so long ago. 
Basically the "reform" party comes over as the "complacent" party as far 
as the gender gap is concerned (sadly). So I'd like to see people 
standing for ArbCom being asked what they intend to do about it.

Charles