Brianna Laugher wrote:
On 24/07/06, Dirk Riehle dirk@riehle.org wrote:
The observation itself I find interesting. Would you agree or disagree that the number of leading women in Wikipedia is disproportionaly larger in comparison to the overall Wikipedia contributor population?
First you have to agree on a definition of a contributor. Having a username? Having at least one edit? Or at least 50, 100, 500? (So, count anons?) Having some level of community interaction beyond OrphanBot warnings?
Speaking at a very high level of generality, and noting that questions of definition are important, and acknowledging that I have no good clear definition in mind...
It is my anecdotal sense based on wikipedia meetups and interactions online that about 80% of Wikipedians are male, that this number is better than most free software projects, but worse than I think most of us would like, and that the leadership of the projects tends to be much more heavily female than the averages would suggest.
We have many strong female leaders in various projects. I leave it to others to speculate why this might be. :)
--Jimbo