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Wikipedia Works To Close Gender Gap
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Wikimedia Foundation collaborated on a study of Wikipedia's contributor base last year and discovered that it was barely 13 percent women and set a goal to bring it up to 25 percent by 2015. But now the NY Times (reg. may be required) reports that progress in reaching that goal is running up against the traditions of the computer world and an obsessive fact-loving realm that is dominated by men and, some say, uncomfortable for women. 'The big problem is that the current Wikipedia community is what came about by letting things develop naturally,' says Kat Walsh, a member of the Wikimedia board. 'Trying to influence it in another direction is no longer the easiest path, and requires conscious effort to change.' Joseph Reagle says that Wikipedia shares many characteristics with the hard-driving hacker crowd including an ideology that resists any efforts to impose rules or even goals like diversity, as well as a culture that may discourage women. Adopting openness means being 'open to very difficult, high-conflict people, even misogynists,' adds Reagle, 'so you have to have a huge argument about whether there is the problem.'"
Futher, "adopting openness means being 'open to very difficult, high-conflict people, even misogynists,'" also seems to be non-intuitive. I wonder what evidence drew those conclusions. If it was a Wikipedia article, at least I could follow the citation.
A bonus disagree comes from
I don't think that's ironic at all. 85% of experts wear black socks, ironically 85% of the population also wears black socks.
Being "open" also means being open to people who might not want to participate. What difference does it make?
Or is imposed diversity actually more sexist than a natural gender imbalance?
Not to be sexist, but does it really matter? Is there some reason that having a larger percentage of women contributors would make Wikipedia a better place? If not, there's no reason to go out of the way to increase the contributions from women, especially if it degrades the quality of Wikipedia in the process.
If it's a problem of members being sexist or misogynistic, take steps to fix that. Trying to force some quota probably isn't the best solution to this problem, if it even is a problem.
I don't see that trying to bump the percentage, in itself, would be wildly useful to the project(trying to bump the absolute numbers, certainly; but the ratio, less obviously)...
However, efforts to modify the current situation might well have broader benefits. Criticism of wikipedia(aside from that of sniffy old media types, which is rarely all that interesting) largely focuses on the perception, sometimes the reality, that swaths of it tend to fall under the most obsessive rules-lawyering assholes with sufficiently long attention spans. On the plus side, these types are something of a bulwark against pure chaos and obvious troll-edits. On the minus side, as anybody who has ever played a tabletop RPG with an obsessive, rules-lawyering asshole can attest, such people are hell to work with and can crush the enthusiasm and patience of virtually anybody by sheer force of persistent pedantry.
If they want more female contributors, they'll have to do something about that. If successful, they will probably end up with more contributors across the board.
Wikipedia is full of jerks obsessed with rules, with dominance and penis waving.
Women see this and take off, because it's jut not appealing to most of them. So do a lot of men. What's left is the aggressive types who further escalate the problem every step of the way.
Oddly it's much like Congress.
I guess the intention was to inform people about the wikipedia gender gap by demonstrating how it comes into being: The woman of considerable expertise gives a polite, considered, and conservatively stated opinion-- while the man of no particular qualification gives an exaggerated and speculative answer... and the reporter responds be deemphasizing the woman's qualifications, ignoring her position, and running with whichever view is most aggressively promoted or fitting his preconceived notions. Kinda like how Wikipedia works. Women are systematically excluded not because they're women, but because the entire process promotes assholes and women are flaming assholes a little less often.
That a woman reverts my edits rather than a man?
They just need to publicize all the great anime information that's available on Wikipedia.
Chicks dig anime, right?
#DeleteChrome
The very active people on Wikipedia are not very stable people. They are perpetually absorbed in squabbling about Wikipedia's rather subjectively-applied "policies" (curiously, some of these have statements along the lines of "ignore all the rules") and edit wars, votes for delete based on non-notability or some other bullshit that most human beings couldn't care either way about.
This is not a desirable state of affairs... Have you ever considered that maybe women are smarter and better off for not participating in these endeavors? As a man, this crosses my mind. Wikipedia is great for some light reading, but the "community" of frequent and longtime editors is pretty worthless. Leave it to the solar-phobic basement dwelling troll-men.
Easy way to get women to correct more Wikipedia articles: change the template so that every article starts out with "Your husband says that..."
I've always found computers, coding and gaming to be a social experience, and indeed any online community is exactly that, a social group. I pretty much got into computers when I found other kids at school who were into them also. Any partiuclar hobby or career may have it's clique, and such social groups tend to recruit new members as they grow.
This may explain gender imbalance, once the social group becomes predominantly one sex or even one demographic, it makes it harder for the other to enter.
So the solution is... well I don't know, but knowing the above, that gives some idea on how to make change? Get high profile women involved, who can encourage others?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
It's not as if women are doing nothing while being blocked from doing things that are more open to men. Women are doing whatever it is women do and most of the time, it's whatever they WANT to do. It just so happens that what women want to do is often different from that which men want to do. Why is that wrong?
Equal participation and equal access are not the same. There is already equal access. My internet connection doesn't check for a penis before letting me route traffic. So what's the REAL issue here? What's the real goal?
There are many things where men aren't expected and aren't exactly welcome. I rarely... actually, NEVER hear about that. Women are not the "under-privileged sex." Why do we have to keep acting as if they are?
... an obsessive fact-loving realm that is dominated by men ...
Now, where have I heard that before . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I was a teacher for a while, while my daughter was in an all-women college. The fact is that women find group participation harder than men. We saw it in the classroom all the time. Teachers had to gently restrain over-eager boys while calmly encouraging the girls to speak up. But surveys at the end of the term ALWAYS showed that both the boys and girls said they "got more out of" classes that had mixed gender participation. Why would the wikipedia environment be any different?
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
Various people have noticed that the fraction of Black ballplayers [in Major League Baseball] has fallen dramatically since the 70s. They want to institute programs to change this. Why? Maybe black people have something better to do.
Of course they have something better to do. I think it's called NBA.
Just sayin'.
~Idarubicin
wow... the crowd here could not be any more like the elitist Wikipedia community. try being a little less esoteric. also, a little less indifference would be nice. the comments are about ten to one negative for this article. slashdot is a container for a huge amount of negativity, and it never fails to sadden me about mankind. I wish more of this intelligence was use to produce positive "constructive" change.
statstically more men are drawn to math/science/technology than women. Big surprise there. that's why most people who post to wiki are male. However, I am sure there are articles written by women on subjects they're interested in. Does anyone here even wonder about the gender of the author when they're looking something up? I highly doubt it. Why? Because gender in this case is an irrelevant attribute. The article is sound or it is not.. Another example of 'initiatives' like this is when colleges fall over themselves to get women into their male dominated programs, not because they're intellectually superior, but just because they're women. That's straight up discrimination, period.
Why does it have to be 50/50 across EVERY demographic dichotomy everywhere? seriously, just because one grouping is under/over represented doesn't mean it's due to malicious intent. A lot of this is natural self-selection. It doesn't need fixing. Of course, that doesn't stop insecure individuals from those demographics from forming 'political action committees' just so they can cry victim when they're culled from the herd in some context. In the case of women's rights, the situation has gotten so biased that it's impossible for any organization to avoid catering to feminist gynocentricism which usually boils down to: "you are not complete without us women, and women have special needs yet we are 'equal,' and, no, we don't hate men, in fact, we love them, so long as they act/think like women." In any context, individuals who don't fit the norm are ostracized sometimes, yes, and that should be dealt with on a per-individual basis, but only when they were judged based on irrelevant attributes (add/delete the article because it rules/sucks, not because of the gender of the author).
Okay, so we have an organization that invites everyone to join in and write stuff. There is no discrimination, as long as you follow the guidelines which are perfectly reasonable for keeping Wikipedia a useful and informative source of information. Years pass. Then some analyst comes along and says there aren't enough women contributors at Wikipedia... Well, it isn't like there was a sign that said 'no girls allowed.' There was nothing barring women from joining the community at all, except possibly their own personal decisions not to.
Wikipedia is 'equal opportunity' in just about every sense of the term. If they start incentivising or somehow attempting to skew the population of contributors to get more women, they become LESS so, not more. This is like the manager of a McDonalds seeing he only has white employees so he posts a sign that says "Black help wanted." It's completely batshit crazy. Maybe women who use the site just don't want to become contributors; maybe the majority of users of the site are men; maybe people in general don't know how to become contributors (which is at least somewhat more of a legitimate issue).
There could be any number of reasons for the shortage of female contributors, but as long as there are no restrictions on women joining and putting up their information I don't see this as any problem. I'd be saying the exact same thing if they said only 13% of the wikipedia contributors are men, or black, or jewish, or whatever denomination. It really doesn't matter when they haven't prevented anyone from joining.
"...an obsessive fact-loving realm that is dominated by men and, some say, uncomfortable for women." "The big problem is that the current Wikipedia community is what came about by letting things develop naturally" So...it was a natural development that men are in the majority, and it may be uncomfortable for women. Why do we need to shoehorn them in then? What's with this diversity-fetish?
Women dominate in certain fields of endeavor and it is generally accepted that the female brain is wired for social interaction. Men routinely dominate Jeopardy's Tournament of Champions. Perhaps there is something in the wiring of the male brain that favors the accumulation of arcane bits of knowledge. If so, then forcing gender balance in Wkipedia makes about as much sense as forcing gender balance in the LaLeche League.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
I though Wikipedia was supposed to be objective facts; neutral point of view.
Unless some pages of Wikipedia are misogynist, gender diversity won't improve Wikipedia.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Look, I don't care if women are more involved in programming, IT or whatever. I never discourage any that I know from entering the field or any that I work with. My mother-in-law was, in fact, an old school assembly and punch card type programmer for IBM and still works in management there. It's cool. I think it's great.
However, there is no great wall keeping women out of IT or out of Wikipedia for that matter. Why the fuck should we try to entice people to do something they're clearly not interested in? I'm so sick of articles about trying to get women more involved. There's no movement to get more women into construction and I don't see a whole lot of women working as auto mechanics. Who the fuck cares?
Here is how to appeal to women and make the % more even.
1. Post articles about shoes and shopping and babies
2. Add women
3. Lose men
4. % balances out
5. Profit (Because women spend more money)
But not by Wikipedia, since anyone can contribute.
No, the problem is that WOMEN discriminate against Wikipedia, deciding that they have more important things to do with their time.
So women must be dragged, kicking and screaming, into becoming Wikipedia contributors. This sounds like the perfect opportunity for the FCC to force women to spend more of their time in this way. I suggest they call it "Sex Neutrality".
What does it mean to be "barely" 13%?
... is that 85% of the allegedly female 13% are also male too.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Sexism. It is sexism to set a goal for participation based on sex. Sad.
It is an open thing, if there are no more female contributors is simply because they are not interested...What is the specific reason this is a problem?
As far as I am concerned wikipedians could be genderless robots. It is not a private company where governments or other organizations can enforce gender parity. There is no need to, simply. If females want to edit wikipedia just let them and that's all. If they don't want...well, I don't want either, it sounds like a boring thing to do, so I understand.
Here: http://isteve.blogspot.com/2011/01/guys-create-wikipedia-for-free-thats.html
Why artificially increasing number of women, gays, minors anywhere is good? What equality or fairness does this bring? Why are you treating them like disabled?
I don't expect anything more than some leads as to where I can chase down further information. When viewed as a collection of knowledge, Wikipedia is actually quite a wonderful resource for its sheer breadth...and a smart person will know that it is up to them to do the further research necessary to add depth.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
I am one of the (relatively) small number of women in the IT industry who regularly reads Slashdot. However, as with Wikipedia, I rarely contribute. Is that part of my nature? I am not sure. But I do not feel compelled to contribute, unless I am riled, as now.
There is nothing stopping me from contributing, least of all my sex. I am fully aware that most of the contributors are men, but I like men, mostly, and that doesn't bother me.
Now, the article as I understood it seemed to imply that some special measures needed to be taken to boost the numbers of women contributors. This is a form of reverse discrimination, and I have a real problem with that. I have suffered as a woman from the fallout of badly handled attempts at "affirmative action". The only system that works is a meritocracy. Any time you make special exceptions, in the end, you create injustice and unintended consequences.
The article discussed some of what we were "missing out on" by not being more "inclusive" of women contributors - apparently we don't have enough gender/political diatribes and excrutiating feminist biographies. Please, spare me the navel-gazing "Women's Studies" tripe. I read that stuff as a young woman struggling to make it in a man's world as a software engineer. Up to a point, it can be empowering. Beyond that point and it's poison. The worst of it encourages an impractical sense of natural entitlement, based on specious, gender-specific propoganda. It often leaves women socially isolated, embittered and unemployable, unable to function in an imperfect world.
Most times, when I see an organization like Wikipedia suddenly bent double in self-reproach that they are not "doing enough for women" it often comes down to a small number of very vocal feminist activists targeting that organization for very specific political purposes. Wikipedia has a lot of influence on the Internet. If you write an article defining "rape" in Wikipedia, no matter how crazy it is, that definition will appear in the first page of results in Google Search every time. So it's just a good PR strategy to try and bludgeon your way into Wikipedia if you can. You have to admire the chutzpah.
That's what I suspect this is really all about.
Wikipedia needs to be very careful here - in the interests of science and objectivity, Wikipedia needs to preserve it's culture of meritocracy, flawed though it may be. To potentially create a clique of writers who cannot be criticized or disciplined because it's "too politically sensitive" is a recipe for disaster. It would not be long before that small group ended up vetting the entire Wikipedia on the basis of feminist orthodoxy. At that point, you might as well just surrender.
The idea that "women" are being excluded from Wikipedia is nonsense. The idea that "women" need special allowances made because we are somehow "not capable" of making it in the male-dominated culture of Wikipedia is both absurd and highly insulting. Be very clear, these women do not represent all "women". They do not represent me. They do not represent the majority of the women I know. But then the only women I tend to hang out with are strong, assertive, feminine IT professionals like the women I work with every day. They, we, have no need of any phony "help", thanks very much for nothing.
Wikipedia will lose its reputation as a source of impartial knowledge if it succombs to this pressure. Don't fall for it Jim.
Wikipedia has a stated goal of being unbiased. I think that most people would recognize that as being a worthwhile goal. When men write the majority of the articles, then the material is based towards male perspectives.
Many posters in this thread so far have made comments about how men and women are different, with different desires and goals and motivations hard-wired into their brains, so let's stick with that theory for now. If that is true, then men do indeed have a thought process that is markedly different from women's in some way, and that is therefore reflected in the articles - in the topic, in the construction, in the arguments, in the sources cited. There is bias. I guess, as men, maybe you don't care since the current content is written to suit you?
Every time this discussion comes up, no one acknowledges that women have unique and valuable mental contributions. There's a lot of hand-waving about 'Let's not force them to be in field XYZ if they don't want to be' but very little discussion of what the consequences of them not being in field XYZ are. Posters immediately think of how the solution cannot work and do not even acknowledge there IS a problem. It's the same issue here with Wikipedia.
It's a problem when the biggest fact-based document in history is virtually devoid of a female perspective. Just because you don't see a practical solution in the 10 seconds it took you to skim the summary doesn't mean this is not a problem worth trying to solve or that there is no solution. It's okay to talk about problems with no solution. You don't have to diminish them into non-problems.
It's often said that men find women frustrating because women want to discuss issues just to discuss them, whereas men want to solve them and find they cannot in some cases, particularly when it is emotional or involves other people. It's ironic that, in a way, this kind of pattern leads to the dismissal of 'unsolvable' gender-gaps, and yet the existence of this pattern is exactly what makes gender gaps worrying. Men and women DO think differently, and therefore there perspectives are unique valuable, and if one is lacking, they should be sought out.
wikipedia's user interface and page syntax is definitely for geeks today. == sub title == look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Table#Simple_example for a "simple example". So don't be surprised to get a big proportion of geeks using it. Geeks being mainly boys ...
If it had a "facebook-like" ui, you might see more girls.
Ok, maybe don't go that far, but you get the idea. And I think Wikipedia is planning to improve it's UI, so ...
The best thing Wikipedia could do to attract women's attention would be to extensively cover the upcoming prince William's wedding.
Sadly, my statement is both outrageously sexist and completely true.
A bunch of nerds do *not* want more women with them?
~Syberz
Anyone think it was ironic that I was going to read this to my wife, while she was on her computer finishing the month-end reporting for our business (just before she went downstairs to get some housework done)?
If you think about it for a second, perhaps you'll see why more men than women post on Wikipedia.
-Styopa
Wikipedia is a curated selection of facts.
See the part where I said "...therefore reflected in the articles - in the topic, in the construction, in the arguments, in the sources cited."? People choose those elements, and, by choosing them, are making a de facto opinion about their superiority, and therefore those facts are couched in opinion -- and bias.
Thank YOU for playing. Sir.