Wikipedia Works To Close Gender Gap 376
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.'"
Could be useful... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Interesting)
That depends on whether the gender imbalance is really natural, or if it is caused by a culture of misogyny. In the case of Wikipedia, my guess is that it is indeed a natural imbalance - the people who edit it tend to be obsessive and may have minor autism spectrum disorders. Since autism is generally 3-4 times as common in men as in women, that would explain most of the imbalance.
However, there are other cases where the imbalance is legitimately caused by cultures which are hostile towards women. Whether it's internet forums with near constant sexist jokes ranging from sandwich-making to rape, or corporate good old boys getting together at strip clubs, it does happen, and often. So don't always dismiss imposed diversity as sexism, because it's not.
Re:3 Suspects (Score:5, Interesting)
Nah, there's a lot of stuff that could be there but isn't. Go check any anime related wiki [wikia.com] and compare with the Wikipedia version [wikipedia.org]. With anything but main characters, the difference gets more dramatic.
Now that might seem like a silly subject, and it is a silly subject. But there's a lot of that stuff migrating to other wikis. And while stuff like that isn't as important as say, WWII, my lunch conversations are more likely to include the Ginyu Force [wikia.com] (wikipedia version [wikipedia.org]), than Josef Mengele.
The reason for the difference isn't that the article would be empty, or that it's badly written. Apparently it's that somebody got upset that the article on Pikachu got longer than whatever subject they care about, and the solution to that is removing perfectly well written content from the disliked page, instead of finding something to add to the one they care about. I find that quite bizarre.
Re:Why do we need to care about a gender gap? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are many things where men aren't expected and aren't exactly welcome.
And lord have mercy on any transsexual that gets clocked in one of those places. Females are far more sexist and closed-minded than any male I know.
Let me share my experience with both genders when caught as the other gender in a place I shouldn't be as that gender.
There's a reason I use the men's bathroom at bars, even if I'm passing. It's just not worth the drama to use the bathroom of the gender I'm presenting as.
A guy who sees someone apparently female in the men's room is sometimes surprised or shocked. Sometimes the man will become angry, especially if he's older. But yet, at the end of the day, I have not had a single serious problem with being apparently female, even fixing my hair or something, in the men's room. No police, not a ton of drama.
Now, I don't know myself what it's like to be a guy caught in the women's room, but from what I understand, it involves the police, drama, screaming, more drama, and signs that get posted at clubs saying that "crossdressers" must use the men's room. Then you have to show your papers and make sure you always have that letter from the psychologist that says you may use the women's room. Even though that really carries no legal weight and you're still getting your ass escorted out of the bar anyway.
No, females are not the under-privileged sex anymore, if they ever were.
I rarely... actually, NEVER hear about that.
How many guys do you know who want to be in on a baby shower?
Why do we have to keep acting as if they are?
Because nobody understands exactly how men and women are different. It's frustrating trying to relate to a society that believes men and women are different, but in all the wrong ways and for all the wrong reasons.
Once people learn to be as indifferent to a starving woman with 3 starving kids as a man who's failed to provide his family with food, once people learn that those two situations are the same thing, then we might get some true gender equality going on.
Women should not need to be coddled little children. Men and women are different, but women are certainly not weak. They do not need to be coddled. There aren't enough women contributing to wikipedia? What the hell is a man going to do about that? Anything a man does is, by definition, a man contributing to the project. He can't force women to participate.
Look into the drama surrounding a transsexual in an abusive relationship who tries to get into a battered women's shelter, and the truth shall set ye free.
It's a chauvinism designed to keep women irresponsible little children. The worst part is that, for the most part, its women who are propagating it. Women want to be able to walk through the door to the male side, but they don't want to let anyone in from the other side.
A woman just has to sit back and let her body just do its animal functions, because there will always be a man to rush in and save her whether personally or by proxy of government assistance. There will always be someone to feel sorry for her. A woman has no need for something like wikipedia. Wikipedia has man-knowledge, things that men write down so the next generation can build upon it. Woman-knowledge, on the other hand, is always about transient, animal things, like their period or their pregnancy, things they feel in the moment. Woman-knowledge is always renewed, but yet stagnant. Woman-knowledge is not knowledge for building and improving, like man-knowledge is.
But hey, if you had that deal, would you want to give it up?
Integrate the LaLeche League! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:3 Suspects (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with Wikipedia in respect to 1990 is actually fairly clear; to most Wikipedians, "if it's not on the web it doesn't exist." Their faulty, backwards "reliable sources" sections have left them ignoring, or sometimes destroying, records painstakingly crafted on the history of various industries in which much of the documentation is not found in newspapers, but in archives like USENet and inter-BBS communication.
Here's a great example of where wikipedia screwed up [contentini.com] in covering and handling the topic of content management systems.
Or where obvious POV-pushing [jpost.com] is not just tolerated by Wikipedia, but actively supported [camera.org] by Wikipedia insiders: Tellingly, it was later revealed that one of the Wikipedia editors who led the attack is actually an employee of Electronic Intifada.
And then there's what they do to actual researchers [frontpagemag.com] who try to contribute.
Understand the problem yet?
Re:Why is this a problem? (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's an example: right now the /. 'humour' blurb at the bottom of the page is: "Give a woman an inch and she'll park a car in it."
People would generally claim /. is an open meritocracy too, and an awful lot of them really believe it because they honestly don't notice that shit. (How long has /. been running that 50s bumper sticker crap now?)
Wiki is looking at the 13% figure and wondering if they need to do more to really be open. I agree with others that the 13% number is suspect, but it's still damn low, so perhaps they're right to have a review to discuss if they're truly open and neutral after all. Maybe they'll turn up some turn offs that are just as stupid as we have here.
Re:3 Suspects (Score:4, Interesting)
How many people actually pay for an encyclopedia of any kind from any source?
Before the 90's it was very common for middle class parents to spend a month's wages on a set of encyclopedia (at least it was here in Oz).
Re:3 Suspects (Score:4, Interesting)