Milos, this is really interesting -- thanks for posting it. I'm sorry as usual to top-post and not snip (BB), but I did want to make a tiny point about TED. My understanding is they've been super-successful with translations -- a very large and active transcribing-and-translating-of-talks community has developed for them quite spontaneously, and the TED organization has been trying to figure out how best to support them. (I don't mean to suggest the TED organization has been having difficulties in that regard: my impression is they're thrilled.)
I've asked Philippe to take a look at TED's translation community and see if there's anything we can learn from it -- others might want to do the same. Thanks, Sue -----Original Message----- From: Milos Rancic <mill...@gmail.com> Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:21:03 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List<foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] encouraging women's participation Here are my two cents... I am organizing now TEDx event in Belgrade. (Unlike others, our speakers will sign contract for CC-BY-SA, too.) And I am carefully watching gender and age involvement at the Facebook page. Our predispositions were again dominantly male: 5 males and one female in organization. Gender ratio is not better now in organization, while we are trying to make it better. We had disbalance at the beginning, while not so strong as we have in Wikimedia (something like 55:40, with ~5% of users who are not expressing their gender). It is now 48:46 for males. So, by age and gender, dominant groups are: * male 25-34: 25% * female 25-34: 23% * female 18-24: 11% * male 18-24: 9% * male 35-44: 9% * female 35-44: 8% (There are ~400 fans now.) It is interesting that the only constant is 18-24 age group with stable ration 11%:9% for females for months. In all other age groups we have constant raising of female ratio. It should be mentioned that a number of females are willing to participate in organization (but the process of adopting someone is not so fast), which means that it is not just a relation between active and passive involvement. Let's try to compare TEDx event with Wikipedia/Wikimedia: * Both are fancy. * Both are about top achievements of humankind. * Both are about community. Yes, TED treats audience and speakers both as participants. * Wikipedia is more famous than TED. * Age groups are similar. * I don't have any doubt that there is ~50:50 ratio for using Wikipedia, as it is for TED. * TED has much less content, but it has much higher ratio of interesting content per time spent on site. * I am carefully choosing TED talks for Facebook page and we generally have good feedback. However, sometimes I am wrong [1][2] * TED's rule "no political and religious agenda", as well as well defined TED's scope (science, technology, art etc.) saves us from the topics which could potentially produce endless arguing. * Whenever someone has some constructive idea, I am applying it and saying thanks to that person. This makes atmosphere better. * TEDx is not about everyday editing, but about periodical events. However, participation could be treated similarly. Nobody needs to edit Wikipedia every day. * Technical skills needed for participation in TEDx event are much less than those needed for editing Wikimedia projects. * TEDx events are more social. BUT, it is not TED's per se advantage, it is about our leading of Wikimedia communities. We will have regular meetings, probably on weekly basis, out of the main events. * TEDx events and everything around them are much less stressful than editing Wikipedia and trying to find your place inside of one enormous bureaucracy of Wikimedia communities. * TEDx events and communities around them are not mature. We shell see their development. * <for sure something more, it would be good to give a deeper analysis; feel free to give your comparisons> Some conclusions may be: * Creating featured AND interesting content and gather that content on some separate project. "The Best of Wikimedia" or so. But, not, featured encyclopedic article is not *that* interesting, usually. It is not so interesting to read about Belgrade as the feature article on English Wikipedia. Having a featured article on English Wikipedia raises proud of inhabitants of particular area, but it is not interesting. Contrary, I think that we have a lot of interesting materials at Wikimedia projects, which should be just presented nicely. * One ordinary Wikimedian meetup is usually not so fascinating event. Talking about templates, MediaWiki skins, ideas for getting more content at the best (WWII tanks, airplanes and tactics, ass well as about various disputes on projects at the worst) -- is not so interesting for an outsider. We need to find a better way for present ourselves to the world. * I am thinking intensively about the possibility of splitting communities to those which main interests are in politics, religion and being fans of whatever -- and everybody else. Probably, building community would be much easier without partisans. * WP:BITE is something about we are talking a lot, but I don't see any advancement. Just a couple of months ago, I had on my back a classical example of bureaucratic asshole at en.wp. He thought that he knows Wikipedia bureaucracy better than me ha ha ha :D But, I can just imagine the first impression of any newcomer. BTW, I am rarely editing en.wp. Probably, in two major edits I am getting one bureaucratic asshole on my back. * Lower technical knowledge requirements. If WYSIWYG editor is science fiction, maybe a kind of help for structural writing could be helpful: Write in this box title, write in this box introduction, write in that box section title etc. I don't know... * Make social events. They don't need to be connected with Wikimedia projects by idiot-friendly semantics. They could be about much more interesting things. Promotion of science via talks, events, parties should be perfectly fine for our goals. Finding some pop-star to sing for ~50 or ~500 Wikimedians and their friends would be also fine. * Make some auxiliary ways to involve people who don't want to waste time with many Wikipedia jerks. Wikimedia should actively promote license-compatible sites which content can be used on Wikimedia projects. * ... [1] - My assumption was that females would like Jamie Oliver's talk. But, it turned out that it is not the case. After I posted one of his talks, I was talking with a couple of females, who ranked his talk as less interesting than tech-related talks. [2] - In a post-modern society, it is not so welcomed to talk against various pseudosciences. Astrology, homeopathy and similar cults are highly ranked at the fanciness scale. Fortunately, TED is pro-science, which makes to me a field to be a little bit arrogant: If you really care about those things, then TEDx event is not for you. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l