Thanks for sharing this study, Ryan -- very useful info, and as you say, rather depressing!
I think it's important to note, for those who don't use IRC -- the bit about "high traffic IRC channels" is VERY significant. I hope nobody gets the idea that simply by using IRC in a rather targeted way, that they would have an even remotely similar experience. (i.e., by joining only channels that are of particular interest, like #wikimedia-gendergap or any of the many other Wikimedia channels [1]) For example, I'm logged into IRC nearly every day, and I think I've gotten maybe one message along these lines in my *life* -- which is a lot fewer than 3.7 messages per day! There are many ways to use IRC, and spending time in very high-traffic channels is not something I think would be useful for most people to begin with. -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Channels On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 9:30 AM, ChaoticFluffy <[email protected]>wrote: > Hmmm, interesting. I've often wondered whether I would have had a less > pleasant experience fitting into the wiki(p|m)edia IRC channels if I had an > obviously-gendered nick. As it is, I get maybe one random pm a month, if > that, and most of those are of the vague "hi"-followed-by-silence sort. > None that I can remember have ever been sexually explicit, though I think I > might have gotten threats once or twice. Maybe one day I'll run my own > little experiment and masquerade under a clearly-female name and see how > that changes... > > -Fluffernutter > > > On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 2:05 AM, Ryan Kaldari <[email protected]>wrote: > >> I just read the following paper which describes an interesting study >> that was conducted regarding IRC: >> http://www.enre.umd.edu/content/rmeyer-assessing.pdf<https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.enre.umd.edu/content/rmeyer-assessing.pdf&embedded=true&chrome=true> >> >> The researchers created several IRC bots with different names - some >> female, some male, and some ambiguous. They put the bots in several high >> traffic IRC channels, and had them record all the private messages they >> received. The bots themselves were completely silent. >> >> The bots with male names received an average of 3.7 private messages per >> days that were sexually explicit or threatening. The bots with ambiguous >> names received an average of 24.9 such messages per day. The bots with >> female names received an average of 100 such messages per day! >> >> This is a very sad statistic, and probably goes a long way towards >> explaining why there aren't that many women on IRC these days. >> >> On a happier note, if you want to hang out on IRC and not get sexually >> harassed, you can always join #wikimedia-gendergap! >> >> Ryan Kaldari >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Gendergap mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > >
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