Now that the Arbcom case has concluded and the punishments have been imposed, I just wanted to welcome Carolmooredc and Neotarf to the list of editors who have been banned from Wikipedia. I now its a hard pill to swallow, but all good editors end up here eventually if they stay long enough, so welcome to the club.
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 5:06 PM, Jane Darnell <jane...@gmail.com> wrote: > For the record: the percentage of female editors on the Dutch Wikipedia is > only 6%. In the Netherlands, edit-a-thons seem to be useless in terms of > recruitment vehicles and many long-term Wikipedians seem to have a > long-tail interest that they tend to spend most of their time editing. > > The "eternal limbo of rejection" at the articles for creation queues is > thankfully not a problem anywhere except the English Wikipedia. I don't > think any other Wikipedia has anything like AfC, and I am continually > surprised to see it hasn't been stopped yet on the English Wikipedia, where > I believe it does way more harm than good. > > The Dutch Wikipedia does suffer from an overwhelmingly confusing set of > policies that only seem to make sense to a tiny committee of editors that > have been on board since about 2005. No one has ever felt that anything > more is necessary to explain them than the policy pages themselves, which > are a confusing mess of contradictions. > > On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 6:34 PM, Tim Davenport <shoehu...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> In reply to Kerry Raymond's post... >> >> >> QUANTIFICATION >> >> If "all the studies on female participation come up with low percentages >> around 10%" but there are anecdotes of a significant undercount from >> Teahouse volunteers and such and if female participation at Wikimania >> approaches one-third, would that not seem to fortify my point that there is >> a need for reexamination of the magnitude of the gender gap? What is the >> exact magnitude of the female undercount (or the male overcount)? >> >> This does not even bring up the matter of dynamics — is the gender >> disparity changing over time, and if so, which direction is it moving? >> >> There is only one way to find this out: study, study, study, survey, >> survey, survey... >> >> That WMF has its own editor gender data from 2012 that it is not >> releasing, as has been intimated, is annoying. Still: why is the GGTF >> waiting for San Francisco at all? Why is quantification and surveying not a >> vital part of the task force's mission? >> >> That there is an editorial gender gap is beyond dispute. But how big is >> it really and how is it changing over time? >> >> >> PROACTIVE RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION >> >> So if edit-a-thons don't work, as you indicate, why is the WMF still >> spending money on them? Is it mere symbolism? >> >> I have noted from working with a college class at WP that short-term >> class assignments don't seem to create long-term Wikipedians. Students >> being students, they slam out the minimum required right before deadline >> and move along with their lives. I don't know what does create long-term >> content people, other than a passion about SOMETHING and a desire to share >> the information. Vandal fighters and quality control people may have a >> different motivation. >> >> Let's assume for the sake of the discussion that there is NOTHING that >> can be done proactively to pick the needles out of the haystack — that it >> is impossible for any bureaucratic entity to identify and activate the >> small fraction of 1% of people that will eventually become long-term >> Wikipedia volunteers. >> >> This would mean that the "needles" are going to self-identify by >> registering at WP and beginning work under their own volition. Therefore, >> logically, primary attention should be focused on identifying and >> cultivating "new editors" every day, nurturing the newbies as they start to >> navigate the technical and cultural learning curves. In which case, Ms. >> Stierch's "Teahouse" concept is 100% right on the money. >> >> And that's where the gender gap can be addressed, by making sure that >> every effort is made to teach and acclimate female newcomers in particular. >> >> As for edit-a-thons and outreach recruiting, I personally believe that >> any recruitment that is not focused on teachers and academics will probably >> not produce lasting results. I'm also pretty well convinced that long term >> Wikipedians are made one at a time. >> >> Tim Davenport >> "Carrite" on WP >> Corvallis, OR >> >> >> >> ========= >> >> Kerry Raymond wrote: >> >> A. All the studies on female participation come up with low percentages >> around 10% plus or minus a few percent. Of course, it is possible that in >> all of the studies the women are choosing not to self-identify. It is an >> inherent difficulty in any study if people choose to not reveal information. >> But we know women make up large proportions of social media users, so if >> women’s participation in Wikipedia is actually higher than studies show due >> to reluctance to self-identify, it begs the question of why they are so >> unwilling to self-identify in the content of Wikipedia but not in other >> contexts. Either way, it points to some problem. The last Wikimania recently >> released data that does show a higher level of female participation, about 1 >> in 3, I think. It would be interesting to see how the male/female numbers >> break down across the various types of attendees, e.g. WMF staff, Chapter >> members, event organisers, etc. My suspicion is that women are in higher >> proportion among staffers, chapters, etc and this skews the Wikimania >> participation. I don’t know how scholarships are awarded and whether women >> are at any advantage in that process. >> >> >> >> B. A very interesting research >> paperhttp://files.grouplens.org/papers/wp-gender-wikisym2011.pdf shows that >> women >> are less likely to survive the newbie stage than men. But, perhaps contrary >> to what many expected, their data does not suggest that women are more >> easily discouraged by being reverted (they show men and women’s survival >> rates in the face of reversion are similar) but that more women’s edits are >> reverted than men’s edits and this is the cause of higher attrition among >> women. This has caused me to wonder if women as newbies are more attracted >> to articles where the risk of reversion is higher perhaps because there are >> more policies to be considered (e.g. biographies of living people, noting >> that women are predominantly the purchasers of “celebrity” magazines which >> deal mostly in content related to living people). The paper does show that >> men and women edit in different areas (men are more likely to edit in >> geography and science for example) but the analysis is too high level to >> answer my question. The other inherent limitation in any study of newbies >> that there is nothing in the initial signup to Wikipedia that asks you about >> your gender (even optionally) so very few newbies are self-identifying as >> either male or female at that time. So, it’s actually very hard to study the >> non-surviving female newbies because you can’t find them. This often means >> our study of the experiences of newbies is based heavily on those who are >> still around later to be studied or surveyed which introduces survivor bias >> into the study. So this may be a consideration in relation to the findings >> of this paper. Interview studies keep pointing to women not liking the >> abrasive environment of Wikipedia. Civility is a part of that issue. >> Although I think it’s not so much about the use of specific words, but >> rather a general culture of aggression. The people who use the swear words >> are simply much easier to spot and hold up as examples of the broader >> problem than those who engage in equally aggressive behaviour but do so >> citing [[WP:Policy]] and use the undo-button. >> >> >> >> C. In relation to pro-active recruitment, I do a lot of that here in >> Australia, edit training and edit-a-thons. While some of the edit-a-thons >> have targeted women participants and are therefore predominantly women, edit >> training events are generally not so targeted and attract both women and >> men. From all of that I believe that women are not inherently disinterested >> in contributing to Wikipedia. However, these events do not seem to create >> ongoing editors (whether female or male) and this experience is not unique. >> A recent survey by the foundation found that this is the case all over the >> world. Generally, the one-event approach to edit training isn’t sufficient. >> Greater success seems to come from regular events usually in a >> university/college setting, but regular events are a challenge to resource >> with volunteers (we have other things that have to be done in our lives). >> Interestingly, most of the people who currently attend our sessions are >> middle aged and older. Many struggle with the markup; I hope the visual >> editor will address some of that problem. So I think we need to look at >> diversity in terms of age as well as gender. But I don’t think outreach is >> really the answer because it cannot be done at the necessary scale. It’s not >> that we need to have a team of mentors, we need everyone to be willing to >> help one another. >> >> >> >> D. One thing I learn from our outreach is that many of the newbies >> (male and female) have unpleasant experiences even during the outreach >> events as well as soon afterwards. Their edits are reverted (for what seems >> to me to be no justifiable reason), new articles being speedily deleted or >> splashed with messages about policies they don’t know about and don’t >> comprehend, or left in an eternal limbo of rejection in Article for >> Creation. These folks are all “good faith” and they are all newcomers but >> the policies of “assume good faith” and “don’t bite the newbies” are >> completely ignored. We have many editors who are very aggressive. I have no >> idea if they are just angry with the world as a whole, or actually enjoy >> bullying the newbies. While obviously there are benefits to a culture of >> mentoring, even when I am in hand-holding edit-training mode (about as >> mentoring as it gets and I provide my contact details off-wiki as well as >> on-wiki for any follow-up), it’s difficult for me to justify to them why the >> newbie’s edits are being undone because the edits simply aren’t that bad. >> The situation makes me very angry. It is not as if it is the same small pool >> of editors creating these problems where maybe one could try to take action >> against them. It seems that we have such a huge pool of aggressive editors >> that our newbies will randomly attract the attention of one of them. (Or it >> may be that some bullying personalities are actively on the lookout for >> victims and newbies are a soft target). >> >> >> >> So, all in all, I think if we need to go back to first principles “the >> encyclopaedia anyone can edit” and see that the aggressive nature of the >> community is working against this intention and seek to curb that >> aggression. I think curbing the aggression would result in more editors both >> male and female. So in that light, I would have to say that I find the >> ArbCom decision distressing as it appears to acknowledge and reinforce that >> the aggressive culture is both dominant and should continue to be so. >> >> >> >> Kerry >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Gendergap mailing list >> Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > >
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