Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Workshop for Women in Wikipedia (WWW) idea
In-line :- On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 12:50, Bishakha Datta bishakhada...@gmail.com wrote: snipped Hey Shirish, Dear Bishaka, Been talking to lots of women about this - one barrier I'm finding from informal chats with many women in India who are otherwise comfy with the net is technical. At the first Mumbai meetup in Sept 2010, women who blog etc regularly said they found the editing interface much harder to use, so tried, then abandoned it. While I do accept the part of the interface being technical and can be made more pleasant/easy (something like wordpress.com perhaps and which has been discussed to death in off-line sessions) what would also be perhaps cool for them is to able to use lot of real-world analogies to the audience so that they are able to understand stuff. Just to take an example, about a year/year and a half ago had gone to McLeodganj, Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh and had done a GNU/Linux workshop for around 10-15 days by self. The main audience were hitchikers/backpackers/people seeking spiritual answers. Because I have been all that and know their language intimately was able to share both experiences as well as some knowledge. It was a week affair but all of us benefitted from the same. I didn't document this on the blog because people usually equate GNU/Linux to seriousness or serious people and not with fun etc. Similar is the case of wikipedia. Now, obviously, somebody would have to do something similar so it feels safe,secure and loving environment to learn and ask questions. At the Kolkata wiki 10 meetup in Jan 2011, a woman who had attended an earlier meetup requested a wiki workshop for a group of women - she wanted a separate workshop for women only so that women could really understand how to edit and work through the editing interface and ask basic questions without appearing stupid or ignorant. She felt constrained to ask these questions in the more technologically-sophisticated environment of the regular meetups. Know what you mean, see above. The same also happens during geek workshops, of course once you have been in it for a long time you develop a thick skin and are able to ask things to your heart's content. But for a newbie it can be scary for sure. Also, many women who are interested in editing are not necessarily willing to learn how to edit + related policies on their own. True. It would have to somehow tailored to them. So yes, helpers and guides would be great - as well as workshops both aimed specifically at women, and general workshops where we encourage more women to participate. (We don't want to lump women into a separate category necessarily, but if we really want to encourage more women to edit, we do need to address barriers *they* identify as well - so a mixed strategy would be great.) agree. Also, while we should, of course, continue to do workshops at IITs, VJTI and other technical institutes, there's already a gender gap at these institutes - where there are many more men than women. If we only look for women where there are largely men, we are unlikely to find them. So it would be good to look for IT or related departments at women's colleges such as SNDT etc too. agree as well. There are many other barriers, some general, some specific to women, as is being discussed on gendergap...just wanted to highlight this. Cheers Bishakha One should not also forget when targetting one party there could be other side-benefits which end up benefitting the whole community which perhaps can't be seen now. For instance, better documentation which is still a core issue in many a project/s. -- Regards, Shirish Agarwal शिरीष अग्रवाल My quotes in this email licensed under CC 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ http://flossexperiences.wordpress.com 065C 6D79 A68C E7EA 52B3 8D70 950D 53FB 729A 8B17 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Workshop for Women in Wikipedia (WWW) idea
At bottom :- On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 16:35, Pradeep Mohandas pradeep.mohan...@gmail.com wrote: hi, Tinu Cherian and Moksh Juneja were discussing this on twitter. Tinu suggested that there be held a Workshop for Women in Wikipedia as a response to the news article/study on the point about percentage of women who participate in Wikipedia. These are a few blog and newspaper articles you can read for background which shows that fewer than 15% of the editors on Wikipedia are women. 1. Wikimedia Blog - http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/02/01/wikipedias-gender-gap/ 2. New York Times article - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?bl - which triggered the debate. 3. Sue Gardner, among the people covered in the NY Times article, posted a separate blog post - http://suegardner.org/2011/01/31/new-york-times-prompts-a-flurry-of-coverage-of-wikipedias-gender-gap/ - which writes about the coverage. A mailing list has now been created called Gender Gap as a a space where Wikipedians and non-Wikipedians can share research and information and tactics for making Wikipedia more attractive to women editors. This mailing list can be found here - http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/ Tinu's suggested workshop idea has led to Moksh urging him to take it up seriously and he's offered to help in the Mumbai end of things. I suggested that the first such event under that or other name could be held on March 8, 2011 (the centenary year of International Women's Day). The workshop is seen as a space to help and mentor passionate women editors on Wikipedia who need help. I think we do this anyway but the very bad gender skew means we have to do it more often. This has just been posted as a starting point for conversations. Ideas, suggestions etc are all welcome. warm regards, Pradeep Mohandas user:prad2609 Hi all, A *biased* male's opinion. Well, what little exposure I have had on this with women, some observations, some pointers which people could look at :- a. As far as imagination and article creation is concerned, they have lots of materials. b. Drive and enthusiasm is also not an issue c. The only issue seems to be :- 1. Lack of commitment and a community which revolves around some topic which is their baby. *scratch our itch* stuff. I know it contravens what I said above but that is an issue. b. Lack of helper/guider community . c. Lack of referencing leading to deletion of article whatever leading to not fun thing of adding more stuff. While there are all kinds of people and just like some people who are self-motivated to try anything, this does not apply to all. Some of the features/issues maybe also similar issues which drive some of *new* India wiki editor contributions/submissions. So it is the need of the hour. So would be good if you guys do something, perhaps the Pune folks could also emulate it as well. Ashwin what do you say ? I would be open to helping out, doing something similar on that date as well either at symbi or maybe even SNDT girls college if you want. Just putting it up on the air, lemme know what you think onlist or off-list whatever is preferable to you. -- Regards, Shirish Agarwal शिरीष अग्रवाल My quotes in this email licensed under CC 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ http://flossexperiences.wordpress.com 065C 6D79 A68C E7EA 52B3 8D70 950D 53FB 729A 8B17 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Workshop for Women in Wikipedia (WWW) idea
hi, Tinu Cherian and Moksh Juneja were discussing this on twitter. Tinu suggested that there be held a Workshop for Women in Wikipedia as a response to the news article/study on the point about percentage of women who participate in Wikipedia. These are a few blog and newspaper articles you can read for background which shows that fewer than 15% of the editors on Wikipedia are women. 1. Wikimedia Blog - http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/02/01/wikipedias-gender-gap/ 2. New York Times article - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html?bl - which triggered the debate. 3. Sue Gardner, among the people covered in the NY Times article, posted a separate blog post - http://suegardner.org/2011/01/31/new-york-times-prompts-a-flurry-of-coverage-of-wikipedias-gender-gap/- which writes about the coverage. A mailing list has now been created called Gender Gap as a a space where Wikipedians and non-Wikipedians can share research and information and tactics for making Wikipedia more attractive to women editors. This mailing list can be found here - http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/ Tinu's suggested workshop idea has led to Moksh urging him to take it up seriously and he's offered to help in the Mumbai end of things. I suggested that the first such event under that or other name could be held on March 8, 2011 (the centenary year of International Women's Day). The workshop is seen as a space to help and mentor passionate women editors on Wikipedia who need help. I think we do this anyway but the very bad gender skew means we have to do it more often. This has just been posted as a starting point for conversations. Ideas, suggestions etc are all welcome. warm regards, Pradeep Mohandas user:prad2609 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
