WikiWomen

[Mancunium]

Page not found
A recent edit-a-thon attempts to correct the online gender imbalance by creating Wiki entries for Indian women
The Hindu, 11 April 2014 link

Do you know of Charusita Chakravarty or Rohini Godbole? Chances are that you have not heard of either of them. Even though Chakravarty is the don of fluid dynamics and Godbole is a physicist who helped hunt down and decipher the Higgs-Boson particle. But you can hardly be blamed. The problem is that they barely exist on the Web; and this tells us more about society’s systemic omissions rather than an individual’s ignorance. In today’s digital world, to not exist on the Web is to exist only in half measure; it is to be unsearchable, to be unknown, to be a nobody. The World Wide Web abducted us two decades ago. We now experience life through Twitter feeds, Facebook streams and RSS alerts. We know what our friends and followers read, and we think we know everything. But the whispers that slip through the cracks are as important as all the ambient sound and white noise. To remedy that, Wikipedia — the world’s omniscient and omnipresent encyclopaedia — started the Gender Gap project in 2011 to bridge the online gender imbalance. [...] A 2011 study showed that women comprise only 15 per cent of global contributors on Wikipedia. In India, women make up a paltry three per cent of contributors.

Recently a group of 20-odd volunteers assembled to help right this wrong. Working with Wiki, along with Women in Free Software and Culture (WFS India), they gathered at the Delhi office of Breakthrough, an NGO for the prevention of violence against women and children. [...] Mumbai-based Rohini Lakshané, chairperson of the Gender Gap project in India, explained the structure of Wiki and went through the steps to make a page. [...] Wiki boasts one lakh volunteers worldwide, but only 2,000 active Indian editors per month. This leads to a serious knowledge disparity. [...] As Lakshané says, “Wiki represents the sum of human knowledge that is already put out there. But it is a very Western point of view.” [...] As Shobha SV, a former journalist and manager-multimedia of Breakthrough says, “In this day and age of information overload, less information is also a form of violence. Events like this edit-a-thon and a recent hackathon aim to correct these imbalances.” For Lakshané, who has been a Wiki editor for English and Marathi pages since 2008, the lack of women editors snakes back to multiple social and technological reasons: women don’t project themselves enough; they are afraid of antagonism; they have little access to computers; they have less free time as they spend more time on the family; the Wiki syntax is intimidating and, with fewer tech-savvy women, newcomers find it difficult to negotiate. [...]

Rohini (T-C-L)

[TungstenCarbide]

Adrianne Wadewitz is Awadewit (T-C-L).

Rather sadly, news has come that Adrianne has died tragically while rock climbing.

She was the rare combination of critic and teacher active on Wikipedia. She was someone over to whom, I would argue, the reigns of Wikipedia's editorial control could have and perhaps should have been given.

She will be missed.

She was one of my favorite Wikipedians. I enjoyed her articles and her kind spirit.

http://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html

Wikimedian activist Adrianne Wadewitz dies
Wikinews, 10 April 2014 link

My condolences.

RIP

[thekohser]

Adrianne Wadewitz is Awadewit (T-C-L).

Rather sadly, news has come that Adrianne has died tragically while rock climbing.

I remember listening to Adrianne on the 17th episode of Not The Wikipedia Weekly, just prior to Episode 18, which I appeared on.

Goodbye, Adrianne... There's a certain irony that the last two new articles she created on Wikipedia were about Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World (T-H-L), and about an extreme sports magazine Ultrasport (T-H-L), which had also passed away.

[thekohser]

My friendly contact at Rollins College, Dr. Patrick Fleming, knew Wadewitz... having served on a panel discussion with her. In addition to Wikipedia, he shares a mutual academic interest with her in pre-20th century English children's literature.

I also note this tribute by Alex Stinson:

Just a month ago, Adrianne and I were fighting through our rejection of a paper from an Academic journal on the place of history and historical process in Wikipedia. Today I control her intellectual property in that article, as we had yet to find another platform for publishing it. Moreover, we had talked about something beyond our research in that first article: beginning to really understand, through large scale analysis, how women and humanities are problematically represented in Wikipedia. Without her voice helping me hone and shape those ideas, and without her experience helping assuage the fears I have entering the larger academic community, I am feeling blinded. I need help, and gladly welcome collaboration to meet her goals. Hopefully, we can use this tragedy to find a way to dedicate more research to her vision.

And in another way, her world touched mine, when I wrote about an inappropriate featured article on Wikipedia's main page. Wadewitz, far more than any other editor, authored that featured article.

[HRIP7]

Adrianne was enthusiastic about Wikipedia, but she was certainly not blind to its problems (in fact, she was quoted at length in one of our blog posts). She did great work with HASTAC, who have a tribute to her up, as has FemTechNet.

This is a really, really sad loss. Her voice will be missed.

There are tributes on her Wikipedia talk page as well; Moni3 (T-C-L), who was one of Wikipedia's best and most colourful content writers, logged in for the first time in months to leave a comment some here might enjoy reading.

[Hex]

I'm very sorry to hear this sad news. RIP.

[lilburne]

Sad news indeed for friends and relations.

[Hex]

I remember listening to Adrianne on the 17th episode of Not The Wikipedia Weekly, just prior to Episode 18, which I appeared on.

So you did. Always interesting to hear the voice of someone you're used to reading on the screen.

[Mancunium]

The following was published today in the leading English-language newspaper of the United Arab Emirates.

Wikipedia: a bias against women?
The National, 12 April 2014 link

[...] It can feel as though almost every fact and opinion about life, the universe and everything gets a mention among the 30 million pages of this vast electronic database, which was founded in 2001 and has gone on to be ranked among the world’s top 5 websites. After all, with an army of enthusiastic volunteers generating content, there should be no reason for any individuals or topics to be ignored. At least that is how it might seem. But what if Wikipedia had an unspoken bias towards men? What if, because of the makeup of that army of unseen volunteers, it tended to ignore topics more of interest to women, or to underplay their role in the world we live in? Some of these biases are easy to spot – entries on action films tend to be longer and more detailed than those about romantic comedies. But there are others of more profound concern. In the real world, about four in 10 American sociologists are female. But woman account for only two in 10 of those listed on Wikipedia. Prof Hannah Bruckner from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) has begun a two-year study into gender bias in Wikipedia coverage of, in particular, history, sociology and computer science. Working with Prof Julia Adams of Yale, she has been looking at the reasons behind this apparent under-representation of female academics and their work on Wikipedia. [...]

Research in 2011 by academics at the University of Minnesota indicated that only about one in six contributors to Wikipedia was female. It may be, commentators have suggested, that producing articles is a “geeky” activity that appeals more to men, or that the editorial process, which sometimes becomes adversarial when editors delete material, only to see it reposted by the original contributor, and possibly deleted again, tends to put women off. Not only that, suggests Prof Bruckner, male academics may spend more time on self-promotion on the site than their female counterparts, sometimes even having “fan clubs” of male graduate students who submit material about them. The researchers will look at academics at leading American universities, and try to forecast by age and number of academic citations by other scholars whether each person should have a page. This can be compared with real-life data on who does have such a page. And with Wikipedia, you aren’t limited to looking at the entries themselves. Behind each entry, and available for anyone to see, are the apparently endless – and often arcane – discussions between contributors and editor about which entries should be included, and which details within them. These entries, Prof Bruckner believes, are particularly revealing. But they are so vast in quantity that no one could read through all of them. Instead, the academics will employ a computer algorithm to sift through the swaths of discussions, looking for mention of issues such as the “professor test”. The rules look at, for example, whether the person holds a university chair in a subject or if he or she is the editor of a major journal. [...]

Prof Bruckner’s hope is that having systemic data on the extent and reasons behind bias could mobilise resources to deal with the issue. It might help, she suggests, if universities encouraged staff to become Wikipedia contributors, ensuring important academic work does not get ignored. They could, for example, expand the programmes some of them already run for academics on writing newspaper editorial columns – another area where female writers tend to be heavily outnumbered – to cover Wikipedia contributions. “That is not something we usually do. We’re scientists, we’re not in the business of marketing our research. We have no training to do this,” said Prof Bruckner. She admits she has never contributed to Wikipedia herself. The apparent bias could also be partly redressed by focusing on general initiatives to improve Wikipedia’s quality. For Prof Bruckner, the Wikipedia project may also offer pointers about how the value of academic work in general is assessed. “There is the gender issue, but also how people think about scholarship and what’s reputable scholarship or not,” she said.

[Poetlister]

The following was published today in the leading English-language newspaper of the United Arab Emirates.

Wikipedia: a bias against women?]

Hmm. Not that I disagree with the article, but I look forward to their article on "Government of the UAE: a bias against women?"

[TungstenCarbide]

On the BBC today; http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26828726

[thekohser]

The following was published today in the leading English-language newspaper of the United Arab Emirates.

Wikipedia: a bias against women?
The National, 12 April 2014 link

[...] ...Prof Hannah Bruckner from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) has begun a two-year study into gender bias in Wikipedia coverage of, in particular, history, sociology and computer science. Working with Prof Julia Adams of Yale, she has been looking at the reasons behind this apparent under-representation of female academics and their work on Wikipedia. [...]

The National Science Foundation paid these women $132,000 to do this research?

We need to get Wikipediocracy finally organized as a non-profit, and then start applying for these kinds of grants.

[Bottled_Spider]

The following was published today in the leading English-language newspaper of the United Arab Emirates.

Wikipedia: a bias against women?
The National, 12 April 2014 link

[...] ...Prof Hannah Bruckner from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) has begun a two-year study into gender bias in Wikipedia coverage of, in particular, history, sociology and computer science. Working with Prof Julia Adams of Yale, she has been looking at the reasons behind this apparent under-representation of female academics and their work on Wikipedia. [...]

The National Science Foundation paid these women $132,000 to do this research?

And why 132? Why not round it up to 135, or even a cool 150? The gravy train provides a buffet car, after all, and Profs Hannah and Julia can't be expected to bring their own packed lunches.

[Mancunium]

Adrianne Wadewitz, 37, Wikipedia Editor, Dies After Rock Climbing Fall
The New York Times, 18 April 2014 link

Adrianne Wadewitz, a scholar of 18th-century British literature who became one of the most prolific and influential editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, died on April 8 in Palm Springs, Calif. She was 37. The cause was head injuries sustained in a fall on March 29 while Ms. Wadewitz was rock climbing in Joshua Tree National Park, said Peter B. James, Ms. Wadewitz’s partner. She had taken up rock climbing only in the last couple of years, and on her personal blog she described the thrill of creating “a new narrative” about herself beyond that of a bookish, piano-playing, Wikipedia contributor.

The bulk of Ms. Wadewitz’s work at Wikipedia concerned biographies of women, particularly writers and thinkers from the era that she studied to earn her Ph.D. An early contribution, or “edit,” was in 2006, when she “punched up the intro” to the article about Jane Austen, to note Austen’s “masterful use of both indirect speech and irony.” More than 49,000 edits later, Ms. Wadewitz had created a whole library of articles about figures like the early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, the children’s book writer Mary Martha Sherwood and the “woman of letters” Anna Laetitia Barbauld. Each of these biographical articles was labeled a “featured article” — the highest praise her fellow editors can give — appearing on the site’s home page.

“It is a huge loss for Wikipedia,” said Sue Gardner, the executive director of the foundation in San Francisco that runs Wikipedia, who has made a priority of getting more women to edit it. “She may have been our single biggest contributor on these topics — female authors, women’s history.” Ms. Wadewitz defied many of the stereotypes of a Wikipedia editor — young, male, tech-obsessed. But she was typical of Wikipedia editors in “being persnickety, fact-obsessed, citation-obsessed,” Ms. Gardner said. [...] Adrianne Wadewitz was born on Jan. 6, 1977, in Omaha and grew up there and in North Platte, Neb. She attended Columbia University, from which she graduated in 1999 with a degree in English. She earned her Ph.D. from Indiana University in 2011. At her death, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Digital Learning and Research at Occidental College. Besides Mr. James, she is survived by her parents, the Rev. Dr. Nathan R. Wadewitz and Betty M. Wadewitz. [...]

Adrianne Wadewitz was literally the face of Wikipedia editing:

[thekohser]

The following was published today in the leading English-language newspaper of the United Arab Emirates.

Wikipedia: a bias against women?
The National, 12 April 2014 link

[...] ...Prof Hannah Bruckner from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) has begun a two-year study into gender bias in Wikipedia coverage of, in particular, history, sociology and computer science. Working with Prof Julia Adams of Yale, she has been looking at the reasons behind this apparent under-representation of female academics and their work on Wikipedia. [...]

The National Science Foundation paid these women $132,000 to do this research?

We need to get Wikipediocracy finally organized as a non-profit, and then start applying for these kinds of grants.

A recent e-mail exchange I had with Julia Adams strongly suggests to me that these particular women are not interested in doing any research that would actually be challenging and meaningful.

[Cla68]

Adrianne Wadewitz, 37, Wikipedia Editor, Dies After Rock Climbing Fall
The New York Times, 18 April 2014 link

Adrianne Wadewitz, a scholar of 18th-century British literature who became one of the most prolific and influential editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, died on April 8 in Palm Springs, Calif. She was 37. The cause was head injuries sustained in a fall on March 29 while Ms. Wadewitz was rock climbing in Joshua Tree National Park, said Peter B. James, Ms. Wadewitz’s partner. She had taken up rock climbing only in the last couple of years, and on her personal blog she described the thrill of creating “a new narrative” about herself beyond that of a bookish, piano-playing, Wikipedia contributor.

The bulk of Ms. Wadewitz’s work at Wikipedia concerned biographies of women, particularly writers and thinkers from the era that she studied to earn her Ph.D. An early contribution, or “edit,” was in 2006, when she “punched up the intro” to the article about Jane Austen, to note Austen’s “masterful use of both indirect speech and irony.” More than 49,000 edits later, Ms. Wadewitz had created a whole library of articles about figures like the early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, the children’s book writer Mary Martha Sherwood and the “woman of letters” Anna Laetitia Barbauld. Each of these biographical articles was labeled a “featured article” — the highest praise her fellow editors can give — appearing on the site’s home page.

“It is a huge loss for Wikipedia,” said Sue Gardner, the executive director of the foundation in San Francisco that runs Wikipedia, who has made a priority of getting more women to edit it. “She may have been our single biggest contributor on these topics — female authors, women’s history.” Ms. Wadewitz defied many of the stereotypes of a Wikipedia editor — young, male, tech-obsessed. But she was typical of Wikipedia editors in “being persnickety, fact-obsessed, citation-obsessed,” Ms. Gardner said. [...] Adrianne Wadewitz was born on Jan. 6, 1977, in Omaha and grew up there and in North Platte, Neb. She attended Columbia University, from which she graduated in 1999 with a degree in English. She earned her Ph.D. from Indiana University in 2011. At her death, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Digital Learning and Research at Occidental College. Besides Mr. James, she is survived by her parents, the Rev. Dr. Nathan R. Wadewitz and Betty M. Wadewitz. [...]

Adrianne Wadewitz was literally the face of Wikipedia editing:

I believe Ms Wadewitz and I had helped each other out with copyediting on several articles. It appears that she lived an active and fulfilling life.

[Notvelty]

The following was published today in the leading English-language newspaper of the United Arab Emirates.

Wikipedia: a bias against women?
The National, 12 April 2014 link

[...] ...Prof Hannah Bruckner from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) has begun a two-year study into gender bias in Wikipedia coverage of, in particular, history, sociology and computer science. Working with Prof Julia Adams of Yale, she has been looking at the reasons behind this apparent under-representation of female academics and their work on Wikipedia. [...]

The National Science Foundation paid these women $132,000 to do this research?

We need to get Wikipediocracy finally organized as a non-profit, and then start applying for these kinds of grants.

A recent e-mail exchange I had with Julia Adams strongly suggests to me that these particular women are not interested in doing any research that would actually be challenging and meaningful.

I know you do your research, so I think I'm safe in assuming you looked at her profile on the university website before chatting. My question then is "why did you need to have the email exchange to get that impression?"

To Ed B: From a superficial glance, Prof. Adams seems to be an excellent example of an academic that acts in the way I raised earlier this month in another thread I can't be bothered looking up right now.

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia editor dies, leaving behind appreciative students
The Daily Cougar, 22 April 2014 link

[...] While nearly all of us use the Internet to fact check, learn about topics and read the news, some of us contribute more than others to the knowledge pool. Adrianne Wadewitz was one such woman. Wikipedia, one of the most popular websites on the Internet, is where many students go to learn about a vast array of topics. Wadewitz was among the Wikipedia editors who made our lives easier in the pursuit of knowledge. She was responsible for the creation and editing of around 50,000 posts throughout her lifetime. [...] Even while teachers chastise the use of Wikipedia as a source that “anyone” can edit, it is important to realize how much impact such influential contributors to the site can have on our collective learning. The bulk of editing on Wikipedia is by unpaid enthusiasts such as Wadewitz, who form a community that demands citations, meticulousness and perfection. [...]

As many teachers urge students, perhaps we should all become a little more aware of who is writing the sources of our research as we move into finals. Millions read the most popular articles on Wikipedia, although few know who wrote them. In a country where education is so expensive, much thanks goes to those who contribute regularly to Wikipedia and other free information sources that aid those struggling to earn their degrees. [...] In a country where classes cost thousands of dollars, people like Wadewitz are saints for those who cannot afford formal education on the subjects. Whether someone is studying feminism, engineering, communication, mathematics, computer science or history — or simply enjoys reading informative articles — they have probably unknowingly found themselves impacted by Wikipedia contributors such as Wadewitz.[...] Let her life be an example to help those who don’t necessarily ask for it. No matter what your particular skills may be, use them to help others, just as Wadewitz did.

[Mancunium]

Learning to care
Yale Daily News, 22 April 2014 link

Last week, a friend told me that he doesn’t care about 51 percent of the population. I was showing him a video on Facebook of a Fox News story on Wikipedia Edit-A-Thons, a phenomenon that encourages volunteer editors to correct gendered or racial bias in Wikipedia articles. Given that nine out of 10 Wikipedia editors are men, this seemed like a good project to me. Disposing of preconceived notions, eliminating bias, disseminating knowledge — that’s what we’re here for, right? My friend didn’t seem to think so. He said he “didn’t know or care enough about the issue,” but also didn’t want Wikipedia to be injected with liberal bias.

At first, I was filled with an inarticulate, thought-constipating fury. There were so many things to say. The first thing that popped into my head was the truism that sexism hurts people of all genders. The second was to inform my friend that correcting for white male bias is not the same thing as actively “injecting” a liberal one. But I realized that I’m not just disappointed in my suitemate. I’m disappointed that besides one friend who sits next to me, there are only a handful of other men in my 135-person “Women in Modern America” class. I’m disappointed that I’m known as a “big feminist” in my friend group when I know there are so many other people on this campus who deserve that label more than I do. I’m concerned about students who weren’t as lucky as I was to come from an egalitarian high school or who didn’t join an a cappella group that just happened to have a lot of strong-minded females.

But mostly I’m troubled that my friend can complete two years of a Yale education and retain so much indifference, and that maybe he isn’t alone. He is part of a larger trend that I’ve noticed on campus, something I can only describe as intellectual tunnel vision. [...] When I asked my literature professor why only one of the nine novels on the syllabus was written by a woman, he responded with the professorial equivalent of a shrug. Women make up a large portion of Yale students — you’ve probably met one — and yet we still relegate the female perspective to only one of 82 majors. In doing so, we tell men at Yale that it’s acceptable to ignore how our sex has filtered the lens through which we see society when we should be learning to level the playing field. [...] All I can say is that a Yale education, at nearly a quarter of a million dollars a pop, does not afford for apathy. It is not enough to expect to become a more informed person just by being here. One of the most important things I’ve learned here is that nothing — not economics, not chemistry, not feminism — exists in a vacuum, and that the countless number of great conversations happening on campus can only be so productive until we all engage in them.

[Zoloft]

Learning to care
Yale Daily News, 22 April 2014 link

Last week, a friend told me that he doesn’t care about 51 percent of the population. I was showing him a video on Facebook of a Fox News story on Wikipedia Edit-A-Thons, a phenomenon that encourages volunteer editors to correct gendered or racial bias in Wikipedia articles. Given that nine out of 10 Wikipedia editors are men, this seemed like a good project to me. Disposing of preconceived notions, eliminating bias, disseminating knowledge — that’s what we’re here for, right? My friend didn’t seem to think so. He said he “didn’t know or care enough about the issue,” but also didn’t want Wikipedia to be injected with liberal bias.

At first, I was filled with an inarticulate, thought-constipating fury. There were so many things to say. The first thing that popped into my head was the truism that sexism hurts people of all genders. The second was to inform my friend that correcting for white male bias is not the same thing as actively “injecting” a liberal one. But I realized that I’m not just disappointed in my suitemate. I’m disappointed that besides one friend who sits next to me, there are only a handful of other men in my 135-person “Women in Modern America” class. I’m disappointed that I’m known as a “big feminist” in my friend group when I know there are so many other people on this campus who deserve that label more than I do. I’m concerned about students who weren’t as lucky as I was to come from an egalitarian high school or who didn’t join an a cappella group that just happened to have a lot of strong-minded females.

But mostly I’m troubled that my friend can complete two years of a Yale education and retain so much indifference, and that maybe he isn’t alone. He is part of a larger trend that I’ve noticed on campus, something I can only describe as intellectual tunnel vision. [...] When I asked my literature professor why only one of the nine novels on the syllabus was written by a woman, he responded with the professorial equivalent of a shrug. Women make up a large portion of Yale students — you’ve probably met one — and yet we still relegate the female perspective to only one of 82 majors. In doing so, we tell men at Yale that it’s acceptable to ignore how our sex has filtered the lens through which we see society when we should be learning to level the playing field. [...] All I can say is that a Yale education, at nearly a quarter of a million dollars a pop, does not afford for apathy. It is not enough to expect to become a more informed person just by being here. One of the most important things I’ve learned here is that nothing — not economics, not chemistry, not feminism — exists in a vacuum, and that the countless number of great conversations happening on campus can only be so productive until we all engage in them.

The indifferent will be with us always. Sometimes they really don't "know or care enough about the issue." Sometimes they are just tired of hearing about it. We all vary. Sometimes from moment to moment.

[Notvelty]

Learning to care
Yale Daily News, 22 April 2014 link

Last week, a friend told me that he doesn’t care about 51 percent of the population. I was showing him a video on Facebook of a Fox News story on Wikipedia Edit-A-Thons, a phenomenon that encourages volunteer editors to correct gendered or racial bias in Wikipedia articles. Given that nine out of 10 Wikipedia editors are men, this seemed like a good project to me. Disposing of preconceived notions, eliminating bias, disseminating knowledge — that’s what we’re here for, right? My friend didn’t seem to think so. He said he “didn’t know or care enough about the issue,” but also didn’t want Wikipedia to be injected with liberal bias.

At first, I was filled with an inarticulate, thought-constipating fury. There were so many things to say. The first thing that popped into my head was the truism that sexism hurts people of all genders. The second was to inform my friend that correcting for white male bias is not the same thing as actively “injecting” a liberal one. But I realized that I’m not just disappointed in my suitemate. I’m disappointed that besides one friend who sits next to me, there are only a handful of other men in my 135-person “Women in Modern America” class. I’m disappointed that I’m known as a “big feminist” in my friend group when I know there are so many other people on this campus who deserve that label more than I do. I’m concerned about students who weren’t as lucky as I was to come from an egalitarian high school or who didn’t join an a cappella group that just happened to have a lot of strong-minded females.

But mostly I’m troubled that my friend can complete two years of a Yale education and retain so much indifference, and that maybe he isn’t alone. He is part of a larger trend that I’ve noticed on campus, something I can only describe as intellectual tunnel vision. [...] When I asked my literature professor why only one of the nine novels on the syllabus was written by a woman, he responded with the professorial equivalent of a shrug. Women make up a large portion of Yale students — you’ve probably met one — and yet we still relegate the female perspective to only one of 82 majors. In doing so, we tell men at Yale that it’s acceptable to ignore how our sex has filtered the lens through which we see society when we should be learning to level the playing field. [...] All I can say is that a Yale education, at nearly a quarter of a million dollars a pop, does not afford for apathy. It is not enough to expect to become a more informed person just by being here. One of the most important things I’ve learned here is that nothing — not economics, not chemistry, not feminism — exists in a vacuum, and that the countless number of great conversations happening on campus can only be so productive until we all engage in them.

The indifferent will be with us always. Sometimes they really don't "know or care enough about the issue." Sometimes they are just tired of hearing about it. We all vary. Sometimes from moment to moment.

I can see where she's coming from. I'd be disappointed if someone didn't complete two years at Yale and didn't immediately agree with what I said.

Because I'm just better.

[The Joy]

I tried to take a "Women in Art and Music" class in college. I dropped after the first day. One of our projects was a "herstory" report in which we all were to dress up as women artists and tell our artist's story. The prof hesitantly said that we could just dress up as their fathers or husbands if we were men, but the dressing up was mandatory and she strongly hinted that dressing up like a female artist was preferred. Of the three men there, only one was very enthusiastic about dressing as a woman (he even wanted to do several reports so he could dress as many women), but me and the other guy were not too happy.

I had an African-American Literature professor as white as the snow, but she taught that course thoroughly. It was wonderful. Yes, there were "damn the white man" tracts and such, yet you could understand why. Up until very recently (and still in many places), African-Americans and white Americans lived in different worlds. Not just physically, but culturally and socially. There is a uniqueness to their history and identity that is rarely discussed in standard classes. Most traditional classes have focused on white, European, Western thoughts and practices. In an ideal world, I would hope that contributions from all groups would be represented in all educational curricula, but that's not happening yet.

So, I know that controversial topics like gender, feminism, sex, race, etc. can be discussed, debated, and analyzed effectively if presented a certain way (preferably without men wearing dresses). I wish I had researched more into my college's Women's Studies classes. Maybe I could have learned more about how women think?

[Notvelty]

One of our projects was a "herstory" report in which we all were to dress up as women artists and tell our artist's story... me and the other guy were not too happy.

Why? It seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

I had an African-American Literature professor as white as the snow, but she taught that course thoroughly.

Don't say that in Australia, it's illegal.

Yes, there were "damn the white man" tracts and such, yet you could understand why.

And so there should be. That, along with "damn all men" tracts of some of the fire-and-brimstone feminist "preachers" of different eras are essential for a good study of the subject. Understanding why and the context is vital. Problem is that people forget the context and see just the stimulus material.

Problem is that for some when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

[Mancunium]

Adrianne Wadewitz dies at 37; helped diversify Wikipedia
The scholar, a prolific contributer who helped the demystify the online encyclopedia's inner workings, died after a rock-climbing accident at Joshua Tree.
Los Angeles Times, 23 April 2014

When Adrianne Wadewitz became a Wikipedia contributor 10 years ago she decided to use a pseudonym, certain that fellow scholars at Indiana University would frown on writing for the often-maligned "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." But Wadewitz eventually came out as a Wikipedian, the term the encyclopedia uses to describe the tens of thousands of volunteers who write and edit its pages. A rarity as a woman in the male-centric Wikipedia universe, she became one of its most valued and prolific contributors as well as a force for diversifying its ranks and demystifying its inner workings. [...] A postdoctoral fellow at Occidental College's Center for Digital Learning and Research, Wadewitz worked with faculty and students to use technology and the Internet effectively in the classroom. As a campus ambassador for Wikipedia, she also tackled widespread skepticism about the online source's trustworthiness and biases. [...] Legendary in the Wikipedia world, Wadewitz had more than 50,000 "edits" or contributions to her credit. She also was the author of 36 "featured" articles, the highest distinction bestowed by other Wikipedians based on accuracy, fairness, style and comprehensiveness.

"She was one of the top 10 editors in terms of producing a lot of high-quality content," said Sue Gardner, executive director of Wikimedia Foundation, the San Francisco-based nonprofit that operates Wikipedia. "Wikipedia is full of brilliant, talented people. She really stood out." Wadewitz did not fit the profile of the typical Wikipedia editor. According to a 2011 Wikimedia Foundation survey, only 9% of more than 100,000 Wikipedians are women, and of those, 22% reported that editing for Wikipedia was "an unpleasant experience." When Wadewitz emerged from behind her moniker (she initially identified herself as "Awadewit") she was greeted by a range of responses from other Wikipedians that spurred her to think about the website's gender gap. "When I used my real name, all of a sudden there was a lot of commentary," she told a Scripps College audience earlier this year. " 'Oh, you're a woman' or 'You can't really be a woman' or 'You don't write like a woman.' Or all of a sudden my arguments were not taken as seriously or were judged as hysterical or emotional.... So I got much more interested in why this was happening."

She began to cast herself as a bridge between Wikipedia and a distrustful public that regarded the online encyclopedia as unreliable and error-prone. She began leading workshops called "edit-a-thons" where she took participants on a tour of the website and explained how entries are produced, vetted and constantly updated and revised. "Archivists take Wikipedia with a grain of salt," said Liza Posas, archivist and librarian at the Autry National Center, who attended Wadewitz's workshop for the L.A. as Subject research alliance. "You think there's a troll behind the screen and don't know what's going on, what's the accountability. She walked us through this great unknown, Wikipedia land. She put us at ease." She also pointed out the encyclopedia's shortcomings. The website's gender gap has been the subject of much discussion as critics like Wadewitz have pointed out disparities not only in the number of female Wikipedians but in the treatment of women subjects and decisions about who or what is worth including. [...] "Wikipedia needs to recruit women, yes, but, more importantly, it needs to recruit feminists," she wrote on her blog last year. "And feminists can be of any gender." [...]

[Mancunium]

Why doesn't the Ada_Initiative (T-H-L) stop sponsoring Wikipedia edit-a-thons, and refuse to have anything further to do with the nasty misogynistic boys' club?

Ada Initiative bails on GitHub, after sexism allegations
Workplace gender discrimination claims against the software hosting service have resulted in an ousted co-founder and a fizzled partnership.
CNET, 23 April 2014 link

The repercussions of the gender-based harassment allegations made against GitHub appear to be having a domino affect. Ada Initiative, a nonprofit that works to get more women involved in open technology, announced Wednesday that it's ending its partnership with GitHub. The ordeal began last month when GitHub co-founder and President Tom Preston-Werner was placed on leave after a female engineer, Julie Ann Horvath, accused the company of gender discrimination. During the two years that Horvath worked at GitHub, which is a hosting service for software projects, she said she tried to fit in with the "boys' club" but had a hard time feeling welcome because of her gender. Horvath said she was subjected to harassment by Werner's wife and an unnamed GitHub engineer, which eventually led to her resignation.

GitHub announced earlier this week that after a "full, independent, third-party investigation," Werner submitted his resignation as president of GitHub. Even though Werner is stepping down, the company maintains he wasn't involved in any sort of gender discrimination. "The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment," GitHub CEO and co-founder Chris Wanstrath wrote in a blog post Monday. "However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment." [...]

For his part, Werner wrote a blog post bidding farewell to GitHub and maintained that neither he nor his wife "engaged in gender-based harassment or discrimination. The results of GitHub's independent investigation unequivocally confirm this and we are prepared to fight any further false claims on this matter to the full extent of the law," Werner wrote. It was both the harassment claims and Werner's warning of legal action that brought Ada Initiative to end its partnership with GitHub. "The sum of these events make it impossible for Ada Initiative to partner with GitHub at this time," the group wrote in a blog post Wednesday. "We are working hard to create a world in which women can participate in open source software, Wikipedia, and other areas of open technology and culture without harassment, intimidation, or discrimination. Sometimes this means refusing to partner with or accept sponsorship from specific people or organizations." [...]

[EricBarbour]

Why doesn't the Ada_Initiative (T-H-L) stop sponsoring Wikipedia edit-a-thons, and refuse to have anything further to do with the nasty misogynistic boys' club?

Because they've got extremely close ties to the WMF.

Valerie Aurora (T-H-L) has edited Wikipedia as Catavar (T-C-L). She edited her own bio, as did Sarah Stierch. And the photo of Aurora was put up for a "Featured Picture" last year (and failed). Who uploaded the photo? Sarah Stierch. And Catavar created the now-deleted article about Sarah Stierch. (Someone tried to insert "negative information" into Aurora's bio last year, and Fluffernutter and Hochman showed up to remove all evidence of the nasties and protect the article.)

Similar nonsense occurred around Mary Gardiner (T-C-L), which was mostly created by our old friend Jim Heaphy, and was edited by Stierch and Ryan Kaldari and Steven Walling (WMF employees at the time) and Rock drum and Tom morris.

The board of directors of the Ada Initiative (T-H-L), from their article:

The current board includes both Aurora and Gardiner, Rachel Chalmers of The 451 Group, Denise Paolucci of Dreamwidth Studios, Sue Gardner of the Wikimedia Foundation, and Caroline Simard.

It doesn't matter how hostile the Wikipedia community towards Ada Initiative activities is. The organization has its hooks deep into the WMF.

[thekohser]

It doesn't matter how hostile the Wikipedia community towards Ada Initiative activities is. The organization has its hooks deep into the WMF.

Jimbo named his second daughter "Ada", for Pete's sake.

[Mancunium]

Thanks for explaining the Ada Initiative's cognitive dissonance.

UM event aims to get more women contributing to Wikipedia
The Missoulian, 29 April 2014 link

Only 13 percent of Wikipedia contributors are women, according to June Noel, the co-founder of Women for the Web, a community advocacy group in Missoula for women interested in Internet development, design and technology. [...] “Missoula has a lot of women in a wide variety of fields,” she said. “There are women who have Ph.D.’s here, women who are experts in environmental science and wildlife biology. There are so many women who could write and contribute and share their knowledge with the world.”

In order to make inroads in rectifying this problem, Noel is working with several local groups to host an event called “Women Who Wiki in Missoula,” on Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Tech Lounge of the University Center at the University of Montana. [...] Women for the Web is cooperating with Geek Puff, an online publication for girls who are interested in science, technology and math. Geek Puff will also be giving anyone who pre-registers an artisan chocolate by Posh Chocolate if they attend the event. MobilizeHer, a global advocacy organization dedicated to accelerating gender equality in the tech industry, is sponsoring the event as well, as are the UM Women’s Resource Center and the University Center.

Noel hopes that women who attend will make connections with other like-minded women. “It’s a little group for support,” she said. “We want to get them started and help them know how to use the program.” The power of Wikipedia is only growing, and women need to be a part of that growth, Noel explained. “Who hasn’t used Wikipedia?” she asked. “The cool thing about it is it’s a collaboration between a lot of different people. If you see information that is wrong you have a chance to edit that. And it’s free. It’s awesome. It’s a powerful tool.” [...]

[Mancunium]

Women's and Gender Studies "Women-in-STEM Edit-a-thon" honors former MIT President Charles Vest
MIT News, 30 April 2014 link

The contributions of women to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields gained some additional visibility on Wikipedia this spring as MIT students and faculty members teamed up for a "Women-in-STEM Edit-a-thon @ MIT" in honor of former MIT President Charles M. Vest, who died in 2013. “It seemed like the perfect exercise to enact the spirit of Vest's legacy in regards to his support of female faculty at MIT,” said Visiting Lecturer Megan Fernandes, a member of the organizing committee for the March 18, 2014, event sponsored by the MIT Program in Women's and Gender Studies (WGS), located in the MIT School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. [...] Margo Dawes, a senior in urban studies and planning who attended the edit-a-thon, said, “Seeing so many students and faculty collaborating for an evening to ensure the recognition of women's achievements in science reassured me that Chuck Vest's vision is still being realized at MIT.” MIT Institute Community and Equity Officer Edmund Bertschinger, who also attended the event, praised WGS for its work keeping equity issues in the spotlight on campus. “MIT has a long history of self-examination and self-improvement. While great strides have been made in promoting gender equity, we need to continue promoting not just equal opportunity, but full empowerment of all of our students, postdocs, staff, and faculty,” he said. “The Program in Women's and Gender Studies plays a key role in leading conversations and actions that empower our community. The Wikipedia edit-a-thon was a great example.”

Improving Wikipedia entries on women in science

Improving Wikipedia entries was deemed a fitting tribute to Vest because women’s perspectives are underrepresented in the online encyclopedia, according to Fernandes. “Eighty to 90 percent of Wikipedia editors are male, and this leads to a structural hierarchy of knowledge that is incomplete. We want our students to think about knowledge production as politically informed,” said Fernandes, who incorporated the edit-a-thon into her spring "Gender and Technology" class, a popular WGS subject. The event began with a crash course on editing Wikipedia entries led by science journalist and longtime Wikipedia editor Maia Weinstock, who is now deputy editor at the MIT News Office. The three-hour session resulted in two new Wikipedia entries — on British biologist Penelope Jeggo and on MIT chemical engineer Karen Gleason, who currently serves as the Institute's associate provost. The group also expanded or otherwise improved 13 additional entries. [...]

Women's and Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary undergraduate program that provides an academic framework and broad-based community for scholarly inquiry focusing on women, gender, race, and sexuality. WGS offers 28 classes across 16 different fields. Some 40 MIT faculty members are affiliated with the program representing architecture, history, comparative media studies, music and theater arts, brain and cognitive sciences, literature, and political science.

[Mancunium]

More than 3,000 expected to flock to WMU for Medieval Congress
Western Michigan University News, 30 April 2014 link

KALAMAZOO—More than 3,000 of the world's leading academics and others interested in the Middle Ages will gather on the Western Michigan University campus Thursday through Sunday, May 8-11, to examine all aspects of the period, from music to military, maritime and monastic history. [...] Special events for 2014 also will include a Medieval Women Wikipedia Write-In staged by the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship, which is seeking to diversify the profile of Wikipedia in terms of both the topics covered and the editorship. The write-in will take place for the duration of the congress, from Thursday morning until midday Sunday. [...]

[Mancunium]

'Wikipedian' editor took on website's gender gap
PBS NewsHour, posted 18 May 2014

Wikipedia has come under scrutiny over the lack of female representation and participation on the website. To combat this trend, Adrianne Wadewitz was a dedicated "Wikipedian," who wrote and edited content on Wikipedia as one of the nearly 75,000 active volunteer editors.

[thekohser]

Here's a throwback bit of data.

Remember when the Wikimedia Foundation hit upon the fundraising idea of showing images of people other than Jimbo for a change? This was in December 2010.

When they showed an image of an attractive Wikipediette, Mayo Fuster Morell, she could have filled a sports arena with over 19,000 people checking her out for more info. (Disclaimer: maybe it was only 18,000 people, plus JzG clicking through a thousand times.)


Good golly, Miss Mayo



But when they showed an image of their token black guy for fundraising, User:Abbas, he only drew a small crowd of 152 people.

Therefore, I ask... is this evidence of racism among Wikipedia readers, or is it sexism?

[Midsize Jake]

Therefore, I ask... is this evidence of racism among Wikipedia readers, or is it sexism?

Probably more like "sexual frustrationism," but as we've seen recently, that can occasionally be just as dangerous as racism and sexism.

[sparkzilla]

As an aside, I have noticed that on my site, where people are paid for their posts, that about 90% of the applicants are women and a good amount of those are minorities. You can see this on our leaderboard. I believe that this may be because Wikipedia is a place for men to indulge in pointless dickswinging about their knowledge and beliefs, while women and minorities would prefer just to make some side money without being harassed by the former.

[Mancunium]

Women and Wikipedia: science and engineering’s forgotten labour
Open Democracy, 23 June 2014 link

A Wikipedia Edit-a-thon for National Women in Engineering Day addresses both the underrepresentation of female editors of Wikipedia and the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering. Today, to celebrate National Women in Engineering Day, the Royal Academy of Engineering are running a women in engineering Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. It follows a series of similar events held at the Royal Society (who have their own Wikimedian in Residence). Anyone can turn up - men are allowed in too - they are given an introduction to editing Wikipedia and encouraged to help build and improve entries on female scientists, engineers and mathematicians. The aim is partly to get more women acting as editors for Wikipedia. Only one in ten of Wikipedia editors are female, and it seems to bias their content. You don’t need to go to a workshop to edit the site (if you never have, go on, have a go, it’s fun and really easy) but the sort of support offered can help make it feel less daunting, and add some fun of social interaction around it rather than simply sitting typing alone in your room. The project also aims to build better coverage women scientists and engineers too. It’s quite striking how weak the coverage of female scientists and engineers on Wikipedia is. If a pages does exist, it's often a stub, or at least quite short compared to equivalent men in the field. For all that women's participation in science continues to be a struggle, it's not as if we suffer from a complete lack of brilliant female scientists, engineers and mathematicians. There are loads; today and in the past. It’s just that we don't talk about them much. The edit-a-thons are helping address this problem. [...]

It varies from field to field, but women are not underrepresented in the overall scientific workforce, it’s progressing to more senior roles that is the problem. And it’s not just about academics either. As generations of feminist scholars of science in society have stressed, what about the technicians, the cleaners, the administrators, the caterers, the teachers, the lensmakers, the typists, the calculators, the writers and all the other workers which are equally a key part of science? Looking for women can open our eyes to many of these roles, but they include many undervalued men in their ranks too. There are an increasing number of successful women in science, engineering, maths and medicine, and they should be talked about in public as much as their male colleagues, if only because we need to be able to read up to ask questions about them. It’s maybe a blessing that female climate scientists seen to have a relatively low profile on Wikipedia, where global warming can be a contentious topic, but it doesn’t say much for the robustness of our public debate. The chief scientific advisor for the European Commission is a woman, for example, as is the in-coming President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. These, along with many other women in science, are people who hold power, and as such should be scrutinised (and scrutinised for their work, not their clothes). But we shouldn't forget that science is really a team sport. Until we stop revering only those at the top of hierarchies, we'll continue to have a blinkered view of scientific work.]

[Mancunium]

Doctor who? Campaign to boost online profile of Australia's female scientists
Sydney Morning Herald, 27 July 2014 link

Ever heard of Dora Lush? She was an Australian microbiologist working in the 1940s on developing a vaccine for a deadly disease known as scrub typhus. She accidentally pricked her finger with a contaminated needle. Three weeks later she died from the very disease she was trying to tame. Hailed as a martyr for science by her contemporaries, she kept donating blood samples from her death bed at the Royal Melbourne Hospital until she died in May 1943. But you would not read about her on the global go-to site Wikipedia. This remarkable researcher is one of an unknown number of Australian women scientists with scant or no presence on the online encyclopaedia. According to web information company Alexa, Wikipedia is the sixth most popular website globally. Yet even Wikipedia admits to a systematic bias when it comes to women in science, describing the subject as ''woefully underrepresented''. Next month the Australian Academy of Science plans to change that, hosting a Women of Science ''Wikibomb'' event inspired by a similar call to arms by the Royal Society, London.

The power of the free, collaborative online encyclopaedia, which will be 14 years old in January, is not lost on the more than 60 volunteers who have signed up as contributors. Academy spokeswoman and University of NSW marine ecologist Emma Johnston said in an era when high school and university students conducted the bulk of their research online, a digital presence was vital. ''If those women don't come up on those searches then they're going to assume they're not there,'' she said. ''But that's not the case. They're just not on Wikipedia.'' Professor Johnston, the inaugural winner of the academy's Nancy Millis Medal for outstanding research in the natural sciences by early- to mid-career Australian women, is among those nominated as in need of a Wikipedia page. ''My first response to being nominated to have a Wiki page was, 'Oh, I'm not that important' – but I think that's symptomatic of a culture we have where we encourage women to be modest and not to put themselves forward," she said. "And so they become invisible." According to a 2011 Wikipedia editor survey, nine out of 10 Wikipedia editors are male. While the academy's Wikibomb event hopes to remedy the low profile of some of the country's most successful scientists, new data on the number of women who participate in research shows they are chronically under-represented. [...]

[Mancunium]

Gang-gang: Wikipedia bombers plot to promote women in science
Canberra Times, 14 August 2014 link

Twenty-five bombers, full of intent, descended upon the Shine Dome of the Australian Academy of Science on Thursday. And yet, in spite of their attentions, the dear old building is still standing unscathed. Ducks, unruffled, continue to dabble in the dome's quaint moat. How can this be? It's because the bombers (140 of them nationwide) taking part in Thursday's "wikibomb" (yes, we'd never heard the word before either) intended only to gently bomb Wikipedia into having more, bigger, better entries about Australian women scientists. Each participant was an "editor" as well as a bomber, for everyone who ever writes or amends anything for Wikipedia is an unpaid, freelance, self-starting "editor". [...] "If you're year 12 student," one of Thursday's organisers, the Australian Academy of Science's Bella Counihan, reflected, "then pretty well your first thing when you're doing schoolwork is to go into Google and then your second thing is to go into Wikipedia. "Of course, it's sometimes a problem with Wikipedia pages that they're not fully accurate ... but hopefully the material we produce today is well cited [containing scholarly references] is easy to read and is accessible for everyone. That's the main goal." One of Thursday's editor/bombers at the dome (all of them women and all interested in what Counihan called "gender in science issues") was molecular biologist and cancer researcher Suzanne Cory.

"What we have here today," she enlightened us as we looked at the roomful of women bombing away, "is what's called a wikibomb. I confess I'd never heard the word before.[...] Women in science haven't been getting the Wikipedia attention they deserve, she diagnoses. Lots of Thursday's editors were scientists but there was a rule that (so as to avoid any suspicion of narcissism) no one could write their own, autobiographical Wikipedia page. Instead, editors were writing pages for women scientists (either with us or gone to their Great Reward) they thought deserving of wikipediadom. And so it came to pass on Thursday, with the freshly created wikipages cobbled together under the dome going straight, then and there, out into the accessible galaxy that is the world wide web, that some Australian women scientists were reported to the online world for the first time, their pages as fresh as just-picked lettuces. We have never watched a wikibombing before but at this one the editors chatted and laughed together as they worked, occasionally fortifying themselves from bowls of chocolate-coated peanuts provided by the academy. When they did look up from their work they saw nearby beautiful New Acton, posed under a bluebell-blue sky, while in the foreground and dabbling in the moat they saw charming examples of what Wikipedia informs is "the Australian wood duck, maned duck or maned goose (Chenonetta jubata) ... a dabbling duck found throughout much of Australia".

Editors work on the women in science wikibomb, watched by Australian Academy of Science president Andrew Holmes and secretary for public awareness and education Pauline Ladiges.

Online activists use Wikibomb to give greater recognition to work of female scientists on Wikipedia
Yahoo!7 News, 14 August 2014 link

The organisers of Australia's first Wikibomb to give greater recognition to the work of female scientists say there is a gender imbalance in Wikipedia, and the work of women in the industry is going unrecognised. To counter this a group of online activists have bombarded the online encyclopaedia with new entries about Australian women scientists, past and present. More than 140 people from around the country took part, contributing remotely from locations like Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. The central event was held in Canberra at the Australian National University Shine Dome, as part of National Science Week.

Emma Johnston is a University of New South Wales (UNSW) Professor and a marine ecologist with the Sydney Institute of Marine Science. "We've got 144 women joining us for the day, and men, who are writing Wikipedia pages about women in science so we're going to have at least 144 excellent entries," she said. She said the Wikibomb initiative was important for all women. "If your role models aren't there, it's really difficult to envisage yourself in that role and it's hard to imagine that you might become a scientist," she said. "Nine out of 10 Wikipedia contributors are male so inevitably we've got a bit of bias with who is being represented online. "So we are going to bomb Wikipedia with pages about Australian women in science, both dead and alive". Professor Johnson herself has had a profile created for her work in the field of marine ecology, although she admited to feeling a little shy about it.

[... some of the Australian scientists to be memorialised ...]

Those involved said they wanted the online world to better reflect reality. "When you do a Google search for famous scientists, you come up with all these pictures of old white men in glasses with lab coats and holding beakers of fuzzy green liquid that look nothing like any experiment that I've ever done," said Dr Krystal Evans, CEO of the BioMelbourne Network. "And so the Australian Academy of Science initiative wants to correct that by profiling women who've made outstanding contributions." She said it was important that women's work be reflected where most people are sourcing information about science. "If you went on Wikipedia and you could only find male scientists, then that's the impression that young children in schools would get, that scientists are all men, but this way we're providing a diversity," she said. [...] "By building the confidence in women to imagine themselves as scientists and to understand that they can be just as good at maths and science and technology and computers as any man, I think we stand to gain a lot in society," she said.

[Mancunium]

Writing Her Place
Maya Angelou, gender disparity and how one Inland Northwest woman is making Wikipedia a better place
by Lisa Waananen Jones, Pacific Northwest Inlander linkhttp://www.inlander.com/spokane/writing ... id=2372780[/link]

[...] The thing everybody knows about Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it. But few actually do. Of the millions of people who view Wikipedia, only about 130,000 have made an edit in the past month. The typical "Wikipedian" is an English-speaking twentysomething man with a college degree but no children. And despite years of community discussion about how to fix the "gender gap," only one out of 10 editors is female. Unlike the sexist threats and blatant hostility that plague other online spaces, Wikipedia's gender controversies tend to involve more subtle judgments of prominence, worth and identity. In one 2013 case that became known as "category-gate," the category list of "American Novelists" was deemed too long and hundreds of names on the list — including Louisa May Alcott, Harper Lee and Amy Tan — were moved to "American Women Novelists."

Tied into this is another well-known problem, as [Christine] Meyer found with Angelou: that women writers, artists and scientists often have shorter and sloppier Wikipedia articles than men with similar accomplishments. [...] "It's really, really hard to talk about 'women' or 'women's interests' because of course women make up more than half the world's population, so it's kind of absurd to imagine you can easily pigeonhole what women are interested in," she wrote. "But I always laugh when people say that Wikipedia is complete — that everything that needs to be written about has been written about — because when I read Wikipedia I am constantly stumbling across gaps in our coverage." [...] Meyer went to Washington, D.C., for training earlier this year, and now leads workshops on the Wikipedia basics that can be daunting for beginners. She's known women who got fed up with the culture and others who've simply gotten busy with other things in life, but says that for her it's always been worth the work. [...]

[thekohser]

Today I discovered that I was cited in a scholarly paper published in Journal of Communication Inquiry. The paper ("(Re)triggering Backlash: Responses to News About Wikipedia’s Gender Gap") says,

"...journalist Gregory Kohs (2011) reported on his own analysis of 200 Wikipedia biographies of living people: More than 80% were about men. Additional news and blog coverage followed, provoking enormous numbers of readers to post comments."

It refers to my Examiner story from January 2011.

I think now would be a good time to reassess (nearly 4 years later) whether Wikipedia's ratio of BLPs about men vs. about women has been altered in any statistically significant way, after all of the enthusiastic Ada Initiative, Sarah Stierch, Sue Gardner, WikiWomen sorts of activism. I sent MZMcBride an e-mail this morning, to see if he would be interested in duplicating the data query from last time.

Code: Select all

SELECT
  page_title
FROM page
JOIN categorylinks
ON cl_from = page_id
WHERE cl_to = 'Living_people'
AND page_is_redirect = 0
AND page_namespace = 0
AND page_random > RAND()
ORDER BY page_random
LIMIT 500;

I wish I knew how to code like that.

[Mancunium]

Students add feminist views to Wikipedia
by Kelsey Weidmann, RU Daily Targum, 6 November 2014 linkhttp://www.dailytargum.com/article/2014 ... -wikipedia[/link]

Stephen Colbert once joked about how easily Wikipedia could be edited and how quickly those edits could become fact, said Elaine Zundl, dean at the Douglass Project for Rutgers Women in Math, Science and Engineering. [...] Less than 15 percent of Wikipedia contributors are women, according to an article in The New York Times. The rest are men in their twenties and thirties, who might not be knowledgeable about these topics, Zundl said. [...] Actually, bias is usually very subtle, not blatantly obvious, said Laura Stiltz, director of Research Programs and Advising for Undergraduate Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics at the Douglass Project. [...] Mathew Abhati, a School of Arts and Sciences junior, has now realized feminism is not what he thought it was. “I have learned that you can be a feminist without being a man-hater,” Abhati said. [...] Wikipedia, along with the rest of history, has traditionally been written by and from the perspective of the “winner,” Stiltz said. “Wikipedia is our opportunity to make sure our voices are heard,” Stiltz said.

Good for you, Mathew Abhati. And you can also be a masculinist without being a woman-hater.

[thekohser]

"The rest are men in their twenties and thirties..."

Wow, I guess it's official -- I don't edit Wikipedia any more.

[Mancunium]

"The rest are men in their twenties and thirties..."

Wow, I guess it's official -- I don't edit Wikipedia any more.

In another thread on this site (don't make me search for it, please), Jim-Bob is quoted as saying that the average Wikipedia editor is a white male in his twenties with a Ph.D. (from the Essjay School of Hogwash, I presume).

I remember when I was in my twenties. Like many people in my age cohort I was an ignorant jerk, and have spent the last twenty years trying to live that decade down.

[thekohser]

...duplicating the data query from last time.

Code: Select all

SELECT
  page_title
FROM page
JOIN categorylinks
ON cl_from = page_id
WHERE cl_to = 'Living_people'
AND page_is_redirect = 0
AND page_namespace = 0
AND page_random > RAND()
ORDER BY page_random
LIMIT 500;

I wish I knew how to code like that.

No reply from MZ. Are there any other wiki wizards here who would be able to run this code on the toolserver?

[thekohser]

No reply from MZ. Are there any other wiki wizards here who would be able to run this code on the toolserver?

Never mind -- I made myself a wizard.

After assessing 200 BLPs randomly selected in November 2014, I determined that about 23% of Wikipedia biographies of living people are about women.

(I also concluded that the best way to get into Wikipedia is to play soccer, compete in the Olympics, or hold political office. If you can't do any of that, then you need to be either a DJ or an actress.)

So, good news for all those WikiWomen who have been beavering away working hard to add biographies of women. You've moved the needle about 1 percentage point per year -- 19% in late 2010, to 23% in late 2014. To be honest, I'm surprised that any such movement was gained.

[Poetlister]

I suppose that you would expect a male bias, given the current state of the world and the slant of Wikipedia. The great majority of senior politicians are male, and female soccer players are hardly ever going to be as notable as male ones. Olympians should be more or less 50-50 and of course by definition all actresses are female. I don't know about DJs, but wouldn't be surprised if they are mostly male. So is 23% a fair representation? What areas where women predominate are under-represented on Wikipedia?

[thekohser]

What areas where women predominate are under-represented on Wikipedia?

Marketing and PR professionals.

[Zoloft]

What areas where women predominate are under-represented on Wikipedia?

Marketing and PR professionals.

... and this is the most surprising post in this topic. I would have thought those groups would be the best about talking about their peers.

[Poetlister]

He's right, although I'd guess that among the most senior and notable ones, the proportion of males is higher. Personnel/Human Resources/whatever are also largely female. If they want to do something about the gender bias, they could frame a notability standard for them that is very easy to meet.

[thekohser]

He's right, although I'd guess that among the most senior and notable ones, the proportion of males is higher.

Possibly. Let's look at the North American advisory board for the CMO Council.

I count 26 women out of 74 members, or 35% -- which is higher than the proportion of BLPs about women. On the smaller "Consulting Board", it's 6 women out of 10 members. So, Wikipedia's gender bias may be moved in the positive direction if a notability clause for "Chief Marketing Officers or Marketing VPs of large corporations" were to be entertained.

[Neotarf]

No reply from MZ. Are there any other wiki wizards here who would be able to run this code on the toolserver?

Never mind -- I made myself a wizard.

After assessing 200 BLPs randomly selected in November 2014, I determined that about 23% of Wikipedia biographies of living people are about women.

(I also concluded that the best way to get into Wikipedia is to play soccer, compete in the Olympics, or hold political office. If you can't do any of that, then you need to be either a DJ or an actress.)

So, good news for all those WikiWomen who have been beavering away working hard to add biographies of women. You've moved the needle about 1 percentage point per year -- 19% in late 2010, to 23% in late 2014. To be honest, I'm surprised that any such movement was gained.

Has this been published anywhere that can be linked to from inside WP?