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:::::OK, since you insist (to your detriment) on prolonging this thread... Let's be honest. You were not making a "joke". You backtracked and called it a joke when you were challenged. That kind of dishonest battleground behavior is damaging to this Project. If you can't control yourself, please consider departing the Project and leaving the work to those of us who have come here to collaborate on this important initiative. ]] 16:13, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
:::::OK, since you insist (to your detriment) on prolonging this thread... Let's be honest. You were not making a "joke". You backtracked and called it a joke when you were challenged. That kind of dishonest battleground behavior is damaging to this Project. If you can't control yourself, please consider departing the Project and leaving the work to those of us who have come here to collaborate on this important initiative. ]] 16:13, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
::::::Lesson in human psychology: sneaky people don't announce their sneaky plans on public spots where people who love to jump on every single thing they say are going to jump all over their sneaky plot. They do it in private emails, etc. Geeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzz.... <small>'''] (])'''</small> 16:32, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
::::::Lesson in human psychology: sneaky people don't announce their sneaky plans on public spots where people who love to jump on every single thing they say are going to jump all over their sneaky plot. They do it in private emails, etc. Geeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzz.... <small>'''] (])'''</small> 16:32, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Welcome to the GGTF: the gender gap task force. Please sign up if you'd like to help.
The talk page is for friendly discussion about anything related to closing Misplaced Pages's gender gap, including asking for help with articles, AfDs, and so on.
Add new posts to the end or click here to start a new topic.
I have been looking for the contact details of this researcher for a while. Her comments here left me with a couple of questions. I would be grateful if anyone could point her to my talk page/email link, or point me to her contact details. All the best: RichFarmbrough, 17:20, 14 August 2014 (UTC).
You can call this project whatever you wish, but I'm a bit perplexed at the inclusion of the term "systematic". That the WMF has established there is a gender gap for editors is one thing (I don't know their methods, but I'll accept the claim on face value), but where is there any evidence of systematic bias? That's an extraordinary statement. Something that is systematic, by definition requires methodology. Is this "systematic bias" a bias living in wikipedia, or is the systematic bias that been established to be real in society? If it is the former, I'd love to see evidence. If it is the latter (bias in society) then I'd say its really none of our business. We can't make society do anything. We can't make the sources give equal treatment to women. This smacks of victimization.Two kinds of pork (talk) 23:12, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
For the benefit of relatively new members of the Project, could you briefly review the ways in which this systemic bias has been demonstrated to affect article content? Thanks. SPECIFICOtalk02:26, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
Examples are provided in Lam, S.; Uduwage, A.; Dong, Z.; Sen, S.; Musicant, D.; Terveen, L.; Reidl, J. (October 2011). "WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Misplaced Pages's Gender Imbalance" (PDF). WikiSym '11. ACM. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help) According to a 2013 comment on the Gender Gap mailing list U of Minn researchers found among other things that contributions of users who identified as women are significantly more likely to be challenged or undone by fellow editors and there is a culture that may be resistant to female participation." (See also this overview.) I know there is at least one male editor who has wikihounded me for a year plus, reverting probably 60-70% of my edits in articles he followed me to, and criticizing me elsewhere. That's individual bigotry, of course, but turn it into a bunch of guys frequently reverting a bunch of edits by those perceived as female, it becomes systemic bigotry. (Good luck getting help from WP:ANI or even ArbCom since that's not recognized as systemic bias.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)03:30, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
These red-links can be quickly turned blue, by importing text from DNB on Wikisource.
Even easier I have created drafts for these (and some other missing BDP articles) at s:Category:DNB drafts.
For example
s:User:Rich Farmbrough/DNB/J/e/Jessie Fothergill can be cut and pasted to Jessie Fothergill, then a little attention to the wikifying, and checking anything that seems appropriate, maybe finding suitable categories etc., and it is a good start for an article. (The talk page should also be created.)
Caveat: some of the articles may be mangled, for technical reasons, or have other issues - including typos. You remain responsible for your own edits.
Note, once the article is created, the Wikisource page linked to should have a link back to the WP article.
All the best: RichFarmbrough, 02:16, 23 August 2014 (UTC).
The conversion process is still in its infancy, in fact it has been on hold for about three years, and has only done maybe 30 articles.
Of course the creation of talk pages and redirects cannot be part of the process done on WikiSource.
All the best: RichFarmbrough, 20:39, 25 August 2014 (UTC).
Signpost
I hesitate to post this here, for fear of stirring up a most unpleasant thread that finally shows signs of winding down, but it seems the Signpost, which is chronically in need of writers, is also in need of writers who have some sort of cluefulness about systemic bias. Anyone interested in becoming a contributor, or collaborating on an article, might leave a message at the Signpost talk page or the talk page of the editor-in-chief. I know it says he's on wiki-break, but he does check in from time to time.
For someone who wants to take part on a more casual basis, like everything else here, the Signpost is a wiki, and can be copyedited by anyone. Every time I have had an article published, numerous other individuals have stepped in to correct simple typos (yes, they get through in spite of multiple proofreaders) and to make sure the format is compliant with the style manual. You can have the Signpost delivered to your talk page by placing {{Signpost-subscription}} somewhere on your page (preferably at the top, where it won't get archived), although some people prefer to just watchlist it. It can't hurt to have more eyes on every issue, to inspect each issue as soon as it is published, and to correct these gaffes before they can become an embarrassment to Misplaced Pages. Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 14:12, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
WikiWand
Given that design is cited as one of the many reasons for the gender gap, I thought people here might be interested in WikiWand. It's a browser add-on that changes the design of Misplaced Pages articles, or you can use it by going to their website.
The navigation panel is a nice touch; too often the contents box of a Misplaced Pages article gets in the way of the text, or the image formatting. It doesn't work as well for the "colors" article, as people are more likely to want to skim and scan a list-type article quickly in order to see if it contains the information they are looking for. I had occasion to consult that article a few weeks ago looking for the code for a font color, and the Misplaced Pages is clearly superior for that purpose.
The gender-based arguments for design choices I am less impressed with. Unless there is some clear study cited, too often these claims are just an excuse to reinforce negative stereotypes of women. How many times do you see "gender gap" used as a stand-in for "stupid user", as an excuse to dumb down the content. Sure there are stupid women, not to mention women who pretend to be stupid so people will like them, as well as men who are stupid. Have you ever watched a group of PhD's standing around a stalled car in the faculty parking lot? Expertise in one subject area does not guarantee competence in another. When it comes to user expectations, I suspect that age has a larger influence than gender. —Neotarf (talk) 18:45, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
It seems self-evident that if Misplaced Pages were to look nicer, we'd have more women interested in us, and I think it would increase women editors if we had easy ways to make our articles look good. Not only women, it would attract lots of other people too. The point is that the current lack of design is off-putting. SlimVirgin18:55, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Is there a way to edit article sections from that interface? I can see an edit link for the whole article under the WikiWand menu, that takes you to the standard Misplaced Pages editor... --GRuban (talk) 19:04, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Format is important, sure, but "look nicer" is a fairly nebulous goal. This is about "branding", what you want something to convey by looking at the appearance. Think of the cover of a dead-tree book. It's pretty easy to tell genre at a glance. You don't have to read all the titles on a bookcase to pick out at a glance which is a classic, and which is a Gothic romance. Architectural Digest has one look and feel, Wired has another. So what is Misplaced Pages's niche? For one, Misplaced Pages has a unique educational mission. So should it look like a coffee table book with glossy pictures and bland text? I hope not. You want to bring people in sure, but then eventually inoculate them with your values, like WP:RS and WP:NPOV. Maybe it should look more like a museum, say, the Smithsonian? Or more like a library, say, Library of Congress (this is the history section, which I really like). Or a university (here's Harvard), or other educational institution (government education agency). IMO it is most like Digital archive a repository of knowledge, and should combine readability with ease of use. The best look is one that you don't notice, because it immediately facilitates your task. —Neotarf (talk) 19:40, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
I disagree. The best look is the one that makes you say "Wow! I want to read, write and taste this, and I need to know the name of that colour for my bedroom wall." A good design pulls you in. Misplaced Pages looks dull. It's hard to read (the lines are too long, for one thing) and almost impossible to make look good. People read it in spite of the design, not because of it. SlimVirgin19:52, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
It depends on what you want it for. Do you want an Experience or do you need to look up some factual detail. If you solve the first problem without considering the second, you have just forgotten your mission. Which IMHO is the problem of both the Visual Editor Media Viewer oops and WikiWand. If you forget your mission, you will lose people. The good news is that, even though I have VE MV oops again turned off, and was really unhappy about losing some of those features when I disabled it, I have started to see some improvements in the old image functions. —Neotarf (talk) 20:06, 25 August 2014 (UTC) The remarks were meant to be about Media viewer, but apparently my experience with VE was so harrowing that it has damaged my ability to process anything that comes out of the Development team. —Neotarf (talk) 20:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't have to be either or. We can have the Experience while looking up the factual detail. I've been around these discussions for years, with people telling us we had to use tiny thumbnail images, that they always had to go on the top right, that we can't have columns or shorter lines. It's killing us. We need fresh eyes, good design. I just wish the Foundation wouldn't put so many of its eggs in the big baskets (Visual Editor, Flow), because it means the more obvious things are perhaps being overlooked. Speed is another issue – pages are so slow to load. SlimVirgin20:15, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Good old replag. It can really be a barrier in developing areas. At least with some email providers there are options to go to a slower html version, but can you load a WP page without the images? The problem with the Foundation is that they don't seem to actually edit themselves, so they don't know when they have broken the functionality. The other problem is the WMF doesn't seem to understand the importance of first impressions--if people can't use it the first time, they're not going to come back, no matter how purty it is. Do you think I will have any reason to go back to WikiWand? Been and done. —Neotarf (talk) 21:08, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
It's nice except the font is horribly jaggy. All the best: RichFarmbrough, 21:15, 25 August 2014 (UTC).
More WikiWand/gender gap (arbitrary break)
I'm interested in the concept that design is responsible for the gender gap. I have seen no evidence for this, can you point me to it?
All the best: RichFarmbrough, 21:15, 25 August 2014 (UTC).
That blog post was fine as a call to arms but evidence it ain't. The support for "Number 1" is a comment left on another blog, that agrees the interface is not great - but from a woman who has edited and created pages, and does not seem intimidated by it.
All the best: RichFarmbrough, 20:09, 26 August 2014 (UTC).
I don't have any evidence, Rich, it just seems obvious that it would be a factor. Misplaced Pages feels like a neglected old seaside town. It's still a great place, but there's nowhere to buy good cheese, bread, olive oil or coffee, and when you go to the local pub you have to fight your way through swirly carpets and cigarette smoke. People still visit because it's the seaside, but they come away disappointed every time. SlimVirgin21:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Bread or roses? If an application doesn't work, do aesthetics matter? Perhaps a mowed lawn and some geraniums in the window would send a message to drifters that this neighborhood is watched, and there are easier pickings elsewhere. ...and adding an image to see what it does to the text box. —Neotarf (talk) 13:29, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Recently, women have come to outnumber men in some social media domains. They use social network sites such as Facebook more often and more actively than men (Brenner 2012), and female users predominate on the microblogging site Twitter, the consumer review site Yelp, and the online pinboard Pinterest. More males, in contrast, frequent music-sharing sites such as last.fm, as well as Reddit, a social news website known for its sometimes misogynistic content (HuffPost Women 2012; Williams 2012); contributors to Misplaced Pages are also overwhelmingly male (Lam et al. 2011). Moreover, the professional social network site LinkedIn has attracted almost twice as many males as females. LinkedIn representatives claim that this is because men are better at professional networking than women, at least in some industries (Berkow 2011), whereas women have traditionally focused on maintaining relationships (Fallows 2005; cf. Tannen 1990). Women's greater concerns about privacy and identity disclosure on social network sites (Fogel and Nehmad 2009) may also predispose them to interact with individuals they already know and trust (Muscanell and Guadagno 2012), which Facebook and other social network site facilitate through features such as "friending."
Crocco, Cramer, and Meier (2008) argue that the move toward web-based computing has had an equalizing effect on gendered technology use. If equality is defined as equal in principle access, women in the United States have caught up with men. At the same time, the web is becoming increasingly specialized by gender. Although many sites are male-dominated, women today have more choices of online environments than they did in the past, including social media sites in which they can exercise a degree of control over who reads and comments on their contributions. As discussed further below, users of these social media sites tend to be less anonymous than in earlier text-based forums.
So women online place more importance than men on spending time with people congenial to them, prefer to avoid people who are not, and like to form more meaningful personal relationships than men. (Incidentally, one take-away from Wikimania was that two people told me, based on their experience as arbitrators, that women object more strenuously to socking than men, and for different reasons: men object because it corrupts the process, but women feel it is a personal breach of trust if the same person uses several identities to talk to them.) Now, in general, Misplaced Pages is quite hostile to all of these concepts. Forming relationships is actively frowned upon in some ways and engenders mistrust (cf. rules against canvassing, meatpuppeting—which also have good justifications of course), and anonymity is a paramount value.
As for avoiding people who aren't congenial, Misplaced Pages articles, like waterholes, attract species of editors with opposing agendas who have to somehow coexist, despite the tension between them, in order to work here. It's stressful. Writing on any mildly contentious topic in Misplaced Pages you are practically bound to come up against the very sort of people whom you might most avoid associating with in your private life.
In short, despite successful initiatives like edit-a-thons that emphasise the communal aspects of contributing by like-minded people acting without the cover of anonymity, the deck is in many ways stacked against equal gender participation on Misplaced Pages.
But if you look at the examples the Handbook mentions, it is also worthwhile to note that, quite apart from anonymity and the patterns of social interaction, the sites where men are most dominant – Misplaced Pages and Reddit – are very, very dry and text-based. The sites where women predominate look quite different from Misplaced Pages. Pinterest is full of gorgeous, nourishing images. So is Yelp. People on Twitter and Facebook share personal images with friends, etc.
It's clear that men don't care much about desktop aesthetics if there is function, but there is plenty of circumstantial evidence suggesting that women do. If you look at other parts of life, pubs, bars, tea places, coffee houses etc. attractive mainly to men look different from those mainly frequented by women, and the average bachelor's flat shows less evidence of aesthetic ambition than the average single woman's place. Obviously, we are always talking bell curves here, with plenty of men and women found at either extreme, but the averages are not in the same place on the scale. AndreasJN46610:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Andreas, this hits the nail on the head in so many ways. It would be great if it could be posted as an essay, or on the task force page here. SlimVirgin17:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Except for the bits that are wrong! All the best: RichFarmbrough, 19:21, 3 September 2014 (UTC).
is there evidence that design issues contributes to the gender gap? If so, I couldn't agree more with SV. Why spend money on big projects that no one is asking for? Low hanging fruit indeed.Two kinds of pork (talk) 23:32, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
As linked above
This saddens me, to see such outright sexism on our own Gender Gap page. What's the point? Boys like to edit in a smelly locker room with pinups on the wall while girls like everything neatly in its place with lace curtains and potpourri? How can we promote closing the Gap when we perpetuate cultural stereotypes and slurs? A more productive effort would be to beef up articles about girls who've won Nobel prizes, academic honors, and national elections. SPECIFICOtalk13:52, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
The text editor is a huge barrier for new users. My first edit took me a huge amount of time to google, and a lot of the instructions I saw online were just plain wrong. It took me 3 hours to figure out how to do the second edit. But the VE is a disaster. I have heard it is being used to train new users now--they can hardly wait 3 hours for a second edit, can they?--but I don't know of any female editors who use it. I suspect it will prove more valuable in attracting retired academics that will be required for the next phase of WP's growth. (And it probably isn't helpful to refer to grown women who are notable enough for their own BLP as "girls"). —Neotarf (talk) 16:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Oh plenty of gals are Nobels and plenty of guy Nobels tell off-color locker room jokes when they think they're in private. It's just one of those things. Also the female Laureates also tell off-color tales from time to time and some of both the males and females harbor gender biases of various kinds. Just sayin'... Cheers. SPECIFICOtalk20:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Marie Curie grew up and won two! All the best: RichFarmbrough, 21:03, 26 August 2014 (UTC).
More WikiWand/improved image handling (arbitrary break)
Just out of curiosity, I have heard of something called "vector skins" or somesuch that is (maybe) supposed to change the appearance of...something or other. Know anything about that? —Neotarf (talk) 21:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
The only thing I've heard of is Winter. Work began on it at the end of 2013, but I don't know its status, or what it will look like. Pinging Jorm (WMF) who might be willing to update us. Hi Brandon, we're talking about WikiWand, design and how it might affect the gender gap. SlimVirgin21:43, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Winter, yeah there's a test page, fake notifications (I hope, otherwise Oliver Keyes has been talking about me), the drop down boxes are nice, collapsed language box, nice fonts or whatever, the margins are a little narrow, but I expanded my screen to almost full view and it was better, nice having the box with similar topics above the fold. Downside: talk page is not nested, so no way to respond to specific comments; I don't really like the right-hand column, can't explain why. —Neotarf (talk) 22:17, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm seeing a right-hand column that's empty for most of the article (except for the navigation box at the top) so that in sections with images there are 3–5 words per line. I'm assuming it's not meant to look that way. I'd expect the images to run down the right-hand column. SlimVirgin22:32, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, the navbox takes up a lot of room, maybe that would make the columns wider. It's nice to be able to put images on the right or left, but then you have to take care not to have them too close together, not sure why they're usually on the right. On the free WordPress blogs, you can't get enough whitespace around the image if you put it on the left. Too bad VE isn't more like the WordPress text editor. —Neotarf (talk) 22:42, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Looks like mainly for phones. Wonder when they're going to fix the Signpost, it's completely unreadable on cellphone unless you go to it from a link on a user page. —Neotarf (talk) 22:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Oh, here's the "skin" thing. At the top of the page when you are logged on, under preferences > appearance > skin there are 4 options, doesn't really say what it's for. —Neotarf (talk) 22:34, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
SlimVirgin: (Putting my comment here, so as not to mess with the other indentions) Winter is a series of design experiments aimed at modernizing the interface. There's a lot going on there (it has a project page on mediawiki.org and you can play with a prototype. You can't log into the prototype (which is why the notifications are all generic). I talked a lot about this at Wikimania, but the gist is: "Athena" is an a sort of "umbrella" project, of which Winter is part of.
The sidebar is a work in progress - we want to pull "meta" information into it (things like infoboxes) and do things like include galleries and other ways to surface additional content as well as possible contribution vectors. The question about moving all the images into that side bar has come up before but the problem is that images inserted into the content are typically associated with text that's near them; pulling them out doesn't allow for us to keep them in context.
It's status is that we are in development to make it a beta feature, which will be opt-in (probably for a long time) before we talk about making it permanent.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi Brandon, thank you for the quick response. The issue that prompted this question is the appearance of WikiWand. It looks really good, and I would love to be able to re-create that look on Misplaced Pages.
One of the obstacles is the way we handle images. I have no technical knowledge or vocabulary, so I don't even know how to describe this properly or what questions to ask you. But basically when we try to introduce those grey block quotes, the images won't allow us to place them where we want to.
Is there anything the Foundation can do to help us develop new tools reasonably quickly with the current interface, so that we can approximate some of the WikiWand features? SlimVirgin00:45, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
I've added an image above Andreas' text box above, not sure if this is the formatting problem that is meant. But surely the MediaWiki markup is a mature product--would creating a beta with one or two small changes be so complex? —Neotarf (talk) 13:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Agree that it would be great if we could modernise the look on here like WikiWand. I really think white text on a dark background as a border makes the text in the article stand out more. I preferred the original wikiwand look with the white font on picture but they had problems with visibility on some images. I don't like the current white box obscuring part of the image but if they moved the grey and white side header to the centre top of image and remove the white bottom and replaced the side header with "contents" it would look a lot better. I've seen a glimpse of your Athena design on The Beatles @Jorm (WMF): and I really think the big background image with the title at the top on it is the way to go at least. What I saw of the "Winter" design though IMO it looked bland and unappealing. I'd like to see the new skin introduced following the design of WikiWand as much as possible. I'm pretty sure then if you did a survey you'd find in a short period of time that the majority of editors prefer it. I've read some comments from people saying "wikipedia should be plain white and conservative, flashy headers and images distract the reader" but for me it's the absolute opposite and makes the text far more attractive to read and improves the quality and appearance. I currently use WikiWand or the reader function on Safari for browsing wikipedia. A reader function Brandon like on Safari like a book I think would be a good feature to introduce too. Not quite sure what this has to do with gender gap though!♦ Dr. Blofeld10:05, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
I agree that the Beatles article on Athena looked great. The mobile site looks pretty good too. The Beatles doesn't look so good because the images are too small, but I like the font, though I'd prefer it a bit smaller and the lines of text shorter. SlimVirgin20:23, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Images
I am advised that a big gap in the attractiveness of Misplaced Pages as far as celebrities are concerned is the lack of images. Not lots an lots, a la Hello but a nice head-shot in the infobox. This of course is partly due to our restrictions on fair use images of living people. Perhaps we could change this to be slightly more permissive?
All the best: RichFarmbrough, 21:12, 25 August 2014 (UTC).
People have to be more proactive in contacting these peoples' publicity representatives, at least some of whom would prefer having a nice photo than some of those that end up on the page. Maybe there could be a page on commons (linked here) that would explain how to find and contact their representatives. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)00:52, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean by "problem". In other words Commons help could list a few sites that list celebrities contact people, assuming it doesn't already, since I haven't looked. And assuming there are such, which I assume :-). It's no different than asking anyone else for permission to use their photos under which ever license is relevant. (Haven't uploaded in a while so have forgotten a lot of details.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)21:49, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Scope
The Scope section of the article appears to say that women reject WP because it is fact-based. This seems ill-defined and problematic -- highly prone to various interpretations which would be sexist and denigrating of women editors and users of WP. SPECIFICOtalk15:42, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
This isn't (or shouldn't be) superficial stereotyping. It is a subject that has been researched, see Simon_Baron-Cohen#Autism_research, for example. We know Aspies are often great systematisers, and this is a good characterisation (indeed a classical description) of encyclopeadists. (We have female Aspies here too.doing good work.) The possibility that women "just don't wanna" should not be discounted, after all most men "just don't wanna" either. All the best: RichFarmbrough, 20:34, 26 August 2014 (UTC).
Hopeless
The things that drive off female editors from wikipedia are some of the same things that keep a lot of women in the real world from reaching their potential. I will note that many these same behaviors drive off male editors as well. If we solve these problems, it will be a great thing. However, I fear it is hopeless. But I'll outline my views nonetheless. Montanabw04:20, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Bullying and harassment. My own experience is that seldom is it gender-directed (I have a gender ambiguous user name, often those who attack me assume I am male). However, the trolls, the bullies, the POV-pushers, the tendentious editors, and the flat-out crazies all seem to have mastered ways to game the system and those attempting to simply edit content in good faith seem to get the short end of the stick. Montanabw04:20, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
"Systemic bias" - which I define as the unconscious (or only partially conscious) tendency to view topics about or of interest to people who resemble them (often, though not always white men under 30 who like video games) of generally greater interest and more easy to pass WP:GNG than topics about people who are not like them (women, people of color, historical figures, etc.). Examples abound, I see this frequently in articles about women who are actors or college professors being nominated for AfD and held to a higher standard of notability than, for example, an article about a male sports figure from an obscure sport who perhaps played one season as a pro. I see similar problems with recentism and on topics involving non-white people: I work on articles about Native Americans, where I find rather appalling levels of cluelessness on the part of some editors. I think it's ignorance rather than racism, but it's a dogged insistence that their ignorance is actually correct Montanabw04:20, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
The problem is NOT:
A) the interface. For chrissake, women routinely learn customized database programs and a host of other technological skills. Misplaced Pages is not that complicated to edit.
B) the topics: we don't need pink ponies and magic unicorns. Or fashion. That's really condescending
I agree that the interface, while a problem for some, is not the main problem. The main problem is once women get past all the other issues that keep them from editing, women have a far lower tolerance for incivility and game playing than guys, many of whom may see it as sport; more women value civility and honest collaboration, as various studies show. So your number 1 is an excellent argument for stronger enforcement of civility in general and a robust mediation effort (with paid mediators if necessary).
The double standards you talk about in number two also apply to number one. Having naively registered with my name, I have seen dozens of examples of males saying nasty things that were ignored while I got trashed for things that editors only assumed were or took as insults. I also got two major blocks for things that guys usually would get short ones for and only interventions by the community in one case and Admins and Arbitrator in another, shortened them. A PC mag article said a study of wikipedia showed that "female editors are more likely to get blocked indefinitely". (Haven't had a chance to identify and read it yet. Listing of dozens of relevant research/article/links almost ready for prime time.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)04:43, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
I doubt that things would be any different if we were to pay male mediators here. Hiring female mediators gets back to the affirmative action question. At any rate, I've seen some male mediators fall flat on their male faces here, and male-on-male incivility is more the rule than the exception -- male Admins included. However, back to our mission: I'm sure that any female editor who could show that she was sanctioned due to her gender could effectively appeal and reverse her block. In fact, if such an event could ever be demonstrated to have occurred, it would be her obligation to other women and to the Project to expose such discrimination. SPECIFICOtalk13:26, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Systemic bias/double standards do not necessarily show in specific language which can be used at evidence. They tend to show in numbers which have to be collected. One woman sharing anecdotes can lead to a number of women sharing them, a start in the evidence collection process. Unless of course the place where they are shared is so overwhelmed with people opposed to women sharing their stories, hectoring and challenging women that most women are driven out. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)13:35, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
If I understand you, this is again a promotion of affirmative action solutions. Are you saying that statistical evidence -- "numbers which have to be collected" -- would tell the community to reverse the sanction of an individual editor for behavior not referenced or even known to those in the statistical sample? SPECIFICOtalk13:51, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
SPECIFICO wrote: "I doubt that things would be any different if we were to pay male mediators here. Hiring female mediators gets back to the affirmative action question." I didn't say anything about the sex of the mediators.
SPECIFICO is also conflating collecting evidence of systemic bias in general as a consciousness raising effort with some more bureaucratic means of telling the community to reverse a sanction. Stop assuming a false point you are trying to prove? The community will reverse an obviously unfair sanction, using whatever evidence there is, be it some admin saying "I'm blocking this stupid female/Arab/African-American" or be it someone getting a six month block for doing something that individuals normally get a 2 day block for, especially should it be special circumstances, like someone who is harassed telling someone to f#ck off or calling them a "l**p d**k" or something. In short, if it is proved that there is a pattern of sanctioning women more harshly, and editors think that's what's happening and they oppose that sort of thing, they'll say so. It's not some rule imposed from above. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)19:33, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Re "On average, males and females have different interests":
Dear editors: As a person trained in the interpretation of statistics, I urge editors not to put individuals, male or female, in a box because of averages. There is a great deal of variability in the interests of both men and women. Do statistics showing that on the average more women than men are interested in fashion, makeup, jewelry, romance novels, or whatever, make me less feminine because I prefer math, logic puzzles, science fiction and computer programming? The overlap in interests and personality traits between genders is far greater in most cases than the difference (see this graph which is from p. 11 of the book Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps - And What We Can Do About It by Lise Eliot). It's much more important (IMO) to meet all new editors with an open mind and present them with an environment that encourages happy editing of whatever topics catch their interest. If something in the Misplaced Pages culture is deterring editors (for example, incivility, complicated formatting, belittling of some topics as trivial, or whatever other barriers come up), we need to improve it because it is deterring current and future fellow Wikipedians, be they women or men. —Anne Delong (talk) 05:44, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
"some topics are too important for annoying women to be meddling" That would be an outrageous statement. Could you provide several examples of such statements? Thanks. SPECIFICOtalk13:53, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Carol, sometimes your posts make me wonder if we're working on the same encyclopedia. For instance, I've been here since 2006 and I've never seen it inferred that "some topics are too important for annoying women to be meddling". Could you give a few examples? Gandydancer (talk) 13:56, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Outrageous is guys coming here to disrupt this project. The evidence accumulates daily.
Otherwise, I'll write you an essay when I get a chance describing in general (or through reference to various ANIs, etc.) personal experience and quoting various females with various similar perceptions. Meanwhile for starters to educate the naysayers and doubters see"
If you have links which demonstrate "guys coming here to disrupt this project" please provide the links so we can all discuss and evaluate "evidence accumulates daily." Disruptive editing is unacceptable on WP. SPECIFICOtalk15:37, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, she is no different than any other new good faith editor who tries to make good faith edits, but gets chastised for their troubles. There is no gender discrimination here, but their experience is used to assert there is.Two kinds of pork (talk) 16:03, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
I suggest you present only well-formed and documented evidence and fully-reasoned suggestions here. On WP, as in life, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and this Project could be irreparably sidetracked and ruined by undocumented, false, or misdirected discussion. SPECIFICOtalk16:18, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Why are multiple editors who are not part of this project here using this space as a forum to discuss their opinions about the project? It needs to stop. EvergreenFir(talk) Please {{re}} 17:24, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
There are of course, no prohibitions from non-members from commenting here, as pretty much anywhere else on wikipedia. Even if there were, one could simply join the project. IOW, "go away" isn't much of an argument.Two kinds of pork (talk) 17:34, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Again, this is not about "clubhouses". It's about people coming here to air their opinions on the project itself, its users, and "feminist bluster". That is WP:FORUM. EvergreenFir(talk) Please {{re}} 04:00, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Airing opinions about the project and it's goals is the purpose of this page. Your comments that fall along the lines of "you're not even members" is an ad-hominem argument. Constant cries of "personal attack", when no PA were made makes you the boy who cried wolf. SPECIFICO and Eric asked honest questions. It's poor cricket to shoot the messenger instead of the message. I don't know what their motivation is, but mine is to close the editor gap. I fear AA attempts are fraught with peril. I'm willing to listen to all proposals however. But I start to wonder when the most common theme around here is "evidence is on the way" and cries of NPA. So far the only thing that I've seen on these pages that was worth discussing was SV's suggestion and (not to toot my own horn) of paying young women to edit for a year. Hey, I just suggested an AA idea (again) to close the editor gap. Am I talking to myself?Two kinds of pork (talk) 04:26, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Pork, there are clear personal attacks and derailment in these discussions. Working to improve the project is excellent. Complaining about its existence, its users, or feminism isn't. That's WP:FORUM. EvergreenFir(talk) Please {{re}} 04:51, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
There are personal attacks, but it is not in the direction you appear to think it is. Yes, there is some minor soapboxing and disruption occurring, but it's not one-sided. I'm assuming you know how to file an ANI ticket if you think this has risen to that level. However I doubt anything will occur other than wasting people's time and you being chastised for doing so. This project is still in its infancy, and of course there will be some questions raised as to its scope and proposals. I suggest giving others the benefit of the doubt instead of poisoning the well.Two kinds of pork (talk) 06:15, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
A statistical question. This topic claims that on average males and females are interested in different subjects. Regardless of whether or not that's based on any evidence, surely the term average has no meaning for nominal data such as that? EricCorbett18:15, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Obvious and recurrent disruption of any Wikiproject can be reason to go to WP:ANI and ask for a project ban (or topic ban on those couple articles most directly related, if necessary). Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)18:41, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Using a more colloquial sense of "average" as opposed to a mean. Replace with "typical" or "plurality" if it helps you. Average could also mean mode here where people in a given category have modal interest categories. EvergreenFir(talk) Please {{re}} 20:16, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Mode and average are quite different concepts, and this is after all a thread started by someone claiming to have some statistical expertise. I really don't understand the reluctance evident throughout this project to deal in verifiable facts rather than feminist bluster. EricCorbett20:31, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
As the originator of this thread, I should have made it more clear that I was responding to the use of the phrase further up the page. I wanted to point out that by welcoming each editor's skills and interests as an individual, rather than trying to target just topics that someone has decided might interest women in particular, we'd be working on the gender gap in an effective way. Maybe I'm a little sensitive about this because my interests don't conform to the average; for example, I couldn't stomach it if the project members decided that they would encourage women editors by sending them links to cute cat videos (okay, that's a silly example). There were some editors, a few weeks ago, when the page was called "Gender bias task force", who wanted to expand the mandate of the project, and this could be considered a little disruptive in that it distracted everyone from their work in closing the gender gap. Changing the name of the page to focus the discussions more directly on the gender gap was a good idea, since that was the original purpose of the task force, and appears to have settled that issue. I had no intention of starting an argument, and I apologize if my comments ended up being another distraction. —Anne Delong (talk) 20:26, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi Anne, your post wasn't a distraction at all, it was very helpful. You're right – a lot of the stuff that may be causing the gender gap is putting off male editors too, and we should always be wary of generalizations and "one size fits all." SlimVirgin20:39, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
I personally think the majority of males here could be helpful. They just have to be willing to chide the minority who cause the most problems. It is some subset of them who I was referring to as seeing women annoying. (Just like in the rest of the world.) But I guess we have to specify (in bold italics if necessary?) that we are talking about the problematic minority every time we post or some will claim we are talking about all males. I guess we have to knock down those straw men before they even contemplate getting up. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:03, 28 August 20414 (UTC)
So you now seem to be suggesting that the majority of males here aren't helpful, hardly a step in the right direction. EricCorbett21:16, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Eric Corbett, if anyone had said that, you would be right - but no one said it. Responding to what was said: it's usually better to respond to or comment on the content of specific posts, instead of generalizing. However, I disagree that it's the duty of male editors to take on the responsibility of reining in disruptive editing by other males in order to be welcome here (unless they want to). The editors here seem quite capable of standing up for their own ideas. And there is always the choice of just moving on ... speaking of which, back to the gender gap: Would anyone like to help with this one? —Anne Delong (talk) 21:52, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Are we speaking the same language? "I personally think the majority of males could be helpful" very clearly implies to me that they are not currently helpful. Having collaborated successfully with many female editors I very much resent being painted with this cave man brush. EricCorbett22:06, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
This page is about systemic bias, not the misdeeds of various editors who are male editors. I have not seen any data to document the relative frequencies of disruptive behaviors among the male and female editor populations. The straw man is the suggestion that males are more often disruptive than females on WP. That is far removes from the sort of gender bias we are addressing in this Project. SPECIFICOtalk22:17, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Get real. What about "Carol, sometimes your posts make me wonder if we're working on the same encyclopedia"? It's about time that Carol started answering a few questions. EricCorbett22:54, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
...before you say things that you should already have regretted. ? That might be poetic if it contained some sense. In any case, consider easing up on your fellow editors, it doesn't look like it's leading anywhere productive.__ E L A Q U E A T E00:10, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
What's all this stuff coming across my watch list? This project seems to be dominated by men who are hostile to it. @Carol, isn't there an essay somewhere that explains how men can participate constructively in this type of group? —Neotarf (talk) 02:53, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
A couple of us on the GG email list (which is moderated for civility) have started to talk about that, drawing on various techniques used by various groups. One such model is Geek Feminism's about working in communities including men. They also have one about men's responsibility: Free sexism consulting (i.e., problems with asking women to fix problems created by men). Obviously that's just one perspective. There are lots more that editors who sincerely think there is a problem and want to solve it can read, incorporating relevant material. Those who doubt the project should be active in this way obviously should not be harassing us to stop discussing solutions to the problem. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)03:06, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Yeah that was it. I'd be surprised if a lot of people haven't taken this off their watchlists already. What a downer.
Behavior of male participants
Men are welcome in COMMUNITY. However, in order to further our goal of being women-focused, we must retain the sense that most of the effort and discussion in COMMUNITY is by and about women and their role in LARGER COMMUNITY. Otherwise, women will start to find that our group does not suit their needs.
Men should particularly respect that COMMUNITY:
is not a place to solicit women for relationships, advice, or emotional support. You might, in time, make friends but please focus on furthering our goals rather than enlarging your social network.
must continue to be a place where women's voices are heard frequently and in conversation with one another. Hence, listen more than you talk.
Make your contributions by appreciating and asking questions about others' contributions.
If a woman has a problem, wait and allow other women to offer help first. If a woman is already being helped by another woman, think carefully before offering additional assistance or advice.
Don't explain things unless specifically requested, especially topics in the audience's areas of expertise (see "splaining").
Offer specific help rather than advice.
Don't expect special rewards or recognition for your participation as a man.
Be aware that some women might prefer that this was a women's only space; accept this with grace.
COMMUNITY is not designed as a place to educate men about why we exist and to argue about whether women's participation is a real issue or needs a special support group. Please take steps to educate yourself about women's participation and do not insist that other members frequently interrupt their activities to educate you. We suggest http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/Resources_for_men as a starting point for self-education. Men who participate in COMMUNITY but who persistently behave in ways that distract us from our goal of furthering women's participation may be warned, and, if necessary, asked to leave.
If someone is being disruptive, please follow one of the usual procedures (my preferred procedure is to ignore disruption, thus making it non-disruptive, but there is a host of WP options available). I am not enjoying having these threads disrupted by gender-specific posturing, particularly the thread above which started with a thoughtful comment from Anne Delong, which is worthy of serious discussion. Buried in the ensuing thread, which will probably never achieve anything, are a number of other issues worthy of discussion, which are lost in the green ink.
All the best: RichFarmbrough, 16:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC).
"Pay to play" proposal?
If people have a serious proposal - especially one controversial to the list or the community - they should create a section and not just put it on the main page so we can discuss if we want it to go past the proposal stage. Perhaps the author could explain it here? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)12:26, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
What happened to being bold? In any case, one way of closing the gender gap is obviously to increase the number of female editors. The WMF is a fundraising machine, and apparently has funds to pay developers to create features that the community seemingly doesn't want, send staff and board members all over the world for conferences etc. Why not take some of those funds and have a little experiment. Find an all-girls school and pay them to offer a year long course that requires their students to edit articles. I don't know what the syllabus should entail, but I'm sure something can be put down on paper. My suggestion of using the Philippines is because they speak English and compared to the US/UK, it's pretty darn cheap over there. You could probably get schools over there to do this for less of a stipend then elsewhere. If you want to expand this, do the same thing for an all-boys school and a co-ed school. I'm not a scientist, so I can't speak to control groups etc, but I'm sure someone who is familiar with the scientific method could suggest a way to do this to collect statistics.Two kinds of pork (talk) 03:33, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Bigotry against women proposal
Per the section above, I'm moving this controversial proposal from the Project to talk page for discussion:
Actually it's not that controversial in that editors there think it needs to be done. And thus it doesn't need to be on main page here. Of course, "controversial" here means among those who think there is a gender gap and something should be done about it, not those who want to nitpick the project out of existance.
I mean the LGBT Wikiproject doesn't let people against LGBT's dictate what's on their page, does it? (This is in response to various comments above about "anyone can comment.") Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)13:10, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Has someone proposed particular changes to be made to the essay? It already includes "gender" in its list of prejudices, and it doesn't appear to say anything about any of the individual targets of bigotry other than listing them. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:44, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I had some things in mind I wrote down on my do list, but haven't had a chance to deal with. Plus I'm still accumulating relevant info and sources. See next thread relevant to sources. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)17:26, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Many Wikiprojects have such resources pages. Given all the denials there is systemic bias or a gender gap or that it matters or that we should do something about it, we certainly need one. The draft page linked explains content and has a draft intro.
The biggest issue probably is, as I put it there: whatever the Gender Gap task force's policy might be on additions, deletions, etc. Clearly stated policies will help define appropriate entries and vandalism, be it off topic entries or removing entries not liked. I think stated policy should include these points:
New entries:
Should be relevant to closing the gender gap
Should be relevant to existing subcategories; bring new category proposals to the GGTF Resources talk page
Should have a link to a working site (unless it is a book or a temporarily nonworking link is noted)
Should not duplicate existing entries from same source or be trivial summaries of a better source
Comments on significant findings/comments should be 25-50 words
Deletions:
Should be of material that does not conform to the above; vandalism will be removed promptly
Other material found to be problematic as discussed on the GGTF Resources talk page
Other questions and discussions should be brought to the GGTF Resources talk page
Thank you for pulling this together, Carol. Are you thinking of putting a link on the main page, or presenting it in some other way? As for what to add and remove, yes, the above all sounds good. SlimVirgin18:27, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I think (1) should read
1. Should be relevant to reducing systemic bias.
In deletions,
Strike (1) "vandalism will be removed promptly" as redundant, since vandalism does not conform to page content requirements.
Strike (2) since content which is disputed can be stricken and discussed on talk to seek consensus, per ordinary WP editing protocol.
Back to Hatting vs. closing vs. immediate archiving
This topic was discussed here with a consensus that hatting/closing/immediate archiving would not be done. However, it's now been done twice by two contributers here (and an Admin) for reasons that were no more serious than about 6 things I (and others perhaps considering some comments above) would like to hat or close right now, including because of personal attacks. Are we going to have a consistent policy followed by everyone? If so, what shall it be? I don't want to start hatting or closing against what was discussed last time and perhaps others do not either. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)19:54, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Carol, it's better if we just use common sense than have firm rules. The main page says: "Please be civil, respectful and stay on-topic. Off-topic threads are likely to be closed." So we can close or archive anything off-topic, or anything that descends into baiting or insults.
It's difficult to judge when threads are a mixture of things, so again we should just use common sense. If something seems helpful, leave it up; if not, close or archive. If something is upsetting you (or you think it might upset others watching), close or archive. SlimVirgin20:12, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Will do within past precedents. Actually just the one derisive thread. Obviously there are interspersed personal comments (some which can be considered attacks) in several threads above which led to minor brouhahs which really are too complicated to hide. Probably best to hide or remove them when and if they happen again.Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)20:19, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I see SPECIFICO reverted me. Perhaps I should have hatted just the derisive first few comments? In any case, another example of why we have to stop the comments derisive of the project when they first start. (Or ignore and immediately forget them if they are on the lower end of the aggravation scale, which I mostly do a lot anyway.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)20:59, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Gender and video
You may have already seen this news item about Anita Sarkeesian. Here is "Damsel in Distress: Part 2 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games", well worth watching even if you don't edit in video topics: http://youtu(DOT)be/toa_vH6xGqs. (Replace the dot.) Does this raise some questions about the use of video as a RS? Or about adding some of this information to articles about specific videos mentioned in the series? —Neotarf (talk) 02:27, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Why don't you present it to them yourself if you think they may be interested. I posted it here as an FYI for consideration by the women, in the context of their project. —Neotarf (talk) 10:31, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
I've started a new project, WP:WOMWRI, which may interest you. There are so many novelists and poets and journalists and bloggers whose articles haven't been created yet or need improvement. If you have translation skills, take a look at all the articles about women writers on other language Wikipedias and you'll see that many of them don't have a presence on the English language one. The WP is hours old, so there's no formal invitation template yet, just this note from me to you. If you're up for it, roll up your sleeves and let's launch this WP with vigor. --Rosiestep (talk) 21:42, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Great. Linked to it on main page under Wikiprojects. As you can see under our To Do list, there are a bunch of different lists of women's bios in all categories that need creating or updating from stub. You may be able to find some more writers there. Maybe someday I (or someone else) will integrate them all into a list somwhere sensible! Also, I even updated three women feminist writers' bios today. Yeah!!! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)18:59, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
If each subscriber to this WikiProject nominates their best choice of a women editor for becoming an administrator, then this would help address an important part of the recent call by Jimmy Wales for "doubling down" on the issue of the gender gap during this calendar year. During the month of September an active drive for the nomination of women for becoming administrators would allow for the evaluation of their background before the end of 2014. The "glass ceiling" limiting the number of women administrators at Misplaced Pages is seen as limiting progress toward gender parity described in the 2014 book An Ethnography of Misplaced Pages.
I'm not all the familiar with the process so it's always good to link to relevant policy page. I get impression individuals first have to make it known they want to be admins. Right now we have a problem with just getting women to stick with editing, so admin is a big step. There probably are some women who would like it and we should find a way to support that. But such affirmative action steps do invite back lash so we have to be careful how we do it. Others' thoughts? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)03:12, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
We very much need more female admins. They do need to be suitable and willing; and perhaps there's a privacy/pressure issue in nominating onwiki without first seeking their agreement. I wonder whether it could be done via the email facility, or if email is not enabled, by a cautious note on their talkpage ("Would you consider ...")? Tony(talk) 04:10, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
RfA can be a cesspool. I've been on wiki 8 years and seldom if ever had any interest in getting the mop. If you have ever been in the least controversial, every enemy you have made on wiki will show up to oppose you. That said, some women have sailed through RfA, such as my friend User:Dana boomer, if they have managed to stay under the radar or keep an extremely positive tone. I'm not one of those people (sometimes I get curious to do an RfA just to see what would happen, but who needs that drama?) Montanabw13:45, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
Anyway, I just remembered that as far as the "To Do" list goes, we already have "actively recruit women editors and administrators" under "Affirmative Action measures". And as I've proposed before and may work on soon, if we have a page that fleshes out various proposal, those who want to can get some tips on how to. I know I'd encourage an experienced woman to do it if she showed the slightest interest.Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)14:05, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
@Montanabw, @Carolmooredc; There has to be some assumption that women editors who have completed five thousand or more edits would be able to go through the RfA vetting process as experienced editors. The point learned from numerous organizations and institutions is that the editors (non-Admin) do not get very far unless they are supported by management (Admin at Misplaced Pages). @Carolmooredc; Unless there are more women admins supporting a growing number of women editors, one risks a catch22 where the new women editors are driven away for the same reason of not enough women supporters. A study by Cotter and Hermsen has stated that: “The popular notion of glass ceiling effects implies that gender (or other) disadvantages are stronger at the top of the hierarchy than at lower levels and that these disadvantages become worse later in a person's career.”(David A. Cotter, Joan M. Hermsen, Seth Ovadia and Reeve Vanneman (2001): The Glass Ceiling Effect. Social Forces, Vol. 80, No. 2 (Dec., 2001), pp. 655-681 Published by: Oxford University Press.) One research study by Matsa and Miller suggests that a possible remedy to the glass ceiling could be increasing the number of women on corporate boards, which could subsequently lead to increases in the number of women working in top management positions.(David A. Matsa and Amalia R. Miller (2011): Chipping away at the Glass Ceiling: Gender Spillovers in Corporate Leadership. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 2011, 101:3, 635–639.) The priority for dealing with the "glass ceiling" is to get more women admin first at Misplaced Pages, and in that way they can help foster a more helpful environment for attracting more women editors. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 05:37, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Sorry but I cannot let the "glass ceiling" remark go without comment. I am well aware of the gender gap, and know many of the reasons for the disparity in numbers of editors. However, I don't recall ever seeing any discussion about the notion that female editors have any more difficulty getting the mop than male editors. I've followed hundreds of RfA requests, and do not recall that gender is even known in many cases. Does someone have some numbers to back this up? If it is a real issue, I'm on board trying to fix it, but I'd like to see some evidence that it is actually a problem. I do not own a copy of An Ethnography of Misplaced Pages. Is there a quote from the book supporting this claim?--S Philbrick(Talk)13:14, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
@S Philbrick; Yes, the Ethnography book by Jemielniak covers the discussion of the strong application of the principle that business management theory commentary on managers applies by direct analogy to administrators at Misplaced Pages in Chapters 1 and 2 in his new book which you mention. The statistics on women admins is taken as the 15% figure for women editors in general at Misplaced Pages applied without prejudice to women admins as well. Both previous editors responding above have talked about the tough vetting process of RfAs in the past, which I have stated should not be a deterrent in and of itself to nominating strong women editors for admin. The Cotter and Hermson material I quoted above (and all the others writing in business management theory) state that the "glass ceiling" on managers states that experience in the business world teaches over and over that the more that management reflects the policies desired, then the more prevalent do those policies become in the general workplace of employees (editors). That is, for Misplaced Pages, the larger the number of women admins, then business experience in general teaches that more women in the workplace (women editors) follows. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 14:59, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
So the figures are an unsupported extrapolation from rather dodgey data. WP is not comparable to business management, as the gender of most editors is undisclosed. EricCorbett17:15, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
I asked if a quote from the book supported the claim. You said "Yes" but your explanation equates to "No". if female admins are in the same ratio as editors, then almost by definition there is no glass ceiling. However, I'm not ready to leap to that conclusion, because, if I read you correctly, the author didn't know and just made the assumption. However, if the author assumed the same ratio, that's equivalent to assuming there is no glass ceiling. So one of two things are true based on your summary: Either the author assumes, without evidence that there is no glass ceiling, or the author has no evidence one way or the other.--S Philbrick(Talk)13:20, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
User:LawrencePrincipe I purchased a copy of An Ethnography of Misplaced Pages and I have now read chapters 1 and 2. I don't see any mention of a glass ceiling. Unfortunately the version is not searchable so it is possible I missed it. Can you give me a more specific location?--S Philbrick(Talk)17:17, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
I may be wrong, but I believe research shows a greater percentage of female admins than female editors. Someone could do the sums on Arbitrators, since the numbers are low, if the genders are common knowledge. All the best: RichFarmbrough, 17:04, 2 September 2014 (UTC).
Let's not revert to stale affirmative action knee-jerk solutions which alienate more of the public than they empower. I propose a different approach. First off, it's not female admins we need, but gender-aware, neutral admins. Second, there are many eyes on this talk page and the other feminism-related pages. On these articles, project, and talk pages we see some editors (male and female) distinguishing themselves with solid constructive participation. We see others who are unable to collaborate effectively. In time, I hope to see many of the participants on these pages elevated to Admin, without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, or place of birth. SPECIFICOtalk18:14, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
The WMF isn't really concerned about editors though, they're easily replaceable. So let's turn the question on its head. What are the topics that female readers think are missing from WP? EricCorbett18:29, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
to Rich Farmbrough: a study showing if they identify as female (before or after becoming Admins), what kind of tasks they take on, which tasks they most engage in and why, would be interesting. I'm wondering if it would show they largely do not identify as female and lay low and get along with everyone, earning few enemies to their becoming Admins. In which case stealth recruiting would be the best policy :-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)19:04, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
So then be sneaky about it, eh? Where did you get the strange idea that sneakiness is OK? That's exactly the tactic that the antiabortion folks are using as they chip away at women's right to choose. If you are not aware of their tactics you might read our many abortion related articles, written mostly by men, BTW. Gandydancer (talk) 20:43, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
I'd prefer to see the alleged facts supported by some reliable evidence, rather than this interminable grandstanding based on false preconceptions. Your mileage may vary of course. EricCorbett23:23, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm rather saddened by this gender war, as until quite recently I never gave a second thought as to whether an editor was male or female. Now it seems I'm obliged to though, even if they don't self-identify as female. EricCorbett21:03, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
One thing to consider, and this connects with what Eric was asking, is that there are quite a few male editors who happily work on biographies and other articles about women, and by supporting and recognizing their efforts we may be contributing to closing the content gap in the interim, while still working on recruiting more female editors, of course.—Anne Delong (talk) 19:14, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Quite. I'd bet that I've done far more work on biographies of females than many of the most vociferous anti-male commentators here have done. When working on Enid Blyton for instance, the fact that she was female was hardly in my mind. The important thing was that she is one of the most widely read authors in the world, male or female. I'd also like to mention Margaret Thatcher, one of the most important figures in 20th-century British history. Where were the members of this project then, when there was work that needed to be done? EricCorbett19:35, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Hey, Eric, be fair now! There are millions of articles, and innumerable excellent authors and famous politicians to write about; nobody can possibly work on all of the ones that might be of interest. Anyway, it's not a contest. And thank you for working on those ones you mentioned, while the rest of us were concentrating on other articles. —Anne Delong (talk) 21:24, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
One of the things I like about Misplaced Pages is that there is no real limit on how many people can participate. This is the same with Administrators. It's not like the "glass ceiling" in a company, where there are only a certain number of positions available and women are competing head-to-head with men for them. Misplaced Pages always needs more admins! It's not necessary for an editor to first express interest in being an admin; in fact, often people are approached by one or more other editors, who express confidence in them and suggest that they would make good admins. It's true that "diplomatic" editors have a better chance to be accepted, and maybe that's a good idea, since "speak-and-act first, think later types" can do a lot of damage with the admin tools. Surely, though, there are plenty of calm, rational, experienced female editors who could be nominated. I would like to point out, though, that since becoming an admin earlier this year I actually have done less content creation, because I have to do my own deletions, historymerges, etc., and it all takes time. Also, there's no point in nominating or supporting at RfA someone without the right mix of experience, just because they are female, because RfA is not an election, and you have to give good reasons. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:14, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
RfA is a popularity contest though, and it would be relatively easy for a project such as this one to force a nomination through regardless of its merits. EricCorbett19:29, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
@Anne Delong, @Eric Corbett; The question about the value of the stats of a 15% women editor ratio is that they are good enough for Jimmy Wales to use them in his BBC interview last month regarding failing to reach Sue Gardner's gender goals by 2015. The "glass ceiling" issue remains the most confrontational issue because even if Misplaced Pages finds the magic formula to attract more women editors, the business management theory and experience still teaches that if you don't fix the management problem first, then the old management (85% male) will just continue, either knowingly or unknowingly, to drive away the new women editors the same as they have been doing for years and years (long-term systemic bias). Good intentions, even best intentions such as those expressed above of being open-minded and diplomatic, have been shown again and again in business management models to fail if the "glass ceiling" problem is not addressed first. Misplaced Pages continues to fail to attract women editors, and without addressing the "glass ceiling" issue first of getting more women administrators on board, then Misplaced Pages as a whole fails to achieve the gender parity which Jimmy Wales encourages by calling for "doubling down" on the issue of increasing the number of women editing Misplaced Pages. The short section on "Active Nomination of Women Administrators" posted at the top of this Talk section should be added to this WikiProject Page. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 22:39, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Jimmy using a statistic does not make it right! All the best: RichFarmbrough, 22:51, 2 September 2014 (UTC).
It does in many people's eyes, which is why I regard Jimmy Wales as one of the most toxic influences on WP. He's got no idea about writing an encyclopedia, and instead chooses to concentrate on trying to build some kind of hopeless Ayn Rand inspired Utopia. WP would be better off without him. EricCorbett23:11, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Eric Corbett - this project can muster maybe half a dozen !votes at AfD, maybe it would do better at RfA, but I don't see why. All the best: RichFarmbrough, 22:51, 2 September 2014 (UTC).
This is a singularly poor place to try out "jokes", the response to which which is culturally conditioned and can only foment misunderstanding and needless distractions. SPECIFICOtalk23:43, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure who was joking, it certainly wasn't me. All the best: RichFarmbrough, 00:24, 3 September 2014 (UTC).
I was referring to this , which can appear to be a tactic to evade responsibility for ones actions. At any rate, it's best to let it lie. SPECIFICOtalk00:50, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't think it's best to let it lie at all. Throughout written history women have not been allowed to speak out about their place in society. Now that we have finally arrived at a place where we are able to speak, we no longer need to resort to sneaky tactics, and it mars the feminist perspective to say that it is acceptable. I have long spoken out for woman's rights, but I would not join this project because it appears that Carol, who seems to be the main spokesperson, sees this as a battle of the women against the men, who have been repeatedly characterized as wild dogs who have staked the territory out to keep females away. That sort of attitude will only force "the men" to dig their heels in and become defensive--And I don't blame them for that. Gandydancer (talk) 14:41, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
First of all, the "we" gives me the impression you are a woman. First time I knew it. I don't see any indication on your user page, unless I missed it.
Regarding the now deleted "Mad Dog" entry on my user page. I'd forgotten about it and just removed it as a dated reaction to extreme hostility some guys had towards the whole gender gap issue on Jimmy Wales talk page in July. The comment was directed at that subset of hostile males and the minority of extremely territorial males at wikipedia. My focus was - and is - "We seem to forget that humans have both an upper brain (the cerebrum) which is relatively rational and a lower brain (the brainstem and cerebellum) that deals with automatic and unconscious functions." AKA "rationality", which seemed lacking in those discussions.
If male editors can throw the word "c*nt" around loosely and defend it, why can't females engage in a little provocative analysis of why they do it?
The problem of males reacting in hostility to things they think women are thinking at this project seems to be a bigger problem than my joke about recruiting women editors, written as a nervous reaction to constant and unrelenting criticism by a few males of this project. I guess I fell for the bait! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)15:39, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
OK, since you insist (to your detriment) on prolonging this thread... Let's be honest. You were not making a "joke". You backtracked and called it a joke when you were challenged. That kind of dishonest battleground behavior is damaging to this Project. If you can't control yourself, please consider departing the Project and leaving the work to those of us who have come here to collaborate on this important initiative. SPECIFICOtalk16:13, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Lesson in human psychology: sneaky people don't announce their sneaky plans on public spots where people who love to jump on every single thing they say are going to jump all over their sneaky plot. They do it in private emails, etc. Geeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzz.... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)16:32, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Quoted shared on Email list: A persistent gender difference is that female contributors communicate in a manner that promotes social affiliation and emotional connection more than male editors, irrespective of their status in the community. Female regular editors are the most relationship-oriented, whereas male administrators are the least relationship-focused. Finally, emotional and linguistic homophily is prevalent: editors tend to interact with other editors having similar emotional styles.
Of course, they're talking more about voluntary interaction as opposed to some of the negative types that women too often end up being subjected to. I'm still waiting for a detailed study of those interactions! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)04:33, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
The following sentence from the abstract is apposite. ..editors expressing more anger connect more with one another
All the best: RichFarmbrough, 23:32, 2 September 2014 (UTC).
Interestingly this paper, which is on the talk page contributions of editors with over 100 article talk page contributions supports the claim that the difference between admin and non admin gender ratios is negligible, and, if anything there are a bigger percentage of female admins than of female non-admins (in this case 6.42% compared to 6.26%). This paper only deals with self-identified gender via the Preferences tab, as far as I can see, which we are aware massively under-reports females compared with males.
All the best: RichFarmbrough, 00:19, 3 September 2014 (UTC).
That (latter) paper was linked in my blog post. :P Speaking of figures, I am currently trying to find out what the gender split was in the July 2012 WMF editor survey. To this day, I don't think the figure has been reported (in the April 2011 editor survey, it was 8.5%). If I've missed it and it's available somewhere, please let me know. As far as I can tell, at Wikimania 2013 only the 16.1% figure from Shaw & Hill was reported (which is based on the 12.64% figure from the 2010 UNU survey, revised upwards based on assumed sampling bias).
By the way, returning to the Emotions under discussion paper, I don't think it matters if the male pool included some female editors who chose not to identify as female. All it would have done would have been to make the males appear slightly more relationship-oriented than they really are. ;) The conclusions from that paper (I mean the five paragraphs or so at the end, rather than the short paragraph that is part of the abstract) are really worth reading. I thought they put it very well. Cheers, AndreasJN46620:58, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
I remember there was a problem with the 2012 survey and the banner not showing. People were complaining that they hadn't been able to respond in time. Andreas, do you have a link to the survey results? SlimVirgin21:07, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
See and on Meta. The results have still not been released, as far as I can tell. I've pinged User:Tbayer (WMF) a few times these past days, but haven't heard back as yet. I also asked Phoebe on the Gendergap list, no reply. :( AndreasJN46621:26, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
That's odd. I hope Tilman responds to your ping because it would be good to have an updated figure.
I agree that the last few paragraphs of that paper are worth discussing, so I'm posting them here. They speak to some of the issues people have mentioned above:
We find that higher-status editors promote a neutral, impersonal and more formal conversation tone in Misplaced Pages. They “rule with reason”, and maintain a mildly positive tone – a crucial aspect to the good functioning of the collaborative project. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether administrator neutrality fulfills the needs of the community in the long run. Peer-production communities are settings of voluntary contribution, and emotions play an important role in group dynamics, requiring expression. Relationship-oriented communication has been found to increase contributions and, interestingly, regular editors use this linguistic style more than administrators. Consequently, the tone of group moderators, and more generally the interaction spaces of such communities should be adapted to facilitate both positive exchanges and the venting out of negative emotion in a constructive manner.
For this aim, the role of female editors is paramount. Indeed our analyses (both automatic and the brief manual analysis of content) provide strong evidence that female editors engage in relationship-oriented speech that is conducive to a positive working environment. Interestingly, this result holds also for female administrators, who diverge significantly from male administrators by being more relationship-oriented. By increasing the diversity of leadership styles and by promoting an atmosphere of openness and concern for others, women leaders play a pivotal role in such online spaces.
These results have implications also for the gender gap issue. Together with the finding of that women tend to interact preferentially with other women, our results suggest that being able to involve more women and to give them more space in the community would also result in a virtuous cycle of female participation, through the creation of a communication environment where they feel more comfortable.
Anne Delong made the point that simply because the means of two distributions are not identical, it doesn't mean that they are not very close.
(Later in the post, she also made some generic points about welcoming people and identifying barriers which I think would command universal support.)
My concern here is that we do not know the base distributions in, for example, interest. If we did we could correlate these with Misplaced Pages coverage, and see if the distribution of each gender editors is concomitant with their interests (and even answer the basic question "Is the average Misplaced Pages article of more interest to males than females?").
Some academic data is available (probably a lot more than I can quickly find), for example 43% of boys were interested in "atoms and molecules" compared with 23% of girls, "What we should eat to be healthy" interested 53% of girls and 36 % of boys. While this is at high school age, it is a at least a datum.
In terms of subjects studied, we are on more slippery ground. More girls study psychology than boys, and more girls (in the UK at least) go into law. However one has to take a subject at university, and choices are not always made purely on interest. Questions such as "Would you read a psychology journal in your spare time?" would be needed to establish a level of interest, rather than simply a vocational choice.
So there is the difficulty in establishing areas of interest. We may (again as an isolated datum) draw on the Wikifashion experience to show that topic probably is relevant to the gender mix editing a particular article. And this is indeed supported somewhat by the PLOS article mentioned above.
Secondly we need to take into account Baron-Cohen's systematising-empathising scale. All encyclopaedias systematise, but Misplaced Pages more than most, because we embrace NPOV, avoid COI, ban Original Research and Synthesis.
In order to address the gender gap we need to understand it, and it seems to me we lack the raw data to establish the most basic facts. Without these we risk following folklore, and responding with folk remedies.
All the best: RichFarmbrough, 01:18, 3 September 2014 (UTC).
Thanks, that is a useful list. I have read most, but not all of it. (The free access material that is!) All the best: RichFarmbrough, 19:53, 3 September 2014 (UTC).
I wrote on Research draft page that blog entries would update us, based on WMF assertions there. I see I hadn't listed any, so just searched the blog again for "editor survey 2012" and in first pass didn't see anything. But a little unfocused right now if anyone else wants to look. I did see complaints on the talk page of the 2012 Survey talk page with complaints and "updates" as of Aug 2014 if you want to check it out. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)23:51, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
We need to start treating hospitality as a first class virtue, and see that it is the seed of everything else. Alberto Brandolini said “The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” It has a big cost when someone treats others badly. If someone is ruining the hospitality of a place by using their liberty in a certain way, we need to stop making excuses, and start on the path of exclusion. If we exclude no one explicitly, we are just excluding a lot of people implicitly.
This part is also worth quoting at length, as it has to do with how you set up spaces (like this one) so that people can participate positively:
The slides and notes from that session are up. And one of them is to think carefully about what we do in super-public spaces versus how we act in invite-only space or quite private spaces, and to think about what those spaces are. I think of the spaces that are more secret or private as places where certain people can sort of rest and vent and collaborate, and ask the questions they feel afraid of asking in public, so they can gain the strength and confidence to go further out, into the invite-only spaces or the very public spaces. I think we’ve seen this in my own experience at Hacker School, and we see that also the invite-only spaces, or spaces where everybody coming in agrees to follow the same rules so it’s a place where you feel safer -- these are like tidepools, places where certain kinds of people and certain kinds of behaviour can be nurtured and grown so that it’s ready to go out into the wider ocean.
We can also modify existing spaces. We can set up informal but real contracts or promises with specific people or in specific larger spaces. I’ve done this. I’ve said “Hey, for this conversation – I know in the past we’ve had trouble assuming good faith of each other. Will you try – I will try extra hard to assume good faith of you if you’ll assume good faith of me.” And that actually made things go a lot better.
Assuming good faith is just one of the recent problems that has been side-tracking this project.
I heard Sumana's speech at the time she made it. I was particularly taken by the notion of hospitality, and that has changed the way I look at some of our written and unwritten conventions. That said, we might have differing opinions on who the bs generators are. I am 100% certain that there have been and will be more examples of gender bias. I'd like to be part of the effort to identify it and root it out. Yet when I see charges made, and polite requests for evidence, the evidence is often scant, or false positives or "in progress". When those asking for evidence are rudely addressed, who is the bs generator?--S Philbrick(Talk)16:04, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
- this project can muster maybe half a dozen !votes at AfD, maybe it would do better at RfA, but I don't see why. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:51, 2 September 2014 (UTC).