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Gender gap task force: exploring and closing the gender gap on Misplaced Pages

Welcome to the Gender gap task force, a task force belonging to WikiProject Countering systemic bias. A task force consists of a group of editors devoted to the management of a particular issue or topic on Misplaced Pages. This page has been set up to ease coordination of our efforts.

If you'd like to help out in any way, please add your name to the list of participants.

Shortcut

Scope

Further information: Meta:Gender gap

The aim of the task force is to identify gender bias on Misplaced Pages (including gender bias in articles, the selection of articles maintained, discussions, editor interactions, policies and implementation of policies), take steps to counter it, and raise awareness of how the gender gap can affect editorial and other decisions.

As WP:BIAS notes, a 2011 Wikimedia Foundation survey found that 8.5 percent of editors were women. The gender gap has not been closing and, on average, female editors leave Misplaced Pages earlier than male editors. Research suggests that the gender gap has a detrimental effect on content coverage. Articles of particular interest to women tend to be shorter, and women typically perceive Misplaced Pages to be of lower quality than men do.

Article selection based on gender bias

Main article: Gender imbalance on Misplaced Pages

Misplaced Pages has a longstanding controversy concerning gender bias and sexism which has been associated with the selection of articles which are maintained in the open-source encyclopedia. Misplaced Pages has been criticized by some journalists and academics for lacking not only women contributors but also extensive and in-depth encyclopedic attention to many topics regarding gender. An article in The New York Times cites a Wikimedia Foundation study which found that fewer than 13% of contributors to Misplaced Pages are women. Sue Gardner, previously executive director of the foundation, said that increasing diversity was about making the encyclopedia "as good as it could be." Factors the article cited as possibly discouraging women from editing included the "obsessive fact-loving realm," associations with the "hard-driving hacker crowd," and the necessity to be "open to very difficult, high-conflict people, even misogynists."

Participants

  1. Czar (talk · contribs)
  2. Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs)
  3. SlimVirgin (talk · contribs)
  4. Gobonobo (talk · contribs)
  5. Superbellymonster (talk) 03:29, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
  6. GRuban (talk · contribs)
  7. Samsara9 (talk · contribs)
  8. Carolmooredc (talk · contribs)
  9. Djembayz (talk · contribs)
  10. DStrassmann (talk · contribs)
  11. Piotrus (talk · contribs)
  12. Geraldshields11 (talk · contribs)
  13. The Vintage Feminist (talk · contribs)
  14. BoboMeowCat (talk · contribs)
  15. Obiwankenobi (talk · contribs) Interested in categories
  16. Rosiestep (talk · contribs)
  17. Mssemantics (talk · contribs)
  18. SPECIFICO talk
  19. Tutelary (talk · contribs)
  20. kmccook (talk · contribs)
  21. Mark Miller (talk · contribs)
  22. Maximilianklein (talk · contribs)
  23. Steeletrap (talk · contribs)
  24. Kerry (talk) 22:19, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
  25. Keilana (talk · contribs)
  26. SusanLesch (talk · contribs)
  27. User:Robert McClenon
  28. Scalhotrod (talk · contribs)
  29. Cullen328 (talk · contribs)
  30. Montanabw (talk · contribs)
  31. magsmacaulay (talk · contribs)
  32. Ever wonder (talk · contribs) Interested/supporter, unsure how actively I'll be able to help.

Promotional templates

User box

Feel free to place this user box on your user page. {{WP:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/gendergaptaskforce}} which creates

This user is a member of the
Gender gap task force
(GGTF).

Invite others!

Invite others to join! To perform a request, insert {{subst:Gender gap TF invitation}} into their talk page. This results in the following welcome message:

We invite you to join Gender Gap task force. There you can coordinate with users who are trying to identify gender bias on Misplaced Pages (including gender bias in articles, in editor interactions, policies and implementation of policies) and take steps to counter it. If you would like to get involved, just visit the Gender Gap task force. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or other members of the task force.Happy editing, Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:37, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Mind the Gap Award

To use this award paste the following template with your own message on the userpage: {{subst:Mind the Gap Award|1=Put your message here. ~~~~}}

Mind the Gap Award

Your message here.

To do

For a more comprehensive list, see WP:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/open tasks § Women and women's studies.

Improve biographies of women

Improve "Resource", "Policy" and "Help" pages

Categorization

Main page: Misplaced Pages:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality
  • Ensure that categories are used in accordance with the guideline above. Promote changes in the FA and GA criteria to ensure that promoted articles are correctly categorized. (Note: There is a main Category:Women and thousands of categories that have "Women" in their titles. There also are a couple thousand categories with "female" in the title.)

Write essay

  • Following this suggestion, write an essay on the problems women editors face, and how and whether Misplaced Pages's dispute-resolution processes can help. Consider ideas from this geek feminism page.

Possible affirmative action program

  • Over one year ago before completing her term of leadership for Wikimedia, Sue Gardner had set a policy goal for getting women enrollment at Misplaced Pages up to 25% by 2015. It is now evident at the start of July 2014 that this goal can only be reached, in a realistic sense, for enhanced women enrollment only if Misplaced Pages is willing to offer an affirmative action preference for women editors as an incentive to encourage participation in the future of a gender neutral version of Misplaced Pages. Ought Misplaced Pages to endorse an affirmative action program adapted to incentives for showing preference to edits originating from women editors in an attempt to rectify previous and current gender imbalances, and to do this in order to make a realistic attempt to attain enhanced enrollment levels for women editors at Misplaced Pages. These goals were set out by Sue Gardner in her 2011 NY Times interview. Ought some "level" of protection be determined as applied affirmatively to women editors (for some useful period of a few months or even several months). For example, there could be an affirmative strengthening of registered women editors by requiring that two editors be required to form consensus before being allowed to revert edits placed by women editors. Other forms of affirmative action preference could also be made available for discussion.

Enhanced presence of women among Misplaced Pages Administrators

  • The original 5-year plan of Misplaced Pages announced in 2010 for the 2010-1015 time frame, made the original announcement of increasing general women enrollment to 25% system wide. As August 2014 approaches, the narrower version of this goal also provides merit for discussion, which is setting a goal for actively seeking to expand the presence of woman who are Administrators at Misplaced Pages to 25%, and then eventually towards 50%. Such an increased presence of women Administrators, on the basis of similar gender management employment issues in business and industry, would be useful in providing a more welcoming editing environment at Misplaced Pages which is more gender neutral. It also provides a preliminary goal to achieving more general gender equality at Misplaced Pages as originally outlined by Sue Gardner.

Resources

Related projects in other communities These will have useful information, but aren't necessarily organized by or run for Wikimedia communities.

Related WikiProjects

Notes

  1. "Editor Survey Report – April 2011", Wikimedia Foundation, accessed 7 January 2011.
  2. Shyong (Tony) K. Lam, et al, "WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Misplaced Pages’s Gender Imbalance", WikiSym’11, 3–5 October 2011.
  3. S. Lim and N. Kwon, "Gender differences in information behavior concerning Misplaced Pages, an unorthodox information source?", Library & Information Science Research, 32(3), 2010, pp. 212–220.
  4. ^ Cassell, Justine (February 4, 2011). "Editing Wars Behind the Scenes". New York Times.
  5. ^ Noam Cohen, "Define Gender Gap? Look Up Misplaced Pages's Contributor List," The New York Times. Found at The New York Times, January 31, 2011.
  6. "Misplaced Pages's Women Problem". Nybooks.com. 2013-04-29. Retrieved 2013-11-19.
  7. Misplaced Pages's Sexism Toward Women Novelists
  8. Dunn, Gaby (2013-05-01). "Does Sexism Lurk?". Dailydot.com. Retrieved 2013-11-19.
  9. Zandt, Deanna. "Yes, Misplaced Pages is Sexist". Forbes.com. Retrieved 2013-11-19.