Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force

Expanding use of the project

While there's always potential for warm and positive, in the interim this task force can and should be used for problem solving the problem of not enough female participation in en.Wikipedia. It's not just a place to link to techno-solutions.

So per the scope statement on the main page, in order to identify gender bias on Wikipedia – whether in articles, discussions, policies or implementation of policies – and to take steps to counter it, as well as to raise awareness of how it can affect editorial and other decisions we should consider:

• linking to various relevant articles/essays/projects within en.wikipedia and wikimedia regarding the topic.
• writing an essay prominently advertised here on the problems women face and solutions to those problems through wiki dispute resolution processes, existing "support" type pages, etc.; writing another essay on how men and women can work together more successfully in community, etc., considering some concepts in this geekfeminism article.
• thinking up policy tweaks and changes, like regarding WP:Civility and WP:Harassment, to make Wikipedia more comfortable for women.
• posting at the very least links to a variety of topical behavior/policy/etc. issues - including relevant ANIs and Arbitrations and noticeboard postings - that directly affect the gender gap and at least discussing them here and/o getting involved on an individual basis if it seems relevant.
• learning what other projects are doing right. (I heard on gender gap email list the Serb women are the most active. I know the ones I've met are very smart and forthright.)
• promoting the various women-related projects to women editors. I was a member of this task force for a year or so, unwatched it in a moment of general frustration, and completely forgot it existed! So it pays to advertise!
• Other ideas?

So there's lots that can be done here without it becoming a touchy feeling consciousness raising group, as much fun as that would be Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:10, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

That's brilliant stuff, Carol, thanks for writing it up. I have to go offline shortly, so I can't respond more now, but I will tomorrow. The essay is a really good idea. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:19, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Here's another idea I came up with on Gender gap email list but thought I'd pass by here first, regarding statistically interesting facts we might find on who does/supports AfD's of articles about or related to women: It would be interesting to see if there is a pattern of certain individuals AfDing (and/or coming by to support AfDing) articles because of bias against women. If it's found, a few of us could leave them some nice notes on their talk pages about our findings. :-) (I'm such a nudge!) Thoughts? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:04, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Carol, this is an interesting idea. I doubt whether such users would be found, but you never know. I just "lost" Patricia Ainsworth, but there was no hope of keeping it (her?) without more substantive references. How would you identify bias? How would you rule out, for example, someone who was interested in new articles about women, and as a result only AfD'd articles about women? Indeed once the article is gone it's hard to identify if it is about women or a woman. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 03:11, 2 August 2014 (UTC).

The more important thing is to note bios of women, works by women or women's organizations (a frequent target) being AfD'd at a higher rate than males. Actually, all you have to do is look at mens bios, works, organizations and in general you'll find a whole bunch with fewer refs than the article being AfD'd, but they don't even have a needs ref tag on them. That's evidence enough for me and a comparison chart would certainly be of interest. If I was a deletionist I could spend every day AfDing such stuff, but I'm not (unless it's really an absurd topic). If in researching this some individuals name kept coming up and a study of the AfDs through AfD history research showed a clear pattern, then it might be something to discuss with the editor. Maybe ask him to work on AfDing mostly male articles for next six months or whatever :-) Anyway, it's a thought that would have to be worked up into a research scheme and this is just throwing out ideas. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:56, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

"...that's evidence enough for me..." Please explain, evidence of what and why? Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 18:03, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Example (AfDs)

At AfD right now: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suzanne Marie Olsson. Montanabw^(talk) 23:38, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Is this really an example of SB? The subject is an editor; there are multiple previously deleted versions of the article; contributors to the current article want it deleted. At the very least it's not a typical gender gap issue. – SJ + 01:51, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Just alerting the wikiproject, not debating the topic. There is a problem that articles about women in general tend to be held to a higher standard of notabiity than many about men (my classic example is cricket players in Sri Lanka, who appear to get an article if they play one season of professional ball). This is an article about a woman, it's up for AfD. Members here can assess the situation on its own merits. If the topic is not notable, people here have the ability to discern that and recommend deletion. I'm just posting. Montanabw^(talk) 04:18, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

More examples (not listing all articles on women, only a sampling). I am taking no position on whether these articles pass WP:GNG, people can make up their own minds. I voted on one, but not the rest. Montanabw^(talk) 04:33, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mary Deese
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mary K. Greer
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/María Benítez
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sister Ernestine Declercq
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Susan Gilbert (2nd nomination)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sara Powell
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dr. Anna Frisch
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elinor Gadon
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elizabeth Morgan (actress)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ellenor Bland

Found all but one deserved articles and said so, even if I did have to pull out the systemic bias card a couple times. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:46, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I just can't see where a vote to Keep with comments such as "Actors like this can become very notable over night so why make someone go through the work of having to rewrite it? I'm sure we can find lots of white male actors with far less impressive resumes and maybe one more ref who are kept without question. Let's not practice systemic bias here, please." are going to help our female editors seem intelligent and fair-minded. As a matter of fact, that actor had no refs other than a movie database link. How do you know if the article contained libelous material? Let's not attempt to improve the image of women editors by insisting that if the other editors on a page are not voting to keep a particular female bio they must be biased. Carol, that is no joke to say you had "to pull out the systemic bias card a couple times". You did exactly that and it is not in the best interest of Wikipedia. Gandydancer (talk) 20:26, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually it was a naughty joke. As an inclusionist in general I've always used the "what if" argument and lots of other less than perfect ones. I did take a quick look at the articles just in case they looked squirrly, but you are right about BLP problems. Will be more careful. Actually after today's round decided I should make myself a little "data base" of good arguments so I don't get lazy and rely on subprime ones. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:30, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm torn about creating BLPs nowadays. We do need more women – I've lost count of the number of times I link an academic's name, only to find the men are blue and the women red. On the other hand, we don't know whether the subjects will welcome them; having a BLP isn't necessarily a blessing. Writing to each subject to ask whether they mind is the best thing, but it's extra work. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:35, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Good point. I was happy to see mine go even though it probably had more mainstream RS than all but two of the ones I voted for. I guess I'm just a "more the merrier" type of person. But will also keep that in mind. (The most obvious example is the British woman politician best know for an allegedly racist remark, which was well documented; though by now I should know in such matters to look at the sources more carefully for RS and accuracy.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:47, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm a little surprised by the fight to Keep Anna Frisch, otherwise I'm trying to provide reasons for Keeping all of them. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 21:57, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Under Article improvement on main page I add links to two more "articles alerts" pages (which often include AfD alerts) and the AfD page for those who want to keep on top of article issues. In addition to any listings here.

OOPs, forgot to mention in edit summary I remove the "infobox" info; they are for both sexes and may be outdated. Feel free to add as separate section if it's more important than I realized. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 03:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I am surprised by the discussion about whether notable women would mind an article on Wikipedia. I was unaware that this was a criteria for adding an article. Am I missing something? —Anne Delong (talk) 17:00, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it's more women (and guys) in the mid-range of notability who have found that previously created articles are sloppy, put WP:Undue emphasis on negative aspects, are vandalized a lot, etc. and their complaints have brought no change. It seems a couple individuals over the years in that situation wanted to get rid of them. Really notable people probably are used to bad reviews and their pages probably are watched more carefully to speedily get rid of the worst problems. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 04:45, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

My only experience with this was for Mindi McDowell, who summarized computer security threats for US-CERT. After I wrote a stub, she asked the Foundation that it be deleted, which they took care of. -SusanLesch (talk) 17:25, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Civility, sexism, gender gap discussion at Jimbo Wales talk page

A few good proposals ("light") in the middle of the "heat" on the talk page that we might look at in the future. Editors who care about closing the gender gap might want to read some of the better sub-threads and even join in. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:08, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Here's a link to a transcript of Wales speech at Wikimania 2014. It does focus on civility but not very effective solutions.

He tried to be inspirational and talked about "moral ambitiousness" to try to be on our best behavior, but then claimed this was working in BLP; maybe I'll go back to a few trashed bios I gave up on and find out.

He did inspire me to extend wikilove by ending more messages with smilies, though depending on my mood and who I'm sharing it with, I may have to mention it's wikilove and not apologizing for daring to open my female mouth... ha ha

He did have one good idea for dealing with chronically toxic personalities: encourage them to create content off line on their own web sites and encourage others to use it. I've thought of that a few times myself as a way of escaping toxic personalities. Though actually one can just do it in sandboxes too and promote them on talk pages. (I used to have two articles on my own sites that were higher than Wikipedia on two topics, but stopped promoting them and now they are 7 or 8 entries down.) Of course, the issue he doesn't get is that women have to walk a very narrow line of "proper behavior" before they get labeled in a negative fashion. Sigh...

Paying more attention to Wales page lately, I can see a lot of people are pissed off at the Foundation "super-protecting" all the Wikis so that no one can shut down the new media viewer, which they previously could. So expecting too much "top down" from the foundation probably won't pay off; even my favorite and relatively non-invasive hiring of mediators (and mediation trainers for volunteers) so that more content disputes would be solved earlier. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 04:11, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

WP article on Amanda Filipacchi

The section regarding Amanda Filipacchi's op-ed on sexism was recently tagged as containing excessive quotes. I’m not actually convinced the section contains excessive quotes, as I communicated on the talk page, but it could probably be improved and perhaps the improvement would alleviate need for quotes to explain issue. This section is in regards to the controversy regarding Women's categories which has been discussed by task force so I thought task force members might be interested and knowledgeable enough to review it for potential improvements. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 22:44, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

For whatever reason, this issue didn't make a big impression on me when it happened and I was only vaguely aware that it was a major issue related to the Gender Gap categorization debate. I have a feeling I'm not the only one. As I finish final clean up on my big list of articles/research/etc. links, I see lots of articles on/mentioning the Filipacchi complaint and even a Huffington Post one in May. (I'm still confused what the status is now: are all articles being put into subcategories unless there is not one or no one has bothered to? Or what? Later note: I just noticed that is something User:Obiwankenobi claimed, quoted in a couple articles...)

Anyway, I have a feeling this topic is not adequately covered in the Filapacchi article and needs to be an essay written/edited by those not trying to sweep the issue under the rug. Obviously there was enough arguing about it by women editors last month that they must have some perspective(s) on it that would clarify the matter for others of us - and even for the media when they try to discuss it again. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:30, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Study of "WP Gender gap coverage in media and blogs"

I found a summary of this interesting article at Wikimedia blog: “(Re)triggering Backlash: Responses to News About Wikipedia’s Gender Gap”. Journal of Communication Inquiry 37 (4): 284. doi:10.1177/0196859913505618 2013.

Anyone have access and want to improve summary below? Last sentence seems a bit ambiguous. "Gender gap coverage in media and blogs" section summary of article:

"studies how Wikipedia’s gender gap concern has been treated in the news, based on a qualitative analysis of 42 articles from US news media and blogs, and 1,336 comments from online readers. The authors argue that this discussion can be seen as an example of a “broader backlash against women, and particularly feminism” in the U.S. news media and blogs. Reading the article, it appears that the views of this gap in the media represent the variety of views about feminism, from the most concerned and documented to the most stupid and misogynist. However, the synthesis of these opinions and the discussions the authors had with some leaders at Wikipedia/Wikimedia Foundation (among them Sue Gardner) let them argue that this problem has not yet been properly addressed, because of its complexity, but also because of a clear political decision from the management of the project to tackle it."

Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:08, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Project notification

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Montanabw/Brat in a bubble. Notifying this project because a link to gender gap issues was part of the page. Montanabw^(talk) 21:53, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Maryam Mirzakhani Fields Medal

Stanford mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani is the first woman to be awarded the Fields Medal in mathematics. See here. This is a good opportunity for editors to ensure that WP treats this important event with appropriate detail and encyclopedic perspective. SPECIFICO talk 23:34, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Yay! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:21, 14 August 2014 (UTC).

Amazing that the IMU links her name to Wikipedia. Also, this PDF is public domain which could help a lot. -SusanLesch (talk) 23:46, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I really hope that this Project can focus on beefing up the articles about women who are indisputably notable and recognized within mainstream and academic circles. This strikes me as a far more urgent priority than trying to give life support to articles threatened by deletion because their subjects are of marginal interest and known principally to activists and thinkers outside the mainstream. SPECIFICO talk 20:36, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, I certainly could use some help. I added almost direct quotations from that press release. Now I'm worried the source did not get sufficient credit. -SusanLesch (talk) 03:34, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Australian women scientists

I stumbled across a project that has just added nearly 100 new BLPs, many of which start with "X is an Australian woman scientist". The pages are listed at Category:Wikibomb2014 and there is a tiny bit more information at WP:Meetup/Canberra/2014-08-14-Wikibomb. Many of the new articles will need help to avoid deletion. I gather that nearly all of them have been written by new female editors, so this is a good opportunity to counter systemic bias. Johnuniq (talk) 09:52, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I don' understand the last sentence. It's a good opportunity to counter systemic bias regardless of who wrote them. Do you mean to counter the editor gender gap? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:20, 14 August 2014 (UTC).

I think he's talking about new editor retention, and the phenomenon of new editors becoming discouraged when their early attempts are deleted. Some more experienced editors could help deal with the technicalities--find sources, add categories, add internal links, etc--to make these articles stable. —Neotarf (talk) 13:23, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Taylor Ulhrich

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: Rich Farmbrough, 17:20, 14 August 2014 (UTC).

Red links for the International Women of Courage Award

Apologies if this has already been discussed here before, but this has just come across my watchlist. There are quite a few names with redlinks on the International Women of Courage Award list. Having received the award should solve any notability issues for these individuals. Note that there is also a footer available associated with the award.[1] Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 13:12, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Some Notable Women

Here is a group of mainstream notable women whose articles we could beef up as required. [2] SPECIFICO talk 13:40, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Systematic bias?

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)

The project is called Countering systemic bias. Not systematic. The gender gap in editors is the source of this. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:09, 21 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. SPECIFICO talk 02:26, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Systemic bias sums it up. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:33, 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 Wikipedia'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)

My apologies, I completely misread that.Two kinds of pork (talk) 04:24, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Many "help" pages need improvement so the language is clearer and less unnecessarily technical & other musings

This is listed as one of the "todo" elements. Did Malibu "Math is Hard" Barbie propose this? I hope I'm misinterpreting this, but I'm certain I'm not the only one who will read it as women are less capable then men in understanding technical language. Let's combat bias by assuming bias!

This project looks like it focuses on two areas. The gender gap on Wikipedia, and then BLP content. As for the latter, a lot of that boils down bias in society. Fewer opportunities for women, leads to fewer notable women, and fewer sources about women. We can't control outside forces. Trying to focus on writing more BLPs about women is about all that can be done. Addressing the gender gap on Wikipedia won't do much for this, as women aren't more likely than men to write articles about women. Look at the suffrage movements of the 20th century as a reminder. There is a faulty assumption that more women editors and administrators will fix this and a myriad of other problems this project has tried to identify. The only thing that jumps out at me that more women editors would affect would be in making new women editors feel welcome.Two kinds of pork (talk) 08:48, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I fully endorse Two Kinds of Pork's comment. I am dismayed at the level of sexist denigration of women I see in various discussions of gender bias on WP. SPECIFICO talk 13:46, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Exaggerated beyond recognition, minor issue fixed. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:34, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

The denigration of women here is by no means exaggerated. The suggestion that women are in "mommy-mode" and can't edit, the suggestion that ladies don't do software and can't figure out how to use a web page, etc etc. SPECIFICO talk 14:40, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Only you and Two kinds of pork are making any such (adjectives withheld) insinuations and from basically no evidence. But that's all I have to say on this disruptive thread. Hint: helpful threads suggest solutions, don't put enormous energy into insulting editors and/or the project for language that may be slightly ambiguous allowing other readings. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)

I'd say the observations are spot on. I'm questioning the validity of this project if it is use is to support "playing the bias card" to gain an advantage vs improving articles.Two kinds of pork (talk) 17:10, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Also, let's look at the articles of indisputably notable women such as Hannah Arendt, Stella Adler, Maya Lin, Clara Barton and Golda Meir just to name a few. Are these articles fully developed today? How do we get them up to a higher standard. Then we have the articles in this excellent list [3]. Many of the articles about great women are sub-par relative to articles about even second-rate major league American baseball players. On the other hand, let's not lose focus and indiscriminately attribute WP's shortcomings to broad statistical profiles of the editor population. We must be disciplined in our prioritization of key tasks. SPECIFICO talk 17:35, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

yup. It's the articles that count. Wikipedia isn't a site about social justice or a place to make editors feel good about themselves. It's about writing great, free articles,Two kinds of pork (talk) 18:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

And the problem is that notable women may indeed be under-represented in the world literature of reliable sources. Our challenge is to find what RS do publish and to accurately and proportionately represent it in well-crafted encyclopedia articles. I see many articles such as Jamie Geller and Angie Motshekga where we have women of undisputed notability whose stories need to be told in full detail per RS coverage. SPECIFICO talk 18:14, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Quick win

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: Rich Farmbrough, 02:16, 23 August 2014 (UTC).

Did you create the drafts with automation? There is a thread at WP:ARCA saying that your drafts are "broken". Robert McClenon (talk) 20:23, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

As I said above:

Caveat: some of the articles may be mangled, for technical reasons, or have other issues - including typos. You remain responsible for your own edits.

It is pretty easy to fix up any issues, for example, s:User:Rich_Farmbrough/George_Ridout_Bingham took about 5 minutes, which compared with going from scratch is pretty good.

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: Rich Farmbrough, 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 Wikipedia. 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 Wikipedia articles, or you can use it by going to their website.

The articles look amazing: larger font, more white space, large images positioned nicely, good use of blockquotes. See Ezra Pound, List of colors, Ernest Hemingway, Poetry. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:44, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The navigation panel is a nice touch; too often the contents box of a Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:55, 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 Wikipedia editor... --GRuban (talk) 19:04, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

That's the link, you have to exit to Wikipedia, which they make very easy to do. —Neotarf (talk) 19:07, 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 Wikipedia's niche? For one, Wikipedia 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. Wikipedia 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. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:52, 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. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:15, 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: Rich Farmbrough, 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: Rich Farmbrough, 21:15, 25 August 2014 (UTC).

Sue. Number 1. There is no comparison with men--who knows, maybe men find it equally or even more off-putting than women. —Neotarf (talk) 21:24, 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: Rich Farmbrough, 20:09, 26 August 2014 (UTC).

I don't have any evidence, Rich, it just seems obvious that it would be a factor. Wikipedia 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. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:26, 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)

There is some circumstantial evidence. The other day I mentioned The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality, which notes:

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 Wikipedia 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, Wikipedia 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, Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia.

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 – Wikipedia and Reddit – are very, very dry and text-based. The sites where women predominate look quite different from Wikipedia. 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. Andreas JN466 10:41, 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. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Slim. An expanded version will shortly be a blog post on WO. Andreas JN466 18:38, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Will it be CC-BY-SA 3.0? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC).

That's a brilliant blog post, Andreas. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:42, 26 August 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 [Sue Gardner's article on why women don't edit, Number 1, which is more related to user-friendly. But that includes a non-intimidating and pleasing appearance. Of course, the new Beta format is supposed to address those issues. But between old users not wanting to learn it and various bugs still being fixed, that's still being worked on. As a lazy old user, I can't really comment on alternatives myself, except to say if they are an option for those who prefer them, great. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

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. SPECIFICO talk 13:52, 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)

SPECIFICO no girl has ever won the Nobel prize or a national election. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 19:24, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Though Malala Yousafzai was widely rumored to be a favorite. --GRuban (talk) 20:16, 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. SPECIFICO talk 20:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Gals, yes. Girls, no. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{

re}} 20:31, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Marie Curie grew up and won two! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 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. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:43, 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. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:32, 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)

There's also Athena. That page was started in 2011. I don't know what the relationship is between Winter and Athena. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:03, 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)

Section of Night (book) on WikiWand

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 Wikipedia.

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.

I've posted about this at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#WikiWand, images and blockquotes, with screenshots from Night (book), which is an article with lots of blockquotes, which I'd love to improve the look of. But it just doesn't seem possible with the tools we have available.

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? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:45, 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)

Images

I am advised that a big gap in the attractiveness of Wikipedia 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: Rich Farmbrough, 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)

Or a contact for the publicity representatives to talk to? Isn't this a problem for Commons? —Neotarf (talk) 13:50, 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. SPECIFICO talk 15:42, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree. No Malibu Barbie language please.Two kinds of pork (talk) 17:47, 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: Rich Farmbrough, 20:34, 26 August 2014 (UTC).

94% of wiki users female

Editing interface not necessarily a barrier.

I think it's this notion that women just don't like technology that is the most damaging. Although a lot of our users who have first used the site found the syntax confusing, many of them persevered and learned how to use mediawiki effectively. Consequently many would contact me or report that they loved using it once they got the hang of it and would then feel a form of ownership over the pages they were creating._{Lola co-founder of Wikifashion}

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:24, 26 August 2014 (UTC).

Um... 94% of a wiki's users are female. Not Wikipedia. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 20:28, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Indeed - the reverse of Wikipeida and then some. The point it that the editing interface may not be the barrier it is claimed to be - it certainly does not create the same gender gap on Wikifashion. All those buttons and menus and gadgets might be just as much or more of a barrier. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC).

To be clear, the whole quote is "But I am a founder and dedicated user of a wiki that has a contributor base of 94% women-in fact many are fashion bloggers who are not usually described as geeks." So not quite as relevant here unless we want to remove all content but fashion :-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

On average, males and females have different interests - for example technology and military history being "male ones" and the aforementioned fashion more of "female ones". Some hardcore Wikipedia editing - like updating some heavy wikitable statistics numbers is a pretty Aspie thing to do on your free time. Incidentally, boys develop Asperger's syndrome four times more often than girls[4]. Of course those interests are influenced by culture. But Wikipedia's job isn't to somehow change the global culture so that females are exactly as interested in things like technology as much as males are. --Pudeo' 01:24, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

But a number of people worldwide, including editors of the various projects, feel it is Wikipedia's job to deal with male editors who have hostile and immature ways of dealing with other editors, especially ones they suspect might be female. If those individuals are driving off half or two thirds of the women who might otherwise edit if it wasn't for their incivility, hostility, game playing, etc., then those individuals are destructive to the project and must be dealt with, if only by having their immature and ego centric consciousnesses raised to a more rational and civil level. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 04:42, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

This raises two concerns. 1. Are you proposing that the gender of the editors, which in most cases is not disclosed, be used as a litmus test to decide whether to enforce WP behavioral policies, case by case? 2. I don't see that WP has embraced any mission to raise the consciousness or improve the real lives of individuals who come here, only that we ensure that editors' behavior on this site supports our work building the encyclopedia. SPECIFICO talk 13:38, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

1. Obviously we really don't know the real sex, age, occupation, details of most editors but given that most editors are male and thus make up the great majority of problematic editors, I think we can assume it's male editors who engage in most actual uncivil behavior.
2. If 90 percent of the editors here only wanted to edit on sex acts, playboy bunnies, porn stars, and killing anything that moves, and let out 3 paragraphs of curses at anyone who disagreed with them on any issue and sent them 20 harassing messages a day, we'd have a very different encyclopedia. And a very low consciousness one at that. But you don't have to use the phrase "higher consciousness." You can call it more rationale or more mature or more academic or more encyclopedic if you prefer. To me it's just whether people choose to act primarily from their largely unconscious, automatic, lower brain (brainstem and cerebellum) or the most rational and civil parts of their higher brain (cerebrum/cerebral cortex) and, thus, higher consciousness. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:25, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

• "Obviously we really don't know the real sex, age, occupation, details of most editors but given that most editors are male ...". Extraordinary, quite extraordinary. Eric Corbett 22:06, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Sex ratio is from surveys, not user profiles. Carol is saying we don't know sex from user profiles. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:08, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Carol is talking bollocks, and you know it but just won't admit it. Eric Corbett 22:25, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

It would be hard for a reasonable editor to avoid thinking you're being deliberately provocative at this point. I don't care if most people swear but not if it replaces actual discussion. (It can be fine as a spice, but it shouldn't be the meal.)__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:55, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

It would be even more difficult for any reasonable editor to believe that you are in full possession of your faculties if you're unable to see the evident nonsense on display here. Eric Corbett 23:00, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Why respond to it with more schoolyard taunting? If your whole contribution is to shout out "bullocks" then you're not adding anything of substance. I'd feel the same way if you just stuck your head in the door to say "horseradishes". It's silly and disruptive at this point. __ E L A Q U E A T E 23:04, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm simply pointing what ought to be obvious to any rational person. If "we don't really know" than we can't draw conclusions from what we assume, as Carol continually tries to do. Eric Corbett 23:24, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't know the actual addresses of most editors, but there are reliable sources that say a lot of them are in the United States, and it's a safe assumption that the majority are not in Iceland. That's rational, and more rational than making an assumption that most Wikipedia editors are women, ignoring all studies and surveys so far. It's not a particularly difficult point being made here.__ E L A Q U E A T E 23:46, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

You seem to be a little confused. Where have I ever claimed that most WP editors are women? I'm simply objecting to the obvious illogicality of Carol's "we don't know ... but we know". Eric Corbett 23:58, 27 August 2014 (UTC)