User talk:Jimbo Wales

(Manual archive list)

First user on WIkipedia (besides you)

Who was the first user on WIkipedia (besides you), Mr. Wales, if you remember? I found RoseParks on January 21, 2001. --Perseus, Son of Zeus 18:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I did a post about early edits here: Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia's_oldest_articles#Logs, although it doesn't answer that particular question. It does tell you who had the first userpage, though. --FormerIP (talk) 20:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo, if you read this: One thing I did notice from reading the logs is that there are only 33 edits by the time of this edit [1] which is stamped at 20:08 on 16th Jan. Is it possible that, in UTC, Wikipedia actually began on 16th and not 15th? Just a thought. --FormerIP (talk) 20:46, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

No, it was absolutely the 15th. The first edit was mine, and it was "Hello, World!" on the home page. There is no reason to think that all the early edits were kept - the software back then only kept a few revisions rather than the entire history. Also, interestingly enough, usernames and passwords meant nothing - anyone could sign in as anyone.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

"...sign in as anyone."? So maybe someone else than you made that first edit? :)) TMCk (talk) 00:52, 12 January 2011 (UTC)Just kidding of course... TMCk (talk) 00:55, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I was likely an anon. :) I had just installed the software, after all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:50, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Peregrine Cavendish

Answer to your comment on my user talk site.

How reliable should that source be? There is a family tree of the Dukes of Devonshire that can be found at the Cavendish Pavilion at Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire (the lower half of it http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/IrishCent/PeerageNews/IMG_1314.jpg).

And another one that was on display at the exhibition celebrating the 90th birthday of Her Grace the Dowager Duchess at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v289/IrishCent/PeerageNews/IMG_1997.jpg)

I took the pictures last spring during my visit there. IrishCent 09:54, 12 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irishcent (talk • contribs)

Ok, I'm satisfied by these. Thanks. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Attracting more female editors

Jimbo, I heard you say in a recent interview that something like 85% of Wikipedians are male, possibly because of the tech-geek aspect. I have a few suggestions:

• Enable WYSIWYG editing, similar to what they have on Wikia. Code of any kind (even wikitext) may scare some away.
• Make wikitables easier to edit.
• Encourage more women to become administrators. I assume that about 90% of administrators are male, possibly creating an unintended patriarchy.

Let me know what you think. Sincerely, --Confession0791 ^talk 23:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Have an intuitive, easy to use interface on Wikipedia that doesn't look like it came straight from the 1980s? Ha! In all seriousness, there is mw:mw:WYSIWYG editor, which basically says it's not happening any time soon. Buddy431 (talk) 04:22, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

This has also come up numerous times at the help desk. There was an interesting discussion just a few days ago on the editing interface issue. Buddy431 (talk) 04:26, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

If Wikia, which is only a step above Facebook, can develop a compatible WYSIWYG program, there's no reason in the world MediaWiki can't develop a good WYSIWYG editor. --Confession0791 ^talk 04:48, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• Isn't the gist of this..."we have to make editing easier so girls won't be scared away!"...a little insulting? Tarc (talk) 04:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• That's what I thought when I first read that. ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 05:11, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm only going by what Jimbo said. I'm not implying that women aren't technically inclined, I'm saying they usually don't get into the technical aspects if they don't have to for one reason or another. --Confession0791 ^talk 05:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• • Or, perhaps "How can we make the atmosphere less toxic so more women don't leave in disgust when they first try and join in?" I think that's a bit less offensive, and perhaps a bit truer to reality. Jclemens (talk) 06:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

What examples can you cite that makes Wikipedia atmosphere "toxic to women that makes them leave in 'disgust'?" If you can effectively cite these examples, what do you propose to remedy these? --Confession0791 ^talk 06:29, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Will N=1 suffice? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:31, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Huh? Please clarify. --Confession0791 ^talk 06:45, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

It refers to a statistical sample size of 1, that is, moi. However, the "toxic to women" is also wrong-- Wiki is toxic to both genders, just a bit more dangerous for women. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Ugh, Confession, the premise of your post seems to be that we need to dumb things down for women. I think Jclemens is more on track; when I came to Wiki, I quite deliberately chose a username that could equally be male or female, and didn't divulge my gender for years. And that wasn't because I'm dumb (although I may be :). Um, I wrote some code in my day, and managed a graduate degree in engineering. But I also don't think it's possible to attract a higher proportion of women than men to an environment like Wiki; a disproportionate number of Wikipedians evidence neurobiological or psychological diagnoses, and almost all of those have a higher prevalence among males. And women are usually busy IRL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

[edit conflict] As I've stated, I'm only replying to what Jimbo said in the interview. My goal is to provide suggestions on expanding the base editors of the site. Maybe I should have approached this from a different angle. WYSIWYG editing may make wikipedia editing more accessable to more people, female and male, who would be otherwise be put off by code of any type. --Confession0791 ^talk 06:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

While a bit less jaded than those posting above me (something I hope doesn't change too much!), I would agree that the wikicode is not the primary issue driving away female editors—however, I've found the complex maze of help pages to be rather intimidating as a new user, and improving that would be a good way to attract more "serious" editors of whatever gender without the influx of spam that a WYSIWYG interface would no doubt induce as a side-effect. The final suggestion re admins is perhaps more relevant to females as a group, though; I've observed that (in the IRC help channel or otherwise) female newbies often tend to prefer interacting with me because of my clearly female pseudonym. Speaking of IRC, its nature as a more social form of interaction would make it an attractive aid to assimilation for female editors if not for two things: the intimidating interface and the rather crude nature of a lot of the conversation that goes on there. The lack of gender balance here is self-reinforcing in that aspect; like it or not, the core of our community often functions in a way that is initially incomprehensible or even offensive to many females. sonia♫ 06:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

That's why it is unacceptable that our administrators are almost entirely male. I'm not misogynist for saying that. --Confession0791 ^talk 06:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Adminship and gender

The gender of those admins listed at Wikipedia:List of administrators/Active (note that this list includes a couple of bots) - Kingpin¹³ (talk)

Since we're talking a lot about admins here, I did a bit of research and made the pie chart (to the right) based on Wikipedia:List of administrators/Active and which option those users have picked at Special:Preferences. In reply to Confession0791, that seems a slightly circular argument, you're saying that to get more female editors, we need more female editors/admins. So therefore we need more female editors/admins? No. I think the main point which has been ignored here thus far, is why do we need more female editors? Once that's answered then it's easier to discuss what course of action to take.
Personally I feel the main reason for it is to achieve a diversified userbase, to in turn cover a broader range of content (furthering Wikipedia's main goal). I believe Jimbo has mentioned something along these lines before in some talk: that due to Wikipedia's users being mainly tech-savvy males, Wikipedia's technology related content is very good, but other areas are neglected. So, let's try and focus this conversation a little bit more on content.
I feel that part of the reason Wikipedia retains tech-savvy males more is because at the moment, the content (being written mostly by tech-savvy men) is about stuff they are interested in. So there's plenty for them to do in areas they actually find interesting. But it's a less exciting editing experience for women who are more interested in... say, uhh, cooking (just using this topic as an example ). If Wikipedia's content was more focused on cooking, I dare say that the userbase would be drastically different, despite it running on exactly the same software. This is more apparent over at Wikia, where they do have a cooking project and many wikis for certain topics. The recipes.wikia has 6 admins out of which 1 is male, 1 female, and the rest unknown. So basically the point I'm trying to make is, it's not just the software we should be concentrating on here. As to actually changing the content to better suit more women (and I know I'm stereotyping a lot in my comment here) this is more complex. Women will only come to edit here if they like the site (i.e. if they like the content here), and they will only get content they like if they start to edit (since not many of our current users are going to want to write about Barbies.. or whatever). So it's again a slightly circular situation.
Another point to consider, Wikipedia is on the internet. That Wikipedia's userbase is mainly tech-savvy males makes sense, since it's a website. It's a fairly typical userbase for any website of this type. Using Wikia as an example again. There are undoubtedly more of these "men geeks" interested in editing then women, as evidenced by the bigger wikis being on topics like Runescape, Star Wars, and Star Trek. Some sites of course (I'm thinking Facebook, although I'm not actually sure what their male:female ratio is like) manage to get around this, so there's some slight chance Wikipedia may be able to do so too (I'm thinking this would also require further interface changes, not just content change (as even though content changes improve the ratio (see earlier talking about recipes.wikia and Cooking etc.), they do not help improve the actual volume of female/male editors (as shown by the geek-wikia-wikis being much more popular)). However, so far the approach to making interfaces more "friendly" by both Wikia and Wikimedia (to a lesser extent), seems to be to turn any plaintext or "old" looking links in sight into obtrusive gradient buttons and hope more users turn up. Wikia's interface is now very, very horrible, slow and difficult to navigate (from what I've seen of it, and what their users say), and following them down the path of WYSIWYG editing as suggested (or following them down any path for that matter) is not the way to go (however, I think some users may be surprised to know that some programs such as OpenOffice allow you to export documents into wikimarup). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 10:12, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Ratio of active male admins to active female admins is 155 : 14, meaning your assumption of 90% of admins being male isn't far out (it's 91.7% according to the ratio). However, I wouldn't be surprised if a higher proportion of females didn't reveal their gender than males, in which case the actual percentage is lower. I'm interested how the 85% figure came about, and if this was taken into account then, have to say I've lost faith in these "official" statistics after the whole pending changes nonsense (question for Jimbo to answer I suppose). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 10:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you'll ever get the ratio to 50-50 as long as we aren't required to use our real name, post our pictures, and give a short bio of ourselves. That might just be my take, though. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 11:27, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

A significant number of women are concerned about cyber-stalking, hence are loathe to reveal identities. The percentage online is, however, vastly greater than the old 10% from the 1980s. I suspect that nearly 50% of users are female now for this project, and about 30% of editors are female. The claim that 15% of sysops are female sounds likely correct. I sincerely doubt that the interface has anything at all to do with these demographics. And with bots chasing down errors in coding, just let folks edit and let bots fix the problems, as they now do for ref tags and the like. Collect (talk) 13:29, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I suspect you're right, but it would be good to have data. If someone associated with Wikipedia e-mailed 100 randomly chosen admins identifying as "unknown" in the pie chart above, and asked them with assurance of confidentiality whether they were male or female, you might get a better idea of the overall rate of female admins. Wnt (talk) 14:10, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Those stats would not be necessarily accurate either. Standard deviations eat you up alive :). For admins, I suspect they already have some better data than is shared. For general editors -- IP editors are a big problem for such a survey - the best we could hope for is some level of confidence for registered editors with a sampe of, say, 400 or more. Collect (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

It would surely help attract and keep more of all of the right sorts of editors, male and female and anywhere in between, if we (a) made the interface better (but we know developers are too busy to make even the most basic improvements, so that probably isn't going to happen unless the board's got some money to throw at the problem); (b) kept the atmosphere pleasant; (c) wrote the guidance for editors in a compact and user-friendly way; (d) found a way of making good, serious editors feel that the system would protect their work against the ignorant or biased ones (I'm not saying I have such a system, but it's something worth thinking intensely about).--Kotniski (talk) 13:44, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe Jimbo can clarify exactly what was said in the interview, what his answer implied, and weigh in on possible solutions. --Confession0791 ^talk 14:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The interview is here, but it's quite short and doesn't really say much more than has already been covered above. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:07, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Adding to Kingpin's comments. First, "Wikipedia's technology related content is very good": it is? I don't think so :) Relative to other areas, maybe, but have a look, for example, at Computing and Engineering and technology at Wikipedia talk:Featured article statistics#Sep 16 2010. Second, the issue of stalking is a problem for all editors, and just a bigger problem for female admins or editors; becoming an admin (or a higher profile editor) increases the likelihood of harassment or stalking, and is something that keeps many editors from RFA-- not just females. BTDT. Third, why on earth would we want to further the problems in the admin corp by seeking to promote more females? We should promote admins based on qualifications and experience, not gender. And finally, why on earth are we focusing on gender when we have so much sociodemographic underrepresentation on Wiki, and we have several female arbs? We have much bigger problems to address, unrelated to gender and that affect the neutrality of our articles-- take a look at the entire suite of Venezuelan POV articles, as an example. I believe I'm the only female working in that area, but gender is not the problem there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:23, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, thanks for those stats, very interesting. As I said I was sterotyping a lot, and just repeating what I'd heard about the technology content being "good". Also, "good" is the wrong word really. Better to describe it as being broad in coverage, and more importantly there being many active users who edit in those areas (editing in a topic-area all on one's own-some can be unrewarding). Interesting to see that Warfare is so high on that list. I agree with you that we shouldn't be trying to influence RfA to promote more female candidates... I suspect that happens enough already (we're fickle like that ;D). But I do think it's important to note that the percentage of male admins seems to be higher than the percentage of male editors. As to focusing too much on gender, again I agree with you somewhat. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 15:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Adding another point, we shouldn't assume gender is a factor in content contributions-- most of the cooking editors I've encountered have been male, and Saffron, our first Featured topic, was written by a male editor (I think). And, surprisingly, many of our MilHist editors are female. (Your cooking generalization didn't bother me-- understood it was an example :) I haven't watched the interview linked above, but the premise that we need more female editors is all wrong; we need more good editors from a broader sociodemographic base. Just as we need more good admins, and less bad ones. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:39, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Female editors and why editors leave Wiki

Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians has explanations for the departures of some Wikipedians.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:53, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The vast majority of Wikipedians I know who have left did so because Wiki does next to nothing to rein in POV pushers and tendentious editors, and they simply tire of it. One comes here, enthusiastic to build content, and quickly finds that most of their time is spent in dispute resolution, dealing with editors who should have been shown the door long ago. Yet, most often, those editors aren't shown the door, while good editors are. Nothing whatsoever to do with gender. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Amen sister! That is the overwhelming reason I stopped (in fact never really started except for an edit here or there) editing Wikipedia, although I keep hanging around and watching in hope that Wikipedia will get a clue and do something about the problem. But in the three years I've been watching, it's gotten worse, in fact much worse, rather than better. As a retired statistician (female) I find the premise of this thread insulting; several times last night I started to respond but decided I was too annoyed to respond calmly. I'm glad to see now that the thread has taken a somewhat better direction than the we need to make it easier for their inferior brains to grasp assumption it seemed to be based on initially. That attitude right there would be a secondary reason for an intelligent educated woman not to want to bother sticking around here. (BTW, I'm surprised no one seems to know where that 15% came from; if I'm not mistaken it came from that big anonymous survey of Wikipedia editors and readers that was done a year or two ago, with something over 100,000 Wikipedia editors responding, and if so, it's probably the most valid estimate available of participation by gender.) But no, believe me, it's not that it's too mentally challenging to edit Wikipedia that inhibits me. It's the toxic environment, the way editors with an agenda not only attempt to inject their particular ideology or theory or whatever into the content, but the way they go after anyone who is just trying to get the encyclopedia to neutrally reflect the consensus of reliable sources that I find most distressing and offputting. The disrespect shown to women here is a secondary concern. And yes, I did find that once I inadvertently let slip that I'm a woman, I started being treated with less respect and more contempt. Not by everyone, but by some. Woonpton (talk) 16:42, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I think many of us would echo those sentiments - but are there any specific ideas as to what steps could be taken to detoxify the environment? --Kotniski (talk) 16:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

"Amen, sister" is right !!! The only thing I might take issue with is whether there was sampling bias in that 15%-- I, for one, never respond to those kinds of surveys, partly out of privacy concerns, which may affect women more than men). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Sexually explicit harassment of female editors

One of the things that I have find most difficult to deal with as someone who has publicly revealed that I am female, is the sexually explicit harassment. (For those who are able, take a look at the deleted edits of my user page to see a small example of what I mean.) I'm not afraid to say that women can be sensitive to this kind of thing, and are less likely to stick around after being repeatedly called a "whore" (or whatever), than if a guy is repeatedly called a "homo" (or whatever). On any online forum where people can contribute anonymously, women are frequent targets of this type of behavior, but I think Wikipedia could do better to control it. Too often these harassers have to be given three or four polite little warnings to stop before an admin will consider blocking them. Deli nk (talk) 16:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Although it comes under WP:CIVIL, perhaps there should be a tougher rule about that particular type of thing (directed at women or men, I mean, not a special rule for the ladies). --FormerIP (talk) 17:03, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Just as an aside, there has been a whole lot of psychological research done on the differences between male and female communication styles: Men tend to make strong, didactic assertions, treat conversational turn-taking as a matter of status, and tend to escalate verbal conflicts; women tend to suggest or ask rather than assert, use turn-taking as a way of eliciting cooperation, and generally monitor the emotional states of the people they are talking to far more than men do. Unfortunately, internet fora such as this tend to privilege male communication styles: it's easy to make didactic assertions, hard to monitor the emotions of others, and conversational balancing tools (like turn-taking signals, tone of voice, and non-verbal cues) are more or less entirely absent. creating a gender-balanced internet forum would be an interesting but difficult task; I'm not sure how I'd begin on it, and I'm no slouch on these issues. --Ludwigs2 17:26, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmmmm ... yes ... Several female editors frequently work to defuse conflicts between male editors on my talk page, and we do tend to fall into the gender generalities you mention above, and approach the issues differently. Sometimes we're even effective :) But another factor is that many of us have already raised our children, and would show the immature disruptive editors the door much quicker when discussion fails, knowing a thing or two about discipline. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Deborah Tannen has, by means of lectures and books, discussed cultural and gender differences in conversational styles.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, that factor doesn't bother me at all; I'd much rather people think I'm a "fat whore" than know what I look like and stalk me for that :) That problem is much more dangerous. And men get called equally bad things here. No, I think the bigger harassment problem is the one mentioned by Woonpton, and it affects the neutrality of our content and the willingness of educated and intelligent editors to contribute. And I strongly believe that ArbCom has not done enough to rein in the POV pushers and tendentious editors-- I park that buck on their doorstep. And the undue focus on civility is absurd, considering the extent to which our content is affected by POV pushers and tendentious, disruptive editors. No, Wiki's problems are much bigger than gender, and the toxic environment is furthered by the failure to show bad editors the door quickly, while good editors are hounded by admins over relatively minor issues. The focus on CIVIL is already ridiculous, considering bigger problems from TEND and DISRUPT. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:07, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

You think there's an excessive focus on civility? It doesn't seem to have had much effect in some of the areas I've observed. But I don't think there needs to be any conflict between the priorities - offensiveness no doubt deters many editors (if not you and me personally), POV pushing no doubt deters many editors. We can tackle both problems at the same time, and probably using some of the same mechanisms - but first we need some concrete ideas as to what those mechanisms should be, in one or both case(s).--Kotniski (talk) 17:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I was visiting my sister in Kentucky and I'd left my talk page open. She read it and expressed interest in getting involved in Wikipedia. When I thought of what people would do to her and her first well-intentioned edits, I shuddered. Literally. There are a lot of Uriah Heeps in Wikipedia, and I couldn't in good conscience throw my sister to the wolves. Wikipedia is too tolerant of malignant editors, and when those editors also make worthwhile contributions, they're practically untouchable. We need to focus more on reining in the cowboys and building the community. --JaGa^talk 17:20, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I think many of our admins are so unversed in content building, that they are literally not capable of dealing with TEND and DISRUPT and content disputes, so they focus instead on civility. If would be wonderful if we tackled both problems at the same time, but the trend at RFA is in the direction now of promoting even more admins who aren't equipped to deal with those issues, and are more likely to hand out civility blocks, while every significant content issue I've brought to AN/I gets absolutely no feedback. I think if we give tools to those who have not demonstrated competence in the areas where we most need them, they'll use those tools ineffectively. And I think we could fix that by having some criteria for adminship, so RFA would work more like WP:FAC with WP:WIAFA, with 'crats having some discretion to decide if criteria are met, so it will be less of a popularity vote and editors aspiring to adminship would have to either build content to learn about real conflict, or demonstrate real proficiency in other specialized areas where they need the tools. Solutions: fix RFA (it will never happen), and get the arbs to take a harder line on disruptive editors, where TEND and DISRUPT are more urgent than CIVIL (it could happen) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I suspect ArbCom is almost entirely irrelevant to these matters - we need hands-on, real-time problem solving, not the retrospective retribution that ArbCom tends to deal in. But I certainly think that we should be encouraging good and experienced content-builders to become admins, and also giving them effective powers to sort out disputes in an orderly manner. --Kotniski (talk) 17:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. ArbCom frequently gives quarter to disruptive editors, and pushes the problem back on the community via Arb Enforcement, and the community can't deal with it. Even editors who are supportive of certain points of view felt that the sanctions in the Climate Change case weren't strong enough; I could give many such examples, but won't open that can of worms. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, so I see "the community can't deal with it" as a (solvable) problem with the community, not with ArbCom. The disruptive editors that we think drive people away will have done that damage long before ArbCom get round to dealing with them.--Kotniski (talk) 17:53, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The community can't deal with it as long as we continue to promote admins who don't know policy, haven't build content, and haven't dealt with the conflict that comes from building content-- they will instead hand out blocks to the wrong editors for the wrong reasons, while ignoring the bigger problems. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Since the declaration of gender is not required there is no direct way to know i.e. the real gender of SandyGeorgia. In his words: "I'd much rather people think I'm a "fat whore" than know what I look like and stalk me for that." If the real name is irrelevant the gender will have to follow suit. It is important to pay attention to the rules of Wikipedia, which in my experience protects correct editors against disruptive once. The beauty of Wikipedia is its self-purification process. (Salmon1 (talk) 17:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC))

SandyGeorgia self-identifies as a female, what more do you need? Also, please refer to her as one or it looks like you're calling her a liar, especially in the context that you quote "him". As to real names, real names are not going to realistically represent a bias (people with the name "James" aren't any more likely to be more interested in books for example), but real names do give a means of identification which gender does not. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I disagree Kingpin :) As I've said before, for all you know, I'm the Queen of Sheba :) Remember the Essjay factor; even when we self-identify, the truth is, we have limited means of knowing if anyone here is who they say they are, so I'm not troubled at all when a good-faith editor refers to me as "he". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:58, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think enforcing civility is a bad idea at all; the problem is many admins enforce it in a superficial and edit-count biased way. TEND and DISRUPT are both civility issues, they are just more subtle and pervasive civility issues. They are easy to miss when the people on the other side are angry newbs.

If you ask me, the real problem on wikipedia lies in social training. just from personal experience, when I first started editing I came in with the assumption that discussions here would be polite and reasonable. Unfortunately, one of the early articles I started on was a pseudoscience article, and I ran afoul of a couple of very experienced editors with very distinct attitude problems (one of them has reformed, mostly, and the other has either left the project or changed names, so no sense calling them into it). Round about the third time they got me blocked I learned that civil discourse has no value on wikipedia unless you're capable of being a big enough bastard to make civil discourse seem like the easier option. it's sad, but now take the TR "walk softly and carry a big stick" paradigm to heart, and I am not at all loathe to use that stick when I need to. I never would have gotten to be the hard-nosed jerk I can most assuredly be on project if I hadn't had such dedicatedly bad teachers. --Ludwigs2 17:50, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree that TEND and DISRUPT are civility issues (although those editors sometimes also have civility issues); have you heard of civil pov-pushing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

ArbCom and the free editing process with demands of references from highly reliable sources are the ultimate success of Wikipedia. Forceful editors with protection of Wikipedia:Sock puppetry can be very harmful. Women are as capable as men. There are no “fat whores” but caring and feeling human beings with high capacity for empathy. We need to treasure that capacity for empathy yet still stand up against destructive activities. (Salmon1 (talk) 18:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC))

@ Sandy: I tend to draw the civility line at the point where editors stop responding to reason and common sense and start trying to use force of some sort to get their way. Civil POV-pushers are annoying, but I tend to respect the right of an editor to have a POV. so long as they are discussing the issue, using sources, and showing at least some ability to listen to others and work towards a common goal, I don't mind if they push their views a little. I start to get annoyed when editors start doing things I consider rude: repeating the same point over and over, refusing to acknowledge or compromise with a different opinion, running policy gambits, getting personal and/or insulting. all of those are uncivil in my book, and that covers most of TEND and DISRUPT. Really, there are just certain rules of conversation that need to be respected first, before you can have anything like a consensus discussion; If even one person isn't respecting those rules, the whole thing falls apart. --Ludwigs2 19:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

You know, just as an odd thought, maybe what we need on project is some equivalent of Big Brothers/Big Sisters - not so much mentorship for newbies, but just experienced users who are willing to give a sympathetic ear, moral support, and maybe (occasionally) a small scale intervention while people are learning the ropes. nothing quite like a friend on project to buck up the spirits in a dark moment, yah? --Ludwigs2 02:47, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I apologize for my implications at the beginning of this thread. I never meant to imply that women were incapable of editing wikitext. That's the way it came across, and I'm sorry. Maybe I need to reassess my thinking. Forgive me for being a dolt. --Confession0791 ^talk 09:12, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Btw, we should crack down on personal attacks, harassment, stalking, etc. If they do it four times before they get blocked, they still cause irrepairable damage. --Confession0791 ^talk 09:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I've always found Wikipedia's approach to blocking to be rather perverse. It's used as a weapon against established editors who are perceived to have committed some (possibly quite small) sin, but it is not used (as least, not without fuss beforehand) in the case where it's crying out to be used - against users who have patently come here purely to be disruptive. We should be blocking vandals and the grossly offensive on sight (I don't mean if they've just made one or two edits and gone away, because it's not worth anyone's time bothering about them, but if it looks like they might be going to do more damage, then we certainly shouldn't worry about their feelings if thinking about blocking them). However established editors probably almost never need to be blocked - if their behaviour is inappropriate, it needs to be pointed out to them (with increasing levels of forcefulness) what they're doing wrong, then (if they keep doing it) be expressly forbidden from certain actions, with blocks only being necessary if they can't obey those restrictions. We also need to remember that blocks are not the only remedial action - all edits can be reversed, and the removal of offensive posts should become more routine and acceptable (and restoring them unacceptable), since that not only sends a sharp message to the offensive poster, but also removes the temptation to others to respond in kind (and the poisoning of the atmosphere for bystanders).--Kotniski (talk) 11:25, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Female vs male editors

The reason why Wikipedia has less female than male editors is because editing it is a technical hobby. Even today, women are still less interested in technical hobbies than men. This is a purely cultural and sociological problem -- it has nothing to do with how Wikipedia works. I would especially oppose any kind of "dumbing down" of WP to attract more female editors. Let's fix society instead. Wikipedia isn't faulty in this respect. Nanobear (talk) 18:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

This whole discussion shows a major flaw: the question "how do we get more XYZ?" is one of those quantity-assumptions (just like people cheered when the 3-million-mark was hit). The question should be "how do we get more good XYZ and get rid of the bad XYZ?"^{[Sandy is right]} Just saying... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 18:11, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• How Women and Men Use the Internet, Pew Research Center. Some of that may help explain why some female

editors are more apt to engage in on-Wiki off-topic banter; we think it helps build community and retain editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:22, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Nanobear: I agree that the geeky nature of WP is probably a factor in it attracting more male than female editors. At the same time, though, it is probably not the case that any one factor explains this on its own. Anything about WP that is a put-off for women ought to be addressed if it can be, even if it is only responsible for 2% of the problem.

I also don't think the suggestions about making the interface more user-friendly and discouraging combative editing constitute "dumbing down". --FormerIP (talk) 18:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I think we should not try to "attract more females". We should simply aim to create the best possible encyclopedia. Giving special treatment or consideration to either of the two sexes is the cause of the problem, not the solution. If everyone would treat the two sexes in exactly the same way, all aspects of society would be completely gender equalitarian. Nanobear (talk) 18:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, Female "techno-geeks" have the worst time of anyone here, I think! Competence combined with female character that asks instead of shoves seems to attract the harshest form of attack, even if we try to keep our gender unknown -- the style still comes through. Personally, "POV pushers and tendentious editors" are my number one problem, and WP is a place that tends to run off anyone who isn't able to dig in their heels and fight being bullied by a bunch of disgruntled people with poor social skills, of whatever gender. The bottom line is that there DOES have to be a cultural shift overall, but part of it is to recognize that to build an encyclopedia requires discussion and consensus, which are ideals of wikipedia and well-suited to people socialized as female, but the problem is that the ideal is not enforced. The tendentious editor goes on making completely frivolous arguments without being called on their crap, and then when the legitimate content editor finally blows his or her lid, then THEY are the one slapped. That makes no sense whatsoever. As for the "dumbing down," the technical stuff is not that challenging to learn (no more difficult than figuring out the changes Microsoft did to Word this week... we deal with markup commands all the time) but the help pages are pretty daunting to anyone trying to figure things out initially and the wizard is even worse. More user-friendly "how to get started" pages would be a help, I think. I also think a handy-to find, dedicated mentor core for newbies would be nice. As far as female-friendly stuff goes, to be able to touch bases with a live person quickly and easily would be useful as long as it was public, short term and not creepy. IRC probably not suitable, but just having help more accessible would be good. Montanabw^(talk) 00:11, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Many differences between male and females are due to testosterone. Taking testosterone makes females almost as strong as men, as East Germany's sporting achievements demonstrate. Count Iblis (talk) 23:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it's condescending to try to "attract more females" by making vague assumptions about how women are supposed to be different, but it would be practical to survey editors who have self-identified as women and ask them what the main problems are with Wikipedia, and what they like best about it. Then see if the problems (especially) can be given a higher priority. Someone did that above, pointing out the sexual harassment - I suspected as much; that's why I suggested a private survey of the unknown editors just to see if the sex difference isn't as bad as we think - but now we should ask whether there's a way to fast-track solutions to this particular issue of making women unwelcome. I'm not suggesting any new policy, just a manned "hotline" someone on the Wiki that gets the right action done fast and sympathetically. But of course the views of a few hundred women would give us a better range of issues to focus on than one. Wnt (talk) 00:10, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

That's kinda dumb. Why create a special ghetto for females? Will people be dismissed with "oh, you're not female, suck it up"? The problem of disruption which have been described confront everyone. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:27, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

There's so many sections now but I'll just put this here. This is what I have observed in editing toy related articles. Toys are an interesting section because the gender bias is often inherent (toy cars vs dolls.) Doll articles are much more often questioned: tagged with multiple maintenance tags, PRODed, merged or deleted, while articles on toys aimed at boys (vehicles, robots, construction toys) are allowed to sprawl more freely, both in number of articles and the contents within the articles, which is often fancrufty but goes unchecked. The interesting thing is that the end result is that the questioned areas come out better in the end (more focused, higher quality articles that are accessible to general audiences and not just to those already familiar with the material) while many of the editors are chased off due to the brusque welcome. From what I've seen the (mostly female) editors had no apparent issues with the interface and quickly picked up the syntax. Many had access to high quality offline sources and appeared familiar with academic referencing, and would likely had made excellent editors if they had stuck around. Siawase (talk) 11:19, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

True - and I can speak from actual experience. Sysops working on the Dolls Forum were about 90+% female (accurate since I had actual names and contact info for them). Sysops for "boy toys" were 100% male. Other areas were about 80% male. Political forums were 95+% male. Religious forums were about 70% male. Sex forums used "fake names" making it hard to figure out any ratios there at all. The "CB simulator" sysops appeared to be about evenly split - at a time when the service was about 85% male or so. Collect (talk) 11:39, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

In regard to the interface issue, there is no question that women are just as capable of men at using the interface. This reflects a similar issue in IT - there is no question that women are just as capable as men in IT. Thus raising issues about the interface isn't about competence. However, I keep thinking there is a second parallel with IT. Back when I used to be (loosely) involved in research on gender issues in IT, it seemed clear that women were heavily involved in content creation with IT, but not necessarily interested in IT development. While there were a lot of reasons for this, (which it wouldn't be worth gong into now, as they aren't necessarily things WP can address), I'm wondering if the interface we use might be a factor in leading people to connect WP with development instead of with content creation. If there is a tendency to equate WP with IT development, then it would be expected that we would get a similar uneven gender distribution as found in other areas of IT development.

As always with this sort of issue, there are two questions: what factors prevent people from getting involved, and what factors prevent them from staying. The latter might come down to issues raised really well in the above discussion (how people are treated, the style of the debate, etc). The former, however, relates to how WP is perceived. Perhaps the interface issues sit on the perception side of the equation. - Bilby (talk) 12:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Marz Needz Womenz!/An Immodest Proposal/[[The Full Monty|The Full Jimbo!

Ofttimes the simplest and most obvious solution to a problem lies right under the nose...or in this case the beard under the nose. The owner of this talkpage is not only a proven fundraising and recruitment weapon, but also an unstoppable love machine and certified chick magnet! All we need do is get Jimbo out there in a red speedo(tm) getting all Jimmy with his Jimness, and the womins will come flocking here in flocks! Why in a few years we will be asking ourselves why so few males edit here! So c'mon Jimbo! Give em what they want!--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 11:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Dear Jimbo

Hi, this is user:Pudmaker, journalist of Kyungkyang Daily Newspaper of South Korea.

First of all, I'm very sorry for bothering you. I know you must be fully occupied with your job.

I sent a mail to you, but you still don't read it. I wonder if you are too busy to read it or just forget it.

Please read my e-mail and send me a reply mail. Then I can draw up an article about it, and also introduce your message to Korean Wikipedia community.

Again, sorry for demanding on you.

I think that your e-mail will be a good chance to bring up a mass attention on Wikipedia, and will be an encouragement to ko-wp users.

Hope you to write back to me soon.. Best regards. adidas (talk) 09:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to edit trial: Update

Hi Jimbo. The invitation, with a medical mini-tutorial, has now been placed at the top of 20 medical articles. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:59, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Collaboration and dissent

At Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-01-10/News and notes#In brief, the second item is the following.

• "Four essays every Wikimedian should read!": On her personal blog, the Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director Sue Gardner recommended Four essays every Wikimedian should read! from Less Wrong (a rationalist community blog co-founded by Eliezer Yudkowsky, see also the entry LessWrong on RationalWiki). As described by Gardner, the four postings are about "collaboration, dissent, how groups can work together productively". In another posting, she described her recent travels in India.
  

—Wavelength (talk) 22:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia too complicated for many - my ugly mug

• - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12171977

Interesting comments from Jimmy - Interview with the BBC 14 Jan. - Off2riorob (talk) 12:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Remuneration and fiscal report to Staff in WCJ2009・2010 and KOF2010 ２

I sent an email to WikiMedia Foundation by your guidance, but an answer does not come.

The event of wikipedia10 is done in Kyoto. Are the foundation or you doing the sponsorship to this?　The budget accounting is vague though it costs the fee of ￥5,500.This meeting place charter expense is ￥3,500 - ￥6,000 per one.Calculation grounds are unknown. --山吹色の御菓子 (talk) 13:07, 14 January 2011 (UTC)