You make some good points, Ellie. However, it's been my experience that even a basic knowledge of HTML helped me learn Wiki syntax. I am by no means a coder, although I am married to one. Perhaps a better way to frame it is that learning Wiki syntax can help you learn to code easier?
Christine User:Figureskatingfan On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 3:20 PM, Ellie K <myindigol...@gmail.com> wrote: > I read Marie Earley's message about the Inspire campaign, and > specifically about the Pinterest-related proposal. I was interested in the > Pinterest proposal too! I use Pinterest for fun. As far as I know, I was > the only one to endorse it (I am FeralOink on WP, Ellie Kesselman IRL). > > Marie said this in her message on the GenderGap mailing list: > >> " >> If the pitch to women were "learn code by editing Wikipedia" then I think >> there would be a greater take up... >> " >> > > Yes, I agree that there would be a lot of interest from women if that were > true. However, editing Wikipedia and learning to code have nothing to do > with each other. Learning Wiki syntax for editing is something that can > take bona fide programmers a (brief) while to learn, as it is markup with > many additional Mediawiki-specific features. More to the point, Wiki syntax > isn't a programming language, nor does it closely resemble HTML or CSS, > which are not programming languages either. The only people who code on > Wikipedia are the Wikidata folks and those who build utilities (many in > Python, I think) for whatever the toolserver is called now. Most Wikipedia > editors are not going to have any interaction with these few folks, nor any > means to learn the skills they have. > > I'm sorry for sounding negative, but I don't want to mislead women into > thinking they will learn a job skill like programming (coding) by editing > Wikipedia. There are many other things one may learn by editing Wikipedia, > but they aren't so easy to articulate and vary by individual. > > --Ellie Kesselman (FeralOink) > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org > To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please > visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > -- Christine ____________________ Christine W. Meyer christinewme...@gmail.com 208/310-1549
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