Laura - Thanks for asking for more contributions. I was wondering what
was going on, since the project has seemed a bit quiet lately! Glad to
know it's catching steam again. I made some edits a few months ago to
the US section. (See comments below)
On 2/1/12 5:18 AM, Lodewijk wrote:
Perhaps it would be helpful if you could add some explanation why you
are collecting this information, what you want to make clear. Because
as I explained before to you privately (and I see nothing has changed)
at least for the Netherlands the stats that have been put up are
almost hilarious. Lots of percentages, but every Dutch person will be
able to tell you that many of them are of no meaning (Ripuarian is not
a language spoken at any significant level in the Netherlands,
Zealandic is considered mainly a dialect and has 1 admin, of course
there are no Dutch women in the enwiki arbcom, because to my best
knowledge there are no Dutch people in there at all at this moment,
and I would wonder why there are no Dutch female admins on the
Portuguese Wikinews...) I am not sure if it is just me, but reading
this page (
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomenCamp/FAQ/Perspectives/Netherlands )
I would almost think that this is a parody of something - I can't tell
if it is the same in other countries.
I've also been highly confused by these statistics. It confused me so
much that I acted boldy and removed them from the United States section.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomenCamp/FAQ/Perspectives#United_States
When I started to see information on how there were no Portuguese women
involved in Algerian Wikipedia I was like "why would there be? and is
this information here?"
I rewrote the majority of the section to just discuss women's roles in
the United States - at WMF, as fellows, as researchers, as Wikimedians
and active editors, etc. I created a list of people who are active US
Wikimedians who are known to be women (didn't want to make assumptions
about anyone) and some of the cool things they've been doing. Of course,
these are limited to people I know, so I hope others are added (as
someone did me). I also removed the "US related on Wikipedia" in regards
to the subject matter (which was added back). I wasn't really sure why
netball would be featured because it's not popular in America at all, so
to me it doesn't really tell us anything, but it's not popular. Same
with roller derby. (But other women's sports aren't discussed?) So I
guess if someone has interest in discussing American women's sports,
this area has room for expansion, or IMHO removal. And the list of
popular biographies makes sense - Amy Winehouse died when this data was
retrieved and I'm sure her popularity has been replaced. And it's no
surprise that "someone from Barbados" is in the top 10 - it's Rhianna,
and same for Nicki Minaj (two of the most famous pop stars in the world,
at least in the US.) I just don't' think this shows much about women
who contribute to Wikipedia except that people of all genders like
reading articles about pop stars and media frenzies.
I'm more curious about how women are active and what women are doing.
Who are planning events, have those been successes? Are people being
hired by Wiki companies? (Not just Wikimedia.) What is participation
like regarding women and other Wiki websites? (This conference is about
that right, not just Wikimedia?). Sadly I can't gather data on those,
nor do I know how, but it would be cool to know what the most popular
Wiki's are for women and so forth.
I am sure your intentions are good though, so perhaps it would be
helpful to state somewhere what kind of information you're looking for
that is *really* informative, and get rid of the non-relevant parts? I
would say that the semi-automated adding of information isn't exactly
helpful in at least the Dutch case - again, I can't vouch for other
countries. Some information *is* interesting (interest ratios on
Facebook or other external websites) and it would be a waste if that
gets discarded because of the irrelevance of the rest of the page.
+1. I think this has really cool potential to focus on "original
research" - just knowing who is doing what and sharing that information.
I took the time on the US section to not only celebrate who is doing
what, but, opportunities that women have been given in the movement in
the US. I wanted people to see what women were doing in the United
States, not what they /aren't/ doing. We already know the statistics are
depressing about women's participating - so what are women doing to
change that or to be a part of that?
Thanks Lodewijk and Srikanth for sharing your thoughts! I was beginning
to think I was the only person who had these thoughts!
And thanks Laura for spearheading a unique and interesting opportunity
to learn more about women around the world in the community. I hope
people be bold and participate!
Sarah
--
*Sarah Stierch*
*/Wikimedia Foundation Community Fellow/*
>>Support the sharing of free knowledge around the world: donate today
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