Grants talk:IEG/Women and Wikipedia/Midpoint

midpoint review

@Mssemantics: thanks a lot for your report! As it seems nobody commented here, I decided to write here to make you sure that your reports are really important - I am an IEG member and reflections of past grantees are important in the assessments of current projects. We are waiting for your final results :) rubin16 (talk) 11:41, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks rubin16! I appreciate your support and the note. --Mssemantics (talk) 01:43, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

This is great. I confess I was a bit confused as to which report this was (linked from elsewhere without details). Since I didn't pay attention to the navigation boxes on top it took a while to figure it out. Perhaps just saying in you first text line the name of report, author and link to main page would keep others from getting confused. So much to read, it can be hard to get it all straight sometimes. Carolmooredc (talk) 14:39, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Carolmooredc, thanks for your feedback. Do you remember where the link was? I can't change the navigation boxes on top, but I can add a line to the top of the midpoint report page. --Mssemantics (talk) 12:29, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd be careful about involving Carol or Neofart in your studies. They are both batshit crazy. 69.143.163.100 06:25, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Report accepted, with feedback

Hi Mssemantics,

Thanks for submitting this thoughtful and thorough report - it had given me much food for thought, hopefully will for others as well (To that end, I'm wondering whether you'd prefer I not share this on the gender gap list right now, as you've just launched the survey there?).

A few comments, as we accept this report today:

• Your point that "events like Art and Feminism that excite and encourage women to participate but don't adequately prepare them for the cultural norms and practices of the Wikipedia community may actually dissuade them from becoming new editors" is really interesting. Will be curious to see if there are any recommendations coming out of your final report aimed at addressing this issue.
• I'm glad you're considering repurposing funds to areas that need them most - please keep us posted if sizable reallocations are needed and we can work with you on this.
• The large scope is quite a challenge, indeed! I can see where getting help for things that you can offload to volunteers or students is useful. Besides that, are there any places in your project where you think you can limit scope further, to keep yourself centered? This work is important, and I'm keen to make sure it doesn't burn you out.
• I'm also wondering if you still feel that the timeline is reasonable - if an extension is needed to complete the activities you've got planned for the coming month (which seems like a lot!), please let me know. We're generally fine granting a month or so extra to complete if that would make you more successful in meeting your goals.
• I'm appreciating the perspective you are raising about underlying issues of culture, and other areas that technical interventions alone won't address. Looking forward to the larger findings as this project wraps up.
• Finally, it would be great to keep sharing your findings and impressions as this work continues - might we hope for another blog post in coming months? :)

If you'd like to discuss any of this further on a call, please let me know - happy to offer additional support where needed. Best wishes as your project continues meanwhile, Siko (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Siko (WMF),

Thanks for your feedback. If we can keep this here for now--until I close the survey--that would be much appreciated.

I wanted to respond to your comments, too:

• There's been a lot of work done re: "Don't bite the newbies", the Teahouse, and educational materials, but I think, in many ways, those don't prepare new users for the culture and climate in different parts of Wikipedia. I think for an event like Art and Feminism, which because it features the word "Feminism is more likely to attract a certain kind of response, participants need to be prepared. And, so, yes! I'd like to include recommendations in the final report. I'm still analyzing data, so I'm not entirely sure what those recommendations will be yet.
• Thanks! I'll keep you in the loop re: funds.
• I've limited scope in some ways by decided to 1) code only 9 months of the 42 I've downloaded from the Gender gap mailing list. The students and I will be selecting 3 months from the beginning, middle, and end to analyze trends and changes in the mailing list. This allows for all 9 months to be dual coded and reviewed by me. 2) limit my edits to the meta Gender gap page... for now. 3) skip the content analysis of internal documents re: efforts to address the gender gap. The documents aren't centralized and I simply don't have the time to aggregate them and perform a thorough analysis.
• I will certainly consider an extension. Thank you for bringing this up. This is an area of research I plan on pursuing even after the IEG ends, so I'm invested. :)
• Blog post? YES. I'll draft one next week re: the question of gendered, emotional labor.

Thanks!--Mssemantics (talk) 18:27, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

One content thing that was a little confusing but I'm sure will be clarified in your final report was the statement: "Many long-time Wikipedians of all genders find the current framing of the gender gap insulting." I.e., framing by WMF, women volunteers on Gender gap projects, the media, some combination of the above?

As as you've probably heard by now, the same issues can be seen in difference light. For example: "civility" (it's insulting editors are allowed to use slurs against women; it's insulting women need to be protected from slurs against women); format: (it's insulting to ignore evidence many women prefer a "nicer" format; it's insulting to think women only like pink bunny type formatting). If that's not quite what you were getting at, sorry for misunderstanding. Carolmooredc (talk) 14:54, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Carolmooredc, that is what I'm getting at--only that, even more so, quite a few people don't like that "gender gap" has been conflated with "campaign to increase female participation." Some of it comes down to differences of opinions as you note above. Once I've finished collecting and analyzing data, I'll be better able to provide clarity in the final report. --Mssemantics (talk) 12:33, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

FYI on GGTF Resources

I've now moved most of that material to:

• GGTF:List of mainstream and tech publication articles
• GGTF: List of research studies on the Gender Gap on Wikipedia sponsored by Wikimedia Foundation and independent entities
• GGTF: List of Wikimedia.org and en.Wikipedia Gender Gap action projects

At the original "Draft resources page" I have left the material that does not directly mention Wikipedia or that is not "reliable sources" for future discussion of what might be inculded on a "Related resources" page. Carolmooredc (talk) 14:33, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks!--Mssemantics (talk) 12:34, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Note. These three links above go to pages now deleted on en:Wiki. Draft resources page is deleted also. Thanks, EChastain (talk) 15:41, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@EChastain:, I fixed the links above rubin16 (talk) 19:21, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

@Rubin16: Thanks! EChastain (talk) 01:50, 5 February 2015 (UTC)