Research proves gender imbalance on Wikipedia

Computer science researchers in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering are leading a team that has confirmed a substantial gender gap among editors of Wikipedia and a corresponding gender-oriented disparity in the content. Their research showed that only 16 percent of new editors joining Wikipedia during 2009 identified themselves as female, and those females made only 9 percent of the edits by the editors who joined in 2009.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• University
• of
• Minnesota
• UMN
• MN
• Computer
• Science
• and
• Engineering
• Research
• Wikipedia
• Gender
• Imbalance
• Males
• vs.
• Female
• Editors
• Wiki
• Content
• Disparity
• Social
• Netowrking

[theklinikv]

He's actually referring to articles that are written about content of interest or relation to women. Whether about "films" about women, artists, or topics related to women's interests. Not necessarily by women writers.

[BelligerentPacifist]

@vlchristensen His definition of 'female-oriented' appears to mean 'written by women', and hence my reading of his statement. Any of us could be right, and if the author of the study concurs with you, I'd defer to your opinion. Happy youtubing!

[vlchristensen]

@BelligerentPacifist Listen again, he didn't say the articles edited by women were of lower quality, he said the articles that were of more interest to women were of lower quality. that may indicate that men still contributed more to them but due to their lack of interest the quality was worse. Compare this to studies about open software that is maintained by a community. I can recall studies that men tended to dominate, and in fact bully the women, to the point that women eventually gave up.



[BelligerentPacifist]

@raftjm They won't tell you all that in an interview. You'll have to look at the publication/s that followed their research.

Still, his last words in there were the most gratifying to me as a man i.e. "articles edited by women...were of significantly lower quality". Yeah, men rock!

[raftjm]

What is the composition of the team that investigated this issue. What "tools" did you use or did you roll your own.  How long was the investigation?