 In this session, I will talk to you about the work we do on a Dutch gender gap project. And I will focus on what we do to help new editors find a way on Wikipedia and what we do on outreach. Since this presentation is recommended for newbies, I'm pretty curious about you in the room. We do not have much time, so we cannot do a complete introduction session, but I have one question for you and maybe some people would like to answer. How many edits have you made on Wikipedia right now? Any volunteer? Anybody who likes the answers, there's a mic in the room. Maybe Netta? Yeah. There is one. 2000. 20,000. Anyone else? So, thousands of edits. Are there newbies around too? How many edits have you made? Who made less than a thousand? Wow. There's one. Two maybe. Well, thank you. So we have newbies, but most of you have made lots of edits. But let's think a little bit more about the distinction. Does it count how many edits you have made? Is it that important? For me, in 2012, I was a newbie, and it occurred to me that it was important, because every time I would meet new Wikimedians or Wikimedians, they would ask me the same question. How much edit have you made? When I would reply that I was new and just started, the conversation would stop. It felt like I wasn't important or I didn't count because I wasn't among one of the top editors. I think what would have made me feel more welcome if there would be a next question, and people would ask me, oh, Kelly, wow, welcome, you're new, and do you have any questions? Can you help me? Because can I help you? Because I think it's very important to make people feel welcome. It will encourage to continue your work on Wikipedia. Because I think first edit can turn into a next edit, and people can become pretty good members of the community. In this talk, I will ask you to share your experiences. It will not be just me broadcasting about a Dutch gender gap project. So let's learn from each other and listen to each other. I'll start. Since 2015, the Dutch gender gap project aims to attract new members for the community, and we try to get more articles about women on Wikipedia. Still no slides. Because we do have a gender gap on Dutch Wikipedia, it's obvious that among the existing community there are not enough editors to help close the gap. So the gender gap work group decided to find out what's happening, where are the people that might want to join us, and why they are not on Wikipedia already. We decided to interview some new editors and also editors that are working on Wikipedia for many years. We found out some main points that either help people and motivate people to edit Wikipedia, but also points that stop people from even starting. And what we found, and Netta already told and Rosie too, was it's about confidence. People are afraid to post wrong information, or they are afraid to ask beginners questions. People have heard from bad experiences from others, or they might even have had bad experiences themselves. People are not confident, they feel like they do not know enough about a subject, and especially not enough to even write an Wikipedia article about it. People have no Wikipedia skills, so how can we start then? People do not have enough time to edit. It's all pretty common things that Netta and Rosie also said. And there was a group that just didn't know where to write about. I'll manage without slides. Luckily there were also points that motivated people, and these were the meetups in real life. Love to meet each other, work together, and help each other to write on Wikipedia. And being able to add missing information on subjects that they think it's important to share with the world is a great motivation. So these were things that we found out among our community, the Dutch Wikipedia. And here's the part where you guys come in, I'd love to hear some things that you may have found out within your community. Is there anyone who wants to share some things that help or maybe stop people from editing? No one? That will give us a lot of time for a coffee break then. Yes? Hello? Is there a microphone? Is there a mic? Yes. People are scared of the text when they are editing. When they are clicking the edit, they see a lot of stuff that they don't understand. The codes. The codes. Yes. So it's one of the things. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you. I'd like to respond. People are afraid of the codes. It is difficult, but that's why the visual editor was developed. And that's why you can pick up cheat sheets at the help desk here just around the corner at the registration desk that in OSA, they're in Swahili, they're in English. If you send me your translation in your own language, I make sure it has the same layout, and we'll do all the translation, and we'll put it up in comments for you if you do the translations. So that's what you see is what you get editor. Makes it far more easier for newbies to go on Wikipedia and share their knowledge. So that's actually a solution to the code problem. Do in Germany, pick closer, pick closer, we do in Germany monthly meetings for women like women edit, for to help each other to edit in Wikipedia. And in Germany, we have to prove edits from new editors, and we can help each other because there are more people, more women who can do this and do things which another offline. Okay, this is actually a solution to the real edits. We have time for one or two more. So one thing that I've seen a lot and actually experienced when I first showed up to Wikipedia is that the only people that I interacted with were people who were telling me I was doing something wrong. Yeah, exactly. And otherwise, Wikipedia kind of seemed like a quiet desert. Yeah. Just the last one. I also wanted to say that numbers are a huge thing in the Arabic community. So everybody begs about how many edits they have. And when I was just starting as well, I thought that this should be my target. So instead of, for example, adding all of the article I have in one click, I would just split it into as many clicks as I have so that I can get more edits because this is what I was told. Yeah. Yeah. It is indeed a problem. Yes. Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I have to continue because otherwise there's not much time left. Well, we found out some points that motivate and we also had some points that make people hesitate to contribute to Wikipedia. And at Dutch gender gap group, we tried to take some obstacles away. We know that our group places high value on meetups in real life. So it's a perfect opportunity to work together, share experiences, and it can also help to see bad accountants into a different perspective. If you share your story and maybe even be able to have a laugh about it. So what we did, we started organizing meetups. It would be one day meetups where we focus on editing Wikipedia because we try to learn them how to edit and hope they will stay around. But what we experienced is that one day meetups, we just didn't have enough time to actually learn people how to edit Wikipedia. And it often resulted in a lot of frustration and articles being reverted. And that didn't motivate our new editors at all. So another important aspect that we found is that one day meetups do not give the opportunity for people to connect to each other. And this is one of the main things that motivates our group, connecting and working together. But if you are on a one day meetup and you just try to learn how to edit Wikipedia, you do not spend time on talking to each other and etc. So what we decided to do was the same thing as you just told me you're doing in Germany. We decided to organize monthly meetups. We have our Wiki Fridays, it's in Amsterdam, and we have Wiki Saturdays. And these are meetups open to everybody. You do not have to register, we do like that, but it never happened. We offer a safe and steady environment for people to join us and work together. And it gives the opportunity for people to get to know each other. And they know when and where to join us because we planned these meetings way ahead. And well, it's a great way to get to know each other. And this works for our group in the Netherlands. The other obstacle we talked about was the fear of posting wrong information or asking beginners questions. What happens is if you post a question on Wiki, it's out there in public. And not everybody feels comfortable with that special beginners. What we did is try to offer a safe space. And I saw it in the previous presentation too. We opened a closed Facebook group. We have about 120 members at the moment. And those are members who are very active Wikipedians and also people who just started. And we just asked questions and people asked them to take a look at the article they are working on. And actually, we also helped to keep articles that are nominated for deletion. People will see it and post it in the GENGAP Facebook group. And we work together to improve these articles. It often gives very positive results. About beginners questions, we got questions from our beginners. Like, is there a manual for editing Wikipedia? In the beginning, we said, yeah, well, you can find everything on Wikipedia. It's there. There are user manuals and tips and tricks. If you start a Wikipedia, some people manage to find the information. But what happens, there are a lot of links. And they click on the links and they will lose their way. And they cannot find what they are looking for. So we were lucky enough to have Lodewijk. And he wrote a manual for beginners. And it gives all the basic information on how to edit Wikipedia. So we're very happy with that. Still no slide. People were looking for inspiration on where to write about, what to write about. And we created, it was actually a very simple solution, like Women in Red also did. We created red linked lists. And we added links to other Wikipedia versions, language versions, if they were available. And it actually helps people who have less time to contribute, to make a translation of an existing article. So it also helps people who have less time. Well, these were some things that we have created in order to get some obstacles away. Again, is there anyone who wants to share their experience? Do you have any solutions for the obstacles that new editors find? Reem, where's the mic? Hi. It's not more a solution. I'm just trying to think. I mean, the solutions that you're talking about, it's more like women that already have time and maybe a little bit of leisure to add in the editing. So I'm thinking, why not go to, especially in indigenous languages, if you're going to attract women, you're going to go to partner with organizations that are already organizing women for issues that are of concern in their communities. In that way, they're already meeting. In that way, there's already a common cause. Then introduce Wikipedia and the benefits to their communities. Because some of the issues you're talking about, this kind of women would not even have even the capacity to think about that. Especially if you're thinking of making this more inclusive. Yeah. Thank you. That's very valuable. Yes. Yes. No slides. Is there anyone who likes to share some solutions they gave? Neta? Run. Sometimes during edit-a-thons, we bring newcomers and we bombard them with information. We are like, you can do this, you can do that. Just check out that, check out this. That's too much information, way too much information for them to process. So what we could do is to just sit down and watch them edit. And just in case they encounter some problems, we can tip in and say that, oh, this is how you can do it better, instead of just giving a lot of information and making them overwhelmed and feeling that it's a very difficult thing. Yeah. This is also what we do during Wiki Fridays, Wiki Saturdays. It's a great way. Also, another thing that we do in Egypt, whenever we have a workshop or an edit-a-thon, we decide if we have a specific audience. So for example, if they are going to translate, we developed manuals that are completely just only for the groups that translate from English into Arabic or from whatever language into Arabic. So we had also to design our own manuals in our own language, which is Arabic, because the ones existing do not address our needs at all. Great. Thanks. Okay, I'll continue, because we're running out of time. So we found, we thought of some ways to work around the obstacles that new editors encounter. And now we also wanted to reach out to new editors. And since they are not to be found in the Wikipedia community, we started looking outside Wikipedia. And we found organizations that share our goals, and they really like to organize workshops, Wikipedia workshops. But what we have learned is that sometimes these organizations, they tend to value the enthusiasm of their supporters larger than it is. And every now and then we ended up with zero participants in their registration forms, or maybe one or two. And then we would decide to cancel these meetings, these workshops. And these are things that just happened. And my advice is at least if you reach out to organizations and start with organization of a workshop, at least also inform them that it might be the case that their network might not be as enthusiastic as they might think they will be. And that's just it. We are lucky to have found Atria as a partner. They have a great network and women who like to edit Wikipedia with us. So we are just very lucky. What we also did to try to reach new editors was last year, during around International Women's Day. We did a targeted Facebook campaign. And what we saw that we had the best results on a group in which we promoted to expand STUPS. It was a surprise to me. I expect that that translation might win, but that was the second place. It was just the first time we did that and we wanted to repeat it again in order to get some better evaluation on that. These were all things that aim on new editors, but also we wanted to stay in touch with the Wikipedia community, the existing Wikipedia community. So what we also did to stay in touch with what we do is we organized challenges online, like the 100 Wiki women and the women you never met. And what we see in the past three years is that the group who joins us in these challenges is growing. So that's actually a very positive news. Yeah, I wanted to also... No, I have to continue. Sorry. I wanted to give you time to share some information, but we're running out of time again. I have one last cool thing, and Arim already mentioned it. This May we organized our first women tech storm. It was part one. It was a pilot. And our mission was to get more women and non-binary people involved in tech. And we had only 20 spots available for this tech storm. And to our big surprise, we received 99 registrations from participants. Sorry. I think the key success for this number was that the fact that we organized it for women only and we promoted a safe space environment. But another thing was we clearly indicated that this tech storm was for newcomers. So people who registered knew that when they entered this tech storm, they wouldn't be the only one asking beginners questions, which is actually normally something that people are afraid to do. I think I have to stop here. Are there any questions of people who want to comment? Yes, over there? Hello, everyone. I think the campaigns that might be done can still be exclusive considering that there are many women who can't write, who can't read. So probably bringing into the environment digital storytelling where a person can use vernacular language to share their own stories and then have those that can read and write, translate them into other languages could help. Yes. Anyone else? No, I think I will give the stage to Asaf. Thank you very much.