Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-21/In the media



In an article in The Atlantic titled "Wikipedia's hostility to women", Emma Paling reports (October 21) on Wikipedia's gender bias, a recurring topic in media discussions of Wikipedia.

Leading with a detailed account of the gender-based and sexual harassment experienced prior to being site-banned in an arbitration case (see previous Signpost coverage), Paling goes on to say,

Paling notes, correctly, that the Wikimedia Foundation has come nowhere near realising its 2011 goal to increase female participation to 25 percent; even in the Foundation's Inspire campaign, specifically designed to look for proposals to address Wikipedia's gender gap, only 34 per cent of those who submitted ideas identified as female, according to Paling. The imbalance affects content as well as the editing climate, Paling says, quoting again Julia Adams:

Paling cites "Categorygate" (see previous Signpost coverage) as one example of this, and describes efforts led by editors like Emily Temple-Wood to address gender-related gaps in Wikipedia's coverage.

However, challenging the status quo on Wikipedia is no easy task, Paling notes.

Paling's article sparked voluminous discussions on the Gender Gap mailing list, on Jimmy Wales' talk page and in the "Wikipedia Weekly" group on Facebook. These discussions among Wikipedians identified a number of errors of fact that were subsequently corrected in the article.



In brief
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