Talk:Gender bias on Wikipedia/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

For a start

I see that this article has many maintenance templates, but no talk page comments. For a start, the bias [sic] contained in this article could be reduced by moving it to "Gender gap/imbalance on Wikipedia", as the current one implies that the Wikimedia Foundation has a policy that has led to the current state of affairs in this matter. Toccata quarta (talk) 08:58, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Either one of those would work. G S Palmer (talk) 21:22, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I do not agree. First, I cannot see where "the current one implies that the Wikimedia Foundation has a policy that has led to the current state of affairs in this matter". Second, "Gender gap/imbalance on Wikipedia" does not cover things like "claims to an air of misogyny or hyper-sexualism". Sophia-ka (talk) 13:04, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to move it to Gender imbalance on Wikipedia. If you have any strong objections, then have it moved back. G S Palmer (talk) 16:32, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I've moved it back, because "bias" can mean both "discrimination" and "imbalance", and is therefore a better title. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 15:06, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Where did you see the word "bias" listed as synonymous with "imbalance"? Unless you can find a reputable source for that, the change should be reverted. Here is the definition I found using google: "Inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair." --Resip27 (talk) 16:37, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

@Resip27: well, a cursory Google search turns up this, where it is listed as one of the synonyms. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 17:27, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

thefreedictionary.com should not be considered an authoritative source, as its extremely liberal approach to the language happily acknowledges proscribed uses of words and unorthodox word-formation rules. Besides, I think it's important to see how the title reads, even if you can argue that the meaning of the word "bias" is technically ambiguous. To a typical reader, the word "bias" is very loaded, and as per WP:POVNAMING we should avoid using it unless it's absolutely necessary for clarity's sake. In this case, I would argue it's not necessary at all, since the article's focus is that of gender imbalance, not sexism or misogyny (which are mentioned, but only as potential causes or effects of the imbalance).

As a final, potentially off-topic remark, I suspect that using such strong and loaded language is likely part of the problem we're describing here (c.f. the article's claims about aversion to conflict). Apples grow on pines (talk) 07:58, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Men’s Rights Agency, not a WP:RS

This source is not reliable. Please read about us : it is not an academic source, just an activists web site, claiming that "men and boys relegated to second class citizen status". This does not seem very trustworthy. Sophia-ka (talk) 13:04, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I might agree, if it was used to back up anything else. However, it is not being used to support any point other than that some people (in this case the Men's Rights Agency) have a different opinion. G S Palmer (talk) 14:42, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Neither the Men's Rights Agency or Dean Esmay are notable - wouldn't this inclusion be WP:UNDUE? PearlSt82 (talk) 17:57, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

• What Pearl said. Random men's rights blogs don't warrant inclusion in the lede (or for that matter, probably anywhere else in, unless we get some secondary reliable sources talking about it) of this article.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:19, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Activists web sites are quoted all the time in articles. Go to any LGBT articles and you will see that there are many activist sources that are quoted of questionable notability. Are they all unreliable because they are activists? That argument is a fallacy as it has nothing to due with whether they hold an opinion contrary to others but whether their claims can be substaniated. You must prove it is unreliable and that is not the same as something which you have opposing political views. Proof takes much more work than many of those who choose to simply character assasinate a source are willing and/or capable of doing. In reality this article is an activist opinion about a reality some activists are disappointed in and one should always exercise caution around activist opinions but that does not mean they should be dismissed simply for being activists. There are valid points that are brought up by activists that are often being ignored by the group think of the masses. 24.177.109.112 (talk) 18:08, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

See WP:SPS. They can be published as sources on their own activities and views only, as long as it's not about third parties, especially named ones. Just because there are articles were WP:SPS are used incorrectly, doesn't mean it's right to keep doing it where people object. There are a few "activist" research sites which generally are accepted as sources of facts, but in some circumstances those too can be challenged. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:44, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

As Carolmooredc said, just because some articles use blogs as sources doesn't mean this one has to. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 18:50, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

And where is the proof that they are a WP:SPS? They may have a bias, but that does not disqualify it as a RS, per WP:BIASED. Tutelary (talk) 20:41, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

• Last comment refers to an organization defending men's rights as a blog which is not the case as it is a well established organization dealing with men's issues in today's western society. Much the same as NOW. I would also point out it is incorrect to use unreliable sources whether anyone objects or not. Unfortunately that common sense often does not apply to wikipedia as consensus and group think often trump credibility. 24.177.109.112 (talk) 20:28, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Inappropriate use of Reagle and Rhue

Howdy, the statement about word length from R&R2010 is not accurate approriate as it says "the median analysis does not imply a consistent relationship between article length and gender." Also, better summaries of the article include:

1. Wikipedia dominates Britannica in biographical coverage, but more so when it comes to men.
2. Britannica is more balanced in whom it neglects to cover than Wikipedia. --Reagle (talk) 13:35, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The problem in measuring the gendergap is how do you show how much Wikipedia is negecting subjects? I was looking at the categories for male vs female headgear on Commons and I think the lack of pictures sort of says it all. We should try to set up a yearly measurement for such examples. They need to be uncontroversial (no question that the subject is encyclopedic, and also not something that is the subject of any current disputes). Jane (talk) 12:28, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to edit the prose myself since no action has been taken to correct the summary. -Reagle (talk) 11:23, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

This is an important issue. In order to measure bias, we need data with which to compare coverage in the encyclopedias to the incidence of the subjects in the population. So, for example, how do we measure the relative incidences of male-headgear and female-headgear in the world? We need to know what that is. Then, we can compare it to the number of related articles in WP and Britannica? Do we have sources which have made rigorous statistical inferences or is the data casual or incomplete observation? SPECIFICO talk 11:40, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

But even here you have to be careful. Traditional "male" headgear, police helmets, soldier's hats, are now no longer exclusively so. Moreover the incidence of "hat wearing" varies historically, by socio-economic class, and geographically. So one might be hit with all sorts of confounding variables.

The most robust work I have seen compares "male" film and "female" film coverage, and should perhaps be cited if it is not already. Even this is not above legitimate criticism. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:00, 24 August 2014 (UTC).

Potential source

I don't know if this might be useful in any way, either to support existing content or to add some new stuff. G S Palmer (talk) 17:43, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Here's another one, and a few of the articles linked from it might be of use also. G S Palmer (talk) 17:35, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Such as this. G S Palmer (talk) 13:05, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

• ‘Wikipedian’ editor took on website’s gender gap May 18, 2014 PBS NewsHour regarding Adrianne Wadewitz

I just removed this from the external links - if someone could find a way to work it into the article as a ref, that would be great. G S Palmer (talk) 13:32, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

• The most influential person on Wikipedia is someone you’ve probably never heard of - the latter part of the article touches briefly on something that might have bearing on the section Gender bias in articles. May be able to work it in there somewhere. (Sad that they presume that their readers have never heard of Linnaeus.) G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 18:42, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
• And another covering the same topic: The Most Influential Figures On Wikipedia Are White, Western Males. Now you can take your pick. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 20:46, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I just removed these from the external links too. Collapsing for convenience:

Links

Debate: Where are the Women in Wikipedia? New York Times Op-Ed, Feb 2, 2011 Cohen, Noam. (January 30, 2011). Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia's Contributor Page. New York Times Filipacchi, Amanda. (April 24, 2013). Wikipedia's Sexism Toward Female Novelists New York Times Zandt, D. (April 26, 2013). Yes, Wikipedia is Sexist. That's Why It Needs You Forbes Magazine Bort, J. (February 15, 2014). A Growing Army of Women Are Taking on Wikipedia's Sexism Problem Business Insider Collida and Kolbe (April 29, 2013) Wikipedia's Culture of Sexism- It's Not Just for Novelists Wikipediocracy Motherboard. (June 12, 2014). Editing Sexism out of Wikipedia ♙ Vice Magazine Macdonald, Heather. (Feb 9, 2011). Wikipedia is Male Dominated. That Doesn't Mean It's Sexist. Slate Magazine Dr Zuleyka Zevallos (June 9, 2014). Sexism on Wikipedia: Why the #YesAllWomen Tag Matters. The Other Sociologist Gleick, J. (2013). Wikipedia's Women Problem New York Review of Books. Campbell, H. (2011). Is Wikipedia Sexist Too? Science 2.0 Gardner, Sue. (2013). What's Missing from the Media Discussion of Wikipedia and Sexism Wikimedia Blog Allan, K. (November 2013). Wikipedia Addressing Sexism within its Editorial Elite PR Daily 2011. Wikipedia is sexist French Exit.

G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 15:06, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

• "Computational Linguistics Reveals How Wikipedia Articles Are Biased Against Women". MIT Technology Review. February 2, 2015.

I added a header so this section can be archived, and uncollapsed the collapsed section for readability. I'm not sure why it was the way it was, so if I've made a mistake, feel free to undo this. :) Eddymason (talk) 21:15, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

"Policies" section

I have removed, twice, a section of text entitled "policies". Magsmacaulay (talk · contribs) makes the sometimes-correct point that they are independent and reliable; for the most part I don't contest this fact (though a wikipedia talk page isn't "independent", but that's an inappropriate citation for other reasons as well). The issue is that the entire section was substantially original research. Many if not most of the sources didn't mention wikipedia at all. One in particular couldn't, as it was a book published in 1986. The myriad disparate sources were synthesized by Magsmacaulay to create a new idea about wikipedia's policies that isn't made anywhere else; wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought. I looked at most of the sources and couldn't find any that actually verified the text they were appended to; instead most cited examples of the behaviour alleged in the section. This isn't appropriate. If any reliable sources explicitly make the point that wikipedia's policies systematically discourage participation by women, include and summarize them. Don't make the case for them. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:25, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I have already told WLU that I find his editing practices hostile and unwelcoming to me as a newcomer. It's clear to me he doesn't see the irony in policing a section I added about how certain policies of Wikipedia make it an uneven playing field for women. Further it is untrue that my sources do not talk about Wikipedia, as a few are actually critical of policies like "neutrality", "notability" and "reliable sources". These ideas are being explored by academics who write about it online (I have cited them). Our field is changing, and as academics we often feel that we should be public intellectuals and make our ideas accessible (read: free of charge) for people. Probably most of you would agree that pay-walled sources aren't your faves. Anyway, I ask that the section stay because the primary readers of this page would likely be people who are interested in knowing more about the issue. I think some contextual assessment is important in this case. Maybe there are situations where following the rules to a tee are useful but I don't think it is as important, given the subject matter. If Wikipedia is actually serious about including more women, then you have to change things to make it seem to us like contributing is worth our time. That certainly hasn't been my experience and the same has been true for a number of my female friends. Though I suppose what I'm saying is somehow less credible since it's not published in a journal article or book :)femmebot 17:29, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Magsmacaulay (talk • contribs)

I have explained why I removed the text, citing policy and guideline to justify. My alleged hostility is beside the point and illusory as my above explanation is perfectly civil. The few sources you cited that actually mentioned wikipedia either did not address this specific point, or were not reliable (blog posts for instance). Feel free to rebuild the section using reliable sources that explicitly discuss wikipedia's policies and how they enact a gender bias, please omit the rest. Blog posts, bar the rare exception of a notable academic or minor clarifications of facts, aren't suitable. Pay wall sources are perfectly acceptable; sources don't need to be convenient to be used.

The standard for including text isn't whether a reader would be interested, it is the neutral summary of reliable sources in line with what wikipedia is. You appear to be asking for us to ignore all rules; that can be done, if a local consensus establishes that this improves the wiki. I don't feel it does. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 23:34, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Washington Free Beacon title is POV

I've neutralized POV language which was sourced to a (biased) headline in the Washington Free Beacon: "Government-Funded Study: Why Is Wikipedia Sexist?" This is obviously an unscientific phrasing for an academic study, a point which seems to have escaped certain polemicists...

Here is the way the National Science Foundation grant is described on the academic home page of Yale Sociology professor Dr. Julia Adams:

"In 2013, Adams was awarded a two-year National Science Foundation grant for collaborative research with Hannah Brueckner (Associate Dean of Social Science, NYU-Abu Dhabi) on “Wikipedia and the Democratization of Academic Knowledge.” The investigators are exploring gender-specific patterns of representation of scholars and scholarship. One of the project’s goals is to contribute to improving quality and reducing bias on academic – and more general – Wikipedia." LINK.

Awwww, that's not nearly as much fun, is it? Carrite (talk) 08:09, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Reverted change. Even the website you linked above, says, as you note above: "one of the project’s goals is to contribute to improving quality and reducing bias on academic – and more general – Wikipedia." They are studying bias not simply the disparity, so your change of "bias against women" to "gender disparity" doesn't seem accurate.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 13:40, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

• BoboMeowCat - Annnnnnnd..... a POV flag is now up. This study began in 2013, not 2014. The Washington Free Beacon is not a reliable source. The phrasing is tendentious, assuming "sexism" — which the statement "one of the project’s goals is to contribute to improving quality and reducing bias on academic – and more general – Wikipedia." does not. Please restore my NPOV phrasing immediately. Carrite (talk) 16:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

"Sexism" is not the same as "bias resulting from gender disparity," by the way. Carrite (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand. The source might have used the word "sexism" but the edit in question didn't use the word "sexism", it uses phrase "bias against women". I"m confused why you find the phrase "bias against women" non-NPOV with respect to the National Science Foundation study.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 00:47, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Your favored source (which misdates the study, it being a 2013-, not a 2014-launched project, by the way) not only explicitly charges "sexism," it trumpets the fact in a sensational headline. I'll tweak the wording and sourcing of the paragraph in the next day or two and we'll see if we can come up with a couple NPOV lines we all can live with... Carrite (talk) 16:54, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're talking about. It's not "my favored source". I didn't originally add it. My objection was your change of text "bias against women" to "gender disparity" because "bias against women" was supported by both the Washington Free Beacon article and by the website you linked to, so your change did not seem accurate with respect to the sources cited. You've yet to address this and seem to keep shifting issues. If you've uncovered an error with the date, by all means fix it. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 21:15, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

First, I searched for something more RS than the Washington Free Beacon using the same title and actually found several from news sources which can be surmised to have fact checked, so it could be possible to use one of those. However, I hadn't found a source on the original study and was happy to see that. Will investigate further. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:13, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Systematic removal of Washington Post source

Reference to a tangential issue, expressed in the following source, has been tag-team removed from the article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/08/04/mens-rights-activists-think-a-hateful-feminist-conspiracy-is-ruining-wikipedia/

The irony of the charge of ideological bias in Wikipedia being redacted away for apparently POV reasons seems self-evident.

This also needs to be discussed and remedied before the POV flag is removed. Carrite (talk) 16:42, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Caitlin Dewey does a good job of pointing out the disparity between their claims and their actual behavior on Wikipedia. I agree with other editors that the MRA position on this issue falls under WP:FRINGE and doesn't belong here. PearlSt82 (talk) 16:48, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Where was it stated that this is an MRA position of them? Additionally, you can't just qualify or state something is WP:FRINGE without demonstrating why as if to dismiss the entire thing. Else, I could just state that your position is WP:FRINGE and not respond anymore, while continually and incessantly saying that it is. Tutelary (talk) 16:51, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

The initial article was written by Dean Esmay of A Voice For Men - the Dewey article identifies it as MRA (in the title) and notes that their claims regarding this issue are groundless. If issues are groundless, does that not make the assertions of them to be fringe? PearlSt82 (talk) 16:56, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

It does not make them out to be fringe, and it's kind of a sketchy area on where we define WP:FRINGE. The most common example is flat earth people, but it gets rather muddy when you do it to other groups. For example, how do we define it? Just that with we disagree with much? That a ton of people hate? Who defines it? What's the exact percentage who are pro/con? It's just a muddy one. To me, it's not a fringe position, but a minority one that I can see, yes. Though what was being done for this specific article is that it would attribute opinions of the minority group to its WP:DUE weight, maybe a sentence or so. Whether that's undue weight or not can be questioned, but I think as long as it's short enough and is in the right spot, it's encyclopedic to mention imho. If you look at the edit which was reverted, it's actually pretty tame, but it does need more attribution to get it out of Wiki's voice. I'm guessing you're still opposed? Tutelary (talk) 17:16, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I have re-written the para to address some of these issues, and, joined it with the previous para. Certainly The Washington Post is a RS. Memills (talk) 17:22, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the current state of the article gives undue weight to the idea that Wikipedia is biased against men. It seems to me that the Washington Post article does not take Esmay's views very seriously at all. It points out that Esmay "sees feminist conspiracies in many unassuming places", uses "inflammatory phrasings", and is "controversial" (x2), and also disputes Esmay's claims with respect to Wikipedia, saying that "the talk pages tell a slightly different story" and calling many of Esmay's claims "groundless".

I would support the removal of this information from the article altogether. If it must be kept, I would rephrase it as something like "It has been argued that men's rights related articles on Wikipedia have been subject to censorship by feminist editors, but there is little evidence to support this claim." (a statement which is supported by the Washington Post article) —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 18:00, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure this even belongs, the bias being claimed is towards a particular Socio-political ideology, and not specifically a gender. In essence, a bias for or against feminism is not necessarily a bias for or against women. And the article is more about a perceived pro-feminist bias. --Kyohyi (talk) 18:05, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that is a bit of a stretch. Certainly, a claim of anti-feminist bias in articles about feminism would certainly deserve mention in this article on the grounds it is related to gender. The Washington Post article is essentially an opinion/editorial piece. As such, it should be mentioned that the "author of the article believes" that many of the claims made in the Voice for Men article are groundless. Memills (talk) 18:20, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

The tone of the WP article is clearly one of ridicule and this viewpoint is treated as fringe by Dewey. The structure of the article and the sensationalist headline empathise this. Regardless, this is not "censorship" against men or even "censorship by feminists", it's a viewpoint that doesn't really hold any weight. There is a similar article on Wikipediocracy analysing these claims [1] and again, they seem to be groundless. Desmay himself is not banned and none of his edits relating to men's rights articles were undone, if there is any censorship by feminists then it certainly didn't happen to him. It's likely that this is just further antifeminist propaganda. Either way, both are opinion pieces, and neither state sources saying that there is or isn't such censorship, they just assert it. Are we going to start citing personal blog entries next? --80.193.191.143 (talk) 18:25, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Furthermore, you state that "The Washington Post article is essentially an opinion/editorial piece. As such, it should be mentioned that the author of the article believes that many of the claims made in the Voice for Men article are groundless.", but this is the only source that supports even including it in article. Why bother? --80.193.191.143 (talk) 18:27, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

...because the article was published by The Washington Post and it was written by one of its editors. Such articles are both notable and a RS. Memills (talk) 18:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that they're notable... G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 18:48, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Well yes, but the inclusion, if made, has to cover what it said by the source. Structuring it around the original complaint by Esmay is strange as this is treated as a fringe complaint within the source in the first place --80.193.191.143 (talk) 18:46, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the treatment of men's rights articles has to do with the high amount of male editors anyway. The article states: "The gender bias of Wikipedia is connected with the fact that the majority of editors are male, and coverage of articles about men and male-related subjects is generally more extensive than coverage of articles about women and female-related subjects." What does the opinion a fringe antifeminist group have to do with the bias against women on website in this context? --80.193.191.143 (talk) 18:50, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

This WP article is about gender bias, not just bias against women.

You removed the the brief sentence that basically covered what The Washtington Post article was about: the claims that were made, and the author's opinion that most of the claims were groundless. The fringe criteria is pretty stringent (e.g., flat earthers). While the MRM may be and unpopular and a minority perspective, it isn't fringe. Memills (talk) 18:56, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

The idea that there is a feminist conspiracy running Wikipedia isn't too different from flat earthers when you think of it. Either way, I don't think it has WP:DUE weight to be included here, the reference itself is an opinion piece and doesn't include any statistics for or against the idea that there is such a feminist conspiracy --80.193.191.143 (talk) 18:59, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

No one suggested that "there is a feminist conspiracy running Wikipedia." The claim is that articles related to the MRM and men's issues are censored by feminists. These claims are not new -- they have been repeatedly made on Talk pages by many WP editors, most of whom do not self-identify as MRAs. And, believe me, if we required that articles, even scholarly ones, that did not include statistics be jettisoned, many of the citations to journals of feminist theory and scholarship would have to be jettisoned. Shouldn't be a double standard here, even if I just WP:DONTLIKE it. Again, the fact that the article was published by The Washington Post by one of its editors makes it both notable and a RS. Memills (talk) 19:06, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

What exactly gives it WP:DUE weight as an example of gender bias though? The focus of this article is, primarily, the gender gap. I don't think we should equate bias of editors against the men's rights movement and that against men either. It's the actions of the movement that are controversial, not its aims. Oh, and drop the WP:DONTLIKE, it doesn't help anybody, and your own personal bias is clear --80.193.191.143 (talk) 19:13, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

The title of the subsection of the article is "Gender bias in articles."

However, at this point, I think we need to accept that we disagree. Time to let others to weigh in, and, perhaps request a peer review WP:PR. Memills (talk) 19:20, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a little early for a peer review (and that seems a little extravagant for one source) so yeah, best to let others weigh in --80.193.191.143 (talk) 19:40, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I thought the general rule was that we do not use op-eds from newspapers for anything? News stories, yes; op-eds, no. - Sitush (talk) 13:56, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

From WP:NEWSORG: " "News reporting" from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact. ...Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. When taking information from opinion content, the identity of the author may help determine reliability. The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint." (italics added) Memills (talk) 14:39, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for quoting that passage. I don't think the Washington Post article provides evidence that Esmay's opinion is a significant viewpoint—Esmay is not a recognized expert on the subject of Wikipedia, and his opinion doesn't even match the opinion of the author of the Washington Post article. —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 15:29, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

That's what I mean - in practice, we don't use them. - Sitush (talk) 15:41, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

"Wikipedia"

The article needs to make clear when it and its sources are referring to English-language Wikipedia and when they're referring to other language variants and/or the entirety of WMF-hosted Wikipedias. As it stands, it looks like an article about gender bias is in fact massively biassed in other ways. Have there even been any studies covering all of the various languages? - Sitush (talk) 13:51, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor

VisualEditor effectively did not go live until mid-July 2013. The source for "including the introduction of VisualEditor,[5] which have as yet been unable to effectively bridge the gender imbalance." was published on 11 August 2013. I find it hard to believe that in that short interval anyone even ran any meaningful gender bias metrics analysing its impact, let alone ones that could meaningfully affect the other stats that Gardner was making. It looks like a big dollop of journalistic license to me, or else a complete misuse of the source in the article. - Sitush (talk) 14:13, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Visual Editor has never even been tried as a solution, since they still haven't rolled out a completed product. There seems no doubt that VE is seen as part of the initiative to close the gender gap. See the newly released Wikimedia Deutschland report which is now up in Further Reading. Carrite (talk) 16:49, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes. So it shouldn't be in the lead in its present form. The inference at present is that even VE hasn't made a difference. VE might be part of the strategy for fixing the problem but that is another section and, I notice, it is a section that we conspicuously lack. - Sitush (talk) 17:05, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

This amazes me. Was Visual Editor seen as a remedy to gender bias because "girls get confused by markup text" or something like that? This is obviously false, but it would surprise me to learn that it was advanced in support of a new interface. Can somebody fill us in on the facts concerning this? Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 17:14, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

The idea was that it will/would make editing easier because you wouldn't need to know the markup etc. Since, allegedly, women are more likely to be put off by the markup then men, one effect of it would be to potentially encourage women to edit. I don'rt know whether that outcome was explicitly stated or not but it would be valid in the context of the gender gap studies, assuming of course that the gender gap studies are actually valid in the first place. - Sitush (talk) 17:19, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Among the men and women with whom I am familiar, there is no gender-related difference with respect to their comfort with markup text. If there was no identified empirical basis for this conclusion, it appears to be a prima facie example of gender bias and an example of how such bias can misdirect efforts to find effective solutions to the real underlying problem. SPECIFICO talk 17:36, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Definitely needs to be tossed from the lede. I remember at the time hearing the "let's make it easier for women because they are intimidated by the technology" argument - and that concept was generally considered offensive. So unless you want to add "ill-formed, unsubstantiated decision by the male editors causing the problem that somehow wp needed to be dumbed-down to attract women editors..." OK, I'm ranting. Off soapbox now. But toss the VE bit from the lead. Montanabw^(talk) 18:09, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Just a couple of additional thoughts: has anyone done an analysis as to how technical the average Wikipedia editor is? By technical I mean things like has programmed, coded HTML, done graphic design using tools like photoshop, etc. My guess would be that we would find a "tech bias" just as we have a gender bias. I took to Wiki markup like a pig to slop because compared to HTML which I loathe it was simple but many of the people I know outside of work would be completely lost trying to edit wiki markup. And there is good evidence that there is a strong tech bias among men over women. So it could be that the bias isn't primarily about the social environment but the technical one and that the Visual Editor might be a reasonable partial remedy to the gender bias. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 00:25, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Gender bias in articles

The Reagle/Rhue source is not even mentioned in the Lam et al study. Therefore, "Wikipedia has been claimed to have more detail in articles about men, with the rate of coverage of females on average, around 100 words less than males on selected articles.[3] It has been suggested that this may be because Wikipedia possesses "... a culture that may be resistant to female participation."[6]" is likely synthesis. - Sitush (talk) 14:17, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I think this whole equation of length = quality and the making of sweeping claims about wikipedia content based on extremely small, non-randomly selected sample populations is fairly silly. I don't doubt that biographies of women, etc., are not as well covered as those of men. But, really, the truly massive disparity on WP isn't a male/female content divide, it is towards deep coverage of contemporary topics and poor coverage of historical ones. And we haven't even scratched the issue of Global North v. Global South content disparity or racial content disparity — which are also more serious problems than the gender content disparity, in my opinion. Carrite (talk) 17:01, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree. But I'm trying to operate within the constraints of this article. And those two statements don't really connect in a policy-compliant manner. - Sitush (talk) 17:04, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. I rambled. Carrite (talk) 17:05, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

You're more than welcome to contribute to the Racial bias on..., Geopolitical bias on Wikipedia articles, etc :) Audigex (talk) 16:32, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Date format

MOS:DATEUNIFY and WP:DATERET say to use the style adopted by the article. It does not require that accessdate be in yyyy-mm-dd format, does it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia&diff=620590333&oldid=620590117

--Lightbreather (talk) 05:50, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

There was a discussion about this recently somewhere and the outcome was yyyymmdd. FWIW, I'm not too happy about you adding entirely unnecessary ref names either but I'm not going to alter it. There are enough long-winded discussions knocking around at the moment. - Sitush (talk) 06:00, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't believe your reference to a recent discussion "somewhere" trumps the MOS. Also, I'm here to improve articles, not to make others happy. Ref names make it easier to use sources multiple times, which comes in handy when developing content. You don't need to chastise others' good-faith contributions. Lightbreather (talk) 06:10, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Do what the fuck hell you want then. Revert me. I'm utterly fed up of dealing with you, who has so much good faith that you've set up what amounts to an anti-WP twitter feed. - Sitush (talk) 06:24, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Lightbreather, it all depends on the article, Sitush may be right that there was a discussion of the matter, but I have an article at FAC right now where folks insisted that I change all the yyyy-mm-dd dates to mm-dd-yyyy dates, so at the moment, I'd say just be consistent and if someone else wants to change every single one of them to a different format, then whatever, not worth the drama. Also, this sort of question is best at the MOS talk pages if needed. Montanabw^(talk) 07:30, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

The discussion was actually at MOS talk. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:50, 24 August 2014 (UTC).

Domains

@LawrencePrincipe: large chunks of this edit seem to be redundant and/or overly complex to me. Can it be simplified? - Sitush (talk) 10:04, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Signpost as a source

Is the Signpost an acceptable source? Yasseri, Taha; Liao, Han-Teng; Konieczny, Piotr; Morgan, Jonathan; Bayer, Tilman (31 July 2013). "Recent research — Napoleon, Michael Jackson and Srebrenica across cultures, 90% of Wikipedia better than Britannica, WikiSym preview". The Signpost. Wikipedia. (from this article) Lightbreather (talk) 21:17, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

No, the Signpost is part of Wikipedia, and Wikipedia does not consider itself an acceptable source. So the Signpost should not be used as a source. Cardamon (talk) 23:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Like so many things it "depends what for". Although the Signpost posted on-wiki is subject to "editing by anyone", a perma-link can be made to the version used. Moreover I believe there is a mailing list, which again is not subject to open editing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:07, 24 August 2014 (UTC).

Updating statistics on women editors

The January 2011 New York Times article stating 13% women quotes a first preliminary survey. There have been several more since citing lower numbers. Here's a blog link from 2012. (It also has a useable graphic: File:Wikipedia_editors_are_predominantly_male.png) See also this survey link. This Atlantic magazine article also quotes the later, lower statistic. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:41, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

What the NYT means is that 13% identify as women - newspapers are crap at the detail and there is a massive difference. Avoid WP-generated stats would be my gut reaction. Where did the Atlantic magazine get its info from, and what the heck is it? I know what NYT is but the same applies there, really: I'll have to re-read it and find out where the info came from. For example, the idea that we might overly rely on the opinions of Sue Gardner rankles a bit with me: as a figurehead, yes, she has a voice but she really did have some daft notions in other spheres.

And I'm still waiting for someone to tell me which "Wikipedia" is being referred to in all these studies etc (see section above). For example, female participation in Indic-language Wikipedias is almost certainly far less than in the English one. - Sitush (talk) 23:56, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps, but they have the most aggressive campaign of workshops and other events to bring women in. Will be listing some soon. Or search around. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:54, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't have time to figure it out now, but obviously different researchers are using different numbers and I'm wondering where they are getting them from if not the two different 2011 Wikimedia Foundation surveys. (2011 (Nov. 2010-April 2011) and November 2011 (April - October 2011)). So should we be using their numbers in our summaries if they are from these studies or mention any explanation they may have of why their numbers differ from the studies or just not bother to mention numbers if their source is unexplained/dubious -- or other options?? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 04:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Continuing putting materials together I realized a possible source of confusion. These images, which represent research findings (which I personally haven't read in detail) show there's a difference even in the late 2011 survey between:

• Gender balance bar chart which uses registered users vs. editors statistics, with former 22% for women, latter 9%
• Predominantly male pie chart which just uses 9% female editors statistic

Even August 5th BBC article fudges the numbers as being "The proportion of editors identifying as female hovers between 8% and 15%". So figuring out why these numbers are poorly presented and correcting it for the media would be helpful. Another GG Task force project, I guess. Unless someone figures it out here :-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:41, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The 9% figure comes from here. This is not unproblematic, since there may be a huge gender bias in who fills out lengthy surveys. Also there is bad wording with a question about knowledge of the "gender divide" instead of "gender gap", which may bias responses. The important Q D16 was directed only at females, (and has other issues), so there is no control group. The gender question was the last but one, and the results of D16 are missed out of the anonymised data. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:52, 24 August 2014 (UTC).

Note that @Koavf: raised with the author of this graphic that it is a misleading graph. The depth of the disc is coloured "male" giving a distorted visual impression. A simple pie chart might be better. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:54, 24 August 2014 (UTC).

Research findings

I spent a couple hours this afternoon reworking the Research findings section. I left a summary/lead sentence at the top - which if anyone can improve, please do - but about the journalists' commentary: I preserved a lot of those sources in the Further reading section because they were mostly clumped together at the end of one sentence, like this:

There has been concern expressed regarding systemic gender bias on Wikipedia, which has been associated with the selection of articles which are maintained.

Cassell was at the beginning of that set of citations, but she's not a journalist, and I've worked her into the section elsewhere.

But mostly, I am tired now (dinnertime), and I think we could write something more meaningful for the reader using this handful of sources. --Lightbreather (talk) 00:58, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm finally starting to put all the material I found on Gender Gap list and other places together in a formatted list - including some new things you have here. Hopefully will have a draft up of at least the news articles and research material in a couple days. There is quite a bit, for sure! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 03:22, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Reagle and Rhue

Could someone who is better at reading these things look this over and come up with a brief summary paragraph?

The International Journal of Communication published research by Reagle and Lauren Rhue that found Wikipedia has more detail in articles about men, with the rate of coverage of females on average, around 100 words less than males on selected biographical articles.

I feel that single sentence doesn't do the report justice. For one, it's not mentioned that the authors compared Wikipedia to Britannica. And I can't find the "100 words less" evidence - but reading this thing makes my head hurt, so someone who is better at it, please? It seems that WP is better than Britannica in some respects when it comes to gender balance/coverage, but not in others. It is from the "Research findings" section. Thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 01:12, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Lightbreather I have improved it (see above) -Reagle (talk) 16:47, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Excellent. Thank you. Lightbreather (talk) 17:04, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The abstract says "For both reference works, article length did not consistently differ by gender." It's worrying that we could report the opposite conclusion. I read this paper at the time, and it would be interesting to see updated figures. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:46, 24 August 2014 (UTC).

Original Research, No Original Research

LawrencePrinciple is attempting to insert original research with this edit (now twice reverted) into this article by bringing up citations and a paragraph that has nothing to do with Wikipedia in any context. The reference is dealing with workplaces, not with online communities, and it's original research to connect the citation or the paragraph to Wikipedia. Tutelary (talk) 18:00, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Another user has blanked out a section dealing with "Cures for Gender Bias" to go along with the "Causes for Gender Bias" section. There is No Original Research in this edit. The text of the section contains no issues against WP:NOR, it is derived from Professor Schermerhorn's book as follows,

Cures

The extensive literature in the management practices and economics of organizational behavior has provided many guidelines and policy approaches for establishing desirable diversity practices such as those countering gender bias in the workplace of both for-profit organizations and non-profit organizations such as Wikipedia. Historically, undesirable patterns of bias have been addressed in the past, dealing with such complex issues as ethnicity, race, religion, and gender. The approaches for addressing these undesirable patterns of bias have shown a great deal of carry-over between effective methodologies which work in correcting one area of bias being applied to correct other types of bias with the purpose of establishing useful diversity. (Schermerhorn, Organizational Behavior, Edition Twelve.)

Jimmy Wales has called for "doubling down" on the issue of gender disparity at Wikipedia earlier this month for the BBC. The field of Organizational Behavior is the field which offers these doubling down methodologies under the heading of enhanced "Diversity" goals. Another user wishes to blank out this material which contains no original research. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 18:53, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Let me ask a simple question; Where in the source did it mention Wikipedia specifically? If it mentions Wikipedia specfiically, then it's not original research and I'll back off. But, if they don't mention Wikipedia, then it's original research to 'connect the dots' and attempt to apply this source towards Wikipedia. Tutelary (talk) 18:56, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, though the connection has to be through Wikimedia first. Professor Schermerhorn indicates that the study of Organizational Behavior applies to all non-profit and for-profit institutions. Wikimedia is federally registered as a non-profit institution. I did not think of making the distinction of the Wikimedia to Wikipedia relation in the edit due to wordiness, still if you prefer to adapt the language to do so then it would cover all the bases. Schermerhorn's book has gone through twelve editions and is recognized as representing the majority weight opinion in this field. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 19:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Even so, in order to include Schermerhorn's work in the article, we need a reliable source that explicitly connects it to Wikipedia's gender gap. —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 19:52, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that is documented at the link for Wikimedia Foundation, and the Wikimedia Foundation is explicitly registered federally as a non-profit institution in Washington as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization under the I.R.S. code. Schermerhorn's claim is that Organizational Behavior as a field applies to all non-profit and for-profit institutions. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 20:06, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Let me be clearer: We need a reliable source that specifically mentions Schermerhorn's research AND specifically mentions Wikipedia's gender gap, and draws a connection between the two. Drawing the connection yourself is original research. —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 20:11, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

That is the opposite of Professor Schermerhorn's claim that his methodology applies to all non-profit and for-profit institutions. Since I have provided that verification that Wikimedia is a non-profit institution, then the material is qualified as verifiable. If you now wish to exclude the Schermerhorn claim, then it is for you to provide a citation which counters Schermerhorn's claim. Schermerhorn's book has gone through 12 editions and it does represent the majority weight consensus in the field. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 20:27, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

No, we don't. It's up to you to have a citation that's directly ontopic to the page 'Gender bias on Wikipedia'. We're not talking about nonprofit institution, the topic at hand is 'Gender bias on Wikipedia'. Unless your citation specifically mentions that when you're describing it, it -is- original research and cannot be included. Additionally, the WP:BURDEN is on you, not me to find a citation for it. Tutelary (talk) 20:47, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that you write "his methodology applies to all non-profit and for-profit institutions" and "I have provided that verification that Wikimedia is a non-profit institution". This connection is one that you have drawn, not someone else, and is therefore original research. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 21:38, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Generally speaking sources that do not specifically mention the topic in question are original research. I didn't have the energy to remove it on that basisa few days back, though I did remove a lot of excess verbiage. When in doubt, find other references on the same or similar topics that mention wikipedia. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:57, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales has just requested that Wikipedia start "doubling down" on the issue of gender bias. There is one major field of study which helps institutions which have trouble with systemic bias based on ethnicity, race, religion, and gender, by providing a large number of methodologies for removing these biases from for-profit and non-profit institutions. Schermerhorn is one prominent scholar who states that organizational behavior is the field which can be used by all institutions to deal with these bias problems including gender bias. All four editors above appear to be stating that because Wikimedia has not hired an expert in this field to publish an article stating that "Wikimedia is an example of a non-profit institution to which the field of organization behavior can be applied", therefore this Wikiproject should ignore all of the methodologies which the field of organizational behavior has to offer for correcting bias problems wherever they occur. Schermerhorn's claim is in essential agreement with these 6 further citations;

Robbins, Stephen P. (2004) Organizational Behavior - Concepts, Controversies, Applications. 4th Ed. Prentice Hall ISBN

0-13-170901-1.

Scott, W. Richard (2007). Organizations and Organizing: Rational, Natural, and Open Systems Perspectives. Pearson Prentice Hall ISBN 0-13-195893-3.

Weick, Karl E. (1979). The Social Psychology of Organizing 2nd Ed. McGraw Hill ISBN 0-07-554808-9.

Simon, Herbert A. (1997) Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organizations, 4th ed., The Free Press.

Tompkins, Jonathan R. (2005) "Organization Theory and Public Management". Thompson Wadsworth ISBN 978-0-534-17468-2.

Kanigel, R. (1997). The One Best Way, Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency. London: Brown and Co.

Morgan, Gareth (1986) Images of Organization Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

If the 4 editors here prefer not to pursue these methodological options from the field of organizational behavior further, then consensus should be established. Otherwise, it is not for any editor at Wikipedia to tell Schermerhorn that his results are excluded from use in Wikipedia because his book only indicates methodologies for non-profit institutions in general, and not Wikimedia in particular. There is no cite that says that Schermerhorn is non-applicable to Wikipedia. (@Tutelary, @Carolmooredc, @G S Palmer, @Mr. Granger) LawrencePrincipe (talk) 01:07, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

In the absence of any further discussion, if posting the above section with the 7 other references added (new citations) in the first sentence is acceptable, then I propose to repost the section with 7 new references after another day or so for responses. That will make it a total of 8 citations in the new section titled "Cures for gender bias" for answering Jimmy Wales' call for "doubling down" on finding new methodologies for dealing with the gender bias issue. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 00:18, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

There is no cite that says that Schermerhorn is non-applicable to Wikipedia. This is the same argument used by UFO theorists. It has no place in the article if it doesn't specifically mention Wikipedia. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 00:25, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not acceptable. As has been explained repeatedly, you need to find a source that specifically mentions both Schermerhorn's research and Wikipedia's gender gap. —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 00:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

@G S Palmer; The Schermerhorn claim is that the established field of Organizational Behavior applies to all organizations. He is joined in this opinion by the 7 (seven) other citations presented above. To exclude Wikipedia-Wikimedia from the group of all organizations because it is not listed in particular appears as too much specificity. Is it your point to say that because Schermerhorn does not mention ATT, Exxon-Mobil, or IBM that this implies his field of study does not apply to them either? @Mr. Granger; This is a Wikiproject page intended to discuss alternatives and make suggestions for making improvements to the project being discussed. Jimmy Wales has just told us that the last four (4) years have failed to find a solution to help. The solution has not yet been found and therefore has not and cannot be documented for Wikipedia in particular until a solution is found for Wikipedia. Schermerhorn says that gender bias has been repaired throughout the world in many organizations, and that the field of Organizational Behavior can help in other organizations experiencing problems with gender bias. Why are you excluding Wikipedia from the group of all organizations? @Carolmooredc; The list of references for Organizational Behavior is now up to eight references, and I think that this is sufficient to support this field as not being a fringe theory. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 12:54, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

LawrencePrincipe, maybe you're confused. This is a Wikipedia article, not a WikiProject. Maybe you're looking for Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force. —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:02, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @LawrencePrincipe: it may apply to all organizations, but since it doesn't mention Wikipedia, it has no place in the article. What you are arguing is like saying that any overarching claim warrants mention in all the articles about subjects that might conceivably fall under it. The only place these citations belong is on an article about gender bias in general. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 13:10, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

While the no original research rule can be frustrating, the best way to see the positive angle is to think of it is, if this original research which doesn't mention Wikipedia is let in, what other stuff that you would hate to see in the article that doesn't mention Wikipedia might be then allowed in. Horrific possibilities. No Original research far more protects article topics than keeps out info that generally is relevant, but doesn't specifically mention the topic at hand. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:21, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

@Mr. Granger; No, no confusion, though I do read the two pages (the Wikiproject and this article) as providing mutually useful information. My concern here is that the existing "Causes" section does not have the normally corresponding "Cures" section to go along with it. There is no reason to exclude the corresponding section. Also, the question I placed to you above was a serious one, Why should Wikipedia-Wikimedia be excluded, by the concerns you raise, from the group of all organizations which Schermerhorn claims can be helped who are dealing with systemic problems with gender bias? @G S Palmer; The discussion of gender bias in general is highly pertinent. General approaches and general solutions to particular problems are part of how general methodologies such as those offered by the field of Organizational Behavior are intended to work. Are you saying that if general solutions exist for solving organizational Gender bias problems, then they should be excluded from use at Wikipedia because they do not mention Wikipedia by name? @Carolmooredc; Could you restate your last comment in light of Schermerhorn. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 13:40, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is saying that the Wikimedia Foundation shouldn't use Schermerhorn's work to fix the gender gap. Maybe they should. But this article should not propose new solutions for fixing the gender gap; it should only document what reliable sources have already said about the gender gap. —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:57, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

@LawrencePrincipe: just because other articles tend to be written that way doesn't mean this article needs a corresponding "Cures" section. Of course, if you were to find other sources covering how to fix the gap, I'm sure you could write an acceptable section for this article. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 14:40, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

If what both @Mr. Granger and @G S Palmer are suggesting is applied then this makes it almost impractical to cover the very rich Schermerhorn material and its many useful suggestions for solving the gender gap problem. Only one of the issues dealing with administration can be saved at this time, following this very high bar for citations. This means putting Schermerhorn aside for the time being and going instead with the new Jemalniak book on Wikipedia who covers the management issue in particular separated from the Schermerhorn material in general. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 00:53, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for adding this (pretty well-cited) information. I still have some concerns, though—the paragraph seems to be implying that the "feedback cycle" of Matsa and Miller applies to Wikipedia administrators. Is this statement attributable to one of the sources cited, or is it WP:Original synthesis? —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 01:48, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I've removed the apparent original synthesis. —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 14:04, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

There is no original synthesis here. This edit was accepted by you and further edits were made by another editor to support the text further. You are reverting against two editors here against Wikipedia policy. Establish consensus on Talk page prior to reverting against two editors. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 05:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I think you may be seeing consensus where there isn't any. There definitely isn't one on this talk page; nor does other editors editing your boldly added text mean it has consensus. I have reverted your revert; you are required to discuss it per WP:BRD. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 10:28, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

The "glass ceiling" edit supported by 3 editors

(section break for ease of access)

@G S Palmer. There are 3 editors who have supported the "glass ceiling" edit. @Mr. Granger just stated above: "Thanks for adding this (pretty well-cited) information." Also, after the 'thanks', then Jinkinson (talk | contribs)‎ made some further supportive edits. @Mr. Granger then reversed direction and decided he didn't like it. The material is fully cited and both myself and @Jinkinson have been editing it. If you have an objection to the citations or feel that the authors of the citations are ill suited to their claims, then you may make you case here. The material presented in the edit has been thoroughly researched. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 15:11, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I apologize for being unclear, but I did not intend to indicate that I supported the edit. I thanked you, to be polite, but in my very next sentence I indicated my concern that the new information was original synthesis. After a few days went by and you didn't respond to this concern, I deleted the information. If you can provide a citation for the notion that the "feedback cycle" applies to Wikipedia administrators, then by all means re-add the information. —Mr. Granger (talk · contribs) 15:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

User:LawrencePrincipe. Perhaps you did not see my Draft of resources for the Gender Gap Task force? I believe it may have several studies regarding Wikipedia which are relevant to the currently original research material you are trying to insert. Please look at them and that may help solve the problem. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:53, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

The proposed edit re "glass ceiling" includes a reference to Jemielniak's book. That book does talk about administrators, but it makes no mention of a "glass ceiling", so I don't know why that is in the edit. I've read the excellent article by Cotter and Hermsen, which identifies four criteria to determine whether there is a glass ceiling. Based upon their criteria, there is no glass ceiling at Wikipedia. Note that the very highest levels, that of the board of trustees, is 50% women. The executive director is female. This is a key aspect of the Cotter and Hermsen work, which specifcally states that a gender imbalance, as is quite true of Wikipedia, does not necessarily imply a glass ceiling. There are gender gap issues worth addressing, but if you want to talk about a glass ceiling, you need to provide evidence that the term applies. Perhaps there are researchers other than Cotter and Hermsen who have different definitions, but unless the Cotter and Hermsen criteria are outliers, the term does not seem to apply.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:50, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Big listing of actual research, other sources

This is a draft of the new Resources page for the Gender Gap Task Force. Working on a few details before it goes live, but TONS of WP:RS from mainstream publications and actual research projects, as well as lots of links to what Wikipedians are actually doing.

Helpful for those who want to know the facts and have best sources for a really good article. One of these days I'll have time to work on this more myself!! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:04, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

The Jemielniak book has quite a few gender issue references. I cannot do anything on it at the moment, but I'll try to check them out, and see if any are missing from the list. For example:

• Gender Trouble in Web 2.0: Gender Relations in Social Network Sites, Wikis and Weblogs by Tanja Carstensen --S Philbrick(Talk) 17:03, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
• Dorota Bourne, Mustafa F. Özbilgin, (2008) "Strategies for combating gendered perceptions of careers", Career Development International, Vol. 13 Iss: 4, pp.320 - 332

I added one more. I think I have now reviewed all references (in Jemielniak) with the word gender in them (which means there could be references discussing gender issues, but not using the term in the title.) There were several others, but the others were in the list.--S Philbrick(Talk) 22:27, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Just gender bias?

Soapboxing: not contributing to improvement of the article. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 14:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Are men always biased towards other men? Wikipedia is all inclusive and I fail to see anything to scare women off of Wikipedia, in fact gender quota's are sexist as they value you belonging to a certain demographic more than your merits. Does Wikipedia have enough black editors? is it biased towards White and Asians? Are there too many non-Africans on it, so all articles about Africa are biased against them? From experience I have yet to meet a single woman who is *not* over over-confident, being addressed as male is off-putting to women whose primary language has grammatical gender; I find this a non-issue as well, if you don't know a person you can't judge their gender, the same that people assume I'm female on Pinterest because outside of the U.K. it is primarily used by women, belief that their contributions will be changed or deleted; the same happens to men, merits and sources are challenged, heck I've had an edit deleted because I couldn't name another source other than the subject (which is considered a biased source), and a lack of user-friendliness sounds more condescending towards women than the so-called biased, the entire list sounds more misogynistic than anything on Wikipedia, women aren't frial children who need protection. Imagine if I'd state that if someone would assume that I was white because I'm European is off-putting, I'd be called a racist, this list is purely misogynistic, and I'm not sure if Feminist organizations wikistorming Wikipedia is an answer to anything, imagine if literally any other group did it, it would be viewed as biased and against Wikipedia's stance on neutrality, Wikipedia had a chance to be something, to be a sole rational voice in a biased world, but by putting kiddy gloves on women they're both misogynistic (for seeing women as special needs people rather than human beings who can be judged on their individual merits), and misandric (for A) assuming that *all* men are biased towards men, and B) keeping men off the staff to fill quota's rather than looking at their merits). One more thing about this supposed bias, why come Wikipedia have a women in [country] article, but never a men in [country], either this is misogyny because it assumes men as the default, or misandry because it assumes that women are all somehow special over men. --86.81.201.94 (talk) 12:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC) --86.81.201.94 (talk) 12:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC) Shall we archive this WP:SOAPBOX? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC) It doesn't really seem like it's intended to start a discussion or improve the article in any way, does it? User:86.81.201.94, do you have any specific changes to the article to propose? Cheers, Dawn Bard (talk) 14:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC) This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. Let's think about what he has to say. "Wikistorming" can cause gender bias on Wikipedia, so he is proposing a discussion on adding wikistorming to the article. Grognard 123chess456 (talk) 14:04, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Scarcity of Women 'Wikipedians' Gets a Closer Look

• Pappas, Stephanie (December 3, 2014). "Wikipedia's Scarcity of Women 'Wikipedians' Gets a Closer Look". NBC News. Live Science. Retrieved December 3, 2014.
• Full report at Live Science

— Cirt (talk) 23:39, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 6 January 2015

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. Both sides make compelling arguments, and this is, by nature, a difficult subject to address objectively. In absence of agreement one way or another, the page remains at its current title. --BDD (talk) 20:05, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Gender bias on Wikipedia → Gender imbalance on Wikipedia – Bias is a judgemental description title, violating the non-judgemental description policy. Imbalance is a neutral word that similarly conveys the difference in numbers, and so should be the title of the page. I disagree with other editors that this article is about a systemic bias, as only source 2 and source 11 mention it out of the 27 sources on the page. The rest of the article is about the difference in numbers, and I think that should be reflected in the title. Resip27 (talk) 17:04, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose - If a statistically significant majority of editors are A, there's an A bias. Also, as a general rule we use the title that reflects most common usage. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:28, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• User:Rhododendrites a survey has found that 97% of anglers are male. Does this mean that angling is sexist? If there are more men than women editing Wikipedia then it is also possible that, to some extent, this says something about men and women and not just something about Wikipedia. The difference in the demographics of Wikipedia may not be solely down to Wikipedia based issues. GregKaye 20:33, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• You have inserted "sexist", which is not at all the same. It would be true to say that if 97% of people who talk about angling are male, there exists a gender bias in the discourse on angling. Again, it's statistics. Gender bias is not the same as sexism; it is cause to investigate what ways that bias may affect content. Language which might be called "sexist" is one of the possible manifestations of gender bias, but not a synonym. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:09, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
• ..and a quick follow-up: Whereas I qualified my statement above by specifying "in the discourse on angling" I'll take that back and say that yes, if 97% of anglers are male there is a gender bias in angling simply due to that statistic. That there is a gender bias does not tell us any specific way anything related to angling is sexist or indeed biased, but only that there exists a gender bias that is worth exploring. Beyond just discourse, what percentage of angling-related clothing is made for women? If the answer is less than 50, we have made a correlation between the gender bias and clothing manufacturing. Does it matter? Is it good or bad? Is it just good business? I don't know, but if a whole lot of reliable sources start talking about the potential effects of a gender bias in angling then it becomes appropriate for Wikipedia. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:07, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support the article can report on the imbalance and then look into potential causes. GregKaye 20:26, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support imbalance; the cause is not necessarily bias KymFarnik (talk) 21:43, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
• Weak support. This is an interesting one. On one hand, I think bias is an accurate term for the problem, and certainly enough sources use it that we're justified in doing so as well. However, on the other hand, with descriptive titles we do aim to be as neutral as possible. In this case, we have another term which is just as accurate as, but more neutral than, bias. No one can deny that Wikipedia has a significant gender imbalance in its contributors; some deny that bias, institutional or otherwise, plays a role (e.g [2]). So I say we should use imbalance, like many other sources. Obviously, bias can still be used in the text wherever appropriate.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 21:51, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment - Gender bias is the subject of the article and the subject which has become a major part of the discourse about Wikipedia. Gender imbalance is not -- at least not directly. The reason this subject gets as much attention as it does is not simply because most editors are male but because we offer a popular and powerful general knowledge resource which we acknowledge would be different if more women participated. It's about the potential effects of the imbalance (i.e. the bias) and not the imbalance itself. Working in the other direction, that you can say the product might be different based on the gender mix of editors means you're acknowledging a gender bias and not just an imbalance. Gender bias and not imbalance is the term used to be specific about the possible effects a skewed set of participants has on results. Bias does not mean sexist, it does not mean editors are pushing a pro-male agenda, etc. but it means it's different in some way. And that's the concern the vast majority of reliable sources who write about the subject have. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:40, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment If you opposing, please do include why you think the word 'bias' is sufficiently neutral. I think that is the crux of this. Also, this article contains no research on how editing has been biased in favour of male-related topics, it is concerned with the difference in numbers of editors with speculation that this may result in biased attention to different articles. --Resip27 (talk) 12:36, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Assuming this is in part directed at me, as the only oppose so far, though I fear you haven't read what I've written. I furthermore object to trying to frame the discussion along a single dimension. You are exactly right about this however: this article contains no research on how editing has been biased in favour of male-related topics, it is concerned with the difference in numbers of editors with speculation that this may result in biased attention to different articles. As multiple times above, the difference in numbers is indeed the imbalance. But that's not what reliable sources are concerned with. What they care about are implications for the encyclopedia['s content]. That's the subject of the article. If you feel there's undue weight placed on certain opinions, unreliable sources used, etc. then by all means bring that up. But the subject is gender bias, not gender imbalance. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:02, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oops, didn't mean to be passive aggressive, newbie here. I disagree that this article is about a systemic bias, as only source 2 and source 11 mention it out of the 27 sources on the page. The rest of the article is about the difference in numbers, and I think that should be reflected in the title. Furthermore, the other sources variously refer to this phenomenon as the Wikipedia gender gap (four times), gender imbalance, and gender-skewed contributions. --Resip27 (talk) 18:08, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• 2 out of 27 sounds like a text search on each page, assuming no hits for the search term equals no discussion of the subject. I, too, opened all of the refs and looked for talk of gender bias on Wikipedia -- which is to say I looked for sources which discuss not just the gender imbalance among editors (the "difference in numbers") but the way the gender imbalance among editors may or may not have an impact on encyclopedia content, which is gender bias. Note that even a source saying "no, there is no gender bias" is still talking about gender bias on Wikipedia. I'll collapse the list by default and, conscious of over-contributing to this thread thus far and not knowing what else I could even say, will try to leave it at that. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:18, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Addressing the statement that only 2 of 27 current sources talk about gender 'bias (rather than a numeric imbalance)

It's worth nothing, first, that a few were inaccessible to me either because there was no url given or because of a broken link or broken video, and at least one ref is a duplicate. Also, there are a whole lot more sources out there on the subject that aren't presently cited. But still, let's focus on these. Ref 2: Her effort is not diversity for diversity’s sake, she says. “This is about wanting to ensure that the encyclopedia is as good as it could be,” Ms. Gardner said in an interview on Thursday. ... “Everyone brings their crumb of information to the table,” she said. “If they are not at the table, we don’t benefit from their crumb.” -- This refers to Sue Gardner, by the way, who has issued a number of well-publicized statements about the gender gap's implications for content on Wikipedia. Ref 8: While it is not possible to infer a causal link, Lauren Rhue of New York University and I have been investigating if there is a bias against female representation in Wikipedia's biographies. Ref 9: relative length of articles and the number of articles that concern “women’s interests” (the Times article cites friendship bracelets and “Sex and the City”) vs. articles that concern “men’s interests” Ref 10: Title is: "Wikipedia Is Male-Dominated. That Doesn't Mean It's Sexist". Ref 11: Title is: "Gender Bias in Wikipedia and Britannica". Very first sentence is: Is there a bias against women’s representation in Wikipedia biographies? Ref 12: Survey asks several questions asking whether gender played a role in editorial disputes, etc. Ref 13: We look at the nature of the imbalance itself, its effects on the quality of the encyclopedia... Ref 15: Racial and gender diversity in authorship is also important. While Wikipedia’s editors are 90 percent male, 61 percent of education program participants are women, and that’s shifting the content from pop culture and so-called STEM topics – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – to social sciences and the humanities. Ref 18: And solving the gap is important not just for women, but for the site as a whole. Reagle is the first to admit that a lack of diversity hurts Wikipedia. Not only does a male-dominated culture lead to more biased articles, but also, research has shown that collective intelligence of a group goes up with increased social sensitivity, conversational turn-taking, and female participation. Ref 19: the theory of "crowd-sourcing" appears to hold that Wikipedia's articles can only truly be neutral and comprehensive if its contributors are reflective of real world demographics. Ref 20: The gender gap has had a quantifiable impact on the quality and coverage of the encyclopedia: articles on topics of interest to female editors received less coverage than those of interest to male editors, and articles within those topic areas were shorter on average Ref 21: this is Gardner's blog post as a direct follow-up to Ref 2 above Ref 22: "systematic gender bias" in the online encyclopedia. Ref 23: less than 15 percent of its editors are women. As a result, the Internet encyclopedia is a lopsided, Axe-scented version of the world Ref 25: Entire article is a case study on how the gender gap affects content Ref 26: "There are only 1,500 articles about women scientists in Wikipedia. We are missing at least half of them," (again talking about Gardner's view of the importance of this issue) Ref 27: Making Wikipedia readers and editors more aware of the systemic gender bias inherent in the encyclopedia’s structure

I have seen the references, and my point still stands, exactly as I made it. The references you put up there note that some have asked questions about a bias in Wikipedia articles, and some have studied whether there is one and found minor conclusions that are on the Wiki page. The majority of this page, however, is about the lack of women on Wikipedia, why that situation exists, and how that has been received. It is not an article directly about a systemic bias, it is an article about a numbers imbalance, with a couple of mentions of the possible effects of this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Resip27 (talk • contribs) 21:13, 7 January 2015‎

• (Hope I indented this right.) @Resip27: Actually, that's not correct. This article does discuss research on whether Wikipedia's content is biased in favor of male-related topics, in the paragraph that begins "The International Journal of Communication published research". —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:58, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Rhododendrites. PearlSt82 (talk) 17:23, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose this article is about systemic bias. Systemic bias is a specific form of bias that occurs due to an imbalance in the demographics of the participants. The suggested title change would seem to obscure what this article is actually about. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 17:40, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per the excellent arguments by Rhododendrites. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 18:05, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support I made it, I presume I'm allowed to vote, not sure on that. --Resip27 (talk) 21:13, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
  • No, the nomination is your !vote.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:31, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per Rhododendrites. Lightbreather (talk) 03:28, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
• Absolutely support on WP:NPOV grounds. --IJBall (talk) 21:08, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support per NPOV; "bias" implies motivation to many readers.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:31, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Another example of gender bias

Wikipedia often lists "men as the default", for example there is a Women in South Korea article but not a Men in South Korea article, there is a Women in video games article, but not a Men in video games article, to name a few, this is by itself a form of sexism. --86.81.201.94 (talk) 16:38, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is, but until you can find reliable sources covering it (such as articles covering the Amanda Filipacchi event) it can't be added. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 18:04, 7 January 2015 (UTC) Sorry, misunderstood question. Had it reversed in my head. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 21:43, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Men's rights advocates are considered fringe groups and therefore not sufficiently notable to have their work represented - WP:NFRINGE. Feminism and its theorists are considered to be notable, and therefore articles about women's rights etc. have notable sources to allow the creation of Wiki pages. --Resip27 (talk) 21:09, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

So write an article about Men in Korea, Men in Video Games, then. And it's not "sexism", whatever the hell that might be. 78.146.173.251 (talk) 19:52, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

GamerGate ArbCom reporting

Loganmac added a couple sentences on the ArbCom GamerGate case.

The addition began with: "In January 2015, the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee banned five feminist editors deemed to be breaking the site’s rules from gender-related articles amid the GamerGate controversy. This gathered a response from outlets such as The Guardian."

For those not up on this, the case attracted some media attention in the last few days after a blog post was picked up by The Guardian. Unfortunately the Guardian and now a number of others did not fact check the blog post, which was based on a draft decision posted before the lengthy discussion, revisions, and finally voting before anybody could possibly be sanctioned. Even now that it's closing, nobody is set to be banned, though several (including Loganmac) will be topic-banned.

I reverted the addition. While it will likely be appropriate to include something about this case on this page, it seems we should discuss that here first and almost certainly wait to see what coverage it gets after it closes.

Loganmac restored the edit with edit summary "See Verifiability, not truth. This got a reaction from a lot of places". As an involved party in the case, and as this edit summary suggests, Loganmac is aware that the text he added is false but added it a second time on the basis of WP:V. This seems to be a pretty clear case of gaming or POV-pushing. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I would argue that the coverage of gamergate on Wikipedia has been highly negative and is an example of bias on Wikipedia. Unfortunately as online communities continue to polarize politically, those with an agenda attempt to wage a war while using Wikipedia as a battle field. I do not feel that Wikipedia could ever entirely negate bias, but quite frankly the article is an embarrassing example of extreme bias that attempts to frame controversy through a gendered perspective.

I think the Gamergate case, though it makes for interesting reading, is not relevant to this page. The fact that the "gendergap" exists for other online communities is only marginally relevant, and Wikipedia really doesn't need to compare itself to the internet gaming community, especially since the direction the "Wikidata: The Game" is leading us towards is one that is leaning towards exactly the type of woman-friendly games that women play on their iPads all the time. Jane (talk) 09:18, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Gender bias vs. Gender imbalance

It is a chicken and the egg story which comes first, namely that we are creating a large gender bias with each year of Wikipedia as we move forward, vs we lack female editors, leading to gender imbalance among contributors. This whole article concentrates on the English Wikipedia, but the situation is dramatic (perhaps more so) in non-English Wikipedias, which are not even mentioned here. We often see it stated that Sue Gardner was unsuccessful in her mission to attract more female editors over the course of her 5-year-plan. I would like to see it confirmed that in fact she was quite successful, just not in other projects and only on the English Wikipedia. No one could have known then how hard it is to attract and keep female editors, but we are seeing an improvement from survey to survey in the English Wikipedia, whilest seeing much worse numbers in non-English Wikipedias. I think the lack of reliable sources to create gendergap articles in those languages is mostly due to the mixed messages in this article. While the lead states it is about bias in Wikipedia, the article is about the imbalance in numbers of editors. I think we need to revisit the structure of this article, and maybe we need two articles, one about the history of the gender imbalance according to surveys, and one about noted bias in article coverage. We have sources to cover both. Jane (talk) 09:28, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Statistics about administrators

User:LawrencePrincipe recently edited this article to add some information about the ratio of female to male administrators. As far as I can tell, this information is cited not to a reliable published source, but instead to the output of a SQL script written by an editor and run on the Wikipedia database. In my opinion, this is original research, so I reverted the edit. LawrencePrincipe raised the matter on my talk page here.

I oppose the edit because, in my opinion, Wikipedia articles should report statements published in reliable sources, not new discoveries by Wikipedia editors. (I think this position is supported by WP:NOR.) I would appreciate other editors' opinions on the issue. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:14, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I support this removal. There is also an additional reason (as with all kinds of barebone statistics; you know the joke :-): the bare fact " the statistical ratio of self-identified gender among Wikipedia administrators was given as: female=56, male= 600" without analysis is useless (and even misleading if taken without thinking):

(a) What is the total num of admins? (i.e., whether the data reported is a representative sample)

(b) There are reasons to believe that many female editors don't self-identify to avoid harassment and/or discrimination.

Therefore without additiona; reasonable survey we cannot put real meaning to these numbers. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:36, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

@Staszek Lem: The data is published by Wikimedia Foundation and is available for publication upon request by using the tool and link which I provided with the edit. Many applications have been written by them and they may be used as reliable data for publication provided that the link is still being published by Wikimedia. You can verify by re-running the link provided for the stats in the edit as posted. There is no reason to challenge Wikimedia Foundation data without any foundation or cite. The statistic published here is that of the total current number of administrators who self-identify their gender that 56 are female and the rest are male of the total current number of administrators who self-identify their gender. The article in its current form makes several claims about woman administrators and this data from Wikimedia Foundation provides a stronger basis for this discussion. LawrencePrincipe (talk) 02:57, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

You are probably talking to @Mr. Granger:. My concern is different. It is primary source data. At best, you may use it as an additional illustration of the discussion about female admins, referenced from secondary sources, which put these data into proper context, to interpret them correctly. Contrary to your clam, the article does not discuss women admins or sysops or bureaucrats, etc. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

What is all that stuff based in?

It seems there are surveys and findings pointing that most editors of Wikipedia are male. But how were those data colected? Checking userboxes or information about gender in userpages? Not all users specify their gender; actually I bet most of them do not. Personally asking every user? I am here since 2009 and I was never asked about my gender and I've never observed anything similar to that happening to other users.

These supposed "surveys" say that 85-95% of all Wikipedia active editors during a given time were male, but such percentage would only be possible to achieve if you knew the particular gender of every single user in Wikipedia, and this is not possible. If they said that this percentage refers only to people who specified their gender, it would be more accurate. - - Alumnum (talk) 01:24, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, also most editors are I.P. editors and I share my I.P. Address with multiple people, several of which are female, I honestly am curious to the sources of these statistics as well.

Sincerely, --Namlong618 (talk) 11:08, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The sources are mentioned in the footnotes. For example the figures I just added of 22.7% and 16.1% can be found here. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:00, 9 March 2015 (UTC).

It seems these sources are based on voluntary surveys. I would be trully surprised if they cover a fourth of our users. - - Alumnum (talk) 23:46, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

"I would be truly surprised if they cover a fourth of our users." Alumnum, that is how surveys are done. One need not survey the entire population of users, but rather a statistical sample. Do you question the validity of the survey methodology used in the Public Library of Science article that Rich Farmbrough mentioned? If you do, I would be very happy to discuss it further here. I am a statistician, and I know how rare it is to get to talk about these kind of things!--FeralOink (talk) 02:28, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Why does the majority of editors being male necessarily lead to systemic bias?

To prove that having a majority of male editors leads to systemic bias, this column is cited. That column does not constitute research or a reliable source. Noam Cohen is a columnist expressing an opinion, not a researcher. The opinion that having a majority of male editors leads to systemic bias is not backed with research in the link being cited. If it is true that having a majority of male editors does in fact lead to systemic bias, then research is needed to show this, not mere opinion.

As far as I can tell, research shows that a majority of contributors are in fact male, but research has not been done on whether this leads to systemic bias or not. The personal opinions of a feminist columnist are here being cited as fact. --BenMcLean (talk) 16:25, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

The column cited does not appear to be an opinion piece, nor is material in the lede the product of just one source- generally it's a summary of the main article. As such, we don't need to attribute it as stringently as that unless it is not widely held or easily verifiable. We don't write 'according to John Smith, the sky is blue' etc. PeterTheFourth (talk) 04:30, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Arkon, that's the second time you've inserted attribution into the lede statement. Would you please explain on the talk page why you believe this is necessary, and contribute to the discussion? PeterTheFourth (talk) 00:13, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

The column cited does not appear to be an opinion piece

If it does not appear to be an opinion piece, then what the hell does it appear to be? It's certainly not news, and not research, what does that leave?

nor is material in the lede the product of just one source

The one source that's actually cited there is neither authoritative nor reliable. If the argument is a product of the other sources, then those other sources should be cited, not this one, cause this one's no good. (because it's just opinion) --BenMcLean (talk) 04:35, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

It's investigative journalism, defined by google (the One True Source) as "Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest[...]" PeterTheFourth (talk) 05:40, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

What was the investigation in this case!? How would investigative journalism reveal systemic bias? Isn't all investigative journalism anecdotal evidence when what would be needed to show systemic bias would be statistical evidence? --BenMcLean (talk) 20:37, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

I am wondering whether anybody perused the column in question. It does speak of gender bias, but does not speak of systemic bias a all. So I removed this footnote from the intro. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:01, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

The Atlantic - How Wikipedia Is Hostile to Women

• Paling, Emma (October 21, 2015). "How Wikipedia Is Hostile to Women". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on October 21, 2015. Retrieved October 21, 2015.

---

Suggested source.

Added to Further reading sect for now. — Cirt (talk) 18:32, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Eric's an admin? Arkon (talk) 18:36, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

no. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:17, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Source for what? Precisely what new information is in this source which is missing from our article? Staszek Lem (talk) 19:20, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I re-read the article twice. Conslusion: "copy-paste journalism", i.e., rehashing old newz. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:27, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Hardly copy-paste journalism -- which you're unlikely to find in one of the world’s leading magazines. MarkBernstein (talk) 22:10, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Here is cite from WP:EL for your convenience:

Some acceptable links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy.

Some external links are welcome (see What can normally be linked, below), but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic.

So, once again please explain what additional info is in this source and why this info cannot be added into article body, with regular footnoting. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:15, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: Staszek Lem (talk) 22:31, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

The Atlantic piece mentions specific issues relating to within-Wikipedia gender pressures which the current WP article doesn't, apart from a rather generic mention of "A toxic culture and tolerance of violent and abusive language are also reasons put forth for the gendergap". 'Eric' does indeed appear to have posted the remark attributed to him in The Atlantic, which was probably unwise in a discussion of (in)civility regardless of how ironically or otherwise he intended it to be taken. As for the claim that The Atlantic article is a 'cut-and-paste' job, I’d be surprised not to find more egregious examples much less vigorously policed on other WP pages, so I’m not sure why this one was removed so quickly! And if The Atlantic piece contains inaccuracies, then take it up with the publisher – this is a 'Further reading' item, not WP page content in its own right! JezGrove (talk) 22:35, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Latest Data on Gender of Wikipedia Editors

Do we have any data for the gender of editors that is more recent than 2011? A lot might have changed in 4 years. In any case, this is something we need to measure so that we can see what's working to close the gender gap and what isn't. What's the latest dataset we can reference? Thanks!-wʃʃʍ- 01:53, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Untitled

Please help us end systemic biases in Wikipedia NOW: Join the Gender Gap TF.

There you can coordinate with other Wikipedians who are countering the effects of systemic biases among Wikipedians and, consequently, on Wikipedia Articles about women, women in history, women in science, a.s.o. If you can help put an immediate end to gender bias in the Wikipedian Community, please add yourself to our Coordination page, and talk to other GGTF volunteers about coordinating on specific articles there.

And please help improve this Gender bias on Wikipedia Article. It is outdated. Please see Talk:Gender bias on Wikipedia/Archive 2#prep to update article - 2015 sources & citations below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LeoRomero (talk • contribs) 20:14, 23 December 2015 (UTC)