Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license.
Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat.
We can research this topic together.
Welcome to the Gender gap task force, a task force belonging to WikiProject Countering systemic bias. A task force consists of a group of editors devoted to the management of a particular issue or topic on Misplaced Pages. This page has been set up to ease coordination of our efforts.
If you'd like to help out in any way, please add your name to the list of participants.
The aim of the task force is to identify gender bias on Misplaced Pages (including gender bias in articles, the selection of articles maintained, discussions, editor interactions, policies and implementation of policies), take steps to counter it, and raise awareness of how the gender gap can affect editorial and other decisions.
As WP:BIAS notes, a 2011 Wikimedia Foundation survey found that 8.5 percent of editors were women. The gender gap has not been closing and, on average, female editors leave Misplaced Pages earlier than male editors. Research suggests that the gender gap has a detrimental effect on content coverage. Articles of particular interest to women tend to be shorter, and women typically perceive Misplaced Pages to be of lower quality than men do.
Misplaced Pages has a longstanding controversy concerning gender bias and sexism which has been associated with the selection of articles which are maintained in the open-source encyclopedia. Misplaced Pages has been criticized by some journalists and academics for lacking not only women contributors but also extensive and in-depth encyclopedic attention to many topics regarding gender. An article in The New York Times cites a Wikimedia Foundation study which found that fewer than 13% of contributors to Misplaced Pages are women. Sue Gardner, previously executive director of the foundation, said that increasing diversity was about making the encyclopedia "as good as it could be." She previously had set a policy goal for increasing general women enrollment to 25% system wide by 2015, and expanding the presence of woman who are administrators at Misplaced Pages to 25%, and then eventually towards 50%.
Factors the article cited as possibly discouraging women from editing included the "obsessive fact-loving realm," associations with the "hard-driving hacker crowd," and the necessity to be "open to very difficult, high-conflict people, even misogynists."
Notice: This is a Misplaced Pages user page, not a Misplaced Pages article.
As such it may contain opinions and unsupported facts...even possible HUMOR.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.
–Jimmy Wales
Oh, let me explain, then. I hear from many people who are BLP enforcers that they feel unsupported and there are constant concerns about whether they will be fully backed if they do what is necessary. In general, I think those fears are overblown, but the point I am making today is that I am standing firm on this issue. BLP enforcement is important. Speedy deletion, blocking people violating the policy, protecting pages, sprotecting pages, what needs doing can be done confidently. First, protect the reputations of people who may be in a position of being victimized by someone by using our resources. And sort out the details later, there is no rush. If there's a horrible murderer out there somewhere and if for a week Misplaced Pages doesn't have an article at all, until finally some reliable sources are fine, that's perfectly ok. What's not ok is BLP violations. I think everyone agrees with that, but not everyone yet fully understands that those who disagree are quite simply wrong and will have no power when a decision comes in judgment of whatever may have happened in a difficult situation.
I'm a participant in Misplaced Pages:Disambiguation and Misplaced Pages:Recent changes patrol. I also seem to be pretty good at negotiating and mediating disputes before they turn into edit wars. In real life I often act as impromptu mediator when two people are arguing, it seems to be a natural talent of mine, or my background in psychology. So now I find myself searching wiki for potential edit wars and anything else that looks interesting. I click the revert button a lot. I also cut and paste parts of other people's user pages and add them to my own if I think they are nice or if I think they fit. This is particularly true of Userboxen.
These are mostly humor articles that rubbed some admin or other the wrong way. I either created or contributed content to each of these. All have been up for deletion, speedy deletion, or are in a state of deletion as of this writing (any red ones).
This is for single-handedly preventing an edit war in which I most certainly would have made an ass of myself (along with the other guy and probably half the group). It was getting ugly- then you came along. Your solution was a pretty good one. We all thank you for your arbitration! Chahax02:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
The Outlaw Halo Award
Is hereby presented to Sue Rangell, for her audacious edits, which have given me some of the best laughs I've had in weeks. Thank you for your contributions to the community. Kathryn NicDhàna♫♦♫07:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
The Civility Barnstar
You seem to be have a problem in regards of the recently deleted page about a meme. Thank you for your great work on maintaining the encyclopedia against those wild swarm of IPs. Have a nice day! Mediran01:37, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Many thanks for your tireless efforts in keeping Misplaced Pages clear of article spam and other nonsense. Misplaced Pages is a better quality project because of hardworking and conscientious editors like you!--Hu12 (talk) 06:16, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
AfD Barnstar of Distinction
Please accept this AfD Barnstar of Distinction and my personal gratitude for your tireless work in AfD. Every time I see the pastel cloud, I know that we we are one step closer to having a great encyclopedia. - MrX01:23, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
To also reiterate thanks for your much improved comments and work at WP:AfD and your particularly supportive 'oppose' on Darkwind's RfA. As you said, truly an experience I'd never wish on any editor, friend or foe. Mkdw08:15, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
The Civility Barnstar
You're capable of remaining (almost painfully) civil even when people are complaining about your edits or other actions, or when offering feedback even in opposition to something. I wish you could teach that skill to others! —Darkwind (talk) 03:04, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
RfA candidate
S
O
N
S%
Ending (UTC)
Time left
Dups?
Report
RfB candidate
S
O
N
S%
Ending (UTC)
Time left
Dups?
Report
No RfXs since 17:37, 25 December 2024 (UTC).—Talk to my owner:Online
Invite others to join! To perform a request, insert {{subst:Gender gap TF invitation}} into their talk page. This results in the following welcome message:
We invite you to join Gender Gap task force. There you can coordinate with users who are trying to identify gender bias on Misplaced Pages (including gender bias in articles, in editor interactions, policies and implementation of policies) and take steps to counter it. If you would like to get involved, just visit the Gender Gap task force. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or other members of the task force.Happy editing, Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)16:37, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Mind the Gap Award
To use this award paste the following template with your own message on the userpage: {{subst:Mind the Gap Award|1=Put your message here. ~~~~}}
Set targets for numbers of women in Misplaced Pages, actively recruit women editors and administrators, help retain women editors by offering aid on issues women face more than do men.
Other affirmative action-type proposals that might help women effectively deal with bias and continue editing.
Promote! Promote! Promote! Use the templates above and talk up the project to other editors.
Ensure that categories are used in accordance with the guideline above. Promote changes in the FA and GA criteria to ensure that promoted articles are correctly categorized. (Note: There is a main Category:Women and thousands of categories that have "Women" in their titles. There also are a couple thousand categories with "female" in the title.)
Write essays
Write one or more essays on the problems women editors face, how Misplaced Pages's dispute-resolution processes can help and how those processes can be improved. Consider ideas from this "geek feminism" page on working in community with men.
Resources
Gender Gap at Wikimedia page has many links to articles, research, discussion and action items. Some of the most relevant are below.
Alaska • 
Japan • 
Switzerland • 
USA • 
California • 
Canada • 
Mexico • 
Barbados • 
Brazil • 
Texas • 
England • 
Nevada • 
Singapore • 
Colorado • 
Saudi Arabia • 
Michigan • 
Egypt • 
Florida • 
Hong Kong • 
Belize • 
Minnesota • 
Germany • 
New Mexico • 
Spain • 
Italy • 
Cuba • 
Jamaica• 
Bermuda • .svg){kind=small}
Antarctica • 
Chile • 
Nicaragua • 
Panama
This user is identified to the Wikimedia Foundation. (verify)
