And if all that wasn't repulsive enough......
here are the consummate nerds of Metafilter, arguing about the NYT article.
Best comments:
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Maybe women have lives.
posted by Segundus at 6:51 AM on January 31 [9 favorites]
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I'm surprised that the reputation for general jackassery wikipedia editors have hasn't come up yet. My disinterest in editing wikipedia has more to do with my lack of interest in stepping into flame wars, having topics I think are important deleted, having my edits undone with snippy comments in talk, and so on than it does with my theoretical difficulty with using a wiki.
posted by immlass at 7:05 AM on January 31 [17 favorites]
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Women already do this stuff, but we tend to do it in our own communities. You name just about any single media property with any kind of fanbase, and I can direct you to the Wiki, the Lexicon, the archive, and at least 2 major communities for them, all built by women.
Just because we're not building those things on Wikipedia doesn't mean we're not capable or interested. We are, and we're achieving them with perfectly elegant coding, scripting, and other technology.
I've tried to edit on Wikipedia, but I find the "This is my troll bridge, you may not pass!" attitude obnoxious. I can add all kinds of things to male YA authors' pages with minimal cites and no one says a word.
Whereas, every time I try to add a female YA author, or contribute to their pages, I invariably end up with some obnoxious gatekeeper complaining that my cites from Publisher's Weekly and School Library Journal aren't NEARLY enough, and besides, this author isn't SIGNIFICANT enough to have an entry, who cares if she published three books? They're not NOTEWORTHY. Meanwhile, 1-Book Nobody Dude's Wikipedia page is 14 printable pages long.
So, I wish Sue Gardner luck, I really do. But I have enough parity stuff I have to fight about; fighting to post on Wikipedia doesn't even make the top 100.
posted by headspace at 8:46 AM on January 31 [33 favorites]
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My apologies then for misinterpreting your words, but we're talking about a gender imbalance in the Wikipedia editing community, so if by "general public" you mean men and women equally then the difficulty of the editing process can't be the cause.
Incorrect. It's simply reflecting the larger imbalance between the genders in technology enthusiasts... see the point made earlier about MIT comp sci students. Wikipedia is kept difficult to use and master for those who are not inclined to tackle steep technical and social learning curves - this includes almost everyone who isn't a computer hobbyist.
Consensus is not respected. Rules-lawyering and its attendant pecking-order macho male-aggressive bullshit is the order of the day. The environment is pretty hostile to newcomers and those who don't like long, protracted ego jousts to defend their "turf."
It's a culture designed to keep most women out.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:51 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
This post has been edited by EricBarbour: