Grants talk:IdeaLab/Survey to understand root causes of Gender Gap

My role in this idea

Dear Wikipedians, I'm contributing with this idea to try to address the "Contributor Gender Gap" (current Wikimedia campaign), however due to personal commitments I can't put efforts in leading it. Can anyone please help here? Thanks & regards, DPdH (talk) 02:06, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

IMO thats something what is needed to be done by academic stuff; so some project run by universities (and e.g. financed by WMF). If Wikipedians try it by themselfes its probably get some results nobody is sure if they are worth a penny.

and universities! - Not just one in NYC. There are different reallities in the countries. Probably the reason in India is a different one then in Japan, different to Germany, the US aso. ...Sicherlich ^Post 16:09, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

The only reasonable approach

Find the cause, then see if you can change it. In real life thats the way you act. If your car is broken; first find the reason, then repair it. Most of the other ideas so far change different parts of the car assuming thats the reason. But not knowing. So in the end you pay a lot for the spare parts. But maybe filling in some gas would have been the solution :) ...Sicherlich ^Post 16:10, 8 March 2015 (UTC) btw.: that is something I would expect WMF would have found out by themself.

I would change the idea a bit we talked about that yesterday on de . We need to find out why people in general do not contribute. 99.9 % of our readers do not edit; why? - Then we have to things; we can, maybe, find ways to generally attract more autors and 2nd we can see the differences between male and female autors and then, again: maybe, find ways to get more women to edit ...Sicherlich ^Post 16:16, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

There have already been several surveys

There have already been several surveys of this kind. The UNU-MERIT study (survey conducted 2008, report published 2010) reported on reasons women don't edit Wikipedia and there have been several other studies since then. How would this one differ from the ones that went before, and increase our knowledge of the issues? --Skud (WMF) (talk) 00:39, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I didn't know the survey. you say "several surveys" - So why are they not linked on Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire as a base for people to check? Wouldn't that be the efficent way to inform people so that they can see where the issues are and don't need to guess? why is it on web.archive and not on commons?

Anyways; the surves presents the reasons why women do not contribute. But not why man do not edit. So how do we know where the difference is? Most women say they think they do not know enough to contribute. Okay so? If we would successfully adress that issue; how do we know that not man are much more concerned about that?

Most people do not contribute. If you want to raise the female autors percantage you need to know the differences and act on that base. ...Sicherlich ^Post 07:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC) right, its on purpose I wrote you not we. I don't agree on the idea of supporting women only. anyways; not so long ago you wanted attract more writers in general; no effect at all. why would that be different now. specially as it seems nobody cares about the scientific base as nobody knows it

Hmm, and the survey does ignore the possibility of cultural differences. I think it's not unlikely that the reasons for women in US is different to the ones in Russia, Japan, Germany aso. But maybe there are surveys on that too. Somewhere on the internet ...Sicherlich ^Post 07:46, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

1. I'm working on Address the gender gap/FAQ to summarise what reseearch we have and what answers it has given us so far. You're right that it's not well linked from the Inspire campaign -- I'll look into that. 2. I've already posted an Idea for to re-analyse the UNU-MERIT data to better understand the differences in motivation between men and women and also one to survey women who don't contribute (either never have, or quit) to understand their reasons. --Skud (WMF) (talk) 21:23, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Thx for the answer.

1. - no personal offense but how long does WMF striving to get more women to join? And now someon (you :) ) is working on wrapping up what facts we have? Well, ...

2. reanalyse; good. if the raw material is still there somewhere why not. But of course it's not the newest data and the question raises if it will give us sufficent informationen about the differences in cultures/countries?

further more I wonder if it is not anyways usefull to make a 2nd (or 3rd ... :) ) research. Different (scientific) apporaches. Different questions, different time aso. What I saw so far on the IdeaLab is mostly not based on any research or datas but just gambling around. (and some are plain discrimination)

But maybe I have not much saying in there. Its not my grant application and I dont believe in the success o getting more women. while reading that WMF started only now to make some overview about the datas while the whole women support thing goes on since 2(?) years makes me less believe in any sucess. it seems now even more like a lottery.

...Sicherlich ^Post 17:03, 11 March 2015 (UTC) 

@ User:Skud (WMF):

The questions need to me more specific now as well.

56.46 %: "I don't think I have enough information to contribute" - well, is it so or is this person just afraid? Sterotype: women have less self-confidence then men. But maybe its true, maybe women are less aducated in the field of "academic" work? (if so; is it in germany the same like in some arabic contry)

31.18 % - I don't have time - everybody has 24 h a day :) - so its just telling us that they have more important things to do. Like what? Taking care of babies as they are mothers and the father cares less? (something we could hardly change) or do they simply hat the idea to sit in front of a computer? maybe with others its better (probably; but as shown in Germany; it works but at least in germany there is no spreading the idea or fast-selling item.)

26.87 % I don't know how - well what to do with that? I dont know how to start technicly? I dont know which topic to select? I dont know whom to send my application? :)

aso. we need questions (and answers :) ) which could give us more precise an idea what to change. Maybe its not a questionary we need but people going around and asking. maybe we need a "lab test"- But please. Not the WMF style we asked 8 people and thats the "scientific base" that the search field on the right is the best. IMO we need for that talkes with social scientist how to do it and let them do it

...Sicherlich ^Post 17:21, 11 March 2015 (UTC) so, hopefully thats from my side :) - going back to the core work

Focus on the North American market

Considering every language Wikipedia is different and the gender gap doesn't exist in some, it would be wise to focus on one, the WMF's darling child: English Wikipedia. Limit to US and Canada and we'd able to use other market research too. IIRC previous surveys' questions were supposedly flawed. I'd suggest making into a ongoing monthly survey. Dispenser (talk) 21:42, 12 March 2015 (UTC)