The Signpost

In the media

"Wikipedia's hostility to women"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joanna Newsom: "Wikipedia is amazing."
  • Joanna Newsom's high dive: Joanna Newsom talks about her enjoyment of Wikipedia in a Newsweek article (October 21). A journey down one particular Wikipedia "rabbit hole", focused on Washington Square Park, provided inspiration for the song "Sapokanikan" on Newsom's recently released album Divers.
  • The future according to Wikipedia: The Long + Short magazine looks at some predictions of the future contained on Wikipedia's pages (October 20).
  • 2010s in fashion: Slate describes the Wikipedia page 2010s in fashion as "the most haunting document of our time" (October 20).
  • Wikipedia article found in juror notebook: MLive.com reports (October 15) that a Wikipedia article found in a juror's notebook may have improperly affected a jury's decision in a Michigan murder case. (During a jury trial, jurors are not allowed to take recourse to any source of information other than those supplied or approved by the court.)
  • Koavf profiled: Prolific Wikipedia editor Koavf is profiled on Priceonomics.com (October 14) and newser.com (October 18).
  • Johnny Au profiled: User:Johnny Au is profiled (October 12) in the Toronto Star for his long-term attention to the Toronto Blue Jays article.
  • The chaotic wisdom of Wikipedia paragraphs: Paul Ford, writing for The New Republic, presents an engaging discussion (October 7) of Wikipedia's markup language.



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