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

Survey to understand root causes of Gender Gap

It is difficult to address a problem without knowing what causes it. So the first step in tackling the "Wikimedia Gender Gap" should be to know what is causing it.

idea creator• DPdH

volunteer• Lady Mismagius

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created on02:01, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Wikimedia has an ongoing campaign to address a "Gender Gap", citing a 20% female contribution to Wikimedia projects, and intending to "close" this gap to achieve more diversity.

What is your solution?

1- Design and run a survey in all Wikimedia spaces, that would provide information about what is causing that female wikipedians contribute less than male ones.

2- After assessing, prioritizing and sharing survey results with the Wikimedia communities, implement projects to solve as many as possible lof the root causes identified.

Goals

Understand underlying causes of female contributions being significantly less in number than male ones
Identify key topics that could encourage female contributions to Wikimedia projects
Provide quantitative and qualitative data that could be used in other ideas that could address the "Contributor Gender Gap" in Wikimedia projects
Support the Wikimedia goal of increasing diversity in gender contribution, leading to more diverse topics being created and maintained

Get Involved

Participants

Volunteer If you need any help with the translation of the survey into Italian, I can take care of it and bring it to the Italian-spekaing projects. Also, if I can give you a hand in any other way, just tell me. Lady Mismagius (talk) 12:46, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Volunteer I endorse the idea of a survey because the stats are worrying and I cannot fathom what is causing them. Can translate into French if needed.--Liberivore (talk) 17:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Endorsements

Sicherlich ^Post 16:02, 8 March 2015 (UTC) First think, then act. instead of stabbing in the dark and guessing what might be the cause first find it, then check if you can influence the real cause

BeverlyHillsCop (talk) 16:38, 8 March 2015 (UTC) Its always better to figure the causes of a problem out, before trying to solve it.

Understanding a problem is the first step in solving it! love this idea. Jm3 (talk) 04:40, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

part of every serious improvement process (simple: plan, do, check, act) Anika (talk) 15:49, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Having a clear understanding of the causes of a solution is the first step towards working out the solution. Lady Mismagius (talk) 12:41, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
It is an unbiased survey to determine what the problem is, and before the problem can be solved, we must know what it is. It's like Computer Science/Programming, which is my background. AMadahar (talk) 15:39, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I think that it is important to find the root cause. Mywalnut (talk) 17:49, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
I'd be willing to help setup/program the survey, but am unsure of the time commitments Dispenser (talk) 21:43, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
This is the kind of proposition I was hoping to be proposed. Perhaps it is something very minor, like the sense that articles are already fine as they are. Perhaps the cause of the disparity is something that is simply not mendable? Perhaps it is a societal issue that the foundation has no control over? In any of these cases, it would be a waste for money to go towards all sorts of schemes that would never be successful, while leaving less money to those that would be. As prior supporters have pointed out, it is careless to solve a situation when you aren't even fully aware of what the situation is. JoshuaKGarner (talk) 02:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Logical fist step to solve an identified problem is to try to find the causes. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:20, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

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