New Full Text Research Paper: "WP: Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia's Gender Imbalance"

Update: Here’s a Link to the Full Text Research Paper Discussed Below:
“WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia’s Gender Imbalance”

New research on gender issues relating to Wikipedia (a topic getting more and more notice) from the U. of Minnesota.

Via Discovery News:

The team used self-reported gender information from more than 110,000 editors between 2005 and 2011. They explored three broad areas related to the gender gap. They found that only 16 percent of new editors joining Wikipedia in 2009 identified themselves as female, and those people made only 9 percent of the edits by the editors who joined in the same year. Female editors were more likely to stop editing and leave Wikipedia when their edits are reverted as newcomers.

They also found that Wikipedia entries about topics of particular interest to female editors were a lot shorter than those of interest to males. One area this showed up was in articles about movies — evidently movies geared to women got short shrift compared to those geared to men.

Many More Details About the Report In This Summary/Announcement From U. of Minnesota

Video via U. of Minnesota: “Research proves gender imbalance on Wikipedia” (Authors Discuss Paper)

Here Are a Few Recent Posts About Wikipedia from the INFOdocket Archive:

• “Wikipedia says it’s losing contributors”
  

• The Wikimedia 2011-12 Annual Plan Released; Organization Says Declining Participation of Editors “Must Be Reversed”
  

• “Now Available: Results From 2011 Wikipedia Editor Survey”

• “What I Learned (and Did Not Learn) From Wikipedia the Other Day“

• Working Paper: “Edit Wars in Wikipedia”

Filed under: Journal Articles, News