Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2011-08-15

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2011-08-15. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

In the news: Wikipedia a "sausage fest", Chicago Wikipedians ("the people you've probably plagiarized"), and other silly season stories (1,242 bytes · 💬)

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It is a source of encouragement to see 16% compared with previous figures of 9% (and also 22% female attendance at Wikimania). It would be better still to see an analysis of the holistic impact on content of the somewhat self-selecting editing community, which is described by turns as welcoming or hostile. And this brings into focus that a very significant part of the content creation is by editors who are not part of the community (and more power to them I say). Rich Farmbrough, 17:25, 16 August 2011 (UTC).

The WikiSym study mentioned here discusses impact on content and shows that there is a very strong effect from the gender gap on article content. Kaldari (talk) 22:17, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I love the geekosystems editor's sincerity: "I don’t look at the sources or anything, I just assume blue, superscript numbers are markers of truth."^[42].

News and notes: Chapter funding and what skeptics and Latter Day Saints have in common (14,958 bytes · 💬)

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Thank you for your frankness. My agenda is obvious, I want to improve pages, reflecting cited articles that focus on critically thinking about subjects. Many pseudoscience articles rely on vagueness and only giving a slight nod to anything that is factual. I'm thinking about the blog I published last night on psychic Archaeology http://guerrillaskepticismonwikipedia.blogspot.com/2011/08/psychic-archaeology-on-wikipedia.html as a great example.

I also advocate that the pages of our spokespeople are clearly lacking. I do not want to cover up anything negative (see Brian Dunning (skeptic) for a great example of leaving negative where it was put. I know that Wikipedia is the single most important tool readers have to understand the world around them. When they are searching for one of our spokespeople, we need to make sure we have their backs, and frankly I do think that overall our representation is horrible. I wish that wasn't so, but with a few exceptions of the really popular people we have mostly stubs representing us. Shame!

As far as your assertion that I am not "following the rules" I would like to see that clarified so it can be discussed. Maybe I am doing something wrong but until I know what that is I can't change my behavior. I'm a self taught editor learning as I go. I'm passing on my thoughts, frustrations and tips to people on a blog (off-site Wikipedia) and hoping for help from others.

I look forward to your comments.

Sgerbic (talk) 16:00, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I fail to understand how removing bias on pages promoting pseudoscience by introducing a balanced POV is not following the rules. In fact, it is desired by Wikipedia. Yes, this makes some topics more controversial and targets for cultish editing to remove such balanced POV, but this is nothing new to Wikipedia and an ongoing battle. --FreedominThought (talk) 18:47, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• I'm at work right now —I will answer your objections in three hours. jorgenev 20:30, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Note: The above conversation appears to refer to earlier versions of the story, e.g. this one, which differ from the published version. Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

See Inteligent Design for an article that is completely dominated by a clique of self-righteous skeptics. You can hurt the project while still "following rules": The regulars there preferred to have the article to loose it's Good Article status than fix balance the coverage. The article should be about a concept, but it's actually about a legal case in the U.S.. --damiens.rf 17:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean "lose its Good Article status"? It's a Featured Article! --69.26.46.169 (talk) 17:40, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

"Following the rules" is neither necessary nor sufficient for the purposes of Wikipedia. The goal is to produce encyclopaedic articles, not to push the agenda of either "true believers" or "skeptics". For this reason the balance will vary from article to article, a comprehensive description of an "alternative system of medicine" for example, might be extensively citable, while there may be very little citable either supporting or opposing the treatments, and if there were it might well be better spun out as a separate article. The dangers of public calls to action, however well intentioned, are something that Wikipedia has been subject too many times and has, so far as we know, weathered, but not without creating a lot of needless conflict. Rich Farmbrough, 17:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC).

• We definitely need more skeptics and scientists involved. Hopefully this will attract more people to the community. Skepticism is a critical part of any academic work. We cannot let our articles be exclusively written by "believers" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:45, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Skeptics are believers just as well. And they believe to be the only one right just like any other fundamentalist. Believing in Papal infallibility: Dumb. Believing in Inductive reasoning infallibility: Smart. I don't see the difference. --damiens.rf 19:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

    Err, yeah, that about sums up the basis of the scientific method. —Tom Morris (talk) 22:58, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The Inteligent Design article is now featured and the lead is well written. Not sure to what damiens refers too.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:50, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Delayed response, but while I do agree that parts of the Psychic archaeology article could be written more bluntly ("The problem with psychic archaeology is that it has no verified accomplishments"), I think you're a little harsh on the article as a whole. The dowsing section has to give how dowsing works *according to the theory of the dowsers*. It doesn't help to add "and this doesn't actually work" every other sentence. This is probably more clear if you think of articles on old scientific theories that have been surpassed; it's entire legitimate to talk about "when the four humors are out of balance, the easiest way to restore them is to drain away the excessive humor, such as via leeches to the blood." We know that this isn't very helpful these days, and when leeching is helpful it's not for the claimed reasons, but in an article on the four humors, Wikipedia should present what practitioners believed and how they applied the system. Same here; let dowsing theory stand on its own, then mention in the lede and in the Validity section that it doesn't work. SnowFire (talk) 23:14, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

What the pseudoscience skeptics, and anyone else, need to understand is how important the overall tone of an article is. That is one of the problems with the Inteligent Design article in that its overall tone is one of skepticism towards the entire idea of Inteligent Design. Someone reading a Wikipedia article should not be able to tell which side it is taking on the topic. In my experience, if you bring up the subject of "balance" with some skeptical editors, they will respond that the advocacy side for the topic, for example, those who promote Intelligent Design, is "fringe" and "undue". Cla68 (talk) 07:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

One always has to take a sceptical approach to anything, otherwise one can't distinguish fact from fiction. This is how the "scientific method" works, it has led to the modern technological world, including Wikipedia. Count Iblis (talk) 17:24, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

And what's wrong with noting that something is a fringe belief? Or that a particular POV is receiving undue weight in an article? Nothing. Powers ^T 21:18, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Again, if an article is truly NPOV, the reader should not be able to tell which side it is taking on an issue or topic. If one side is labeled "fringe" it should be described as such in the voice of a reliable source, not Wikipedia's voice. Cla68 (talk) 04:49, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about identifying it within an article. You referred to "bring[ing] up the subject of 'balance' with some skeptical editors", which implies discussion about what is "fringe" and "undue", not placing such claims within the text of an article. There is nothing wrong with an editor, in discussion, properly and correctly identifying a fringe view as "fringe". Powers ^T 12:57, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Chapter funding

I think the phrase "threatening to withdraw direct funding" is a bit inaccurate and may reflect, or seem to reflect, a particular point of view on the issue that isn't shared by everyone (including, I'm sure, the Board itself). While the letter suggests that some chapters may not be able to participate in the fundraiser itself, I'm not sure I'd characterise it as a "threat"; additionally, substituting grant funding for fundraiser participation is still "direct" funding of a sort, and the affected chapters could still solicit and receive funding in other ways. Nathan ^T 20:03, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure "threat" is really a perjorative term. You can threaten someone for the right reasons, or you can threaten them for the wrong reasons. I don't think the word itself makes a difference.

Point taken about "direct" funding though. That's probably the wrong word. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 11:28, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

LDS

WP has both a standard style guide (wp:MOSLDS) and a naming convention (wp:NCLDS) for how to appropriately describe the Latter Day Saint movement; how is it that this article could get that most basic element so wrong? You could have said "...elements of the Latter Day Saint movement have said they..." or "...elements of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS Church) have said they..." and been more correct, but the existing wording is simply wrong. Since the Church News article was about a presentation given at a Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) conference, it would have been even more accurate to characterize the comments as coming from that group, since there is no official connection between FAIR and the LDS Church. We also have an existing article on Church News, so a wikilink on it would have been useful for readers to understand what that publication is. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 20:37, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Its still a wiki; I've wikilinked the Church News reference as you suggested. As for the name of the Church... Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS Church) leaves out a couple of words, perhaps in the interest of brevity (I didn't write it) but it does wikilink to the correct place, and I doubt anyone will be confused as to the reference. Nathan ^T 21:19, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, no, it doesn't link to the right place -- it redirects to Church of Christ (Latter Day Saints), an organization that doesn't currently exist, but has several sects that claim to be the continuation/successor of that organization after the succession crisis. Unless Signpost editors are prepared to declare that the LDS Church as the single true claimant to the original organization founded by Joseph Smith among all of the Latter Day Saint sects, perhaps a truer description, with the correct name, would be better. Those affiliated with WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement try to avoid POV issues like this by adhering to the wp:NCLDS & wp:MOSLDS, regardless of any individual personal beliefs about this core topic in the Latter Day Saint movement. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 21:35, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Since you are obviously familiar with the application of the guidelines in question, perhaps you could fix the article? Thanks. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 21:39, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 21:48, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

As for how we (I) got this wrong, it's because we (here, I) was writing under immense time pressure. I apologise if any members of the movement were offended by my choice of the words, but I don't think that anyone would have misunderstood them. (Thanks Nathan for updating the article.) - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 21:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the revisions that 208.81.184.4 made, and I added a comma. On an loosely related note, I read the FAIR article, and I think "promoting Mormonism" might not be quite the right term. They seem to be taking more of a defensive stance. But I don't have a lot of experience there, and could be wrong. -- Adjwilley (talk) 00:28, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the suggestion for the news article itself mostly implies a moderate ("defensive") view although suggestions that alternatively-viewed editors "own" articles would suggest that their is some "offensive" work to be done from the author's POV. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 11:28, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

You're right - there is no obligation to be NPOV - as this should reflect Wikipedia's (or Wikipedian's) viewpoint. I do think that the promote is too strong a word. Don't worry about your speedy writing - I used to write for the Signpost ("In the news" editor for about a half year back in 2006) - the pressures to be done on time are unique in the Wikipedia world. --Trödel 16:12, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

We obviously slightly different interpretations of the word. No worries. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 16:35, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Technology report: Forks, upload slowness and mobile redirection (3,109 bytes · 💬)

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Section moved to

Talk:List_of_Michelin_starred_restaurants_in_the_Netherlands#Rendering_time_etc.

Not sure if you meant Network File System (protocol), as opposed to the generic term. The link Network File System is a disambiguation page. The protocol is more likely if the apache servers were running Linux for example. W Nowicki (talk) 19:27, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Forks

I must note that I didn't intend it as an urgent call to action - rather, as something we need to keep in mind, and which will only benefit us. I am quite cognisant that the likely number of forks of English Wikipedia is zero ... but every one of the steps needed to make our projects forkable is actually (a) a good idea technically (b) important to preserving our work.

(I'd also like to make us forkable so that we can tell our more special critics "here, fork it, if you're right you'll do so much better than us." At the least, watching them come up with new excuses not to will be amusing.) - David Gerard (talk) 20:41, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Upload speed

I upload lots of own-photograph images to Commons, and I've noticed the upload speed dropping — most of my uploading is done on a major university campus with huge bandwidth, but I've still noticed over the summer that the upload speed is markedly slower than it was over Christmas break. I'd vaguely wondered if snow on the ground made image sizes smaller and if blue sky made them larger, but I'd not really considered server problems. Nyttend (talk) 23:29, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Chinese Wikipedia Numbers

With reference to the fact that the "page view" numbers on the chinese wikipedia have trebled over the last few months I didn't quite understand what has happened? Did the bug mean that the site was getting much fewer hits from search engines and bots (i.e the huge increase is not real people but the number of automated programs visiting the wiki) or did the bug mean that the site is now getting far more human viewers through search engines which were previously not displaying these pages as results in response to queries. If it is the latter as it seems (that whoever found this bug has essentially made the chinese wikipedia 3 times more popular!) then that seems like a huge deal, and whoever found that bug should probably get an award or something (or at least a big round of applause!) 86.66.128.117 (talk) 20:01, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

It does seem (from the linked explanation) that it's the latter. I agree that would be a big deal, worthy of more than a bullet point in the "In brief" section. --Avenue (talk) 22:49, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject report: The Oregonians (4,119 bytes · 💬)

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The WikiProject Oregon "Collaboration of the Week" program, discussed above, was among the CotW's studied by Carnegie Mellon researcher Haiyi Zhu in the paper Doing what needs to be done: Effects of goals in self-governed online production groups. It's a great read, especially for WikiProject leaders looking to increase their ability to attract and motivate new contributors. -Pete (talk) 18:20, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. It's an interesting paper.

In my response to the collaboration-of-the-week question, I gave some now-out-of-date information. Here's an update: User:ZabMilenko is about to be part of the project Triple Crown. Willamette River's peer review was closed and the article is currently listed at WP:FAC. Klamath River was reviewed and became a GA. Jsayre64 (talk) 00:38, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

ZabMilenko's Triple crown was awarded on 5 August. – SMasters (talk) 04:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

[[Portland ethos|Portlandia]] redirects to an article about a statue; might want to look at that. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:20, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

It was supposed to be a hat-tip to a TV show. I'll change it. tedder (talk) 18:36, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Update: We could easily take over Oregon's Spain as the relatively inactive WikiProject Idaho has been absorbed into WikiProject United States, partly at my suggestion. The same may happen with WikiProject Washington (WikiProject Oregon's WikiProject Canada), again, at my suggestion. Prepare to be assimilated! Resistance is futile! But seriously, I would love to see our neighbors have more active WikiProjects as there are many subjects that overlap both these projects and WP:ORE. Like Columbia River Gorge and Treasure Valley topics, just to name two examples. If you live in Idaho or Washington, consider reviving your projects! Valfontis (talk) 19:27, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Another reason that WikiWednesdays in Portland haven't been well-represented is that one long-time member had this girl enter his life, & she takes up an awful lot of his time. His edits to Wikipedia have also been way off due to her. -- llywrch (talk) 06:25, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I got an invitation to join the Oregon project today and took 'em up on it. I think I've only created two articles so far that fall under the project's banner, but who knows how these things go down the road. I will say that it would be nice if there was an easy-to-find page with a list of all the various project templates so that article creators can make sure that all groups are notified at time of creation. I've got a handful of go-to WikiProjects that I list up when I start a talk page, but a lot of the times the applicable state groups go missing for lack of easily available templates. Anyway, I'm pleased that the Oregon crew is on the case. Keep Portland Weird, y'all. Carrite (talk) 04:47, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Women and Wikipedia: New Research, WikiChix (16,539 bytes · 💬)

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The "Wiki Trip" tool also provides food for thought on other aspects of possible systemic bias. For example, in both Battle of Iwo Jima [1] and Battle of Midway[2], edits from one of the two countries involved outweigh those from the other by more than 60:1. Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Oddly enough the disparity is even greater in the other direction if you look at the Japanese Wikipedia article. Hmm. Powers ^T 20:59, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm a woman and have self-identified as such on my userpage for nearly five years, but even after all this time other users still refer to me as "he" or "him" fairly regularly. That might come from an implicit just-us-guys-here assumption without having looked at my userpage, or maybe refering to anyone as "she" or "her" is too easily construed as an insult (!) ... I wonder whether specifying female in my user preference "used for gender-correct addressing by the software" will make next year's projections more accurate by one data point ;P – Athaenara ✉ 11:11, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I've gotten the impression that some people think that [correctly] identifying me as a female will be received as an insult. --Orlady (talk) 22:12, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I've been addressed as "sir" (granted, it was not by a native English speaker). LadyofShalott 01:06, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

If you edit woman-centric articles though, you will be assumed a "she" as Kaldari and I can attest to. --Danger (talk) 03:05, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Calling female Wikipedia editors chicken or chix will surely help. To your attention: User_talk:Sue_Gardner#May_I_ask_you_a_courtesy.3F. Regards, Catfisheye (talk) 15:11, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the comment: "Women are more likely to vandalize as new users", can we trust that vandals are reporting their gender properly? GoingBatty (talk) 16:44, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

No, we sure can not. Probably that whole list should have been phrased something like "Those who identified as female..." LadyofShalott 01:06, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

We tried to do that in the third paragraph of the lead. jorgenev 01:30, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I tried to read Stierch's blog post, but the text was forced off the screen to the right, and there was no scrollbar. Advice? --Orange Mike | Talk 17:10, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Whenever text is forced off-screen, try expanding the window to full-screen size, or else, get the raw markup text by <View><Source> & set format to word-wrap. Then search for the words "invite" or "this epiphany" at the top of the post, where she repeats how simply asking people, directly, can make a big difference in responses. -Wikid77 16:59, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Personal benefit apparently isn't the only driver of edits. I checked Planned Parenthood[3] (an organization that provides services primarily to women) -- 522 edits by men vs. only 11 by women. --Orlady (talk) 22:12, 16 August 2011 (UTC)ǐ

I can't access the file, but I was wondering if there was any more data on the quality of articles on films of more interest to women. If they were rated less highly by WikiProject Film, does that reflect the preferences (in terms of style and content, not subject) of the presumably mostly (being Wikipedians) male respondents? Is there any data on the gender of the respondents, and are these articles rated differently by men and women? Also, how do the quality and length of these articles scale with the total number of contributors compared to gender-neutral articles ? I suppose that articles of little interest to the majority of editors are bound to be of a lower quality simply because of the smaller editor pool they draw on, is this factored in? Rainbowwrasse (talk) 08:55, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I wonder who decide that women must have different interests from men. If I don't have any interest in Sex and the City I count as man?--Dia^ (talk) 16:03, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I cannot state emphatically enough that even if participation at Wikipedia between genders is not equal, that it does not mean anything is wrong with the community or current policies. There are other factors at work (genetic, social, and so forth) that could fully explain the imbalance. Unfortunately, this research (which, upon my quick reading, seemed to throw in occasional unwarranted conclusions extrapolated from their data) is going to be interpreted to spearhead policy changes to combat non-existent gender discrimination. Thanks in large part to careless and reckless press releases and statements by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is now in the public conscious that Wikipedia has a sexist male-exclusive culture. This makes me angry! It is untrue for starters but furthermore it bothers me that the slander comes from vocal but near-sighted people working for the Foundation. As far as I can tell, the policies set forth in WP:CIVIL, WP:HARASS, and WP:PERSONAL make Wikipedia a sex-equal environment. End of story. If women are not choosing to participate — and they clearly aren't at the same rate as men — that is a different issue. I encourage the Foundation to advertise with directed marketing to women... so long as there's equal directed marketing asking men to contribute. I would view it as sexist to preferentially encourage women to participate. [Directed marketing is good because it is more effective.] The idea that women think they "have more important things to do" than contribute to Wikipedia (mentioned again in the video by the paper's authors) comes up again and again. Clearly, this would be a fruitful idea to target in any directed advertising to women. Lastly, as Wikipedia is a volunteer community, you cannot force people to be volunteers. Ultimately, you get who you get. So trying to force a 50/50 ratio is misguided. The role of the Foundation should be to make sure that Wikipedia is not discriminatory. But this job is already done! I see little barrier to participation (except economic, which we have no power to fix). Therefore I find all user studies largely just mere curiosities upon which no action should usually be taken. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:14, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Bleh... lets not pull out the genetics card here, that is just stupid. I do agree though that due to incompetence on the foundations part and certain social elements within Wikipedia the issue has been twisted and news outlets have run away with a completely ridiculous perception of the whole thing. Case in point: Sue Gardener's 'why women don't edit Wikipedia in their own words post', where obviously ridiculous assertions were treated seriously. For perspective, think what would happen if there was a 'why men don't edit Wikipedia in their own words' survey: It would be populated by Wikipedia Review trolls and their insane conspiracy theories. Its no surprise that their female equivalents come out when asked, and I have to say I was not impressed when I saw our cheif executive try to cater to oprions such as

"Administrators will block any woman on wikipedia if they do not reval themselfs as woman. There are too many males who will stick to “there are no women on the internet” phrase. If you want a place where you can make changes with out being forced to reveal your idenity, wikipedia is not the place for it."[4]

And then there was Mr. Wales who in his recent interview at Wikimania was basically like 'we need more women because right now all our editors are pathetic nerds', thanks Jimbo.

extransit (talk) 17:05, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Whether if is politically correct or not, genetics may be a fundamental factor involved in the gender imbalance at Wikipedia. Genetics is a big factor in determining behavior; so I do not consider it rational to turn a blind eye to what is perhaps a major part of the "answer" to the gender imbalance "problem". Jason Quinn (talk) 18:08, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

@Jason Quinn, please leave genetics out of the issue!..or I have to start to thinks that some editors do have a bias against women? Surely is still reality in many countries that women have to care for children, home and earn a living or at least helping with it. That leaves less time to get interested in other things like editing wikipedia (that, by the way, is getting more and more complicated - or I'm growing old...). Still, I think the research, because of the inherent difficulty in determining the gender of the editors, used far too many assumptions to be meaningful. --Dia^ (talk) 17:32, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

You have a confusing question mark in your comment so it's hard to know if you are being serious or sarcastic. I assume you are serious and you wanted a period there. I will not leave genetics out of the issue. See comment above. If you wish to reply to my comments, I ask that you draw conclusions that actually derived from my words. A male mentioning a genetic issue as a possible factor does not imply he has a bias against women. That would be a logical fallacy. The remaining issues you mention were intended to be covered by the word "social" in my reply. I fully agree with the latter half of your message. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:08, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Jason, I wouldn't invoke genetics simply because there are no genetic differences between women and men (except of course for the little Y with only 80-ish genes for testes and suchlike). The only difference is how and when these genes are expressed, but that isn't genetics. If you had started taking drugs to block testosterone early enough you would be a woman, but genetically you would be the same as now (I'm assuming you're a man going by your name...). On everything else I totally agree with you, there are biochemical and psychological differences between women and men (on average!) that influence behaviour. I also agree that there is no need for a gender policy on WP; so men are more likely to edit wikipedia...who cares! I've never perceived WP as a 'boys club', and I'm free to edit as well if I like. Directed advertising would be a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere. But I still don't like being called 'he'! ;-) Rainbowwrasse (talk) 19:34, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I think we agree barring a few minor semantic differences. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:06, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

One of the gender-identification problems is that it is not easy to find out the gender of a user, particularly within a discussion. Rainbowwrasse, I can scroll over your username to find out how long you've been here and how many edits you have, but not your gender. Most of the time, it would be too much of a hassle to go read your userpage in hopes that it might identify your gender. Gender-specific usernames help (like LadyofShalott or my own), but that probably just encourages more stereotyping. I must also agree to never having viewed it as a boys club, or experiencing any type of prejudice against my gender. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 20:13, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• I went into WTF?!?!? mode when I read this: Women are more likely to vandalize as new users (60% of vandal accounts reporting their gender were women). What does THAT mean? That is about ten times higher than I would have predicted. Starting out with goofy test edits maybe? But why women... There's something really interesting at work here that's causing this gender imbalance and I don't think the sometimes rough-and-tumble deletion and reversion fights fully explain what's going on. Carrite (talk) 04:11, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• • I highly suspect that it's common for male vandals to create female vandal accounts. Unless that could be corrected, the statistics above is probably misleading. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:06, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I used to buy into the argument that vandalism was an almost invariably male thing, like graffiti it is adolescent male misbehaviour. However I've since met a former vandal at one of our meetups, and seen some vandalisms that were probably girl on girl cyberbullying. So it wouldn't now surprise me if the level of female vandalism was as high as 6%, but it won't be 60%, that has to be a skew from women feeling the need to identify as such when almost all vandals are male. I will make enquiries on one of the wikis where it is more normal to declare gender, perhaps we can get a more sensible figure there. ϢereSpielChequers 07:30, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Interesting observations, but I wouldn't sign up to anything that calls me a 'chick', thanks. I wonder whether Wiki Trip is that accurate? I checked out an article I created and to which I have been the major contributor, Batu Lintang camp, (I have made 344 edits; the next highest count is 16 by User:Grant65). Wiki Trip says that 9 registered editors are male and none are female: I have identified as female on my user page since November 2006. It also shows editors as being located solely in North America and the UK, whereas User:Grant65 is in Australia. A lot of my editing has been in military history, a subject area that might be considered more male-oriented, and I have never sensed that I have been treated differently because of my gender. Jasper33 (talk) 17:10, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I bet that WikiTrip bases its judgments on the gender that's listed on the "User profile" under "Preferences". --Orlady (talk) 20:53, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi! I'm one of WikiTrip developers. Yes, WikiTrip takes information that's listed on the "User profile" under "Preferences". If you have questions or suggestions, I'll be happy to answer them! --phauly (talk) 08:30, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm the main WikiTrip devloper. It doesn't count your edits as a female because you didn't set your gender (or maybe you didn't do it on enwiki). It doesn't locate User:Grant65 because it's against Wikipedia privacy policies. We trace only anonymous edits trough geoip. Fox1991 (talk) 15:48, 15 September 2011 (UTC)