How to achieve a 94% female contributor ratio on a wiki

by coenhyde on 3/9/2011, 2:15 AM with 18 comments
  • by samfoo on 3/9/2011, 2:59 AM

    Leaving aside the sexist subtext that women appreciate beauty more than men...

    While Wikifashion is pretty and, that beauty certainly (I'm sure) helps contribute to it's success: Don't you think your high female contributor ratio has more to do with your subject matter being more interesting to women?

  • by nostrademons on 3/9/2011, 4:21 AM

    Harry Potter fandom is roughly 99% female. Out of several hundred people I knew in the fandom, I can think of 5 (including myself) that were male.

    It is not hard to get a heavily biased female contributor ratio...you simply need to talk about things that are of interest to females. Computers and startups, unfortunately, do not seem to be among them.

  • by coenhyde on 3/9/2011, 2:30 AM

    Disclaimer I'm a co-founder of Wikifashion.

    Wikipedia Signpost also had a bit to say about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/20...

  • by njharman on 3/9/2011, 6:54 AM

    Why would you ever want such a skewed and biased ratio? It's not something to be proud of, it's a failure.

  • by can-tank-er on 3/9/2011, 10:48 AM

    I would estimate that the contributors to the Vintage Sewing Pattern wiki Wikia are >95% female, and many of them are older, too.

    http://vintagepatterns.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

    When it first started, the pages were bare-bones and the UI was not "pretty" in any way, so I don't think it was UI driven; I think it was content-driven. Now there are >35,000 pattern images, with plentiful metadata, including category tagging, and links to reviews and vendors.

  • by on 3/9/2011, 4:16 AM

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  • by khookie on 3/9/2011, 4:53 AM

    aha best line... "ergo Wikipedia you're that really smart nerd in high school that all the cool girls secretly wanted to date but wouldn't dare."