On 21/11/06, niht-hræfn <nihthraefn(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The recent thread on the low numbers of women applying
for ArbCom and
subsequent discussion about systemic bias and under-representation of
women has led me to wonder about the nature of gender-related
systemic bias on the English Wikipedia. As far as "gender is
irrelevant" goes, this is simply not true. Gender of editors really
does matter as far as coverage and quality thereof goes. Most of the
I'm thinking of a conversation with a feminist friend who considers
Wikipedia hopelessly patriarchally biased and useless to harmful. I
pointed out we had recognised the systemic bias issue. I also asked
her to think about solutions that include the assumption that
Wikipedia is not going to go away.
- d.