Grants talk:IdeaLab/Resources favored by women

Paid editing

Hi Marshallsumter. Thanks so much for your idea! I think you're definitely correct in identifying that that there is a gap in content written by women and of specific interest to women. If I understand your proposal correctly, you are asking for funding to pay editors to write about topics that could be interesting to Women. The Wikimedia Foundation does not support paid editing. However, I would encourage you think about other ways to better understand what types of resources and information women want to see included in Wikimedia projects and how we can increase their participation. Thanks for engagement with the Inspire Campaign. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:05, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words! I've modified the proposal to suggest funding for successful ideas as measured by increases in the women contributor percentages. Even if I write the resource, the originator of the idea gets the reward. What do you think? --Marshallsumter (talk) 12:29, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Marshallsumter. I appreciate your trying to revise the idea, but it is still essentially paid content creation. Are there other ways to develop more resources of interest to women on Wikiversity? Perhaps some type of training session or online campaign? Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:04, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you again for your comments and criticism! There are at least two problems to solve on Wikipedia: contentious editing and a dominant group controlling the project. Just FYI, but we don't know if the same demographics applicable to Wikipedia also apply to Wikiversity. The INSPIRE campaign to address these issues has produced many ideas along the two lines you suggest: training sessions and online campaigns of quite a variety. We've often considered having resources on Wikiversity to train editors for the Wikipedia environment. This may be an ideal opportunity to generate these resources. Wikiversity is expanding on its own and may overtake Wikipedia in popularity by doing nothing to help Wikipedia. Usually dominant groups while immensely successful for their time ultimately face extinction events. Sometimes they are replaced by new dominant groups that fill in the void left behind. Sometimes they are not. To prepare training resources to help potential editors to contribute successfully to Wikipedia and survive the contentious editing by the dominant group takes time and energy away from perhaps more productive effort on Wikiversity. But, alas receiving a grant to generate these training resources, which I would be happy to do by the way, would probably also be considered "paid content creation". Let's face this squarely. Wikipedia needs help from an expert in handling its dominant group and their contentious editing to maintain control. You can pay me to consult or you can pay me to create. Or, we can both let the dinosaurs go extinct.

An online campaign would probably need to be conducted on Wikipedia. We can already do that on Wikiversity. And, we are already doing that simply and successfully by being a free and open contributory project. Wikipedia is neither. If the online campaign is all volunteer, it's not "paid content creation". If they or I receive a grant, no matter how it's worded it's "paid content creation".

I would like to help before it's too late. I realize I don't often word things in the currently popular way. --Marshallsumter (talk) 01:31, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Passive endorsements

"So, the question is what should Wikipedia do about its gender gap? I applaud efforts by Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikipedia Foundation, to initiate dialogue about how and why this happened. I would urge those in Wikipedia who care about this issue to learn from scholars who study language socialization and how discursive norms are a critical factor in any dominant group maintaining its control. How does women’s participation get encouraged or discouraged? What are the cultural norms of the community that extinguish women’s participation? I would encourage Wikipedia members to read some of the language and gender classics, including Robin Lakoff’s "Language and Women’s Place."" Bold added.--Marshallsumter (talk) 00:07, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Ineligible for the Inspire Campaign

Thanks for submitting this idea - your goals seem wonderful and we wish you the best success. Unfortunately, this does not appear to meet the eligibility criteria for an Inspire Grant - namely, that Inspire projects cannot directly fund content creation. So, I've marked the status as ineligible in its current state. Feel free to keep working on this page for other purposes, though, and if you have an idea in the future that focuses on improving a Wikimedia project, you'd be welcome to submit something in a future round. Thanks again for participating! Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:04, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you again for considering. I wish your volunteer efforts success! Should they not succeed in making a difference let me know how I can help. --Marshallsumter (talk) 02:53, 6 April 2015 (UTC)