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Conflict, confidence, or criticism: An empirical examination of the gender gap in wikipedia

  • Carnegie Mellon University

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

114 Scopus citations

Abstract

A recent survey of contributors to Wikipedia found that less than 15% of contributors are women. This gender contribution gap has received significant attention from both researchers and the media. A panel of researchers and practitioners has offered several insights and opinions as to why a gender gap exists in contributions despite gender anonymity online. The gender research literature suggests that the difference in contribution rates could be due to three factors: (1) the high levels of conflict in discussions, (2) dislike of critical environments, and (3) lack of confidence in editing other contributors' work. This paper examines these hypotheses regarding the existence of the gender gap in contribution by using data from an international survey of 176,192 readers, contributors, and former contributors to Wikipedia, including measures of demographics, education, motivation, and participation. Implications for improving the design and culture of online communities to be more gender inclusive are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCSCW'12 - Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages383-392
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9781450310864
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 11 2012
EventACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW 2012 - Seattle, WA, United States
Duration: Feb 11 2012Feb 15 2012

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW

Conference

ConferenceACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW 2012
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySeattle, WA
Period02/11/1202/15/12

Keywords

  • confidence
  • conflict
  • criticism
  • gender
  • survey
  • wikipedia

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