All Things Digital

Skip to main content.

SEARCH
Voices

Voices

The Voices Feed

from other Web sites

Only 13 Percent of Wikipedia Contributors Are Women, Study Says

August 31, 2009
by Andrew LaVallee
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Andrew LaVallee

A broad new survey of Wikipedia users found that only 13 percent of the online encyclopedia’s contributors are women.

The November survey, which had some 175,000 valid responses, was conducted in multiple languages by the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates the site, and United Nations University’s tech-research program MERIT. They presented the initial findings last week at Wikimania, an annual conference held this year in Buenos Aires. A comprehensive report is scheduled for November.

Of the 53,888 respondents who said they contribute to Wikipedia, only 6,814 were women. The male/female ratio is closer among those who read entries but don’t write or edit them: 69 percent men to 31 percent women.

The average respondent age hovers in the twentysomethings. Men tend to be a few years older, at 26, while women were 24 on average.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Tagged: Internet, digital, frontpage, innovation, software, , , , , , , , , , , , | permalink

Featured Voices Posts

Featured Video

View All Jobs | Post a Job Job Listings

A sponsored service from SimplyHired

Voices Posts by Date

About Voices

This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes "from other Web sites."

We are fully aware of the controversies around how linking and aggregating is done on the Web and we, in no way, are attempting to "scrape" original content created by others. Instead, regarding third-party posts, we are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.

The Internet is full of terrific content that is not ours and we want to help our readers find it by making editorial suggestions--Look, Mom, no algorithm!--of posts we think are worth their time.

That is why we have made even more changes to Voices to ensure we do this in the most transparent and timely way. While we don't expect that everyone will agree with our policies, we have made changes that reflect our intent in pointing to content outside our site.

So here is exactly what we do: Read more »

About the Site

Because the site is wholly owned by Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we aim to adhere to the journalistic standards of the best of the mainstream media. But, because it is run autonomously as a small online startup, we aim to exhibit the fresh thinking and nimbleness of the best of the new media. We want to be first, and sassy, but also well sourced and accurate. We will offer lots of opinion and analysis, but plenty of fact as well.

Read more »