Introducing WikiChix

Posted by Angela Beesley on December 4, 2006 (Community, Wiki)

Offlist chat about the recent discussions on systemic gender bias in Wikipedia made it clear that a number of women were not comfortable contributing to the conversation there. In response to this, I have created WikiChix, a wiki and mailing list for female wiki editors to discuss issues of gender bias in wikis, to find ways of encouraging more female editors, and just as a place that females can feel more comfortable posting to.

This new community is named after, and inspired by, LinuxChix, the women-oriented community for Linux users.

If you are female and interested in wikis, I would like to encourage you to join the mailing list.

Some of the pages on the wiki are openly editable, so even if you’re not female, you are welcome to post your comments.

The FAQs for related communities answer a lot of questions about why this was created, so please read those for more information until we have our own FAQ.

3 Comments

  1. WikiAngela » End of 2006 said,

    December 31, 2006 at 12:29

    […] Wikia’s first big announcement this month was the acquisition of ArmchairGM. Robert Lefkowitz, Aaron Wright, Dan Lewis and David Pean joined Wikia as part of the acquititsion and began work on OpenServing (blog post). Wikia announced its second round of investment - all of it from Amazon - on December 8th (blog post). We had two big hits in the press shortly after this - firstly with OpenServing which is still in testing, and will be more widely available very soon, and secondly with “Wikiasari“, which didn’t really exist before the press made it up, but may well exist at some point next year. I started WikiChix, a new community for women involved with wikis, in response to concerns that women were not comfortable posting to Wikipedia’s mailing lists. Anthere invited me to chair Wikimedia’s new Advisory Board. After attending the fun Stirr Sydney event, I packed up and left Australia, at least temporarily. We spent a day and a half in London before going to see my parents. Tim spent his first Christmas away from home, with my family, and we’ll be spending new year’s at my sister’s. […]

  2. Gabriella Friedman said,

    September 18, 2007 at 5:30

    I was appalled that several great femaile researchers’ bios were wiped off of Wikipedia, while men were kept. Also an editor MathStatWoman was bullied until she stopped adding really good information on math and stat; she seemed so disgusted at the end that she started to make jokes on wikipedia, but I really think that was because she was so bullied. Elaine Zanutto, R. S. Wenocur, and Linda Zhao and others, too, are just as accomplished as male mathematicians and scientists who were kept on Wikipedia. The women mathematicians and scientists that were kept have tiny little bios, with many of their achievements underplayed! Just like Rosalind Franklin who really discovered DNA had her research stolen by men who won Nobels! And it was a woman who split the atom, too, leading to nuclear energy plants and less use of fossil fuel. — Gabriella

  3. ladyfest romania » Blog Archive » wikipedia, women, feminism links said,

    March 4, 2008 at 16:10

    […] Introducing WikiChix […]