"Conspicuously absent from the list of possible causes is the default explanation....namely: On average, men enjoy editing Wikipedia much more than women do"
I would note that the list of possible causes includes a number of explanations for *why* women might get less enjoyment from editing Wiki than men do. That is, your explanation is merely general, while the list gives *specific* explanations of your allegedly missing general explanation.
Those reasons for not getting as much enjoyment include:
- Aversion to conflict and an unwillingness to participate in lengthy edit wars.
- Belief that their contributions are too likely to be reverted or deleted.
- Some find its overall atmosphere misogynistic.
- Wikipedia culture is sexual in ways they find off-putting.
- Being addressed as male is off-putting to women whose primary language has grammatical gender.
- Fewer opportunities for social relationships and a welcoming tone compared to other sites.
Seriously, I know you like to be smugly more clever than everyone else, but it looks here like you didn't read, or if you read, you didn't think of the simple and obvious question, "What makes something enjoyable or not enjoyable."
All of these explanations take for granted that women WOULD enjoy editing Wikipedia as much as men do, were it not for these obstacles placed in their way. I interpret Bryan to mean that, even if these obstacles were removed, women would still be underrepresented in Wikipedia, because women have systematically different interests from men.
But his explanation is *additional,* not alternative. The issue is about Wikipedia, so the specifics of Wikipedia culture are not irrelevant. Even if - which may be possible - women enjoy it less than men, those women who would otherwise enjoy it will enjoy it less because of the culture. Caplan oddly treats not enjoying that culture as irrelevant or not true or something like that. But that's stupid. It's as though he can't understand that misogyny might *also* affect women's enjoyment levels.
Look at it this way. Assume - just to have numbers - 5% of men and 3% of women enjoy writing Wiki articles. We'd obviously expect fewer by women.
But suppose also that women are more underrepresented than that, say they only write 1.5% of Wiki articles. Then that initial explanation is not fully explanatory.
But Caplan assumes it is and laughs that anyone even thinks more explanation than the initial explanation could be required.
Caplan's point is that no one is making the argument you've outlined, they are ignoring his "default explanation" entirely. If no one brings up the simplest explanation, it's likely that it is purposefully overlooked.
Also, I disagree that Wikepedia culture is relevant, because the same general speculations are made about any area where men greatly outnumber women. My experience is with chess-- "is chess culture misogynistic? Are chess clubs unfriendly to women?" etc.
Yes, but that's missing the point. Caplan talks about "enjoyment." He doesn't grasp that those other things also affect enjoyment. He wants there to be a single explanation, which is simple-minded. As I explained, his explanation does not necessarily - probably does not - account for the full difference.
And culture is always relevant. To say culture doesn't affect individuals' enjoyment and participation is beyond silly.
Well, in my opinion (and what I take to be Caplan's opinion as well), the primary reason for the underrepresentation of women among Wikipedia editors is because women are secularly less interested in editing Wikipedia articles than men are. Perhaps Wikipedia's "culture" plays some minor contributing role to this effect, but that's the real engine driving the signal. Just because multiple causes contribute to one effect doesn't mean all causes are equally prominent. And it's very glaring that Wikipedia doesn't even SUGGEST that a contributing factor to this effect (probably the primary contributing factor) might be that men and women have different interests, for reasons that have nothing to do with socialisation.
And I will admit, I've been listening to this "male-dominated spaces need to completely change their culture from the ground to make women feel more included!" demand for well over a decade, and I'm a bit sick of it. Any voluntary community in which men outnumber women is a Problem to be Fixed; any voluntary community in which women outnumber men is a-OK. No one is demanding that yoga classes or knitting clubs change their culture from the ground up to be more pleasant and "enjoyable" for men. Nor should they, in my view.
One trimester in my high school, students had the option of choosing what fiction topic they would read. One of the topics was called "technologies of power" and was about science fiction, and there were a few other topics people could choose too. Every single student who wound up in that class was male. This wasn't because of lack of female role models; in fact, the teacher who was running the course was a woman and passionate about the subject. There wasn't a big group of girls who were upset that they didn't get in either, and there were enough boys and girls talking to each other that I think I would have heard if there was.
Why are almost all science fiction readers, engineers, and programmers either men or trans women? I think it's the same reason girls tended not to enter that class. I wouldn't get that idea from the news though.
Your default explanation for the gender disparity among editors sounds right. It’s not Wikipedia’s fault if there are simply more men interested and willing to put in the time to do the Wikipedia thing.
However, the gender disparity in the published biographies that are then proposed for deletion seems odd. More men interested in being editors by itself does not seem to account for why more female biographies would be deleted.
"Conspicuously absent from the list of possible causes is the default explanation....namely: On average, men enjoy editing Wikipedia much more than women do"
I would note that the list of possible causes includes a number of explanations for *why* women might get less enjoyment from editing Wiki than men do. That is, your explanation is merely general, while the list gives *specific* explanations of your allegedly missing general explanation.
Those reasons for not getting as much enjoyment include:
- Aversion to conflict and an unwillingness to participate in lengthy edit wars.
- Belief that their contributions are too likely to be reverted or deleted.
- Some find its overall atmosphere misogynistic.
- Wikipedia culture is sexual in ways they find off-putting.
- Being addressed as male is off-putting to women whose primary language has grammatical gender.
- Fewer opportunities for social relationships and a welcoming tone compared to other sites.
Seriously, I know you like to be smugly more clever than everyone else, but it looks here like you didn't read, or if you read, you didn't think of the simple and obvious question, "What makes something enjoyable or not enjoyable."
All of these explanations take for granted that women WOULD enjoy editing Wikipedia as much as men do, were it not for these obstacles placed in their way. I interpret Bryan to mean that, even if these obstacles were removed, women would still be underrepresented in Wikipedia, because women have systematically different interests from men.
But his explanation is *additional,* not alternative. The issue is about Wikipedia, so the specifics of Wikipedia culture are not irrelevant. Even if - which may be possible - women enjoy it less than men, those women who would otherwise enjoy it will enjoy it less because of the culture. Caplan oddly treats not enjoying that culture as irrelevant or not true or something like that. But that's stupid. It's as though he can't understand that misogyny might *also* affect women's enjoyment levels.
Look at it this way. Assume - just to have numbers - 5% of men and 3% of women enjoy writing Wiki articles. We'd obviously expect fewer by women.
But suppose also that women are more underrepresented than that, say they only write 1.5% of Wiki articles. Then that initial explanation is not fully explanatory.
But Caplan assumes it is and laughs that anyone even thinks more explanation than the initial explanation could be required.
Caplan's point is that no one is making the argument you've outlined, they are ignoring his "default explanation" entirely. If no one brings up the simplest explanation, it's likely that it is purposefully overlooked.
Also, I disagree that Wikepedia culture is relevant, because the same general speculations are made about any area where men greatly outnumber women. My experience is with chess-- "is chess culture misogynistic? Are chess clubs unfriendly to women?" etc.
Yes, but that's missing the point. Caplan talks about "enjoyment." He doesn't grasp that those other things also affect enjoyment. He wants there to be a single explanation, which is simple-minded. As I explained, his explanation does not necessarily - probably does not - account for the full difference.
And culture is always relevant. To say culture doesn't affect individuals' enjoyment and participation is beyond silly.
Well, in my opinion (and what I take to be Caplan's opinion as well), the primary reason for the underrepresentation of women among Wikipedia editors is because women are secularly less interested in editing Wikipedia articles than men are. Perhaps Wikipedia's "culture" plays some minor contributing role to this effect, but that's the real engine driving the signal. Just because multiple causes contribute to one effect doesn't mean all causes are equally prominent. And it's very glaring that Wikipedia doesn't even SUGGEST that a contributing factor to this effect (probably the primary contributing factor) might be that men and women have different interests, for reasons that have nothing to do with socialisation.
And I will admit, I've been listening to this "male-dominated spaces need to completely change their culture from the ground to make women feel more included!" demand for well over a decade, and I'm a bit sick of it. Any voluntary community in which men outnumber women is a Problem to be Fixed; any voluntary community in which women outnumber men is a-OK. No one is demanding that yoga classes or knitting clubs change their culture from the ground up to be more pleasant and "enjoyable" for men. Nor should they, in my view.
One trimester in my high school, students had the option of choosing what fiction topic they would read. One of the topics was called "technologies of power" and was about science fiction, and there were a few other topics people could choose too. Every single student who wound up in that class was male. This wasn't because of lack of female role models; in fact, the teacher who was running the course was a woman and passionate about the subject. There wasn't a big group of girls who were upset that they didn't get in either, and there were enough boys and girls talking to each other that I think I would have heard if there was.
Why are almost all science fiction readers, engineers, and programmers either men or trans women? I think it's the same reason girls tended not to enter that class. I wouldn't get that idea from the news though.
Wikipedia and other online cultures (Stack Exchange) are highly exclusionary, regardless of gender, race, etc.
Thank you for stimulating me to write.
https://jameshanley.substack.com/p/does-bryan-caplan-even-think-before
A charitable explanation is that list is taking the default explanation as a given, and trying to figure out actionable ways to change it
Masterly.
Your default explanation for the gender disparity among editors sounds right. It’s not Wikipedia’s fault if there are simply more men interested and willing to put in the time to do the Wikipedia thing.
However, the gender disparity in the published biographies that are then proposed for deletion seems odd. More men interested in being editors by itself does not seem to account for why more female biographies would be deleted.
I feel a moral compulsion to correct any typo I notice on wikipedia.