Jimmy Wales recently visited Yale University. While he was in New Haven, CT he sat down with the Yale Daily News for a Q&A interview. Here are two exchanges.
Q At the recent annual Wikimania conference, you expressed concern that Wikipedia contributors were mainly a homogenized group of “male computer geeks.”
A A majority, yes.
Q What is Wikipedia doing to try to get a more diverse group of contributors?
A We’re very global; there are people all over the world editing Wikipedia, mostly in their own home language. But there’s a certain geek culture that transcends national cultures; there’s a homogeneity in that. The main thing we’re doing is the useability project. We have a $950,000 grant from the Stanton Foundation that’s specifically targeted at finding the points in the software that are off-putting to people that aren’t computer geeks. There are lots of people that are geeks, but not computer geeks. I always give the example of a stay-at-home mom with a master’s degree. So, this is a very educated person, someone who is already on the Internet and sharing information, but probably not participating in Wikipedia, because she’s not a computer geek.***
The interview continues on to discuss the “flagged revision” policy, favorite Wikipedia pages, celebrities he’s met (and those he wants to meet), what he thinks of students spending three hours a day working on Wikipedia, and criticisms of his own page.
Much Much More In the Complete Interview
Source: Yale Daily News
*** In July, Wikipedians visited the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD to promote the project to NIH employees.
See: National Institutes of Health Refers to Wikipedians for Help
ResourceShelf, July 28, 2009
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