Saturday, January 21, 2017

#Wikipedia - Support understanding the #gender gap

#Wikidata needs to mature. #Wikipedia needs to mature. They both have wishes they aim to fulfil that escapes them. The gender gap is such an issue and it can be used to illustrate how both will mature when they cooperate.

When you want to know how many articles are expected to be written at a given point you need to analyse the red links. They indicate articles that are likely notable and indicate a structural need in Wikipedia. To do that you need data and you need a tool.

When links exist for every red link to an item in Wikidata, you have both the data and a tool. This will help Wikipedia with its disambiguation, and it will show up what a Wikipedia is missing. It is a tool that may drive people to write articles about the missing links.

All the red links will now link to Wikidata and articles in other Wikipedias. It also allows for people to add statements to Wikidata so that facts about those items are known. For instance that it is about a woman. When statements to awards, professions and events are known, there is added weight to write an article.

In this way two purposes are served; researchers have better tools that help them understand the gender gap and it will help people who care about he gender gap work on reducing that gap.

Technically it is not that complicated to achieve. If there is a problem with this proposal it may be that Wikipedians need to understand that this is not a power grab but a way to improve quality and efficiency of their project.
Thanks,
      GeratdM

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