Group items tagged

Emotional expression and linguistic style in online collaboration differ substantially depending on the contributors' gender and status, and on the communication network. This should be taken into account when analyzing collaborative success, and may prove insightful to communities facing gender gap and stagnation in contributor acquisition and participation levels.

lubajong and taylor_cole thank you for your comments. From my part I will add a critical evaluation of this resource as well. The talk pages of Wikipedia provide a rich source for researchers to study communication patterns. On Wikipedia talk pages they have found signals for status differences between groups of participants, notably between admins and ordinary contributors. Those findings support in general the theories of the researchers about status differences and communication style differences between managers and employees in firms. They have also found differences in communication style bases on gender, which also support their general theories about gender (which is a social construct). What I - as a Wikipedian insider - finds missing in the article is the selection bias. Wikipedia admins aren't appointed by Jimmy Wales or some other body. Admins are community selected. The exact process differs per language version. On the English Wikipedia admin selection is by a community consensus process. Future admins are selected who show the preferred communication style of admins by other contributors including existing admins. For me, the patterns in communication style do not explain the gender gap on Wikipedia. There is a gender gap in many language versions of Wikipedia, but not in all. The Armenian language version of Wikipedia is a notable exception, showing a gender balance in the conbtributor base. An explanation of that exemption requires further research. What taylor_cole notes about neutrality and bias is a valid point. People volunteer to write for Wikipedia, and volunteer in topic choice. My guess is that in general people will opt to write about something they like, care about, know about. A lack of diversity in contributors will naturally reflect in lack of diversity of topics. For example nerdy males will write about things male nerds like. In general females tend to be interested in other topics than nerdy males. A lack of topics covered in Wikipe

Levels of participation influences emotional expression and phrasing? has the function of sex and status of the taxpayer. 4 strands to study and find a result! Interesting!

Feminism's dullest mission.

It is true, there is still a big gap between what men and women do, specially at home. Most of the work at home such as buying meals, cleaning, ironing, etc... are done by women, even if they have a full time job.

From Spark on CBC Radio http://cbc.ca/spark/ -- Eszter Hargittai, Veronica Simmonds and Terry Costantino on the Wikipedia gender gap. Gautham Ramdurai and Navi Radjou on jugaad and scarcity innovation. Mat Honan on digital design for the developing world.

I think, its really an expensive and unnecessary experiments, if the attendance of Harvard University is low, then they have to come up with different rule to attract the interest of students. Cameras should be there for security, but not for surveillance.

wondering if this would be a different conversation if the cameras were just picking up heat signals so that the identity of the people could not be known but they could still be counted. The technology is pretty basic and it might even be more efficient than the way they're using them now.

Can't believe Harvard can do this thing. I think informations are sharing and revealing on internet or others more and more serious. Harvard shouldn't secretly photograph students, they should ask permission first.

This is over a year old, but the archived lifestream should be fruitful with insights and skills.