13. 90% of Wikipedia's Editors Are Male—Here's What They're Doing About It

            Meyer wrote an article about the unbalanced gender of editors in Wikipedia because 90% of the encyclopedia`s top editors are male. This unequal gender eventually affected Wikipedia because they are lacking articles written by women. The gender gap is responsible for the organizations that only focused on women in science. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, shows concern toward this inequality because he wants the site to focus on the articles written by female editors and the global south. The researchers from the University of Minnesota discovered that most of the articles written by women are only interesting within the women but the articles written by men are interesting for both genders. The problem is not only the lack of women editors but it is the lack of new users in the encyclopedia. Recently, four researchers discovered that ever since 2003 the number of workable editors has been decreasing. In 2006, the number dropped to less than 20% and the proportion continues to drop dramatically. The Wikimedia Foundation has tried many times to try to increase this proportion and the most interesting one was the WYSIWTG editor which reduced the amount of jargon wiki code that the new users would have to follow. However, this project did not work out well because it was complained by the editors and pushed back.

             Meyer used clear vocabularies to inform the readers about the newest concern of Wikipedia. He starts his article with a brief definition of Wikipedia so that he may introduce his main topic of the article. He used many examples to back up his main point. For example, he wrote that about 90% of the editors in the site are male and he also wrote that in 2006 the number of editors dropped 20%. Meyer also included many researches from some colleges so that the credibility of his essay may increase. An example would be the research in the University of Minnesota that discovered the articles written by women are only attractive within women but the articles written by men are interesting for both genders. Although Meyer`s essay is well organized, the title of the essay is not appropriate for this article because it is not the main focus of the author. The title suggests that the author is going to write about the solution for the unbalanced gender but he did not write a definite solution for this problem throughout his article, therefore, leaving the readers in doubts. Overall, the article was well written, complex in its information and especially suitable for the adults. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/90-of-wikipedias-editors-are-male-heres-what-theyre-doing-about-it/280882/