It's sort of hard to draw any other conclusion from the numbers.It seems stereotypical, but are sharing/socializing, versus debate-oriented, communities more likely to be welcoming to women versus men?
I guess the next question is.. is that a problem that needs fixing? The recent hubski numbers led to several questions of "how do we get more women on the site?" which implies that at least one site believes equality is important. Actually, it seems like two questions:
1. Is a 50-50 male/female distribution (apologies for the gender binary, assume the numbers are fuzzed a bit to account for non-males or non-females) a positive thing?
2. Does that go both ways? That is, do most predominantly male communities want more women participants, and/or do most predominantly female communities want more men?
hubski increases normally by physical word of mouth, which is one of its best qualities in my opinion. 1. I see it as a nonissue. That is, neither positive nor negative. 2. No, I don't think so. Why does it have to be a gender issue? hubski wants more people who will share intelligent things and be interesting. End of story, right?
Diversity is a positive thing for academic and workplace environments. Arguably, an area like hubski where you want people to share intelligent things and be interesting will not fully achieve those goals without diversity of thought, as it will limit your exposure to different ideas and perspectives. E.g.: http://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/docs/Benefits_Challenges.pdf
Possibly. Good point. But I feel like we're all sharing things from the internet, and all the content of the internet is available to all of us. So diversity is less strong of an argument than it would be in the workplace or something. That said, there's certainly content that is more likely to be shared by women that we might be missing out on. My point was rather that we shouldn't sacrifice quality to try to bring the gender proportion to 50/50. Don't invite women you know to hubski; invite smart interesting people to hubski. Let it find equilibrium on its own.
I agree that we should aim for smart and interesting; my concern is that the perception of what is "smart and interesting" (which is entirely subjective) may simply validate an already-predominant male perspective on interesting content, making people who bring alternate viewpoints feel excluded. For example, content creators on the internet resemble overall demographics, whereby only 9% or so self-identify as black. A population that is not used to considering racial issues, or which does not perceive them as salient, may approach these issues differently than a more racially-sensitive bunch of people and may exclude those with divergent views. Eventually, each website develops its own ways by which it measures value. There is no objective way to measure interesting and intelligent content, and it will inherently skew towards the ideas and demographics of the majority user group.
This is completely possible. The ten or so women that I interact with on this site certainly tend to post "out there" content relatively often. I will say that as far as sensitivity goes, we're about as sensitive as it gets, and I don't think we exclude anyone. So hubski has that going for it.my concern is that the perception of what is "smart and interesting" (which is entirely subjective) may simply validate an already-predominant male perspective on interesting content, making people who bring alternate viewpoints feel excluded.