Jimmy Wales has suggested that more women need to get involved with editing the online encyclopedia, but what is putting them off in the first place?

In a revealing insight into the kimono on Wikipedia at its annual conference in Haifa weekend, described the co-founder Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia editor than a typical 26-year-old geeky man with a PhD. Eventually he married 'll go with another project and leave the place, Wales said. And Wikipedia 's own research revealed that 90% of editors are male.

This imbalance has led to that, while science and technology are covered extensively, the absence of other subjects on the left. "The main thing is that to bring in people of all different backgrounds," said the Wales case, reports the Independent. "If you do this, increase the knowledge base of the site that can only be a good thing at the moment we are relatively poor in some areas;. For example, to biographies of famous women through history and problems of early child care \."

He was careful to say that there isn 't exactly a crisis in a shortage of Wikipedia editors, and it is obvious that with fewer pages to update - now that Wikipedia includes 3m sides - there's less editing. Wales described it as "natural attrition", but said it is important that Wikipedia is making some changes to try and win a swathe of new contributors. Sue Gardner, head of the parent organization, Wikimedia, said there were about 90,000 active contributors and how will this March, and the Web site to recruit 5000 more in next June. Wales want a lot more of them to be female.

A part of the Wikipedia 's trying to appear more attractive task of editing (and of course these are not paid posts) involved introduction of WikiLove function, which formalizes the spirit of the "niceness" which was created on the Wikipedia mailing lists over a few years. Participants are rewarded for good edits with helpfulness or different badges, including cats, stars and hearts, a bit like the potty kit encouragement. Perhaps Wikipedia could also try some pink pages to see if that helps?

There are many reasons for posting or editing entries on Wikipedia: Edit to reflect your own entry (the politicians 'favorite), the satisfaction of updating an entry to a breaking news event; correction of an error, typos or poorly written sentence. But the inner sanctum of the Wikipedia editing is a very serious and deeply competitive affair, with a higher profile tasks for many years editor of the state and a complex, only partially visible Conduct reserved. Frequent documented spats processing on the level of competitiveness to testify; David McCandless has beautifully and comprehensively the lamest edit wars represented.

We could speculate that potential female editors had, until now, through an aggressive, organized more to protect the community with a clear hierarchy and Wales which are approved "a set of editorial guidelines, which are \ impenetrable for new users."

For me that would be less daunting than the enemy of the time: much as I don 't doubt I' d post are entirely satisfactory, the kind of projects are for a very long way down a list that prioritizes more time with my son and less time looking at the screen.

Have you noticed the lack of big famous Women on Wikipedia? Wales is sexist to suggest women are required to write about child care? Let us know below.

(Making pink pages was a joke, by the way.)

Jemima Kiss blogs on PDA