Interviews with female participants in the Japanese Wikipedia《second half》—— Wadakuramon

The original Diff is in Japanese language by Kizhiya

Misato Observatory, Kimino Town,, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, Via Wikimedia Commons.

This is the second part of interviews in which we talk to female Wikipedia editors individually. For the first part, please click here.

Ms. Yuriko Kadokura, aka Wadakuramon, will appear in this second part. She worked as a librarian for many years and wrote about her experience and relationship with Wikimedia in her book, “A 70-year-old Wikipedian talks about the charm of libraries” (YUKEN-Sha, 2023, ISBN 978-4-907126-61-2). She is also a regular contributor to the Japanese edition of Diff.
As a female Wikimedian, we asked her about the joys of contribution and how women from different fields can participate.

My job didn’t exist in the 20th century, so I had to learn

—— Last year, our User Group took a survey. As a result, we found that there were few female participants in the Japanese Wikipedia. We are in the process of interviewing female participants to find out the cause. We have tried to think of various causes, such as lack of time to concentrate on the work alone or being discouraged by the people around them.

Kadokura：If that is the case, I may not be able to help you much. Right now, I am available 24/7, 365 days a year to participate in the Wikimedia project, and there is no one who says, “don’t do it” (laughs)

—— After reading your book, I was impressed by your willingness to travel to events and study groups with a light touch to ask questions and learn new things.

Kadokura：It was great to be in a place of work where I could do that. I had been working since about 2005 or so, blogging information through the Internet, a job that didn’t exist in the 20th century. So no one knew how to do it, and so we all learned together. I was taught by young, cutting-edge people with an open mind. I don’t think there is any shame in learning from them. Rather, there was a sense of urgency to learn from such people.
Attending an event costs money and requires time off, which may be difficult for some people. Nevertheless, no matter who you are, you need to improve your skills to move forward. There are now online options, and I think it is important to continue learning in a way that suits you, but with a little bit of a stretch.

Writing Wikipedia articles is a hurdle.

—— In interviews with female Wikipedia participants, one of them said that it was difficult to do anyway, and that she didn’t know how to do research.

Kadokura：In Japan, Wikipedia is well developed and well known. However, writing an article on Wikipedia is a hurdle. First of all, you have to write some well-written articles.
Of course it is great to aim to write a good article, but I don’t think it is necessary to aim for perfection from the beginning. I have never aimed for a good article at all.

—— Is that so!？

Kadokura：The articles I have written are in a minor field. Still, I think that if I write something, someone might continue to do so. Even if no one does, I feel disappointed that it is said that Japanese people have a narrow vision if it is in the foreign language versions but not in the Japanese version, so I’ve added supplements or added paragraphs, even if they are brief.

Thoughts on the ESEAP Conference in Malaysia

Kadokura：I recently went to the ESEAP conference in Malaysia and felt that many international Wikimedians do not participate only in Wikipedia. Wikiquote and Wiktionary, for example, are word-based, so it is easy to participate. Wikipedia is a lot of work, but I want people to know more about the many other projects that are out there.

——　For example, you can join the Wikimedia Commons.

Kadokura：Yes, you can. You can contribute in your area of expertise. I myself am fascinated by the possibilities of Wikidata.
Whenever I open Wikipedia, I look at the Wikidata for that article, and if the Wikidata does not have a definition, I copy it from Wikipedia. I do this all the time. It’s really simple, it takes less than a minute, but I feel fulfilled. I’m happy for the rest of the day (laughs). When I look at Wikidata I understand how people in other countries view the word, which you can’t get from Wikipedia.

—— I have rarely touched Wikidata.

Kadokura：Please do it today!

—— Yes (laughter)

Women participating in various projects

—— I believe that many women would be interested in joining the Wikimedia project if the participation method were easy to understand. What are your thoughts on how to invite them?

Kadokura：The Wikimedia Project is “collective Intelligence“. It is great fun for both men and women to participate in this, even if one knows only a little, isn’t it wonderful that so many people can contribute their knowledge and share it with everyone? There will certainly be differences in each person’s level of education. Therefore, I think it is important to invite them to participate in projects that are more accessible to them rather than Wikipedia.
I have seen many foreign cases in Diff. Many of the examples are of women. They are usually involved in different projects, not in Wikipedia. I think one of the things I can do is to translate and introduce their activities and enjoyment.

—— Thank you for your valuable talk today.

June 19, 2024 Online.

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I interviewed four female Japanese-language Wikipedians. Each of them has a variety of years of contributions, skills and interests. As I have seen from the stories of the collaborators 1. The hypothesis is that Wikimedia’s emphasis on “objective facts rather than one’s own sense or opinion” may not be of interest to many women. 2. One problem, and this is not limited to female subjects, is that the rules and guidance are not very smooth. 3. Also, a new participant, Shiro-Buncho(pseudonym), frankly commented, “It’s difficult and I feel uneasy. 3-1. As for the difficulty of editing Wikipedia itself, I think the fourth interview with Wadakuramon, aka Kadokura-san, provides one solution.

Wikimedians of Japan User Group will continue to conduct surveys such as interviews and questionnaires. We would appreciate your cooperation.

Review, kaizen

• Perhaps because it has been some time since the survey, there were cases where we did not receive a response to our interview request emails.
  • improvement plan　→　This should be done at the time of the survey by introducing our e-mail address in the form of something like, “We will send you an interview request from this e-mail address.