How can we make the forums more accessible to women?

[K.Mandla]

The title summarizes the issue nicely, but if you like, you can substitute the word helpful, attractive, open or appealing for the word accessible.

However you approach the question, what we're looking for is improvements specific to the forums that might make women more inclined to join, and to participate. Suggestions on how to make Linux more accessible to women are appreciated, but we're looking for things the staff here can accomplish.

Thanks in advance. :mrgreen:

[dataw0lf]

you can substitute the word helpful, attractive, open or appealing

Tell them I'm here.

Just joking. Why does the forum need to be more accessible to women? I think the problem lies in technology as a whole, not this particular forum.

[Buzzygirl]

Personally, I find the Ubuntu forums helpful and accessible as they are... the friendliest and most helpful Linux forum I've yet run across, in fact. Just my 2 cents.

[cantormath]

The title summarizes the issue nicely, but if you like, you can substitute the word helpful, attractive, open or appealing for the word accessible.

However you approach the question, what we're looking for is improvements specific to the forums that might make women more inclined to join, and to participate. Suggestions on how to make Linux more accessible to women are appreciated, but we're looking for things the staff here can accomplish.

Thanks in advance. :mrgreen:

Forgive my male ignorance...but
I think getting more women to use ubuntu and then getting them the forums would be the first thing.

[K.Mandla]

Why does the forum need to be more accessible to women? I think the problem lies in technology as a whole, not this particular forum.
And it's possible that you're right. From my perspective (and I'm kind of spearheading this thread, with the blessings of the rest of the staff), it's partly an effort to be sure that a large portion of potential Ubuntu users don't find the forums intimidating or unwelcome or otherwise unfriendly.

And since much of the push of Ubuntu is away from the technophile and toward the everyday user, I thought it important to make sure our common meeting ground reinforces the idea. :)

[K.Mandla]

Personally, I find the Ubuntu forums helpful and accessible as they are... the friendliest and most helpful Linux forum I've yet run across, in fact. Just my 2 cents.
Thanks. :biggrin:

[Henry Rayker]

I feel like the forums are as inviting as humanly possible. I feel like the reason the female population of UbuntuForums is so low is more because the female userbase of Ubuntu is low.

There are a lot of "WOO! I converted my gf/wife/mom/grandma to Ubuntu!" threads, but these users aren't typically dealing with the installation/configuration of their systems, the significant other (the converter, if you will) is the one who has invested the time and energy in the switch. I converted my girlfriend's desktop to Ubuntu, and she reads the forums a little (over my shoulder, never alone); she really doesn't have much of a reason to.

[aysiu]

I'd say stop it with the
sudo apt-get upgrade wife jokes. They're stupid, unoriginal, and off-putting.

Yes, there will always be the tough women who say, "Ha ha. I have a sense of humor," but you won't hear from a lot of the women who are turned off and just never come back.

I think we can make the forums more accessible by having people read this:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/

[Henry Rayker]

That was an interesting read, aysiu. I knew a lot of the things, but there were some I just didn't think of.

From my experience, it has been easier to "accept" women doing computer related things if I didn't know, at the time, that they were female. (I know that sounds terrible, but just bear with me for a sec!) In some online games I've played, some of my better friends have been female...but only if they weren't super open about it. The girls who sort of...broadcast their gender seem like they're only doing it for some sort of advantage (either someone to teach them about the game, give them supplies/items etc). For me, that was a huge turn-off; I hate when people use something like that as an advantage.

When you come to know someone in an anonymous environment, such as a forum or a videogame, you'll sort of forgive some things that, if known up front, you would discredit them for. If it is the common belief that the Linux community isn't receptive to female users, perhaps we should just not talk about our gender. Accept everyone as an equal.

A completely conflicting idea, though, is to allow gender to be shown in the user details above every post. Honestly, I was surprised (pleasantly) at the number of female users we have. I expected fewer. I think if users could SEE who they are offending a little better, they may behave a little differently.


I'm unsure. Both ideas seem plausable to me...but I feel a bit like a jerk now =\

[meital]

as you probably already know, forums are a weird place especially when they're connected to computers. in every forum like that most of the people are males and they tend to tell sex jokes and hurt each other. in my opinion this is the first thing that keeps females away. after that, there is the different treatment that women get after the males realize that she's a woman.this treatment is not always good...

in my opinion the forums are just fine. if you really wanna attract women you can change the color to pink and add some ponies(i'm joking). the real problem is that most women have never heard about linux at all! and if they did hear, they don't install it because the male in the house has all the rights on their computer, so they can't do with it whatever she wants.

the link of how to encourage women can be a really good place to begin with.

*i'm sorry about my bad english

[Frak]

No offence, but I think men are more inclined to use Ubuntu, just because of the nature of men, we're more adventurous, primal instinct, Women are more inclined to, to what I think, to stick with what is working and good at the moment, XP for instance, it hasn't killed them yet, why should they switch, I switched because of boredom, and hey now I don't use Windows at all anymore, but that's because of my "adventure" of some sorts, I'm not going to say that you can sleep on it as the last word, but from what I've seen in all women I know, why should you switch, when everything works now. Thats my 2c

[deanlinkous]

it is a forum.... I think it is fairly asexual in nature
getting women involved with linux itself would be the factor I guess

[Dokatz]

I feel like the forums are as inviting as humanly possible. I feel like the reason the female population of UbuntuForums is so low is more because the female userbase of Ubuntu is low.

There are a lot of "WOO! I converted my gf/wife/mom/grandma to Ubuntu!" threads, but these users aren't typically dealing with the installation/configuration of their systems, the significant other (the converter, if you will) is the one who has invested the time and energy in the switch. I converted my girlfriend's desktop to Ubuntu, and she reads the forums a little (over my shoulder, never alone); she really doesn't have much of a reason to.

I totally agree with the main statement there. These forums are honestly incredible, I feel just as home here as I do in EOCF (If theres any of you folks out there), And that place is basically my home. People here are helpful, Interesting, The forum layout is clean and finding what you need to find is pretty easy. I think it is a good example of linux as a whole,A big happy family of geeks who are doing things their own way, Kicking up some dust.

The userbase of ubuntu is nearly devoid of women, There are a few though that bothered to spend some time with us guys here and I appreciate it. My mom doesn't use the computer, My sisters computer is broken and I'd rather chew my leg off than fix it. All the other girls I know only use their computers for myspace (Which should be easy to convert them, But they want stuff that just works, And they can call in and make the tech support people pull their hair out instead.)

Not that women and electronics dont mix, They do. Just not the women I know XD.

[slavik]

... change the color to pink and add some ponies...

Slashdot tried, didn't work. :(

[smile_sunshine]

prehaps a start would be to quit with the sexist jokes/comments and "women cant do technology" stuff which there is ironically a lot of on this thread! - why does the "women's forum" have lots of MEN making sexist comments!

also, how do you know how many users are women? I dont think polls give a very good impression because a lot of women feel uncomfortable about disclosing their gender on forums because of eg being treated differently, unwanted attention/comments, sexist jokes etc. Its nice to be able to be more gender-neutral online and not have to deal with that.

So prehaps just focus on making the forums generally friendly and welcoming (I think they are already) and not insist people disclose their gender one way or another.


(prehaps an anomynous pop-up survey when you load the forums asking about age,gender etc would be more effective if you desperately want to know how many women there are!)

[gamerchick02]

I've found that that forums are very accessible. I've been able to find what I need and lots of stuff that I never thought about trying before.

I don't really know how to improve the forums... I find them a good mix of people that have lots of knowledge of Linux and Ubuntu and computers in general.

I guess I can say that I like the forums as they are. I like the "tags" feature. It's a good way to find related material.

Amy

[mojoman]

Personally, I find the Ubuntu forums helpful and accessible as they are... the friendliest and most helpful Linux forum I've yet run across, in fact. Just my 2 cents.

I couldn't agree more. The help available on this forum is awesome. The few times that I haven't been able to get something solved it sure hasn't been due to a lack of trying from the people on this forum.

/mojoman

[smile_sunshine]

thought of another idea -

make a women only forum (in so far as that can be enforced on a web forum where people dont have to give their gender!)

- this particular forum has a lot more men talking ABOUT women, (moderated (mostly??) by men ) than women talking to each other - so its not really a women's space in any sense of the word.

the rest of the forums keep as they are they're great :)

[K.Mandla]

thought of another idea -

make a women only forum (in so far as that can be enforced on a web forum where people dont have to give their gender!)

- this particular forum has a lot more men talking ABOUT women, (moderated (mostly??) by men ) than women talking to each other - so its not really a women's space in any sense of the word.

the rest of the forums keep as they are they're great :)
Agreed on all points. I'm going to close the thread, since the majority of legitimate comments seem to suggest things are going well, and the remainder are weak attempts at humor. I'll prune out the less constructive ones so future readers will have a stronger idea of the thread's original intent.

If, however, you have a viable suggestion, by all means PM me or another mod and we'll see what we can do. This is an ongoing point of interest -- for me in particular -- and so future suggestions or points of debate are always accepted.

Cheers and thanks to those who helped. :)