Your hard-earned tax dollars at work: The National Science Foundation will spend just over $200,000 to investigate “systematic gender bias” at Wikipedia, reports the Washington Free Beacon. The grant states:
Under-representation of female scholars and associated scholarship reduces the quality and completeness of Wikipedia, imposing significant costs on the millions of readers who rely on it. . . . The findings from this research should clarify where in the complex chain of knowledge gender disparities arise. The findings should also bolster ongoing efforts to address those disparities, in this case by improving quality and reducing bias on academic—and more general—Wikipedia.
Yale sociology professor Julia Adams will receive $132,000, and Hannah Brueckner, associate dean of social sciences at NYU–Abu Dhabi, will receive $70,000 to study the site.