[R] list demographics

[Sarah Goslee]

Hi all,

I got curious about something, so in proper scientific fashion I
obtained some data and analyzed it.

Question: what is the female participation in the R-help email list?

Data: the most recent list postings, obtained from the website. I took
my best shot at classifying the names given in the email header as
male/female, but ended with a fair number of unknowns.

This dataset had 2797 list messages, in 895 questions. 1501 messages
were replies to one of those questions by someone not the original
querent.

Across all messages, 6.5% were from women, 77.8% from men, 15.7% unknown.

For new questions, 11.7% were from women, 61.2% from men, 27.0% unknown.

Among responses to other people's questions, 2.6% were from women,
92.3% from men, 5.1% unknown.

Nine women answered other people's questions, but only two were what
I'd consider active participants, offering more than two answers. (Not
divided up by separate questions, so could be several replies in one
discussion.)

For men, 214 answered questions, and 90 offered more than two answers.
(Not divided up by separate questions, so could be several replies in
one discussion.)

Six active participants were unclassifiable, so even if all of those
were female, that would still be only eight women actively
participating in the list in this sample.

Is the list representative of statisticians? People who use R? People
who participate in statistical software email lists? I have no idea,
but I found it interesting that there is so little female
participation in the list, even asking questions (where you'd expect
to see students and new R users), and almost no female participation
in answering questions.

For those of you who teach, are your classes heavily skewed?

Sarah

-- 
Sarah Goslee
http://www.functionaldiversity.org