{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-sen-rand-paul-uncovers-70000-nsf-study-investigating-gender-wikipedias-contributors/", "Sen. Rand Paul Uncovers $70,000 NSF Study Investigating the Gender of Wikipedia\u2019s Contributors", "2016-05-10", "2016", "2016-05", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Rand Paul today released the latest edition of \u2018The Waste Report,\u2019 which is an ongoing project cataloguing egregious examples of waste within the U.S. government.\n\nIn the latest edition of \u2018The Waste Report,\u2019 Sen. Paul uncovers the National Science Foundation (NSF) spending $70,000 taxpayer dollars to fund a New York University study investigating the gender gap among contributors to the free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.\n\n\u2018The Waste Report\u2019 can be found HERE or below.\n\nHave a question? Often Wikipedia has an answer. But if your question is, \u201cWhy is the federal government spending $70k to study gender disparity among Wikipedia contributors,\u201d you might get back, \u201cresults not found: did you mean \u2018government waste?'\u201d\n\nThat\u2019s right! The National Science Foundation (NSF) spent $70,000 funding a New York University study to investigate the gender gap among contributors to Wikipedia. If you are not familiar, Wikipedia is a free on-line encyclopedia where, \u201c[a]nyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles.\u201d\n\nAccording to Wikipedia, it is true that only about 13 percent of their regular contributors are female. However, there is no measurement for how much content female Wikipedians contribute or provide.\n\nWhat is clear is that whether male or female, a small minority of users provide any content to Wikipedia; just 25 percent ever make an edits/contributions and 0.004 percent of users are classified as regular contributors \u2013 which still only requires one edit every 30 days. Nonetheless, all users can edit content if they so choose, meaning this is an issue of self-selection.\n\nEven under tighter budgets, NSF has seen a 22 percent increase in funding since President Obama took office. This year\u2019s budget asks for nearly $8 billion to support this agency, stating:\n\nNSF is vital because we invest in basic research and people who make the discoveries that transform our future. Those discoveries are a primary driver of the U.S. economy, enhance our Nation\u2019s security, and give the country the competitive edge to remain a global leader.\n\nOne has to wonder where the study of gender disparity among Wikipedia contributors fits in.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T20:51:40Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-sen-rand-paul-uncovers-70000-nsf-study-investigating-gender-wikipedias-contributors/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7486911490559578, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}