Financial Times bot warns if articles quote too many men

[kawera]

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/nov/14/financial-times-tool-warns-if-articles-quote-too-many-men

[zelon88]

Define "too many." Is a work not valid if there isn't enough diversity in it's sources?

[monksy]

Are they assuming gender in the name of the person?

[chimprich → monksy]

From the article: "a bot that uses pronouns and analysis of first names to determine whether a source is male or a female". Probably not perfect, but good enough for a suggestion/reminder engine.

[adobeeee → monksy]

I think that would be discriminatory and if anything shaming people who don't want to come out

[tfehring]

>The media organisation found that only 21% of people quoted in the FT were women, prompting the development of a bot that uses pronouns and analysis of first names to determine whether a source is male or a female.

Sounds like substantial underrepresentation for an industry in which management and professional workers are 47% women [0]...

>The paper, which covers many male-dominated industries, is keen to attract more women readers, with its research suggesting they are put off by articles that rely heavily on quotes from men.

...and a strong business case for the FT to address it. Aside from the fact that this is HN, I'm not sure why all of the top-level comments so far are so critical.

[0] https://hbr.org/2016/10/why-women-arent-making-it-to-the-top...

[shatteredvisage]

Eye roll

[bostonpartee]

I guess that's one way of approaching this problem of parochial viewpoints. Hope this doesn't have any unintended consequences.