Re: [Gendergap] Question for the Foundation about photographs of women
Update, and a request: The discussion thread John started has been very active, with I think about 30 posts from a wide variety of customer service (OTRS) volunteers. Summary: * Many people agree that there is an important concern about readers who find personal/traumatic content about themselves, and have reservations about contacting an unknown email support team. * Philosophical questions have been raised about addressing this with a women-only support team * There are also practical concerns about how that could be implemented So, in consultation with several of the people on this list, I've made an alternative proposal, which would not shake the foundations of the OTRS team. Basically, that we should improve our public descriptions of Wikimedia customer service, and encourage people to *ask* for what they want -- whether it's a woman to work with them privately, or any other kind of special request. Along with a brief observation that such a request might delay action a bit due to limited volunteer resources. Please take a look at what I've written up here, and share your thoughts: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/Customer_service -Pete On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 2:45 PM, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: It seems like we have strong consensus that a separate customer support queue, run by and for women, would be a good idea. I certainly think so! Who here is active on OTRS? I'm on it, and on the email list, but I'm not active there. It might be best for somebody float the idea over there, see how it's received, and if there's agreement, figure out the steps to get it up and running. (I'm sure that having a small corps of female volunteers willing to staff it will be an essential element!) I'm not very active, .. :/ I've initiated a discussion thread on the private otrs wiki, copying your email text and linking to this thread. http://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/Café#queue_for_verified_females -- John Vandenberg ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Question for the Foundation about photographs of women
I think we need to be clearer about who is the audience here. It seems to be directed at the customer, rather than at Wikimedians, but then some of the text is unnecessarily detailed and distracting. We have to assume that most people are not actually reading pages like this for comprehension, but just scanning it for what is relevant to them, or even just scanning through it to get to the contact address they are looking for. I think we want direct, simple sentences in the active voice, and maybe a few boldings or a bulleted to break up the text and draw out specific points. For example, /The customer service team is a small group of volunteers who have demonstrated the ability to work on difficult and sensitive issues, and to act with appropriate discretion. This team respects requests for privacy, and as a matter of regular practice does not share personal information disclosed in email communications./ could probably boiled down to All messages will be confidential and handled with respect by our experienced volunteers. I was going to take a stab at this myself, but my other, larger question is about where this is intended to fit in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us is already quite full, and doesn't really have space for prose text like this. Linking to a page like this one in that sea of bulleted items is unlikely to have much of an effect, though. Is this a customer service portal intended to be reached from some more specialized access point? I realize you may not have thought much about that yet, but I think the answer determines how we should write the page. Dominic On 9/18/11 2:33 PM, Pete Forsyth wrote: Update, and a request: The discussion thread John started has been very active, with I think about 30 posts from a wide variety of customer service (OTRS) volunteers. Summary: * Many people agree that there is an important concern about readers who find personal/traumatic content about themselves, and have reservations about contacting an unknown email support team. * Philosophical questions have been raised about addressing this with a women-only support team * There are also practical concerns about how that could be implemented So, in consultation with several of the people on this list, I've made an alternative proposal, which would not shake the foundations of the OTRS team. Basically, that we should improve our public descriptions of Wikimedia customer service, and encourage people to *ask* for what they want -- whether it's a woman to work with them privately, or any other kind of special request. Along with a brief observation that such a request might delay action a bit due to limited volunteer resources. Please take a look at what I've written up here, and share your thoughts: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/Customer_service -Pete On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 2:45 PM, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com mailto:jay...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com mailto:petefors...@gmail.com wrote: It seems like we have strong consensus that a separate customer support queue, run by and for women, would be a good idea. I certainly think so! Who here is active on OTRS? I'm on it, and on the email list, but I'm not active there. It might be best for somebody float the idea over there, see how it's received, and if there's agreement, figure out the steps to get it up and running. (I'm sure that having a small corps of female volunteers willing to staff it will be an essential element!) I'm not very active, .. :/ I've initiated a discussion thread on the private otrs wiki, copying your email text and linking to this thread. http://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/Café#queue_for_verified_females http://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9#queue_for_verified_females -- John Vandenberg ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Question for the Foundation about photographs of women
I applied for Commons OTRS today... Sarah Sent via iPhone - I apologize in advance for my shortness or errors! :) On Sep 12, 2011, at 5:45 PM, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: It seems like we have strong consensus that a separate customer support queue, run by and for women, would be a good idea. I certainly think so! Who here is active on OTRS? I'm on it, and on the email list, but I'm not active there. It might be best for somebody float the idea over there, see how it's received, and if there's agreement, figure out the steps to get it up and running. (I'm sure that having a small corps of female volunteers willing to staff it will be an essential element!) I'm not very active, .. :/ I've initiated a discussion thread on the private otrs wiki, copying your email text and linking to this thread. http://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/Café#queue_for_verified_females -- John Vandenberg ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Question for the Foundation about photographs of women
On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 8:00 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Several women, including on WikiProject Feminism on the English Wikipedia, have recently expressed concern about the number of photographs of women's body parts that Wikimedia hosts, particularly regarding the issue of permission. It's far from clear in many cases that the women have given consent. It's also sometimes unclear that the subjects are above the age of consent. Another concern is what a woman is meant to do if someone uploads an image of her without her knowledge. Is she supposed to write to an anonymous person at OTRS? Does she have to give her real name? How does it work? Any information from the Foundation about the legal situation, and what Foundation policy is, would be very helpful. Sarah The matter is discussed at Commons:Photographs of identifiable people https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people Fred In addition the Board passed a resolution dealing with an aspect of this last spring: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Images_of_identifiable_people But that resolution focuses on images of identifiable living people, since it seemed to us that's where the most immediate potential for harm lay. However, one important aspect of that resolution was the notion of the right to privacy, and the fact that people in private situations in particular (such as non-professional bedroom situations) where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy should have the right to consent to having photos of themselves freely licensed on Commons, and we should obtain consent before using this kind of photo. US law is actually quite permissive on this point, unlike some national laws, but we see it as an ethical issue as well. So that's the board's position on that part of the issue. The point in that resolution that all projects should have similar policies still needs to be addressed. Practically speaking there have been a few deletion debates on Commons where the issue came up and real names were not mentioned; deletion debates for images are much like for articles on Wikipedia. Or you could write OTRS. Verification gets tricky if it isn't identifiable and wasn't uploaded by you, but as John writes often that's just a reasonable-person test, and as Sarah writes often these photos add little value or are poor quality anyway. (I am particularly concerned with bulk uploads from other services that don't have such policies in place, such as Flickr, because provenance and consent becomes very difficult to trace in that case.) Positives: I'm with John -- sexuality and related are important topics, and we should have the best possible illustrations etc. we can get; I would personally love to see us partner with a responsible education project or the like for this kind of content. -- phoebe ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Question for the Foundation about photographs of women
On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 22:22, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: As Sarah Stierch points out, our images of sexuality and reproduction are crap, broadly speaking, and our paperwork/processes are self-evidently not good for attracting high quality photographs. What processes should we put in place to encourage good quality photographs of this kind. e.g. should we set up a separate OTRS queue to process the paperwork for these photographs? Should it be managed by verified non-anonymous women only? This last point is an excellent suggestion. Lots of people would be rightly reluctant to email a completely anonymous email address, read by lots of people, about such a sensitive issue. If there were a dedicated address, where the complaint would be read and handled only by other women, that could make a huge difference. Sarah What shows up in a OTRS request is your username and your email address. However, the nature of most objectionable material usually reveals identity. My thought is that there should be a women's OTRS address which handles any request, including matters which do not relate to images, which women want to address only to women. If that makes it easier to approach us regarding delicate issues it should be available. I suppose there would have to also be women only review. However, I'm not real sure how material is assigned to queues within OTRS, so the possibility exists of a request being viewed by a man on its way to the women's queue. Fred ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
[Gendergap] Question for the Foundation about photographs of women
Several women, including on WikiProject Feminism on the English Wikipedia, have recently expressed concern about the number of photographs of women's body parts that Wikimedia hosts, particularly regarding the issue of permission. It's far from clear in many cases that the women have given consent. It's also sometimes unclear that the subjects are above the age of consent. Another concern is what a woman is meant to do if someone uploads an image of her without her knowledge. Is she supposed to write to an anonymous person at OTRS? Does she have to give her real name? How does it work? Any information from the Foundation about the legal situation, and what Foundation policy is, would be very helpful. Sarah ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Question for the Foundation about photographs of women
Several women, including on WikiProject Feminism on the English Wikipedia, have recently expressed concern about the number of photographs of women's body parts that Wikimedia hosts, particularly regarding the issue of permission. It's far from clear in many cases that the women have given consent. It's also sometimes unclear that the subjects are above the age of consent. Another concern is what a woman is meant to do if someone uploads an image of her without her knowledge. Is she supposed to write to an anonymous person at OTRS? Does she have to give her real name? How does it work? Any information from the Foundation about the legal situation, and what Foundation policy is, would be very helpful. Sarah The matter is discussed at Commons:Photographs of identifiable people https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people Fred ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Question for the Foundation about photographs of women
On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 21:00, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: The matter is discussed at Commons:Photographs of identifiable people https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people Fred Thanks for the link, Fred. It seems that page deals only with images where the subject is unidentifiable. Even there, it's not clear what a woman is meant to do if she finds an inappropriate image of herself on a Wikimedia project. But if she's not identifiable -- if it's a body part -- it seems there's nothing at all she can do. Sarah ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Question for the Foundation about photographs of women
On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 21:33, Sarah Stierch sarah.stie...@gmail.com wrote: I also think (after working in the fashion and photography private sector for almost 10 years before non-profits) that model releases are as important as OTRS copyright releases when it comes to sexual content on Wikipedia. Whether nude photos, cock shots, or booty shorts. I'm sure most of the people who have nude photos or sexual photos of themselves on Commons have no clue. And if they do know, do we have a reasonable system in place for them to complain? As things stand, it seems they're expected to write to an anonymous OTRS volunteer. Are they expected to give their real name, and how do they prove the image is of them? It would be good to hear from someone how this works in practice. Sarah ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Question for the Foundation about photographs of women
If someone sees an image of themself which they want removed, they can 1. email OTRS. whether the request is received by a volunteer and/or anonymous person shouldn't matter. The OTRS policies do matter, esp. the privacy policy. For added privacy, they should email oversight-en-wp or the commons oversight email address (?). If the complaint includes unresolved legalities, the OTRS ticket (i.e. email thread) will be sent to the legal team, who are not (afaik) anonymous. 2. create a wiki account and nominate the image for deletion. 3. use the laws available to them. Are they expected to give their real name, It depends on the option they take and how do they prove the image is of them? If their complaint reaches someone sane, it is unlikely they will be asked to prove anything. A simple assertion should be sufficient to cause the OTRS volunteer to investigate the upload. Often the photo was uploaded by an account with very few edits, and the image would be deleted without much fuss. I would like to throw this back in a positive direction. The task of deleting poor quality photographs (and metadata/provenance/paperwork is part of quality) is made much easier if we have good quality photographs of the same topic. Nobody cares about deletions of bad photographs when those photographs are no longer used. They do care when it is the only photo of its kind, because it is a precious resource. As Sarah Stierch points out, our images of sexuality and reproduction are crap, broadly speaking, and our paperwork/processes are self-evidently not good for attracting high quality photographs. What processes should we put in place to encourage good quality photographs of this kind. e.g. should we set up a separate OTRS queue to process the paperwork for these photographs? Should it be managed by verified non-anonymous women only? -- John Vandenberg ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Question for the Foundation about photographs of women
On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 9:22 PM, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: I would like to throw this back in a positive direction. The task of deleting poor quality photographs (and metadata/provenance/paperwork is part of quality) is made much easier if we have good quality photographs of the same topic. Nobody cares about deletions of bad photographs when those photographs are no longer used. They do care when it is the only photo of its kind, because it is a precious resource. An excellent point, John. I wonder if there are organizations that (1) are concerned about gender issues on Wikipedia, and (2) have the ability to generate a substantial collection of high quality images to illustrate this sort of thing to the commons. If so, there might be a great partnership/project opportunity there. -Pete ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
