Re: [Gendergap] Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters
I completely agree with Fluffy. _ *Béria Lima* Wikimedia Portugal http://wikimedia.pt (351) 963 953 042 *Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. É isso o que estamos a fazer.* 2011/3/16 ChaoticFluffy chaoticflu...@gmail.com I also don't have a problem with Erik's POV in particular. My views on this topic are basically that: 1) Yes, some of the men here are being excessively strident and dismissive in a lot of cases 2) Yes, I feel less inclined to speak my mind because I know that I'm going to have to defend every point I make from three or four men telling me how it's not a problem 3) No, I don't think the solution is to fork the list. We have to function with men onwiki, there's no reason to kick them off here 4) I'm not sure how moderation could be used effectively other than to have moderators speak to people who are overly dismissive. Having a moderator approve all posts seems excessive, but I would support, say, an X-strikes-you're-out policy regarding belittling or dismissive behavior 5) I don't think it's constructive to require the men to justify themselves to us or the list. If they're here, they're here because they want to work on the gender gap. That said... 6) I don't know how many more ways we women can tell you guys that some of you are coming across as obnoxious. I'm sorry if that offends you (mostly because I'm a woman and I've been trained to be sorry if I offend people, hey look how that works), but YOU ARE. Please accept that this is happening, it's making the women unhappy, and we'd like you to think before you speak from now on. 7) Please do NOT immediately protest that you feel like the mean feminist women are trying to oppress you by telling you all this. Feel like we're snap-judging your statements? Feel like we're treating you as your gender rather than yourself, and unfairly so? Feel like we're just not listening to the points you're trying to make? WELCOME TO OUR WORLD AS WOMEN. -Fluff On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 5:18 PM, Nepenthe topazbutter...@gmail.comwrote: Unless Erik has alter egos posting here, I didn't have any problems with *his* comments. I find the idea that men and women are automatically equal participants on a list like this a bit naive, but it's not offensive. On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 4:04 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Laura Hale la...@fanhistory.com wrote: [...] Erik's comment made me feel decidedly uncomfortable. On a list dedicated to helping increase the female participation rates on Wikipedia, Erik basically said: WOMENS! THEY IS DISCRIMINATING AGAINST ME! If I went to some women's communities and I posted Erik's comment (and comments of other male posters) with the context of these comments being said on a list dedicated to increasing female participation rates... ... well, you'd potentially have a mob involved. This effort? It would appear extremely sexist. (The large male involvement, the defensiveness of men regaridng their participation contribute to this image.) That these sexist comments are coming from the Deputy Director of WMF? It makes this worst because it is sexism coming from inside the institution. If you and Erik want to belong, that's great. It should be purely in support roles: Women say they are doing this project and need help. WMF officials step in and say we can help this way. If this was the general mode of male participation on the list, of specific support offered in response to specific requests, male involvement would be less problematic. I would like to hear more from other women here on your impressions of and responses to Erik's comments. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ 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 ___ 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] Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters
I don't edit Wikipedia because I've never taken the time to learn the system and I'm afraid I'll screw up. I assume it would feel like making a big mistake in a newspaper and having the whole neighborhood scoff, and I think that becomes a part of my Wikipedia profile forever and ever. I'd like to find a YouTube video to walk me through basic involvement. If it's that cute guy from Portland who is now a Wikipedia community manager presenting it, well all the better. I could also be encouraged to edit if the community had an offline component that included meeting for microbrews. Thanks, Carissa One of the original meanings of Wikipedia:Ignore all rules addressed that. It's current formulation is laconic and opaque to anyone but an insider. The original formulation was If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the Wiki, then ignore them and go about your business. I remember getting off to a pretty rough start. As to beer, I think you need to live in London for that. Fred ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters
On 3/15/11 9:34 AM, Nicole Willson wrote: Lastly, I had a question about Fred's statement about rules. If following rules isn't that important in the beginning, how come I have only gotten feedback once about what I've done wrong with date formatting and never gotten a message about what I've done right on Wikipedia? I've made at least 150 edits, so one of them must have been good, right? Instead I get a message about date formatting (which someone else could probably fix easily) and told to look at the MoS (which assumes that I know that it stands for Manual of Style). It seems to me that there may be a disconnect here. Yes, there is definitely a disconnect. I proposed adding some positive user feedback templates to the widely-used Twinkle gadget a while back, but was shot down due to concerns that it would be abused(?!). So instead, I created a new WikiLove user script and have proposed it as a new gadget. This script makes it just as easy to add barnstars, cookies, kittens, cupcakes, etc. to user talk pages as it is to add warning templates via Twinkle. The response to my proposal was baffling: doesn't seem to have any practical purpose, I don't think most people would be pleased to see an increase in barnstar-giving, the current level of barnstar-giving is sufficient. Apparently the community puts little to no values in positive user feedback. This is probably a symptom of the Eternal September effect mentioned by Sue in the March Update. I think the culture can change, but it's going to take a sustained and concerted effort. Kaldari ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters
On 3/15/11 9:34 AM, Nicole Willson wrote: Lastly, I had a question about Fred's statement about rules. If following rules isn't that important in the beginning, how come I have only gotten feedback once about what I've done wrong with date formatting and never gotten a message about what I've done right on Wikipedia? I've made at least 150 edits, so one of them must have been good, right? Instead I get a message about date formatting (which someone else could probably fix easily) and told to look at the MoS (which assumes that I know that it stands for Manual of Style). It seems to me that there may be a disconnect here. Yes, there is definitely a disconnect. I proposed adding some positive user feedback templates to the widely-used Twinkle gadget a while back, but was shot down due to concerns that it would be abused(?!). So instead, I created a new WikiLove user script and have proposed it as a new gadget. This script makes it just as easy to add barnstars, cookies, kittens, cupcakes, etc. to user talk pages as it is to add warning templates via Twinkle. The response to my proposal was baffling: doesn't seem to have any practical purpose, I don't think most people would be pleased to see an increase in barnstar-giving, the current level of barnstar-giving is sufficient. Apparently the community puts little to no values in positive user feedback. This is probably a symptom of the Eternal September effect mentioned by Sue in the March Update. I think the culture can change, but it's going to take a sustained and concerted effort. Kaldari Obviously a gendered response... Perhaps a backslapping or high-fiving bot... Fred ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Proposal: Forking gendergap: Main list for women and transgender, sublist for male supporters
Once at an Ani diFranco concert (that my husband took me to) I saw several men wearing a t-shirt that said This is what a feminist looks like. Situations like that have helped me get over my anti-men attitude that was a reaction to an early indoctrination of fundamentalist teaching that women must submit to their husbands, and now I believe that we as humans need to protect the rights of other individuals. So I vote against limiting the conversation to women, because can only arrive at the most effective solution through diversity in the dialogue. If the ones advocating for women's involvement in Wikipedia are men, then rather than silence them, maybe women should speak up too. This list is a direct invitation for women to voice the issues they have on Wikipedia and many have done that. It seems to me that the men who are active on this list join the conversation in an effort to find out what issues female editors face and how they can help. thanks for reading my 2 cents, Amy On 3/14/11 5:14 PM, Laura Hale wrote: I'd like to propose that the gendergap be forked. The main list would be for women and transgendered who want to work together to help increase female participation on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects. The fork list would be for male allies who want to work towards a similar goal. This proposal is based on two things. The first idea is that women themselves can probably best identify areas and needs regarding female participation on Wikipedia. Assuming good faith, male contributors on the list probably do really want to help work towards this goal and have women's best interest at heart and want to see improvement in the total number of female participants on the wiki... but there has been a fairly sizable amount of research in the NGO sector in countries like Africa, where outside organisations were not as effective as local organisations at identifying local problems and creating solutions that work best in a local context. In this situation, women and transgenders would be the local community and men would be the international NGOs. The second issue is that at the moment, men appear to be dominating the conversation. (This may not by correct and I apologise if I am wrong. I'm making this assumption based on the names of participants involved.) Men are posting content with suggestions for women. Men are debating if women find the term dick offensive. Men aren't asking the women on the list if they have resources that they think other women might find useful. Men do not appear to be asking the women on the list what their opinions are regarding the use of the term dick and if women on the list find the term offensive. Rather, it appears that men are speaking for women without their consent. I'd really like men to continue to be involved. I think the best way would be for the creation of a sublist, specifically created for men. As allies, they can discuss how to improve the rate of women's involvement. As men on that strategies sublist about the creation and implementation of solutions to increase female participation, the information can be summarised and sent to some one else off list to be posted to the main list. I just worry at the moment that the heavy male involvement is intimidating and keeping some women from participating. Sincerely, Laura Hale -- twitter: purplepopple blog: ozziesport.com http://ozziesport.com ___ 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
