Re: [Gendergap] the state of civility on en.wiki
Apologies for the formatting - the machine stripped the breaks that would have made my post readable. G (I'm a workman blaming the tools ...) It should have looked like this: I’d like to agree with Daniel that “purgative rituals” should be added to the repertoire of ways to deal with these very difficult problems. In modern times, the label for this is behaviourally-based change or [[behaviour modification]] and it works better than exclusion or punitive strikes. As Daniel said, these methods remind people what the point of things is (things like other people and the society we all have to work in) and they provide a way forward. Exclusion, excommunication, imprisonment, whatever you call it in the real world, is like banning – it not only loses any contribution they can make but more importantly, gives time and space for anger and resentment to build and then burst out when the opportunity arises (in this case when the block expires). Dealing with graffiti is an examples of this in operation – punishing and ranting at them gives them the fame they seek, so what works best is painting it over quickly. In WP terms this is reverting but it doesn’t work for this level of incivility, I suggest this is because the motivation is power, not fame (or possibly power as well as fame). That brings us back to the “collaborative goal setting” that Daniel suggests. Perhaps some options chosen by the individual could be added to Daniel’s idea of editing – it could be any quantifiable, self-chosen contribution, including editing some other favourite topic or being a wikignome or wikifairy etc. Or, the person could work one-on-one with someone from an opposing point of view to reach consensus on another sort of article. These are productive responses, the goal of which should be to keep the person productively engaged and have them experience their work as valued. Other organisations have to deal with anti-social behaviour and perhaps we could learn from them. The excuse that they are “making such good contributions”, for example, has also confronted other industries/ organisations. Some groups use the money they pay for a service as an excuse for appalling behaviour. Examples include drunken football teams being destructive in aeroplanes (the airlines have had to ban some teams) or rock stars in hotels (making the behaviour public helps get pressure for change in these cases). It is very similar to customer complaints that every organisation has to deal with. When I worked on this for a big organisation, I found that the customer complaints process ranged across and touched on everything from the trivial to the criminal and the process needed to take account of that range. So adding this tool (i.e. working on the encyclopaedia in some other way before being banned) to the box should help. In intractable cases, banning will be the only solution, but for the middle range of people who once enjoyed contributing productively, being given a “cooling off” period in which they can return to that for a while might work. I am assuming that ArbCom is the most appropriate place for these kinds of resolutions to be handled because it is not likely to be feasible for every admin to hand out such injunctions, nor would they be enforceable. Does ArbCom consider that behavioural disputes are as worthy of arbitration as content disputes? If not, is there a reason? If they do consider such intractable (and apparently easily identifiable) cases as within their scope, can these approaches be introduced to their repertoire of sanctions? Thankfully, I have never had to deal with these types of people on WP, but if I did, it would chase me away. While I think the issue is broader than the gender one, they are inextricably related. Gillian User: Whiteghost.ink ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] the state of civility on en.wiki
I also believe that ArbCom _could_ provide good solutions for these situations, but the existing model isn't very scalable and doesn't work for many cases. One potential solution would be for ArbCom to offer the services of a prosecutor for certain cases, when the person bringing the complaint doesn't want to be subjected to further harassment. The problem with ArbCom currently is that you have to have a very tough skin to go through the process, and in many cases it just makes things worse in the short term (which can last for months). Ryan Kaldari On 10/27/11 11:50 PM, Gillian White wrote: Apologies for the formatting - the machine stripped the breaks that would have made my post readable. G (I'm a workman blaming the tools ...) It should have looked like this: I’d like to agree with Daniel that “purgative rituals” should be added to the repertoire of ways to deal with these very difficult problems. In modern times, the label for this is behaviourally-based change or [[behaviour modification]] and it works better than exclusion or punitive strikes. As Daniel said, these methods remind people what the point of things is (things like other people and the society we all have to work in) and they provide a way forward. Exclusion, excommunication, imprisonment, whatever you call it in the real world, is like banning – it not only loses any contribution they can make but more importantly, gives time and space for anger and resentment to build and then burst out when the opportunity arises (in this case when the block expires). Dealing with graffiti is an examples of this in operation – punishing and ranting at them gives them the fame they seek, so what works best is painting it over quickly. In WP terms this is reverting but it doesn’t work for this level of incivility, I suggest this is because the motivation is power, not fame (or possibly power as well as fame). That brings us back to the “collaborative goal setting” that Daniel suggests. Perhaps some options chosen by the individual could be added to Daniel’s idea of editing – it could be any quantifiable, self-chosen contribution, including editing some other favourite topic or being a wikignome or wikifairy etc. Or, the person could work one-on-one with someone from an opposing point of view to reach consensus on another sort of article. These are productive responses, the goal of which should be to keep the person productively engaged and have them experience their work as valued. Other organisations have to deal with anti-social behaviour and perhaps we could learn from them. The excuse that they are “making such good contributions”, for example, has also confronted other industries/ organisations. Some groups use the money they pay for a service as an excuse for appalling behaviour. Examples include drunken football teams being destructive in aeroplanes (the airlines have had to ban some teams) or rock stars in hotels (making the behaviour public helps get pressure for change in these cases). It is very similar to customer complaints that every organisation has to deal with. When I worked on this for a big organisation, I found that the customer complaints process ranged across and touched on everything from the trivial to the criminal and the process needed to take account of that range. So adding this tool (i.e. working on the encyclopaedia in some other way before being banned) to the box should help. In intractable cases, banning will be the only solution, but for the middle range of people who once enjoyed contributing productively, being given a “cooling off” period in which they can return to that for a while might work. I am assuming that ArbCom is the most appropriate place for these kinds of resolutions to be handled because it is not likely to be feasible for every admin to hand out such injunctions, nor would they be enforceable. Does ArbCom consider that behavioural disputes are as worthy of arbitration as content disputes? If not, is there a reason? If they do consider such intractable (and apparently easily identifiable) cases as within their scope, can these approaches be introduced to their repertoire of sanctions? Thankfully, I have never had to deal with these types of people on WP, but if I did, it would chase me away. While I think the issue is broader than the gender one, they are inextricably related. Gillian User: Whiteghost.ink ___ 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] the state of civility on en.wiki
I hate to be overly simplistic but I find in these circumstances that IAR applies. Just be courteous to all users involved, even those accused of incivility, and use the Socratic method. Question them about their actions in a way that suggests that you are not taking sides (which as an uninvolved administrator or editor should probably be the case anyway) and ask them about their assessment of the suitability of their behaviour. Usually when confronted with having to do a self-assessment most will agree to at least back off from the situation to get some head-space. Having a self-imposed break is much simpler and produces much better outcomes than having an administrator-enforced one. I know that's a highly interpretive way of looking at things but if we over-think these things and try and put human nature into categories (not that Risker didn't do a damn fine job there) we'll just end up where we are now; constrained by policy and unable to tackle the reality of the situation. Anyway, that's just my two cents. Feel free to shoot me for it. From: gendergap-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:gendergap-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Risker Sent: 28 October 2011 22:26 To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects Subject: Re: [Gendergap] the state of civility on en.wiki There are a lot of challenges in being able to develop a consistent process of managing user behaviour. Here are just a few that I've noticed over the years: * User acting entirely within editing policy, although usually at the bolder end of the spectrum, being accused of behaving extremely inappropriately, often with the words civility and/or courtesy thrown in. * Users relying on one editing policy to edit content in a way that could reasonably be predicted to arouse dissent, and then accusing other editors of failing to follow policy because they point to a different policy. * Two or more users starting off with minor barbs (usually starting with allegations of policy/guideline violations and becoming increasingly personal), continued escalation over the course of several posts, then only one/a few of the involved users getting warned/blocked for incivility. This one is particularly insidious, as it has the reasonably predictable effect of creating significant resentment on the part of those blocked (the now-sullied block log tends to be used as a club) whilst also appearing to support the behaviour of the non-blocked participants. Both groups tend to feel the action justifies them continuing to follow the same behavioural pattern. * Long observation of wiki-history indicates that systemic problems are rarely acknowledged, let alone acted upon, by the community unless one or a small group of editors exceeds usual behavioural norms to focus attention on the issue. To put it bluntly, it takes a lot of noise to get the community's attention on systemic issues long enough to address them, even partially. This method has variable success, ranging from serious community discussions and policy/practice changes through blocking or otherwise sanctioning the users who raise the issues. If not done well, the attempt at problem resolution devolves into discussions about the appropriateness of the initiator's behaviour rather than the underlying problem. Initiators are regularly referred to as uncivil. * The use of the term collegial to describe the editing milieu. Anyone who has spent much time in the academe will recognize a lot of the problem behaviours we see on our own project, particularly personalization of disputes, which is one of the major elements leading to the perception of incivility. Indeed, some of our most significant problem areas involve editors with academic credentials behaving pretty much within the norms for their profession, i.e., pretty unpleasantly toward those who don't agree with their educated opinions. In other words, as a community we create a climate where poor behaviour is the most effective means to motivate needed changes, where our policies and practices can be used as weapons both to support negative behaviour and also to punish positive behaviour, where the boundaries of unacceptable behaviour vary widely dependent on a large number of factors and enforcement is extraordinarily inconsistent, and where we openly claim to follow a behavioural model that *sounds* progressive but is in reality possibly even more nasty than our own. On reading far, far back into archives, it appears that incivility has been a problem almost since the inception of the project. In the early days of the project, blocks and bans were almost non-existent, and huge amounts of time were invested in trying to correct behaviour (considerably more per capita than today, the community cuts its losses much earlier now than in 2002-04). In fact, blocks and bans were very rare until the arrival of extensive trolling and vandalism in 2005-06, which led
Re: [Gendergap] the state of civility on en.wiki
While I understand the frustrations in this thread, it does us no good to resort to incivil behavior here, even regarding a person who is [most likely] not part of this list. I respectfully ask that we refrain from comments like By god, I hate that man. Thank you, LadyofShalott P.S. I realize this is somewhat belated relative to the particular post I am referencing, but I felt it needed to be said. ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] No Sources - argh!
Thanks Kaldari and Andreas, I appreciate the feedback! -- Erin O'Rourke http://erin-orourke.com ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] the state of civility on en.wiki
The use of the term collegial to describe the editing milieu. Anyone who has spent much time in the academe will recognize a lot of the problem behaviours we see on our own project, particularly personalization of disputes, which is one of the major elements leading to the perception of incivility. Indeed, some of our most significant problem areas involve editors with academic credentials behaving pretty much within the norms for their profession, i.e., pretty unpleasantly toward those who don't agree with their educated opinions. In other words, as a community we create a climate where poor behaviour is the most effective means to motivate needed changes, where our policies and practices can be used as weapons both to support negative behaviour and also to punish positive behaviour, where the boundaries of unacceptable behaviour vary widely dependent on a large number of factors and enforcement is extraordinarily inconsistent, and where we openly claim to follow a behavioural model that *sounds* progressive but is in reality possibly even more nasty than our own. Exactly. We should keep in mind that many of the complaints about how Wikipedia’s conduct policies do and don’t work are, IME, hardly unique to us but quite common in many college and university faculties. Perhaps one of the accomplishments of Wikipedia is that it has allowed laypeople to get a taste of that. And not just. It occurs to me how my own way of staying around echoes my father’s advice to any young lawyer joining a large enough firm: find a niche for yourself that will make you an asset to whichever faction is running, or perceived as running, or trying to run, the firm (and there will be factions). Do that and do it well, and don’t get too involved in firm politics, or more than you absolutely have to. He’s told me he was pleasantly surprised to read Richard Pipes, the historian, draw similar conclusions from his experience of the Harvard history department. He’s actually shared a draft of a PDF expanding on this, and it struck me how much his descriptions of a typical law firm echo some people’s descriptions of Wikipedia. Daniel Case___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
