On 12/21/11 6:41 AM, Michael J. Lowrey wrote:
This discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Becritical#Please_don.27t_encourage_bigotry.
This guy is notorious. This person shouldn't even be in the community for their behavior. It's painful to read and makes *me* not want to participate in Wikipedia, for godsake. I'm sorry you got thrown under the bus, as well. It's people like this that scare the crap out of me in regards to me retaliating or saying anything. I feel like they'll be placing an Arbcom request against ME, instead of someone against THEM.
or this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#File:Wikipedia_Change_The_Ratio_Logo.jpg
Yeah, thus far I'm the only woman who chimed in on it. Someone brought it to my attention last night just as I was preparing to go to bed. Suffice to say I had to distract myself with other things to get it off my mind. Obviously just a troll being, well, a troll, and a bunch of dude-ness. I do think it's interesting that one guy mentions "third gender," as I'm wondering if he's referring to [[third sex]] or if he's just creating the concept of those who do not identify their gender in their preferences are the new Wikipedia third gender.
I understand not everyone sits around and reads statistical data about women, Wikimedia, open source communities, etc, but, it's really weird that in a community that /relies/ on citations and statistical data, that they repeatedly deny/dimiss the concept of the gender gap, throw it to the wayside and think its either not a problem or not worth mentioning. How many times do I have to have this conversation? I also acknowledge that everyone has their own individual experience. While I've had remarkable and terrible experiences in the community, I realize some women have had nothing but awesome experiences, some men have had sexist experiences, and that everyone has could end up on both sides of the victim/non-victim spectrum. But, I also know that if we have 100 examples of painful, terrible, frightening experiences, we have a problem. We have one of these stories, we have a problem, but, unfortunately communities like this need 100 of them to make anyone take notice or make change. And change is comin', baby.
Someone does state that everyone is just sitting around and whining and not taking action. Perhaps they need to become a bit more aware about the actions that some of us within the community are taking. Whether it's WMF's decision to explore options to close the gap, or the UK and Girl Geeks, the planning conference, the Ada Initiative, etc. Perhaps I should invite them to this list. :P
And I keep saying "If you want to talk about this, I look forward to talking about it with you at Wikimania," and then they all get scared and run into the corner. Perhaps they fear the wrath, but hey, if you're going to say it on Wikipedia...say it to my face! Hell, attend Wikimania and I think you'll notice..helloooooo gender gappppppp....
Sarah [[User:SarahStierch]] en.wp
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