On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 10:43 PM, Sarah <slimvir...@gmail.com> wrote: > A similar statement from the Foundation about the need to reject racism, > sexism and homophobia among editors -- and to remember that this is an > educational project -- might go a long way to adjusting attitudes.
Most egregious examples of these behaviors are already in violation of site terms of use and community policies, but I agree that a strong reinforcement of core values could help. Agendas unrelated to the gender gap aside, I agree that _some_ change should continue to come from the top, while some needs to continue to come from all of us. I say "continue" because to say that things haven't already progressed significantly from where they were 2 or 3 years ago would be misleading. The Terms of Use prohibit harassment, which is the same word that's used to characterize the behaviors the friendly space policy prohibits. So at least in that respect the two are already somewhat analogous. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use#4._Refraining_from_Certain_Activities In response to issues with the ethical management of photographs the WMF Board did in fact pass a resolution specifically about photographs of identifiable people: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Images_of_identifiable_people Erring on the side of conservatism, the Board used language about "private situations / places". But it calls explicitly for strengthening and developing the relevant policy on Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people There _are_ thoughtful people on Commons who could be engaged individually to help further develop and refine this policy to elaborate on ethical issues like the one which started this thread. And there are thoughtful people on this list who could help drive that conversation. Similarly, on things like acceptable content in user space, en.wp has a pretty sophisticated and carefully considered policy which already prohibits needlessly provocative content, and which could be developed further to explain how such content can be seen as harassing and damage an environment where people can work together productively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_pages It's also worth noting on the subject of Commons that WMF did _not_ withdraw the Controversial Content resolution from May 2011, only the personal image hiding feature component thereof. The resolution also contained other recommendations consistent with reinforcing the educational scope of Wikimedia Commons: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Controversial_content "We urge the Commons community to continue to practice rigorous active curation of content, including applying appropriate categorization, removing media that does not meet existing policies and guidelines for inclusion, and actively commissioning media that is deemed needed but missing. We urge the community to pay particular attention to curating all kinds of potentially controversial content, including determining whether it has a realistic educational use and applying the principle of least astonishment in categorization and placement." "We urge the Wikimedia Foundation and community to work together in developing and implementing further new tools for using and curating Commons, to make the tasks of reviewing, deleting, categorizing, uploading and using images easier." On the last point, it's not dropped off our radar. Better media patrolling and review tools are on the agenda for the new multimedia engineering team which we're currently hiring for. Lowering the barrier to flag media that have no realistic educational value (for whatever reason) may help create a greater culture of shared responsibility for curating Commons and keeping it useful, rather than allowing personal interests to dominate small group discussions. Thoughts on how software design could positively affect user behavior and lead to increased diversity in decision-making are greatly appreciated. Is there a page on Meta already where we're coordinating overall policy reform issues relating to the gender gap (whether WMF or community policies) that should be considered? Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
