[Gendergap] Wikimedia Conference (was - Diversity training for functionaries)
Hi Anne, Kerry and Christina - and everyone else, So the Wikimedia Conference programme committee appears keen to do something useful in terms of creating space for gender - gap work. So I wondered if you had any further thoughts about what *might* work at the Wikimedia Conference. As Anne points out it is an audience of people from Wikimedia movement organisations - board members, executive directors (where they exist), and a smaller number of other staff. Compared to other Wikimedia events there is probably a greater language and geographical diversity. There is also a reasonable degree of awareness of the issue - better than one would find if you put english Wikipedia administrators in a room. The main focus for the conference is going to be on helping Wikimedia organisations grow, learn and improve - we are looking to give people practical outcomes, and are avoiding theoretical discussion as far as possible. Thoughts on what we can put in the programme on this issue are very welcome :) (I'll pass everything on to the programme committee, though I suspect I'm not the only member of it subscribed to this list). Thanks and happy new year! Chris On 19 Dec 2014 07:21, Kerry Raymond kerry.raym...@gmail.com wrote: Can I suggest that the Wikimedia Conference do a train-the-trainer session with a view to the chapters running sessions locally in addition to the Wikimania session. Not many people get to go to Wikimania so the chapters approach would be more scalable. Kerry -- *From:* gendergap-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: gendergap-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Risker *Sent:* Friday, 19 December 2014 2:16 AM *To:* Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participationof women within Wikimedia projects. *Subject:* Re: [Gendergap] Diversity training for functionaries While it might be suitable as a pilot at the Wikimedia Conference (I promise not to harp on the name here), it's a by-invitation conference focused on chapter/affiliate executives, many of whom have very limited on-wiki presence. I'm not persuaded that they're the target audience. In fact, I'd suggest this would probably be best suited to a full-day session targeted at active Wikimedia project administrators and those with higher level permissions (think: oversighters, who frequently deal with requests from women who feel harassed because of gender; checkusers tracking down sockpuppets of harassers, and stewards, who can act in either role on projects that don't have their own CU/OS). There is not much overlap between these active on-wiki leaders and the leaders of chapters/affiliates. Strikes me that this would be more ideal for Wikimania, perhaps as a pre-WM session if that can be arranged. Risker/anne On 18 December 2014 at 11:04, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Christina - this sounds very interesting - would you be happy for me to propose it as a possible topic in the Wikimedia Conference, for which I'm on the programme committee? Chris On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 12:03 PM, Christina Burger christina.bur...@wikimedia.de wrote: Hi everyone, Please allow me to briefly introduce myself before coming to the point: I am Christina Dinar and I work at Wikimedia Deutschland for 1,5 years now. Originally, I was employed to take care of community projects that address newbies and enhance the diversity in Wikipedia as well other Wikimedia projects. I came with the professional background of doing workshops with young adults in political education, doing diversity trainings in order to address some of their existing social and violent behavioral problems with each other. Somehow it never got to that moment that I could actually offer this knowledge and experience to the German Wikipedia Community–my professional focus here shifted and I started to work in other fields. Coming from this background, I could definitely offer a diversity workshop at Wikimania, for functionaries as well as on the level of introduction as a train-the-trainer. We even have developed diversity guidelines (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Charting_diversity), that theoretically frame the approach on diversity to the specifics of the Wikimedia world. If I get some positive feedback on offering this workshop at Wikimania–ideally not alone but with another interested person–I am not sure what the best way to proceed is: Wait for the submission process, or get in touch with the organizers to ask for a room and time for this special workshop (as others did in the past)? I had drafted a proposal for our diversity conference back in 2013 that we could use and build upon - (it was very general at that time, today I would address more the specfics of WM-movements..): Diversity? Deal with it! – Diversity as a concept has long development in management and especially in human ressource management in order
Re: [Gendergap] GGTF talk page
On 12/29/2014 12:31 PM, Marie Earley wrote: Is it possible to post some of the stuff that has been mentioned on here on the GGTF talk page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force It feels like the two have nothing in common at the moment. There's a whole load of why don't we survey women and find out what they like to edit / give women their own noticeboard / review the scope of the project - type rhetoric. Rather than wade in and argue (it's pointless, I got accused of 'radical feminism' POV pushing for my trouble), can some of the stuff about grants, meet ups etc. and replies be posted so we can move on, and all of the let's rip it up and start again stuff can make its way into the archive? Marie Everything you see is just a variation of what was happening all summer, with the pro-GGTF editors managing to keep their tempers against various attempts by anti-project editors to disrupt the project by trying to narrow and control the scope (as some women explicitly have complained): *general nitpicking of statement by a woman/supporter of project that supports the original vision of being both about increasing number of articles about women/topics of interest to women and increasing number of women, including by dealing with issues that turn women off (both software and behavior issues). (One editor summarized these past comments here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Vintage_Feminist/GGTF%27s_re-boot The comments are being challenged.) And of course various accusations of defacto sexism for those who complain about this, as Marie alludes to above *Opposition to the idea of using the page to get other editors to help with new articles about women unless the articles are already 100% in compliance with every policy imaginable. *proposal to divide GGTF into two projects, one for articles about women, the other for getting more women and behaviorproblems; divide and conquor is the strategy here and I'm sure the second would quickly be put up for deletion, widdling the project down to nothing *proposal to invite anything and everything regarding women (including perhaps through womens noticeboard), which could be used to water GGTF down to nothing regarding a gender gap by flooding with less relevant concerns *continuing contention that there is no evidence that there's a problem despite these two existing pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/media It would help if *Past edits at GGTF show that one or more of the alleged women posting now are recruits of editors against the project from the arbitration. We'll see what happens... CM ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Wikimedia Conference (was - Diversity training forfunctionaries)
Im all for practical but I think awareness probably isnt as high as you might hope. I think the report produced by Wikimedia Deutschland is a good recent summary of the state of play and could be a basis for a structure for discussion: https://ia902308.us.archive.org/32/items/ChartingDiversity-WorkingTogetherTo wardsDiversityInWikipedia/14-wmf-chartingdiversity.pdf I find when I am talking to people about the subject, the conversation tends to run along these lines. What are the stats? This is answerable globally, but if you are having a chapter conversation, then they will want to know locally and AFAIK we dont have those stats at a national level. Maybe this is something chapters should be asking for in the next WMF editor survey? Does it matter? Believe me, a lot of people get really stuck at this point and frame it as well, if women dont want to edit Wikipedia, does it really matter? Its their choice, isnt it? This is something that really needs to get reframed. Yes, of course, many women dont Wikipedia because they simply arent interested in doing so (ditto many men). But there are barriers to entry and barriers to continued participation by women who are interested in doing so compared to men. Try to reframe it are women equally able to edit Wikipedia or are there barriers to women editing?. The question does having fewer women impact the content of Wikipedia? will come up. Or as a less desirable framing of the question, does it matter if we have less coverage on Wikipedia about romantic comedy movies? or how can women have a different point of view about cricket scores?. Sometimes it will surface as since we dont want POV in an encyclopaedia, why do womens POVs matter?. Here I often point out that what we hold up as a gold standard of encyclopaedia is a traditional view of book-published encyclopaedias from the last couple of centuries. They were written largely by men, were constrained by physical bulk, and the modern reader clearly likes them less than Wikipedia, so using them as an argument for perpetuating any structural aspect of traditional book encyclopaedias needs to be explored in that context. Also, it is not a womens POV that we should be talking but the absence or briefness of aspects of topics that women seem to find more interesting than men. As a concrete example, I went recently on a Wikipedia photo run with a guy. We went to a popular lookout and picnic area. Beyond the obvious things to photograph (the view), he was interested in photographing the highway below and the large flag pole. I was interested in photographing the statue of the dog (long story about the dog omitted) and the love locks on the fence over the waterfall. The guy questioned why Id photograph those things as we wouldnt be writing about them in the article, would we?. He felt that neither of these was encyclopaedic. The article now has the dog story and the love locks and it was amazingly easy to find the citations in the local newspaper because they were human interest stories. I think theres room in Wikipedia for more than just dry facts and statistics. Again, try to turn the question around into does Wikipedia contain what women want to read?. (As an aside, all our policies in Wikipedia are written by editors, curiously we dont involve readers in our policies but arrogantly assume that we know what they want.) Having convinced people that this is a real issue rather than just an interesting statistic, it is time to turn to the more difficult questions of what we can do about it. But again, make it clear that the problem is not how do we fix the women so they edit Wikipedia more but rather how do we fix Wikipedia so women will edit more. Generally people approach it with the first mindset and that tends to lead to the outreach and edit training solutions, which dont seem to work all that well in practice. If you look at it from the perspective of not changing women, but changing Wikipedia, then different and more productive conversations may occur. For example, I suspect the Visual Editor will help reducing the technological barriers to entry by women (and many men too). But we also need to change the Wikipedia culture. These days nobody would say of course women are welcome to work here, but best they stay out of the lunchroom because the noticeboard is covered in nude centrefolds. Many workplaces have had to address cultural issues that make women unwelcome. Now nude centrefolds may not be Wikipedias major problem (although I have stumbled on some pretty unsavoury photos on Commons at times whose educational value seems pretty dubious) but how editors interact is a problem. The whole bold-revert-discuss is NOT the natural way women work. I think many women see reverting as a huge slap in the face and they dont stay around to discuss. If you watch women in the workplace, they tend to discuss and build consensus before doing things.
Re: [Gendergap] GGTF talk page
yep, let's study some more, not all men, let's recruit more pipeline... i tend to edit in article space. talk space and even project talk are dysfunctional (waste of time) people seeking to disrupt, can only on wiki. i tend to organize on facebook, twitter, meetup etc. where there is adult supervision. On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 1:45 PM, Carol Moore dc carolmoor...@verizon.net wrote: On 12/29/2014 12:31 PM, Marie Earley wrote: Is it possible to post some of the stuff that has been mentioned on here on the GGTF talk page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force It feels like the two have nothing in common at the moment. There's a whole load of why don't we survey women and find out what they like to edit / give women their own noticeboard / review the scope of the project - type rhetoric. Rather than wade in and argue (it's pointless, I got accused of 'radical feminism' POV pushing for my trouble), can some of the stuff about grants, meet ups etc. and replies be posted so we can move on, and all of the let's rip it up and start again stuff can make its way into the archive? Marie Everything you see is just a variation of what was happening all summer, with the pro-GGTF editors managing to keep their tempers against various attempts by anti-project editors to disrupt the project by trying to narrow and control the scope (as some women explicitly have complained): *general nitpicking of statement by a woman/supporter of project that supports the original vision of being both about increasing number of articles about women/topics of interest to women and increasing number of women, including by dealing with issues that turn women off (both software and behavior issues). (One editor summarized these past comments here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Vintage_Feminist/GGTF%27s_re-boot The comments are being challenged.) And of course various accusations of defacto sexism for those who complain about this, as Marie alludes to above *Opposition to the idea of using the page to get other editors to help with new articles about women unless the articles are already 100% in compliance with every policy imaginable. *proposal to divide GGTF into two projects, one for articles about women, the other for getting more women and behaviorproblems; divide and conquor is the strategy here and I'm sure the second would quickly be put up for deletion, widdling the project down to nothing *proposal to invite anything and everything regarding women (including perhaps through womens noticeboard), which could be used to water GGTF down to nothing regarding a gender gap by flooding with less relevant concerns *continuing contention that there is no evidence that there's a problem despite these two existing pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/media It would help if *Past edits at GGTF show that one or more of the alleged women posting now are recruits of editors against the project from the arbitration. We'll see what happens... CM ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] GGTF talk page
Very interesting thoughts. Myself, I avoid Facebook and Twitter like the plague, but I realise I'm very much in the minority there. I don't object to their existence, don't get me wrong, and I know some people find it useful. Having said that - it's interesting to read what another woman has written about Wikipedia's notoriously gangsterish back channels in a tribute to our former colleague Adrienne Wadewitz published by the New York Times. (While the writer doesn't seem to think much of Wikipedia, it's still a great tribute to Adrienne.) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/25/magazine/2014-the-lives-they-lived.html?module=SearchmabReward=relbias%3Ar_r=1 Risker/Anne On 29 December 2014 at 17:25, Sarah Stierch sarah.stie...@gmail.com wrote: +1 to that. My tips are: 1) No talk pages if I can avoid it 2) Other channels (sorry people, but not all revolutions can take place in front of everyone) 3) Social media I get more value asking for help on Twitter and Facebook than I do on any other medium. ANd that's why the WikiWomen's Collaborative was created - social media brings more females (since we use it more than males!). -Sarah On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 2:07 PM, disgruntled grognard slowki...@gmail.com wrote: yep, let's study some more, not all men, let's recruit more pipeline... i tend to edit in article space. talk space and even project talk are dysfunctional (waste of time) people seeking to disrupt, can only on wiki. i tend to organize on facebook, twitter, meetup etc. where there is adult supervision. On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 1:45 PM, Carol Moore dc carolmoor...@verizon.net wrote: On 12/29/2014 12:31 PM, Marie Earley wrote: Is it possible to post some of the stuff that has been mentioned on here on the GGTF talk page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force It feels like the two have nothing in common at the moment. There's a whole load of why don't we survey women and find out what they like to edit / give women their own noticeboard / review the scope of the project - type rhetoric. Rather than wade in and argue (it's pointless, I got accused of 'radical feminism' POV pushing for my trouble), can some of the stuff about grants, meet ups etc. and replies be posted so we can move on, and all of the let's rip it up and start again stuff can make its way into the archive? Marie Everything you see is just a variation of what was happening all summer, with the pro-GGTF editors managing to keep their tempers against various attempts by anti-project editors to disrupt the project by trying to narrow and control the scope (as some women explicitly have complained): *general nitpicking of statement by a woman/supporter of project that supports the original vision of being both about increasing number of articles about women/topics of interest to women and increasing number of women, including by dealing with issues that turn women off (both software and behavior issues). (One editor summarized these past comments here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Vintage_Feminist/GGTF%27s_re-boot The comments are being challenged.) And of course various accusations of defacto sexism for those who complain about this, as Marie alludes to above *Opposition to the idea of using the page to get other editors to help with new articles about women unless the articles are already 100% in compliance with every policy imaginable. *proposal to divide GGTF into two projects, one for articles about women, the other for getting more women and behaviorproblems; divide and conquor is the strategy here and I'm sure the second would quickly be put up for deletion, widdling the project down to nothing *proposal to invite anything and everything regarding women (including perhaps through womens noticeboard), which could be used to water GGTF down to nothing regarding a gender gap by flooding with less relevant concerns *continuing contention that there is no evidence that there's a problem despite these two existing pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/media It would help if *Past edits at GGTF show that one or more of the alleged women posting now are recruits of editors against the project from the arbitration. We'll see what happens... CM ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit:
Re: [Gendergap] Wikimedia Conference (was - Diversity training for functionaries)
On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 1:28 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Anne, Kerry and Christina - and everyone else, So the Wikimedia Conference programme committee appears keen to do something useful in terms of creating space for gender - gap work. So I wondered if you had any further thoughts about what *might* work at the Wikimedia Conference. As Anne points out it is an audience of people from Wikimedia movement organisations - board members, executive directors (where they exist), and a smaller number of other staff. Compared to other Wikimedia events there is probably a greater language and geographical diversity. There is also a reasonable degree of awareness of the issue - better than one would find if you put english Wikipedia administrators in a room. The main focus for the conference is going to be on helping Wikimedia organisations grow, learn and improve - we are looking to give people practical outcomes, and are avoiding theoretical discussion as far as possible. Thoughts on what we can put in the programme on this issue are very welcome :) (I'll pass everything on to the programme committee, though I suspect I'm not the only member of it subscribed to this list). Thanks and happy new year! Chris The simplest thing to do is to describe the gender gap related efforts that other organizations have sponsored, urge the various movement entities to consider their own initiatives and - especially - push them to innovate. Few if any organized efforts have resulted in even small lasting change, so brainstorming ways in which chapters etc. can put their resources - real life organization and money - to use will be of greatest benefit. This is an area where a chapter or affiliate has the opportunity to be a global leader and to have a high profile impact, and the more they understand that the more likely they are to participate. ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
