[Gendergap] Girl Geeks and a Wikipedia Editing Day
Heya, I've put up a geonotice but just in case anyone has them disabled (I wouldn't blame you), we're having an editing day with the Manchester Girl Geeks on the 12th. Any presence, female or otherwise, would be appreciated. Invitations went out today to their 400 strong mailing list and we're hoping to have 40 women attend. I think partnership with organisations like the Girl Geeks really helps to bridge the gender gap. If we get 40 new editors out of this day that's 40 women who weren't there before. So I want us to have an enthusiastic show on hand! Also, I know I put out the call before and I have my responses saved but I am meeting with the head of the global network today to talk about where we can feasibly hold talks. The invitations should go out very soon so if anyone else is willing to volunteer to organise an editing day or give a talk on Wikipedia to these great women that would make my week. Lots of wiki-love, Fiona/Panyd ___ 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] Girl Geek Dinner Volunteers
Hey, Depends on the organisation. Bristol was chapter support but Manchester was mostly support from the Girl Geeks themselves. IN summary, it is negotiable. Fiona From: gendergap-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:gendergap-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Sarah Stierch Sent: 02 October 2011 17:39 To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Girl Geek Dinner Volunteers One more question Fiona - is this something we'd get funding through GG for or would we look towards chapter/WMF support? -Sarah On Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 12:35 PM, Sarah Stierch sarah.stie...@gmail.com wrote: Hey Fiona, I think this is awesome. I didn't know that Girl Geek was considered international.. I'm busy as a bee, but, I'd love to develop an edit-a-thon, a cocktail edit-hour, a party, etc... I also like the idea that Girl Geek is inclusive - men can attend right (if a guest of a woman?)? As someone active in GLAM outreach, and interested in expanding that to serving as a mind the gap ambassador (that's my new favorite terminology...) this might be a good first opportunity for that. I travel between DC and San Francisco and it'd be great to host an event in both cities, or work with orgs in both. Feel free to add me into any mailings or conversations. Thanks for taking initiative with this. -Sarah On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Fiona Apps wikipa...@gmail.com wrote: Hey guys! So, I've been speaking at Girl Geek Dinner events in the UK, spreading the good word about what it is we do, having editing sessions and then getting feedback from women on why they don't edit, or if they do, how they think Wikipedia can be improved to be more women-friendly. It's really interesting to do and the women who are involved are just the most wonderful people you could ever meet. I am emailing the head of Girl Geek Dinners at the moment to ask whether I can send an email out to all of the organisations asking if they would like to have a woman Wikipedian come and speak at their local event. Like I said, they're all absolutely wonderful, and the crowd size is usually about forty. They're a global organisation so anyone from anywhere can volunteer for this! My question is: Is anyone interested? If you are, please do email me with who your local chapter is and I will make a list so that if we are invited to these dinners I have a repository of people to invite to speak. The speech is already written, the format is already arranged and the women are friendly. So please, come one and all! Fiona /Panyd P.s. We usually bring cake too. Here's coverage from the Bristol event http://www.bristolwireless.net/2011/08/wikipedians-meet-girl-geeks-and-eat-c ake/ ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap -- GLAMWIKI Partnership http://www.glamwiki.org Ambassador for Wikimedia Wikipedian-in-Residence, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch Archives of American Art and Sarah Stierch Consulting Historical, cultural artistic research advising. -- http://www.sarahstierch.com/ -- GLAMWIKI Partnership http://www.glamwiki.org Ambassador for Wikimedia Wikipedian-in-Residence, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch Archives of American Art and Sarah Stierch Consulting Historical, cultural artistic research advising. -- http://www.sarahstierch.com/ ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
[Gendergap] Girl Geek Dinner Volunteers
Hey guys! So, I've been speaking at Girl Geek Dinner events in the UK, spreading the good word about what it is we do, having editing sessions and then getting feedback from women on why they don't edit, or if they do, how they think Wikipedia can be improved to be more women-friendly. It's really interesting to do and the women who are involved are just the most wonderful people you could ever meet. I am emailing the head of Girl Geek Dinners at the moment to ask whether I can send an email out to all of the organisations asking if they would like to have a woman Wikipedian come and speak at their local event. Like I said, they're all absolutely wonderful, and the crowd size is usually about forty. They're a global organisation so anyone from anywhere can volunteer for this! My question is: Is anyone interested? If you are, please do email me with who your local chapter is and I will make a list so that if we are invited to these dinners I have a repository of people to invite to speak. The speech is already written, the format is already arranged and the women are friendly. So please, come one and all! Fiona /Panyd P.s. We usually bring cake too. Here's coverage from the Bristol event http://www.bristolwireless.net/2011/08/wikipedians-meet-girl-geeks-and-eat-c ake/ ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
