Very good. If any willing editor runs into trouble or is made to feel unwelcome
or subjected to unfair criticism, that is the time to intervene. We are however
not in a position to discourage women or minority editors from "recruiting" or
encouraging other minority editors or women to edit. Any difficulties with that
they will have to learn for themselves though experience with those they have
recruited and feedback from them.
I think we can point out areas of knowledge that are poorly covered, as well as
those that are overdone.
Fred
----- Original Message -----
From: Romaine Wiki <romaine.w...@gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Mon, 14 May 2018 23:39:09 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems
Was it the first time I noticed this subject in the Wikimedia movement, no.
It happens too many times that people get frustrated because the gender,
color of their skin or native background is the key reason to ask someone,
instead of the qualities that this person has.
There are two main reasons why I do not go into further detail:
1. the privacy of this individual is something I can't ignore
2. My previous email gives an example in a generic topic, and the topic is
not about an individual case.
Also is zooming in on an individual case not a solution, as we need to be
aware as movement how we are perceived by others.
I disagree that it is related to the attitude of an individual. The way how
someone will respond to it is depending on the attitude yes. But I think
that being asked for something just because of the colour of your face is
degrading you from being a person with various qualities and/or the work
you do. The possible demotivation is the result, but the core is in the
approach itself.
But yes, it is a difficult topic. But in this case it is much harder for
that individual who (temporarily?) gave up on editing/contributing.
I think it comes to inclusiveness, being able to include anyone independent
from how a face looks like. being inclusive to anyone, so that all the
knowledge of the world can be collected.
What we should not do is trying to be inclusive by being exclusive. We
should be making it possible for anyone to have a safe and pleasant space
and in that way bridge the gaps, instead of just trying to ask specific
people to come for the colour of their skin, etc. As said, that last thing
is creating gaps instead of closing them.
Romaine
2018-05-07 8:03 GMT+02:00 Amir E. Aharoni <amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il>:
> This is a sensitive topic, and I'm a white man myself, so please slap me if
> I say something dumb.
>
> 2018-05-07 7:10 GMT+03:00 Romaine Wiki <romaine.w...@gmail.com>:
>
> >
> > What has happened?
> >
> > She was invited to participate in a Wikimedia activity, because:
> > 1. she is a woman
> > 2. she is from a minority
> > 3. she is from an area in the world with much less editors (compared to
> > Europe/US)
> >
> > and perhaps also because her colour of her skin is a bit different then
> > mine (Caucasian).
> >
> > At the same time she has the impression that the work she does on the
> > Wikimedia wiki('s) is not valued, nor taken into account.
> >
>
> By whom?
>
> By the people who invited her?
>
> By other participants in the event?
>
> By other editors in the same wiki site?
>
> By the readers?
>
>
>
> > She does not want to be invited because she is a woman, nor because she
> is
> > from a minority, nor ....... etc. This is offensive.
> > She only wants to be invited because of the work she contributes on
> > Wikipedia/etc.
> >
>
> This makes a lot of sense to me, but that's just me and attitudes are
> different for each person.
>
>
> > Besides the many good initiatives and intentions, this kind of approaches
> > to our contributors is demotivating them, please be aware of this.
>
>
> Again, it's probably demotivating to some. Maybe to 98%, maybe to 30%,
> maybe to 5%. I honestly don't know.
>
> I believe demotivation/frustration is the largest problem we face as
> > movement.
> >
>
> I don't know if its the biggest problem. On this mailing list we are a
> small group of meta-active Wikimedians, and we are the minority among
> editors. We don't actually represent all the editors. And of course the
> editors are a tiny minority compared to the readers.
>
> I'd argue that the hard time that some editors are giving newcomers is a
> bigger problem. Gender is certainly a part of that, and there are many
> other parts.
>
> We meta-wikimedians can find a better way to invite people to events, and
> we can change ourselves. That doesn't sound too hard. Changing the wider
> editor culture is harder.
>
> I heard from people that the problem described is called tokenism
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokenism>.
> >
>
> Yes, that's when representation is given to a weakened group, but that
> representation is too weak to be meaningful, and may do more harm than
> good.
>
>
> > I believe the only way to close the gaps related to gender, minorities,
> > etc, is to create an atmosphere in what everyone is appreciated for what
> > she/he is doing, completely unrelated to the gender someone appears to
> > have, the ethnicity, race, area of the world, etc etc etc etc.
> >
>
> So that's where it gets really complicated, because it's always related, in
> ways that are sometimes visible and sometimes invisible.
>
> Let's take school education as a hopefully easy example. People from
> different areas of the world will have very different things to write about
> it. In some areas of the world everybody gets school education—boys and
> girls, rich and poor, rural and urban. In other areas it may be only boys;
> or only people in cities; or only people who know a certain language; or
> only people who belong to a certain religion; or only people who have a
> certain amount of money; or only people who have a certain skin color. I
> want articles about education to have contributions from as many people as
> possible, from different genders, from different skin colors, and from
> different areas, and so on.
>
> An American white woman has different things to say about education from an
> American black man. These differences are important and frequently
> discussed in American media. But the American white woman and the American
> black man *don't even imagine* what people from The Philippines have to say
> about education. What people from the Philippines have to say about
> education probably has little to do with the internal American debates on
> this topic. And of course it breaks down further, because a person who
> lives in the capital of Philippines and knows English has different things
> to say about education from a person who lives in a village in Philippines
> and doesn't know English.
>
> On articles about education I want to hear from all of them. And about
> every other topic. (And yes, I want contributions from people who don't
> know English in the English Wikipedia. By definition they cannot contribute
> directly, but we must do everything we can to make at least an indirect
> contribution possible.)
>
> How do we do it right?
>
> How do we get more different people to even try to contribute to articles?
> How do we get everybody's contributions to be accepted? (Guess whose
> contributions are more likely to be challenged as "non-notable",
> "unencyclopedic", or "unreferenced".)
>
> I don't know. Am I even asking the right questions?
>
> --
> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> “We're living in pieces,
> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
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