I'm not sure if I would agree with the word 'error', Wikipedia happens in a
context, which is where all these discussions began, with the cautionary tale article
about Quora
http://www.zdnet.com/quoras-misogyny-problem-a-cautionary-tale-7000030762/
Away from Wikipedia I'm a member of the No More Page 3 campaign trying to get rid of
the topless glamour model photo which is published in Murdoch's UK Sun newspaper. The
petition reads:
"We are asking David Dinsmore to drop the bare boobs from The Sun newspaper. We are
asking very nicely. Please, David. No More Page 3. etc."
The petition is approaching 200,000 signatures and there are NMP3 t-shirts, media
attention but our Facebook page gets hit by trolls. Blocking is a last resort by admins
but it becomes inevitable. The MRA has set up a Laughing at No More Page 3 Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Laughing-at-No-more-page-3/262437737259691 page and take
pictures / posts from NMP3's page and re-post them with personally insulting comments.
When you click on the names of those posting comments their other "liked" groups
invariably include various humanist societies and Dawkins Foundation.
I entered "Wikipedia" and "male rights activists" and got this
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/fighting-wikipedia-corruption-censorsh… which has a
comments section at the bottom with current Wikipedia members mentioning other Wikipedia
editors by name and talk of a great conspiracy at work against them, if Sarah was
suspended for her off-site comments then how is this permissible?
The same website has an article suggesting the compulsory sterilizing of women before they
reach child-bearing age so they are unable to take the escape hatch 'soft-option'
of exiting the workplace to raise them
http://www.avoiceformen.com/women/workplace-inequality-when-one-side-has-an…
They group are becoming increasingly well organized and have just finished their first
conference in Detroit
http://www.avoiceformen.com/international-conference-on-mens-issues-detroit…
Wikipedia and society as a whole need to recognise the shift in sand and what a growing
threat groups like these are.
Marie
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:28:49 -0700
From: kgorman(a)gmail.com
To: gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Gendergap] Moderation and the future of Gendergap-L
Hi all -
Currently, Gendergap-l only has two active moderators - in the past, we've usually had
at least three. After talking with Liz, we'd both like to bring on at least one
additional active moderator. Please drop us a note if you'd be interested in taking on
such a role. It's worth knowing ahead of time that at times moderating the list can
involve significant emotional labor; that said, moderating the list also allows you the
chance to more actively help make positive change in the environment of the list.
In the past, many productive discussions have occurred on this list, but over time the
number of such discussions has fallen greatly, and a lot of valuable contributors now
either contribute far less frequently than they used to, or have just outright
unsubscribed. We think that a lot of this is related to how the list has been (or rather,
mostly how it has barely been) moderated in the past. Historically, there's been a lot
of reluctance among mods, both past and present, to take aggressive mod actions - this is
a Wikimedia list, and the background that comes with that generally stigmatizes the idea
of significant moderation.
We feel like the reluctance on the part of Gendergap mods to strongly actively moderate in
a way that tries to ensure that the list is a safe space for contributors has been a
significant error - a balance has to be maintained between liberty and hospitality (to
borrow some terminology from Sumana's keynote at WikiConference USA [1],) and we
don't feel like we've gotten that balance right in the past. To be clear, since
I'm the longest standing gendergap mod (besides for Sue, who generally doesn't
take part in moderation discussions,) a lot of what I mean in the former sentence is that
I have personally made significant errors that have contributed substantially to the
general feeling that this list is not a safe space for contributors.
Moving forward, we'd like to change how we moderate the list in order to try to make
it a list where contributors consistently feel safe in contributing. Over the next few
days, the mods will be having an internal discussion about how we think we can best go
about doing this, and we'd also like to start a discussion on the broader list about
how we can best go about ensuring that this is a safe and productive list while staying in
line with the general values of the Wikimedia movement.
This email is intentionally sparse on details - mostly because we haven't talked
amongst ourselves enough to have a solid grasp of what the details will look like, and
also because we don't feel we can fully form a new moderation policy without feedback
from list members. There are a couple things we're already more or less sure of. The
moderation won't be draconian; we understand that everyone makes mistakes and think
that most mistakes represent learning opportunities - we aren't looking for reasons to
kick people off the list. At the same time, members whose behavior consistently (or in
some circumstances, presence) on the list makes other members feel unsafe or we feel are
inhibitory to open, safe, productive discussion occurring will not remain on the list. As
list mods, we haven't followed the list as closely as we should have in the past; we
will be in the future.
And, as a major change, we will also be adopting an explicit set of community guidelines,
which we haven't had in the past. Within the pretty immediate future, we'll be
posting a starting set of guidelines on an appropriate wiki that will incorporate our
thoughts, the thoughts of list members, and best practices adopted from other groups
(likely including significant content from Geek Feminism's example statement of
purpose for communities including men - [2].) Once we have draft guidelines up, we'll
be inviting all list members to contribute to them, although the mod team (including any
new mods we recruit) will have the final say over their contents. They'll also only
be guidelines - we won't take action over everything that violates their letter, and
equally, we may take action on some things that aren't included in the guidelines as
they come up - we just intend them to serve as a basic template for moving forward.
Best,Kevin Gorman
For the moderators
[1]
http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Sumana_Harihareswara_keynote
[2]
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Statement_of_purpose/Communities_includi…
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