Thanks for posting this, Sarah. I was hesitant to link to it while it was an active thread. My basic feeling in this case was that the user's comments weren't *particularly* terrible, and all of us who are sensitive to gender issues have probably seen way worse. A block may well have been overkill in this situation. However, I'm concerned that the way that thread played it out gave an overwhelmingly strong impression that "oh, you're not a woman" sort of comments are completely fine, and that anyone who says otherwise is a PC, tiny, reactive minority. I was really disappointed to be the only person who showed up to that thread who could understand how the comments could even be *perceived* as a problem. Just when we think gender concerns may be penetrating the wiki's consciousness, we get something like and I go, "...oh. Sigh."

There's nothing to be done with regard to this particular case at this point, and I hasten to ask that people not descend on the (now-close) thread, or the (now-unblocked) user. But I would like to see a conversation about how we can address this sort of "Of COURSE it's fine!" attitude.

-Fluffernutter

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 12:07 PM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch@gmail.com> wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Block_review_for_Baseball_Bugs

The first "unblock" statement shares the link to the joke and the reprimand by an admin on the users page telling them they can get blocked for ongoing comments like that. Fluffernutter points out that there is a "boyzone" in Wikipedia and that it's not right to mock a users gender. I do appreciate Fluffernuter speaking up about this, I know it's not always something that she likes to get mixed up with (so to say - as we talked about in IRC today).

A dialogue takes place ranging from people thinking the joke wasn't sexist, to Fluffernutter is being "PC".

I don't believe that the user the joke was directed at participates in the conversation - for all we know they might have not been offended - but, this is just another example of how people seem to be unclear about what "sexist" behavior is.

Where I've worked and attended school, it was always very clear that behavior or comments like that were/are not prohibited, but more often than not, people don't speak up when people behave poorly (silent victims). Unlike on Wikipedia, where people generally do speak up - the shroud of the internet, I suppose.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, an educational environment. And when people have to start questioning "Is this offensive or not? Is it sexist or not?" then clearly there is a problem with something in the culture and system.

-Sarah Stierch

--
GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for Wikimedia
Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Art
and
Sarah Stierch Consulting
Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.sarahstierch.com/


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