I feel hesitant to comment on the original situation quoted publicly, because I know all three editors involved, but I do want to comment about the conference in general: for me at least, it was a really good experience, and laid the ground for a number of future collaborations where multiple sets of people who happened to be in the same set of cities but had not previously managed to connect with each other and who all have a mutual interest in trying to deal with demographic gap related issues through focused editathons and collaborations with GLAMs and academic institutions had the opportunity to meet each other.  As a result of the conference, we should be seeing some interesting collaborations at multiple major institutions around things like our coverage of feminism, the gender imbalances in biographies, and the complete lack of coverage in certain fields in the next few months that wouldn't have happened without the conference, and those are just the conversations I was involved in.  I think it was probably the most demographically balanced Wikimedia related conference I've attended (not that that's saying much...) and that for me at least, it involved a lot of fun conversations with people I would otherwise not have met in person that have now become productive online friends (well - okay - I probably would've met most of the OPW interns in person eventually since I do still live in the bay, but probably not for months, or in a setting like that.)

----
Kevin Gorman


On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 5:25 PM, Risker <risker.wp@gmail.com> wrote:



On 6 June 2014 16:56, Katherine Casey <fluffernutter.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:


One quote, of many possible ones:

“We're really the typical demographic, actually,” says Alex Stinson, back on the leather couches.

“White, male techies with college degrees,” agrees Kevin Rutherford. “Not you, though,” he says, squinting at a young woman who has silently joined the group, pale with dyed black hair and a skeptical, Daria-like expression. “Are you a contributor?”

“Yes,” she says, her eyes narrowing.

“Do you have a college degree?” Kevin asks.

Yes,” she says, a bit harder.

“So you're like, completely out there,” he says, flustered. “In that you're not like us, but you have a college degree,” he adds hastily. “I mean, you are like us, but you’re not.” He sputters on for a few minutes.


I don't suppose anyone knows who the "daria-like" female editor was? I think we collectively owe her an apology.




Oh dear. I agree with you Fluffernutter.

Risker/Anne

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