On 7/3/2014 1:40 PM, Ryan Kaldari wrote: The other problem is double standard enforcement. A bunch of guys may complain about mild incivility by a female and she'll get warned by an admin at an ANI. A guy can get away with a lot of bullying, insults and harassment before complaints are taken seriously and there is even an admin comment on an ANI.

That's why it's important to have the talk page of the gender gap task force page open to a listing of various ANIs and enforcement actions involving editors known to be women. A couple women going to each one and pointing out when these gender gap double standards obviously exist, over and over again would be a big help. That way there's some hope editors and admins especially will understand that double standards exist and are "bad"! Same with Harassment, incivility, etc. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Going to Admins talk pages directly after the rule "wrong" can be helpful. I've seen some obnoxious individuals get away with stuff because they'd chummy up to the Admin on their talk page and explain the righteousness of their behavior ad nauseam, as if to brainwash the admin. More squeaky wheel stuff. CM _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:23 AM, Valerie Aurora <valerie(a)adainitiative.org ​A major problem with our dispute-resolution processes is that the person being harassed has to endure more harassment to draw attention to the problem. All experts in harassment will tell you that this is the wrong thing to do. Almost always, the best thing for a victim of harassment is to do nothing further to attract the person's attention. But that leaves the problem editor free to choose the next victim. I have long thought the Foundation ought to employ a team of specialists who can take up those cases when they see them, so that the pursuit of sanctions is not laid at the victim's door. This is perhaps similar to Sumana's suggestion that communities need dedicated helpers who will do the emotional labour in conflict situations.

​>A major problem with our dispute-resolution processes is that the person being harassed has >to endure more harassment to draw attention to the problem. This is, of course, hardly unique to Wikipedia or even online communities in general, I think. so that the pursuit of sanctions is not laid at the victim's >door. This is perhaps similar to Sumana's suggestion that communities need dedicated >helpers who will do the emotional labour in conflict situations. Would there be a good existing example of such a program we could take a look at? Daniel Case

Online communities can allow anyone to "report" problem posts or PMs. Only I've been part of the moderation team in scienceforums.net for the past 6-7 years, and I can account for this from the "other side" (of a moderation team member) --- it really depends on how well the moderation team handles these reports, but from my experience, the system has great advantages- 1. It allows users to complain about anything from bias to bad attitude to stalking *privately* and without repercussion (no one other than the moderators knows that something was reported) and when we take action, we take care not to imply that anyone reported the post. ​ ...​ ​

In the forum, we made it so that while no one sees the report publicly, the moderators do see the name (or user name) of the reporter (we don't share that outside the moderation team, though) We found that this helps us mediate problems of harassment-by-reporting and to spot potential underlying issues with a repeat offender. So, for example, we can recognize when a user consistently over-reports another user for no reason (or petty reasons) which can also be harassment. I'm not sure if this is possible in Wikipedia itself, we might want to see if we need another tool just for that. Do you think that having to use an external tool is realistic for a Wikipedia group, though? We use external tools for development (like bugzilla) but I am not sure what the reaction would be for something like this when an on-wiki team is involved. (I might be missing an option of having this semi-closed/hidden space on-wiki) -- No trees were harmed in the creation of this post. But billions of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic waves were terribly inconvenienced during its transmission! _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

​>A major problem with our dispute-resolution processes is that the person being harassed has >to endure more harassment to draw attention to the problem. This is, of course, hardly unique to Wikipedia or even online communities in general, I think.

​ who can take up >those cases when they see them, so that the pursuit of sanctions is not laid at the victim's >door. This is perhaps similar to Sumana's suggestion that communities need dedicated >helpers who will do the emotional labour in conflict situations. Would there be a good existing example of such a program we could take a look at? Daniel Case

I would assume that WMF has an ombudsman who would do just that, but I see that there is only this: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 7:50 AM, Sarah <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: Well, you know I did actually take one of the worst misogynists on en.wiki to ArbCom,[1] and it was such a horrible experience that I decided to never do it again. After giving up a month of my life to the case and enduring constant harassment during the process, all of the evidence that I painstakingly assembled, presented, and defended was completely ignored by ArbCom, and instead he was banned for a year for making a legal threat. He is now free to return on the condition that he simply agrees not to make any more legal threats. You were actually on that ArbCom panel, Risker, so I don't really understand your argument that taking incivil editors to ArbCom is a good idea. To me it is worse than a waste of effort, it is actually counterproductive and an invitation to be relentlessly harassed. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/C… Ryan Kaldari _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

Well, here's the issue. It's never been clear to me whether this is a WMF-wide issue or it's an English Wikipedia specific issue. The overwhelming majority of people participating on this list work almost exclusively on enwiki, and almost every single experience discussed here involves enwiki. As important as we all know English Wikipedia to be (if nothing else, it's the fundraising driver from which the bulk of donations derives), it's also only one of hundreds of projects. There are issues with the Board micromanaging a single project directly, and pretty serious issues when the Board tries to fix a problem on one project by creating a global policy or rule that may actually be counterproductive in other areas. (And as we can see from the obtuseness that Commons shows about such issues as personality rights - a major gendergap issue in my mind - even when the Board does try to intervene, it's often ineffective.) Risker/Anne On 3 July 2014 14:58, Leigh Honeywell <leigh(a)hypatia.ca> wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

do you know women outside the north american culture, i.e. US and CA, affected by this? rupert Am 03.07.2014 21:13 schrieb "Leigh Honeywell" <leigh(a)hypatia.ca>ca>: Even if it is an en-wiki only issue, it's having a clear impact on _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

do you know women outside the north american culture, i.e. US and CA, affected by this? rupert Am 03.07.2014 21:13 schrieb "Leigh Honeywell" <leigh(a)hypatia.ca>ca>: Even if it is an en-wiki only issue, it's having a clear impact on editor retention and therefore the long-term sustainability of the project. I think trying to fix that is easy to dismiss as "micromanagement" but sometimes it turns out that fixing the big picture /does/ require organizational leadership to address specific things. -Leigh On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 12:06 PM, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Leigh Honeywell http://hypatia.ca @hypatiadotca _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

There was an attempt to address the civility problem on Wikipedia English with a top down approach at the very start of Sue Gardner's time at WMF. Sue, Jimmy Wales, myself, and a group of half dozen other people talked about it in a closed group. It failed because a top down approach is not effective on Wikipedia because policies can not be enforced from the top. Policies need to be made that a large part of the community agrees at proper and enforceable. I would be willing to assist a group that wants to take another run at it. But there are significant challenges with enforcing a civility policy on a global community where cultural norms differ at great deal. So, we need to be careful that an attempt to assist one group of users does not make it harder for other groups of people who are also under represented on Wikipedia English.

I previously described my experience of being a member of Kevin Spacey's Trigger Street Labs website http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004388.html I think part of my shock was based on being British, and how the sink-or-swim attitude prevailed by those running and moderating. At least at Wikipedia there is some notion of "We have a problem here, let's discuss how best to fix it." The name of one forum at TS was "Free for all - enter at your own risk" followed by a note that more members had been suspended from that message board than from any of the others, and this is all they have in the way of rules http://labs.triggerstreet.com/labs/Help?faqCat=Message%20Board Having said that, the one thing that I thought worked well was their Hall of Justice. Members earn credits for their reviews (which are randomly assigned by the 'assignment generator') they then spend them on the website. An obvious way of earning a lot of credits is to make up a load of generic comments like, "the characters in this screenplay are very interesting", request another assignment, copy and paste, earn credit, and repeat. The HOJ exists for members who think the review that they received was unfair. There is a criteria for the reviews including: not cutting and pasting from other reviews, (if you think it has happened then you include the ref. no. from the other review as evidence), reviews should be constructive and non-abusive, a decent word length (I think the minimum was 100 words), there should also be evidence in the review which shows that the reviewer definitely read / watched the submission. If a member thinks they have been unfairly treated then they send a review to the HOJ. Other members - let's call them arbitrators - with a high enough participation level (like having 'enough' edits in your edit history) can request a - randomly generated - docket, read the review, read the details of the complaint e.g. ("I think this review is a cut & past of ref. # 'x' ...."). The arbitrator who received the docket for review then has a choice of Y/N check-boxes relating to the review critieria and a comment form, for anything else that they might like to add. The same docket goes to a number of different arbitrators in the same way. (Note: there is a limit to how many dockets a member can request in 24 hrs.) If the majority think it should go further, it is passed on to the jury. Details about the jury from the website: site staff. Although we cannot say what the criteria is used to pick the jury, logic dictates that they are active, positive, and objective members of the community. They are asked not to reveal themselves or discuss their status with anyone so they can vote without retribution." (FAQs about the HOJ: http://labs.triggerstreet.com/labs/Help?faqCat=Hall%20of%20Justice ) A Wikipedia variation on it might include: * editors would need a certain number of edits before they are eligible to become an arbitrator * there would be a time-limit from the end of being blocked before being eligible for 'arbitration duty' * administrators / senior figures would be ineligible to be arbitrators * 'cases' for arbitrators to consider would be assigned randomly by computer * it would be prohibited for an arbitrator to tell those involved in the case that they have been allocated it * 50% of those asked to consider a case would have to be female (other quotas might be relevant for other demographics) * there would be a limit to how many cases an arbitrator could ask for in a certain time period (I actually envisage it being more like a cross between jury service and those user talk page notices that there is a discussion taking place somewhere These might be more technically difficult: * cases would only go to arbitrators whose edit history is generally in a different subject area - so someone complaining about a dispute about a particular scientific point would have their complaint go to an arbitrator whose edit history is in, say, historical BLPs * a limit to the number of times you could go through the arbitration process with the same case Cases would only go forward for administrators to get involved with if enough arbitrators agreed that it merited being put forward. Everyone seems to be mentioning the different ways in which the rules are applied to male vs. female editors. Is it possible to run a query or get hold of statistics for the average length of time female editors get blocked for, versus how long male editors are blocked for? Perhaps a table that takes account of the editors' participation levels prior to the block? Marie _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

Being relatively new to this list, I dip my toe into what seems to be a somewhat fraught mailing list with some trepidation. (Read: please don’t bite this newbie). I think we need to understand where the problems lie and therefore what problem(s) we are seeking to solve. If I understand it correctly, we are looking at the low proportion of female editors. Presumably we need to understand what is happening to women in different phases of the lifecycle, noting that not all of these phases may occur for any individual woman Initial recruitment – women clicking “edit” for the first time – what does/doesn’t motivate? Newbie phase as anonymous editor (may or may not occur) Newbie phase as registered user Active editor Active editor self-identifying as female (can take many forms) Editor taking wiki-stress break Blocked editor etc I note that a major difficulty in working at the earlier stages of the lifecycle is that we simply do not know whether the editor is male or female until there is some self-identification. Other than the choice of a obviously-gendered user name, we often have no way of guessing the sex of the user until they are experienced enough (e.g. know about User page, etc) *and* choose to self-identity in some form. A second and not-entirely-dependent but not-entirely-independent set of issues relates to “gender” of articles. There is data to suggest that certain topics are more of interest to women and therefore less well-developed on WP because of there being fewer women editors. Therefore, there is the possibility of slicing the problem on another axis in relation to: Ungendered article, by which I mean there is nothing ”gendered” about the subject matter nor any reason to think it is more likely to interest editors of either sex Gendered-topic article, by which I mean the subject matter has “gender” but this doesn’t necessarily alter relative editor interest Gender-attracting topics, which disproportionately attract editors of one sex Gender-controversial topics, which I draw out because this seems to be a particular battleground, by which I mean articles about feminism, women’s rights, abortion, etc and other issues which are real-world controversial topics that have definite gender issues and create major POV issues. etc I note that a machine-analysis of the edits of self-identified male/female editors we can identify those articles/categories which appear to be neutral or biased in terms of editor interest. Machine-analysis can also show us which articles/categories have high levels of activity (in particular high levels of reverts and low levels of text survival and probably high levels of Talk page activity and User Talk page of editors involved) that suggest they are “controversial” (although “breaking news” can manifest similar activity patterns without being controversial in the real world) and how self-identifying editors fare during these processes (simply, do female editors exhibit different patterns of behaviour to male editors?). And there are probably other criteria by which we can slice this issue up. I think we have to recognise this is not just “one problem” requiring “one solution”. But rather that there are potentially many scenarios where we may have a problem and, if we do have that problem, we need a solution appropriate to that lifecycle phase and that kind of article. Or to put it another way, there is a world of difference between the anonymous female editor who attempts her first edit on a living person biography, has it reverted because there is no citation, and can’t understand why her edit disappeared (noting she probably doesn’t even know that she can view the edit summary that may explain why, assuming she can figure out what the cryptic letters WP:BLP means if she did) and the experienced female editor harassed on a talk page in a “sexualised” picture-of-the-day dispute. Both situations could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and both women might never edit again, but clearly the problem is different and the solution has to be too. Solutions like the existing ArbCom (or Hall of Justice as proposed) are both mechanisms that depend on the editor involved being 1) sufficiently experienced to know they even exist 2) know how to engage with them and 3) are comfortable engaging with them. Despite editing WP on and off for several years, 1) I did not know of ArbCom for many years 2) I still don’t actually know how to engage with it, and 3) I am not disposed to solve my problems that way (don’t like the conflict that I rightly-or-wrongly presume is part and parcel of it). A Hall of Justice solution might work for particular scenarios (although I concur with the practicalities of staffing it with a 50% female representation) but is probably irrelevant for many others. Or to put it another way, I suspect the membership of this list is not typical of the WP editor population, nor even of the female WP editor population and we have to be careful to not just design a solution that works for us because we are probably highly atypical. I suspect that list members are 1) predominantly female 2) somewhat engaged in gender-politics 3) experienced WPians 4) feel empowered, etc. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be on this list and wouldn’t be contributing to this conversation. We are the survivors of WP, not the ones lost to it. And we should not design solutions that just work for survivors. We have to speak and act for those who don’t survive and don’t make it to this list. Summary. Can we break this problem up into pieces and address the pieces separately. I don’t think we get anywhere with “one size fits all”. For example, could we run an A/B experiment where we require anonymous editors to provide an email address with their edit? Right now we have no effective means of communicating with them (writing on an IP user talk page being the ultimate exercise in futility – they don’t know it’s there). Being able to communicate with these very newest of editors might mean we can help them achieve their edit and improve their retention. It might also reduce vandalism. Yes, it makes them less anonymous and maybe there are downside with that, but unless we run that experiment, we will never know. For example, is the ability to be anonymous or use a pseudonym more likely to allow undesirable behaviours? Do people behave better if they can be more linked to their real world identity? We could test this as a research project. Identify sets of words that disproportionately appear in “uncivil” remarks or revert stats or other possible indicators of undesirable behaviours and see if anon/pseudo users appear more likely to do these things than real-name users. If the finding was that undesirable behaviours are more likely to occur when there is no link to real world identity, maybe there’s solutions in that direction. I note that there are legitimate reasons for anonymity/pseudonymity in some circumstances but perhaps this should be the exception rather than the norm? I note that we aspire to scholarly practices in Wikipedia, yet overlook that scholarly publishing is always (in my experience at least) published under one’s real name and often has institution and email address (or other contact information) included. Frankly, in academic life, my name is my brand and my reputation. Why should WP be different? I appreciate that the suggestions I make above might be big changes to the current culture, but if it is the culture that is the problem, it is what needs to be changed. Big problems are rarely solved by tinkering at the margins. I think the issues we have with the WP gender gap are not dissimilar to the gender gap in employment. It is usually easy to explain why you employed one person over another because most jobs have a number of selection criteria and by emphasising some over others you can often easily justify any decision retrospectively “yes, she had better qualifications, but he had more previous experience” or vice versa. This is where Hall of Justice solutions fail because they are looking at a specific situation. However, when one looks at the overall statistics of hiring staff, bias against women (or any other group) becomes harder to hide. So getting some kind of gender KPIs into the monthly WMF metrics might be another example of how we get focus on gender issue and how we can spot the macroscopic changes that occur when new software or new policies roll out. If an issue matters to an organisation, you start with metrics so people can see the problem and then you start putting changes to those metrics into annual plan of staff members, link them to bonuses, etc. While WP is very much a volunteer organisation, we might have to think hard how we reward the volunteers whose behaviours lead to improvements in the metrics (it’s easier with staff through bonuses, promotions, etc), but there must be a way (scholarships to Wikimania, the Fluffy Kitten BarnStar of Gender Metrics Improvement, etc). Kerry, who is female, does self-identify as such, edits under her real name (User:Kerry Raymond), likes receiving Kitten WikiLove and is about to don her best asbestos suit for fear of the flames to come … _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

Hi Risker / Anne, In response to the points you raise: * A panel suggests a group of people who discuss and decide things, it wouldn't be that, it would be a pool of adjudicators. * The home page shows 130,858 active editors, if 15% of those are female then it means there must be 19,628 female editors to draw the 50% from. * I don't participate in "dispute management", but then I have never been asked to. * More people might agree to take part in dispute management if they know that their input will be kept anonymous. * Administrators would do what they have always done. Example of a possible way to approach potential adjudicators: Those eligible (maybe they've been editing for more than a year and they have an edit history of 1,000+ edits) are sent a private e-mail, this would be a circular to all eligible editors. It would say something like: time] and have contributed over [number of edits]. We would therefore like to invite you join our pool of adjudicators which we are currently in the process of establishing. The purpose of adjudication would to consider editors requests to block other editors ('cases'). We envisage adjudication to be the first stage in managing cases with the second stage being handled by administrators. in fact one of the conditions of being an adjudicator would be that you have no direct contact with those involved any of the cases which you are asked to consider (although you may inform the Wikipedia community that you are an adjudicator). If you wish to become an adjudicator please click on the link and fill out the form. (The form would include equal opportunities monitoring questions http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/private-and-public-sector-guidance/emplo… )." Example case: * Editor 'X' wants a block against editor 'Y'. * Editor X submits a case for adjudication. * Adjudicator 'A' requests a case, the case is randomly selected from those pending by computer. * Adjudicator A reads the details and decides whether X has a point, or whether Y appears to have behaved reasonably (even if X didn't like it). * Adjudicator A marks a one of two check boxes, "Pass to next stage? Yes [box] No [box]" (perhaps other boxes like "I lack the technical knowledge to adjudicate on this.") and a small comments form, maybe 1,000 characters. * The same case goes to a few more adjudicators, 50% of whom are female. * If enough rule that the case has merit then it goes forward and administrators deal with it as they currently do (the idea is to weed out groundless requests and save administrators and above time). * Their would be a maximum number of cases that any single adjudicator could rule on in a 24 or 48 hour period. * From time to time there would be a general call, "we currently have a backlog of cases". I must confess, I had to logout of Wikipedia and remind myself about what questions are asked when joining. I'm so used to filling in Equal Opportunities Monitoring Forms for statistical purposes that I didn't really think about not being able to just run the query. Having said that, most user pages of active users that I've seen do appear to volunteer which gender they are. It is probably possible to go back. Marie ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2014 13:45:34 -0400 From: risker.wp(a)gmail.com To: gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists) A few points here: - If less than 15% of editors identify as female, and the vast majority of those do not regularly participate in "dispute management", how are you going to establish a panel that is 50% women? This isn't a small point - there are so few individuals generally speaking who regularly participate in dispute management at all (I'd put the number on enwiki at less than 150 total), and many of them are there because of the perceived power gradient, not because they have a genuine interest in managing disputes. - What disputes, exactly, would the panel be analysing? I'm having a hard time visualizing this. "User:XXXX made a sexist comment here (link)"? - What would you expect administrators to do, exactly? They're directly accountable for the use of their tools and have to be able to personally justify any actions they take - and surprisingly, a huge percentage of administrators (almost) never use the block button. (There's a subset of admins who only use their tools to read deleted versions, and another subset that only shows up once a year, makes a couple of edits so they keep their tools, and disappears again.) - How would you develop any statistics based on gender of editor, when the overwhelming majority of editors do not identify their gender at all in any consistent fashion? I've personally never added any gender categories to my userpage, for example, and I have no intention of doing so now. Some thoughts. Risker/Anne On 6 July 2014 04:51, Marie Earley <eiryel(a)hotmail.com> wrote: I previously described my experience of being a member of Kevin Spacey's Trigger Street Labs website http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004388.html I think part of my shock was based on being British, and how the sink-or-swim attitude prevailed by those running and moderating. At least at Wikipedia there is some notion of "We have a problem here, let's discuss how best to fix it." The name of one forum at TS was "Free for all - enter at your own risk" followed by a note that more members had been suspended from that message board than from any of the others, and this is all they have in the way of rules http://labs.triggerstreet.com/labs/Help?faqCat=Message%20Board Having said that, the one thing that I thought worked well was their Hall of Justice. Members earn credits for their reviews (which are randomly assigned by the 'assignment generator') they then spend them on the website. An obvious way of earning a lot of credits is to make up a load of generic comments like, "the characters in this screenplay are very interesting", request another assignment, copy and paste, earn credit, and repeat. The HOJ exists for members who think the review that they received was unfair. There is a criteria for the reviews including: not cutting and pasting from other reviews, (if you think it has happened then you include the ref. no. from the other review as evidence), reviews should be constructive and non-abusive, a decent word length (I think the minimum was 100 words), there should also be evidence in the review which shows that the reviewer definitely read / watched the submission. If a member thinks they have been unfairly treated then they send a review to the HOJ. Other members - let's call them arbitrators - with a high enough participation level (like having 'enough' edits in your edit history) can request a - randomly generated - docket, read the review, read the details of the complaint e.g. ("I think this review is a cut & past of ref. # 'x' ...."). The arbitrator who received the docket for review then has a choice of Y/N check-boxes relating to the review critieria and a comment form, for anything else that they might like to add. The same docket goes to a number of different arbitrators in the same way. (Note: there is a limit to how many dockets a member can request in 24 hrs.) If the majority think it should go further, it is passed on to the jury. Details about the jury from the website: site staff. Although we cannot say what the criteria is used to pick the jury, logic dictates that they are active, positive, and objective members of the community. They are asked not to reveal themselves or discuss their status with anyone so they can vote without retribution." (FAQs about the HOJ: http://labs.triggerstreet.com/labs/Help?faqCat=Hall%20of%20Justice ) A Wikipedia variation on it might include: * editors would need a certain number of edits before they are eligible to become an arbitrator * there would be a time-limit from the end of being blocked before being eligible for 'arbitration duty' * administrators / senior figures would be ineligible to be arbitrators * 'cases' for arbitrators to consider would be assigned randomly by computer * it would be prohibited for an arbitrator to tell those involved in the case that they have been allocated it * 50% of those asked to consider a case would have to be female (other quotas might be relevant for other demographics) * there would be a limit to how many cases an arbitrator could ask for in a certain time period (I actually envisage it being more like a cross between jury service and those user talk page notices that there is a discussion taking place somewhere These might be more technically difficult: * cases would only go to arbitrators whose edit history is generally in a different subject area - so someone complaining about a dispute about a particular scientific point would have their complaint go to an arbitrator whose edit history is in, say, historical BLPs * a limit to the number of times you could go through the arbitration process with the same case Cases would only go forward for administrators to get involved with if enough arbitrators agreed that it merited being put forward. Everyone seems to be mentioning the different ways in which the rules are applied to male vs. female editors. Is it possible to run a query or get hold of statistics for the average length of time female editors get blocked for, versus how long male editors are blocked for? Perhaps a table that takes account of the editors' participation levels prior to the block? Marie _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

While I've barely had a chance to read through proposal and comments, I'd like to just ask re the below which applies generally right now: On 7/7/2014 9:35 AM, Risker wrote: *Is it possible to establish a group of editors called "arbcom assistants" who would be admins appointed by arbcom to help with the workflow??

Risker wrote: What issues do you have with anonymous reporting? On my forum I have reporting wide open to the world, no login/membership needed. Aside from spambots that can find any link, mostly what I've seen is more biased reporting: Posters will report transgressions by someone they don't like. In most cases, it is a real transgression and something that needs cleaning up. There are a few who narrowly interpret the rules (or make up their own), but those are usually pretty obvious. The only question on seeing obvious bias would be could it scale. You might need a database of notes from prior decisions, or maybe a trial period of watching other decisions for new adjudicators.

Many of our most seriously problematic sockpuppeting accounts are people I definitely agree with this. Is there any way to track cellphone users? Their variable IP addresses are as bad as the old AOL days.

Janine _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

Hi Risker / Anne, In response to the points you raise: * A panel suggests a group of people who discuss and decide things, it

* The home page shows 130,858 active editors, if 15% of those are female

* I don't participate in "dispute management", but then I have never been

* More people might agree to take part in dispute management if they know

* Administrators would do what they have always done. Example of a possible way to approach potential adjudicators: Those eligible (maybe they've been editing for more than a year and they

> "According to our records you have been with us for more than [length

> Your anonymity as an adjudicator would be protected by us at all times,

Example case: * Editor 'X' wants a block against editor 'Y'. * Editor X submits a case for adjudication. * Adjudicator 'A' requests a case, the case is randomly selected from

* Adjudicator A reads the details and decides whether X has a point, or

* Adjudicator A marks a one of two check boxes, "Pass to next stage? Yes

* The same case goes to a few more adjudicators, 50% of whom are female. * If enough rule that the case has merit then it goes forward and

* Their would be a maximum number of cases that any single adjudicator

* From time to time there would be a general call, "we currently have a

I must confess, I had to logout of Wikipedia and remind myself about what

Marie ________________________________ Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2014 13:45:34 -0400 From: risker.wp(a)gmail.com To: gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists) A few points here: If less than 15% of editors identify as female, and the vast majority of

What disputes, exactly, would the panel be analysing? I'm having a hard

What would you expect administrators to do, exactly? They're directly

How would you develop any statistics based on gender of editor, when the

Some thoughts. Risker/Anne On 6 July 2014 04:51, Marie Earley <eiryel(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > > I previously described my experience of being a member of Kevin Spacey's

> > I think part of my shock was based on being British, and how the

> > Having said that, the one thing that I thought worked well was their

> > The HOJ exists for members who think the review that they received was

> > If a member thinks they have been unfairly treated then they send a

> > The same docket goes to a number of different arbitrators in the same

> > Details about the jury from the website: > > "The jury is a group of your peers made up of seasoned members picked

> > (FAQs about the HOJ:

> > A Wikipedia variation on it might include: > * editors would need a certain number of edits before they are eligible

> * there would be a time-limit from the end of being blocked before being

> * administrators / senior figures would be ineligible to be arbitrators > * 'cases' for arbitrators to consider would be assigned randomly by

> * it would be prohibited for an arbitrator to tell those involved in the

> * 50% of those asked to consider a case would have to be female (other

> * there would be a limit to how many cases an arbitrator could ask for

> > These might be more technically difficult: > * cases would only go to arbitrators whose edit history is generally in

> * a limit to the number of times you could go through the arbitration

> > Cases would only go forward for administrators to get involved with if

> > > > On a slightly different note: > Everyone seems to be mentioning the different ways in which the rules

> > Marie > > > > Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 21:23:18 -0400 > > From: carolmooredc(a)verizon.net > > To: gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists) > > > > > When I was a little girl in the 1950s and 60s we were told to be

> > and pray for what we wanted. Thank heavens self-actualization and

> > liberation came along and we discovered "well-behaved women seldom

> > history." (Nicely covered at > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Thatcher_Ulrich ) > > > > If we want the guys to change we gotta keep busting their chops about > > being civil, within the limits of civility of course. On a one on one > > basis, day after day after day. And even though no matter how civil we > > are, SOME of them still will think it is we who are being uncivil. > > > > It's a dirty job, but it's gotta be done. > > > > And the more guys who help promote civility and are willing to counter > > the good-old-boy mentality, the better... :-) > > > > On 7/3/2014 3:18 PM, Sydney Poore wrote: > > > There was an attempt to address the civility problem on Wikipedia > > > English with a top down approach at the very start of Sue Gardner's > > > time at WMF. Sue, Jimmy Wales, myself, and a group of half dozen

> > > people talked about it in a closed group. It failed because a top

> > > approach is not effective on Wikipedia because policies can not be > > > enforced from the top. Policies need to be made that a large part of > > > the community agrees at proper and enforceable. > > > > > > I would be willing to assist a group that wants to take another run

> > > it. But there are significant challenges with enforcing a civility > > > policy on a global community where cultural norms differ at great > > > deal. So, we need to be careful that an attempt to assist one group

> > > users does not make it harder for other groups of people who are

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2) the reasons that people enforcing the rules on Wikipedia ignore incivility, harassment, and trolling is because that >approach is often the best way to stop attention seeking behavior. The idea to "not feed trolls" is well engrained into the >culture and advise given by mature and experienced people on the Internet.

The idea to "not feed trolls" is well engrained into the culture and advise given by mature and experienced people on the Internet.

2)

The