[Gendergap] Gendergap Digest, Vol 9, Issue 5

Sat Oct 1 18:58:33 UTC 2011

Hi

I am mostly active on other ML and signed on to Gender gap list solely to
respond to Maggie and Sarah. Let me be clear, Rupert thruner and Pete are
both right, you were not nice at all in your previous response and
border-line uncivil, Maggie. And you are not blunt, maybe slightly
misinformed.

Your opinion about Canvassing is flat-out false, Pete pointed you to the
correct link, you might want to read what it actually means first. What you
might be referring to is the disparity between the involvement of readers
and editors, which is based on the presumption that demographic among
readers, is more balanced than editors. There are actually statistics to
look up for this, and it is not. There is no barrier for entry for a reader
to vote, or becoming an editor. The Canvassing rules are there to make sure
no editor influences another non-involved voter. It is intended to keep the
voting strictly limited to the issue, and not bring any off-issue influence
in the matter.

I enjoyed reading "Many of the people who spend the most time there are
those who have little to do with their time.", thank you for denigrating our
work, we didn't do it for money, yes, and because we don't have anything
better to do but to keep putting and maintaining the content, for random
readers and people like you.

About Beria, I would first like to point that English is not her first
language along with others, and might even be our second or third. There are
cultural differences, and a whole host of linguistic/ethnographic reasons
why she chooses to say 'girl' instead of a woman. If either of you have
talked with her on IRC, you would know this. I'm sure you looked at her
contributions, but allow me to rehash for a moment- she has over 60,000
global edits and has been a Wikipedian for 5 years, started a Wikimedia
chapter, worked on several Wikimedia conferences and Wikimanias and even ran
for steward - which if anyone here knows, is something that requires a great
deal of knowledge and standing within the community. She happens to have a
few hundred friends on Wiki and IRC who she converses with regularly, I am
one of them. She also has a fair deal of experience with being harassed
on-wiki for sexist stuff over the years, some as recently as last month[1].
I have never seen her once stop or break-down, she never even took the
harassment personally and behaved like an up-standing community member each
time. Excuse me, if I am offended when you discount opinion from someone
like her, just because she doesn't agree with you or comes off too harsh.

Sarah, I am not sure what you've been trying to say lately[2]. With all due
respect, it seems you are recounting your own experience and past on most
issue and topic, which lately, has been hard to separate from any on-topic
comment. Your posts yesterday to Foundation-l mostly recounted your sexual
education from Playboys and Madonna's SEX [3] or talked about how children
want "juicy, fun, colorful, exciting content" and "Not a bunch of
writing"[4]. I am also highly uncertain how you can claim to be "pansexual"
or like pornography[3] and yet be grossed out by a picture of a vagina on an
article about vagina[5]. I am not sure if those positions are mutually
exclusive since you call yourself a feminist in the same line. You have the
right to discount my opinion since I can know nothing about feminism and it
can be whatever you want it to be, so I will stop there and only ask for
civility.

Regards
Theo

[1]
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/User_problems/Archive_22#User:Wuhazet
[2]http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2011-October/001675.html
[3]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/069108.html
[4]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/069119.html
[5]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/067980.html

On Sat, Oct 1, 2011 at 11:08 PM, Maggie <rockerrepro at gmail.com> wrote:

> I apologize if you are offended and find this discouraging, but I am not
> apologizing for what I've said. And putting a happy face at the end of your
> comment does not mean you haven't invalidated my opinions. I voiced opinions
> that I know several people on this list, let alone many women on Wikipedia,
> are thinking. I may be very blunt in my style, and this might put people off
> of me, but I found what Beria said to be more insulting and "discouraging."
>
> First of all, she claimed that the OP lied--when the op simply wrote an
> opinion piece about how she feels Wikipedia should work to create a more
> diverse atmosphere and friendly environment for women. While opinion can be
> wrong, while you can tell lies in your opinion, several of us found no lies
> in her comments, and Beria had no evidence in her comment linked to support
> her claim, just comments disagreeing with the OP's blog post.
>
> Second, she referred to women as girls. Which, as far as I know with any
> woman, is incredibly insulting and a way of one-upping someone. I'll assume
> you are a man because your name is Rupert. I'm sure you know if another man
> called you a boy it would be emasculating. It is the same for women. It's
> also something women have battled with for years--people still call grown
> women girls, no matter how much we fight it.
>
> Third, the 9% of women's opinions were completely invalidated by her, as
> well as the over all opinion of women who do not have accounts on WP, those
> who merely view WP--those who have only edited as IPs, etc. And as I said
> overall women's opinions are not allowed on crucial issues due to canvassing
> rules. These rules are specifically made to serve the community, who is
> mainly male, and not serve the readers, which WP is creating its pages for.
> Because these womens' opinions can't be heard, there are no "girls screaming
> to tear apart all images." It's because the women who are angry about them
> are silenced.
>
> To address Erik's point from the same post, I would also hesitate to say
> that WP is the result of reasonable, thoughtful, intelligent people. Oh yes,
> there are some that fit that description, but to assume that everyone on
> there works this way is just wrong. Many of the people who spend the most
> time there are those who have little to do with their time. Those who are
> busy putting flat-out porn on the site are not of the reasonable sort. Those
> busy making it their hobby to delete pages and categories without regard to
> reason are not of the intelligent sort. True we have fine people on
> Wikipedia--they are varied like the population on earth. But to say they are
> all intelligent, reasonable, and thoughtful is incredibly naive. There are
> also users who have no problem letting people know about their possibly
> illegal or creepy activities via their edit history, apparently.
>
> You should probably find this encouraging more than anything--and I would
> find it interesting if a grass-roots canvassing campaign were put in place
> to get more women involved in WP.
> --Maggie
>
> On 10/1/2011 10:08 AM, rupert THURNER wrote:
>
> maggie, this email was not very nice and encouraging ... maybe even
> the opposite of nice and encouraging :)
>
> On Sat, Oct 1, 2011 at 15:55, Maggie <rockerrepro at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> @Beria
> I'm not clear what point you are trying to prove, other than the 9% of
> "girls'" voices don't matter. I also find it questionable that you refer to
> women as girls and don't hesitate ponder why you don't call men boys.
>
> Many women, like myself, get driven off of WP due to frustration with the
> hierarchy, which does exist. Women are treated with less respect, women are
> questioned for their motives, women are called prudish if they object to
> sexualizing images--or they are told their voices are not important because
> they only comprise 9% of the population.
>
> Why do you think they only comprise 9% then?
>
> My goal on WP is to make it more diverse, and TBH I'm not too into this
> picture discussion that has gone on for months. But it doesn't mean that it
> doesn't matter or it isn't an important one, and it doesn't mean that the
> women who care about it aren't important.
>
> Offense is not the reason here, IMO. Offense barely scratches the surface. I
> can imagine that many of the people on this list are angry--they are angry
> that women are being objectified and because women are in the minority on
> the community and it's an uninviting, sometimes terribly creepy atmosphere,
> their voices do not matter.
>
> As for badly written? My god that is the worst you can say? In writing terms
> that is just snide and a low blow. Basically, only someone who can think of
> no other insult would say this. "Well it's badly written and has spelling
> mistakes!" Come on, get a fucking life.
>
> Wikipedia is set up so that only people who look for these articles/pictures
> will know about voting procedures. So of course if there is a vote, the
> majority would probably be overall positive unless serious canvassing went
> on to let people who care about the other side know about it so it evens
> out. Canvassing is set up to prevent this--I believe it's actually a way of
> biasing the community to serve only the community, and not the readers.
> Because the readers are--the world. Telling people about the topic is just
> like how any election goes. I guess unless you are in some sort of fake
> election where people are led to believe that their votes actually count.
>
> Nowhere did you prove that she lied in that article. You only stated how you
> disagree with her opinion. Obviously you are not part of this group for the
> interest of women, otherwise you would care about that 9%'s opinion---so why
> are you subscribing???
>
> --Maggie
>
> On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 5:49 AM, B?ria Lima <beria.lima at wikimedia.pt>
> wrote:
>
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/069078.html
> _____
> *B?ria Lima*
> Wikimedia Portugal <http://wikimedia.pt>
>   (351) 963 953 042
>
> *Imagine um mundo onde ? dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
> livre acesso ao somat?rio de todo o conhecimento humano. ? isso o que
> estamos a fazer.*
>
>
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