On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 10:52 AM, Steven Walling <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:swalling@wikimedia.org">swalling@wikimedia.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im"><br></div>Noticeboards are huge magnets for drama. <div><br></div><div>There are longtime English Wikipedia editors already starting to grumble about this effort. If we're going to make progress by bringing the community along with this, rather than having them fight us, we should try to minimize the potential for drama, especially of the accusatory kind that gets performed on incident noticeboards.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I would suggest we not create not a noticeboard for this issue specifically.<br><br></div></blockquote><div>I want to expand on Steven's point a little, as I think it's a good one.<br><br>It
seems to me that there's pretty broad consensus among this group that
many or most of the issues that keep women away, are not specifically
gender-related; rather, they are departures from the policies or the
ethos we are generally trying to establish, and likely impact most
potential new contributors.<br>
<br>As a longtime Wikipedian, one of the things that has become clear to
me is that calm and productive discussion is often hampered by
extraneous accusations. So, here is a scenario that I think illustrates
the concern that Steven brings up:<br>
<br>* Pat deletes a paragraph in the biography of a reasonably
well-known female poet, which discusses her affiliation with a women's
rights organization.<br>* Blaine restores the paragraph, and a small edit war ensues.<br>
<br>Ideal result:<br>Pat and Blaine, with the help of some others,
discuss their disagreement about the paragraph. Maybe it turns out that
Pat's concern was rooted in poor referencing; the only citation in the
paragraph linked to a small blog with no known editorial policies and a
history of several inaccuracies. Maybe, as this gets revealed, Blaine
decides to go out and find a better source, and finds an article in a
local newspaper or a literary journal. Maybe that article contains even
has more detail than the blog post, allowing for substantive improvement
to the article. Maybe Pat and Blaine develop mutual respect during the
process, and go on to work together on other articles, in a more
collaborative fashion.<br>
<br>Concern, if there were a Gender Issues Noticeboard:<br>Blaine, or
somebody trying to act on his/her behalf, takes the issue to the GIN,
before making any substantial efforts on the article's talk page, or on a
relevant WikiProject (like maybe "WikiProject Poetry"). This initial
report frames the content dispute in terms of gender, building the
assumption that Pat's initial action was based on a bias against women
into the debate. Within a few days, somebody is preparing a case for
ArbCom, which adds to the burden of our elected committee members; a
local reporter has decided to write a news story about misogyny on
Wikipedia, citing this dispute; and there's a Signpost article in the
works.<br>
<br>I think the point is, the structures we establish have a strong
effect on how people interact. When a noticeboard for a hot-button issue
exists, contributors often feel compelled to use it, and may proceed
under the mistaken impression that the most productive way to approach
such an issue is to zero in on a controversial issue that may *or may
not* have anything to do with what's going on.<br>
<br>So -- there may be benefits to establishing such a noticeboard, but
my hope would be that we could find a way to work within the more
dispassionately-titled structures that already exist.<br><font color="#888888"><br>-Pete</font> <br></div></div><br>