Gendergap September 2011

gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org

61 participants
73 discussions

The Gawker on Monica Lewinsky
by Fred Bauder 08 Sep '11

08 Sep '11

http://gawker.com/5838090/monica-lewinsky-wants-to-go-into-pr Notice the sympathetic comments. I wonder what our article looks like. Fred

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Re: [Gendergap] Pregnancy article lead-image RFC and the lack of junk in articles
by Sarah Stierch 06 Sep '11

06 Sep '11

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 3:04 AM, Arnaud HERVE <arnaudherve(a)x-mail.net> wrote: > > very casual instead. Might be my European education, I don't know. > Possibly :) I consider myself a very sex-positive person, but, I also know when political correctness and "forcing" people to view nudity is inappropriate. In this matter, to me, it's forcing people to view a really medicore photo of a woman nude and pregnant and making the article something people can't view at work. Also, at least in the US Google search, you have to go sometime before you find any images of naked women who are pregnant. There are plenty of tasteful photos of women clothed, or women clothed with their belly showing. I never even looked at the pregnancy article until it was brought to my attention and i was like "Whoa, okay...whoa." But, I'm a [[childless]] person by choice, and the whole concept of pregnancy makes me anxious ;-) I was trying to think of an example of something that might be relevant to men. I looked at the [[vasectomy]] article and was happy to see that there was a medical drawing of a groin, and not someone's privates at the first image (aguughhhh), but, you scroll down a bit and there it is, but, I expected it. [[Castration]] is the same, actually, I'm more shocked by this one because there IS NOT a photo of a castrated man. What the hell is that about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castration We also have a ton of photos (gahhh!!!) of castrated guys. Who wants to spend time adding a photo to the castration article? Anyone....? ;) We have artwork, but not junk. The last conversation that took place about this was in 2006, where a user cried " goat.se": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Castration#pictures.3F And people getting grossed out by a horse castration (ughh). > I think that for medical articles, all the relevant body parts must be > fully exposed. And believe me I have seen much worse than a healthy > pregnant woman, because i do website editing for a faculty of medicine. > Well we need a photo on the castration page. But, you also work in an environment where nude medical images are acceptable. Many of us aren't in that environment :) Many of us also like surprises, but not naked surprises (outside of perhaps your love life). Sarah -- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia Foundation<http://www.glamwiki.org> Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Art<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch> and Sarah Stierch Consulting *Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.* ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.sarahstierch.com/

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A challenge for you!
by Sarah Stierch 06 Sep '11

06 Sep '11

Laura and I were talking on IRC the other day, and we were playing around with the idea of a monthly systematic gender bias themed topic for each month, encouraging users on gendergap-L and the IRC channel to contribute content about that subject. I encourage you all (and yes, even you staff members...you don't edit enough anymore you know that! ;) ) to contribute something to any language Wikipedia or related sister project about....*ROLLER DERBY! *Women are known for playing the sport, and of course, there are men who play too. Laura recently had an article about an Adelaide team on English DYK, and we've also noticed that the [[roller derby]] article itself needs improvement. We're hoping to see it be a GA-->FA eventually. I'm talking to a few friends who are team photographers for derby teams in the States, and hoping to get a content donation from them of quality high res photographs. There is also a category on Commons and plenty of options on Flickr too: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=roller+derby&l=commderiv&ss=2&ct=0&mt=all&w… Start an article about your local team, help build the [[roller derby]] article to high quality, film a video of teams practicing, scan a game brochure for article use.... I do hope you'll participate. Share your results and participants will receive a *special* barnstar award. Sarah -- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia Foundation<http://www.glamwiki.org> Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Art<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch> and Sarah Stierch Consulting *Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.* ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.sarahstierch.com/

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Sesame Street articles
by Christine Meyer 06 Sep '11

06 Sep '11

This may not qualify as appropriate for this list, but in the little bit of time I've been in this mailing list I've seen that articles written by women are fair game. I also believe that this would be appropriate because the subject, the children's television show "Sesame Street," is a female-oriented subject. These articles have been largely neglected, I think, because The Show's viewers are small children and their parents, a demographic that doesn't tend to edit Wikipedia. For that reason, I think that they also fulfill the systematic bias. (I also edit other articles that apply, including articles about other children's television shows such as Blue's Clues--a GA, and The Wiggles--my first FA). BTW, Sesame Street (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street) is currently up for FA. This article was delisted in 2008, for good reason, and I've been working on it ever since. It's been quite a journey. I've become an expert on The Show, have amassed a small library of SS books, and have experienced a great amount of joy in the process. FA is so close! All weekend, I'm thinking, "C'mon! It's a holiday weekend; surely you have the time to pass it!" ;) If it passes, it will be my 9th FA, and my 1st to pass in only one FAC. The interesting thing about this article is that it's essentially a series of summaries of forked articles, all of which I created or re-wrote. The first of these forked articles, "History of Sesame Street", was the first of these articles to become an FA. Many of the others are also FAs or GAs. Currently, I'm helping someone write "Sesame Street in the U.K." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street_in_the_U.K.) that demonstrates the need for improvement for these articles. I'm thinking that the creator is either a member of the demographic mentioned above or a second-language learner. At the very least, he's a horrible writer. I was going to just let it go (there are scores of badly-written articles on WP, you know), but I decided that if I did, I'd be embarrassed by the association. Ugh, what a pain! For the most part, other than this fellow and maybe two other editors in all of WP, I've been mostly alone in this endeavor. That's why it's taken three years to get "Sesame Street" to FAC. There are benefits to working this way; I've experienced very little of the drama that I've seen with other editors who tend to edit high-profile and controversial articles. I've also had, for the most part, very positive experiences as a content editor. OTOH, the articles I focus on tend to be highly vandalized. (Don't get me started on "Steve Burns"!) Personally, I think that's the key to becoming indoctrinated to become a "successful" WP editor; begin with articles that don't get a lot of attention and ones you can learn from and have the freedom to make mistakes. Christine User:Figureskatingfan

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fyi: Gender Bias in Wikipedia and Britannica
by Joseph Reagle 05 Sep '11

05 Sep '11

http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/social/wikipedia/gender-bias-in-wp-eb Abstract: Is there a bias in the against women's representation in Wikipedia biographies? Thousands of biographical subjects, from six sources, are compared against the English-language Wikipedia and the online Encyclopædia Britannica with respect to coverage, gender representation, and article length. We conclude that Wikipedia provides better coverage and longer articles, that Wikipedia typically has more articles on women than Britannica in absolute terms, but Wikipedia articles on women are more likely to be missing than articles on men relative to Britannica. For both reference works, article length did not consistently differ by gender.

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High-heeled shoes as a case study
by Sydney Poore 05 Sep '11

05 Sep '11

Category:High-heeled shoes is an excellent example of the current problem WMF projects are having with creating and disseminating content that is unbiased. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:High-heeled_shoes This category is different that most all the other categories about footwear because it contains many images that are not primarily examples of high-heeled shoes. Most other categories about footwear contain mostly images of shoes or the lower leg(s) with a shoe or shoes. The number of images in Category:High-heeled shoes is higher than most categories about footwear. Approximately one- third of the images are of full body shots of attractive females who are wearing high heeled shoes, and a significant number of them are nude or posed in sexually provocative positions. There are random women who are wearing shoes and are mixed in with the porn-stars and strip-tease dancers. These women are being objectified and sexualized without their consent because of the way the the images are displayed in the category. See Wikipedia article on Sexualization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexualization for a description of the term. In each language that has Wikipedia articles about high-heeled shoes, the content is about a type of footwear, so the links in the articles that lead to commons are directing people to nudity or sexual content that they would not anticipate. There are other problems with some of the images, including unclear consent for the image to be uploaded by the subject of the image. I see this category as a concrete example of systemic bias coming from having a male dominated editing community. Leather boots is only other category that I found that also has a large number of images of people. It also contain a disproportionate number of images of women who are nude or in sexually provocative poses. I think that it is important to continue to talk about these issues in the hope that more people with became educated about the problems with with our current methods to collect, categorize, and disseminate content. Sydney Poore User:FloNight

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CFP: From Veiling to Blogging: Women and Media in the Middle East
by Sarah Stierch 05 Sep '11

05 Sep '11

Call for Papers: From Veiling to Blogging: Women and Media in the Middle East A great opportunity to papers regarding representation of Middle Eastern women in technology; Wikipedia, specifically. Learn more here: http://centerforinterculturaldialogue.org/2011/09/01/womenmedia-in-middle-e… -- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia Foundation<http://www.glamwiki.org> Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Art<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch> and Sarah Stierch Consulting *Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.* ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.sarahstierch.com/

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Re: [Gendergap] High-heeled shoes as a case study (and what makes me mad about Commons)
by Sarah Stierch 04 Sep '11

04 Sep '11

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDH9Jq5AWkQ It's this uncomfortable tension that I feel when I log into Commons. I'm on the Warriors side. ***(and rant below) > I know that some of the images have been nominated before and kept, and > some of the images have to be repeatedly re-categorized, too. I get > frustrated and at times feel that it is a time sink with no end in sight. > > I really do think a bunch of sociopaths try to control what happens on Commons. I get more pissed off on Commons than I do on Wikipedia, which is bizarre. I actually *fear* the commons-l list, and I always fear that I'll have my account banned again because of another stupid mistake which I blame on the double-speak known as Commons documentation. Commons is broken, and I really hope Wikimedia Foundation and others realize that something has to change. It's as if people are afraid of Commons, afraid of the gang of users who have commandeered control within it, and the majority of people who wish to utilize it for what it is have to often tread lightly for risk of screwing something up or pissing some nut job "anti-censorship" control freak who thinks bad art and women getting off with toothbrushes are educational materials. People are freaking out over the idea of an imagine filter. I mean come on..why?? It's going to be something each user (if I'm correct) can control, no one is being *forced* to use it. It's as if these Commons users are afraid of being dominated. Something has to change if this website is going to get healthy. > That is the reason that I wrote to the mailing list to discuss the matter > as an community issue. I have come to believe that is rooted in the culture > values of the WMF editors who add loads of these images to commons. > > Thank goodness we have this mailing list. And I know I come off like a total nut when complaining about Commons, but, I'm getting sick and tired of it. I'm sick and tired of fighting about categories, educational material definitions, and double standards. In a bit of a trollish mood, if you couldn't tell, Sarah > We can't walk away from the issue because it is too important. We need to > discuss it so that we can better understand why that we are having trouble > addressing the issue in a way that is promotes an inclusive editing > environment. > > Sydney > >> >> >> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 9:20 AM, Toby Hudson <tobyyy(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Hi Sarah, >>> >>> The principle of least surprise is roughly the following: >>> People who go to a category/gallery/encyclopedia-article expecting >>> something (shoes) should not be surprised by something they may find >>> offensive (naked women wearing shoes). >>> >>> >>> One way to ensure this is to make clearly labelled subcategories for the >>> potentially offensive material. In this case, I made a subcategory: >>> >>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Women_wearing_high-heeled_shoes >>> and within that >>> >>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nude_women_wearing_high-heeled_s… >>> >>> so everyone who visits that category knows exactly what they're going to >>> see in advance. >>> >>> >>> Regarding your Flickr question: Whether the account is deleted or not >>> doesn't usually change whether or not the picture is in scope. But deleted >>> accounts do make the copyright status more questionable. At the time of >>> upload, the bot would check that the license is correct, but that doesn't >>> eliminate the possibility that the Flickr user is uploading copyright >>> violations to their Flickr account ("Flickrwashing"). If there are other >>> likely signs of copyright violation, I would nominate for deletion (as I did >>> for the other image mentioned in this thread >>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Young_girl…). >>> When the account is still active, you can also check the rest of the Flickr >>> user's contributions to get a good sense of whether they are really the >>> author of the photos they're uploading. >>> >>> Snapshots aren't necessarily out of scope just because they're snapshots, >>> they're sometimes realistically useful for an educational purpose. >>> >>> Toby >>> >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 10:55 PM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch(a)gmail.com>wrote: >>> >>>> Hi Toby - >>>> >>>> Sorry to be a n00b but, can you explain what you mean by "refactoring >>>> this category according to the principle of least surprise?" >>>> >>>> For anyone else - if you find an image that has been uploaded by a >>>> Flickr bot, and the Flickr account has been deleted what do you do? I notice >>>> a large portion of images like this are often snapshot uneducational photos >>>> (here is an example: >>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Labace_%2824%29.jpg) I was going >>>> to nominate it for just being out of scope because Commons is not a >>>> repository for snapshots. >>>> >>>> ;) >>>> >>>> Asking questions like this on Commons-L isn't very pleasant, so thanks >>>> for helping! >>>> >>>> Thanks, >>>> >>>> Sarah >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 6:48 AM, Toby Hudson <tobyyy(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I've made a start on refactoring this category according to the >>>>> principle of least surprise. Feel free to do this whenever you notice a >>>>> "surprising" image in a mundane category. >>>>> >>>>> Regarding consent, if any of the identifiable women are in private >>>>> locations, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:PEOPLE<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:High-heeled_shoes>applies, and the uploader should state that permission was obtained to take >>>>> & publish the image. If this has not been done, please either contact the >>>>> uploader or propose deletion. >>>>> >>>>> Toby Hudson / 99of9 >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 8:05 AM, Sydney Poore <sydney.poore(a)gmail.com>wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Category:High-heeled shoes is an excellent example of the current >>>>>> problem WMF projects are having with creating and disseminating content that >>>>>> is unbiased. >>>>>> >>>>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:High-heeled_shoes >>>>>> >>>>>> This category is different that most all the other categories about >>>>>> footwear because it contains many images that are not primarily examples of >>>>>> high-heeled shoes. Most other categories about footwear contain mostly >>>>>> images of shoes or the lower leg(s) with a shoe or shoes. >>>>>> >>>>>> The number of images in Category:High-heeled shoes is higher than most >>>>>> categories about footwear. Approximately one- third of the images are of >>>>>> full body shots of attractive females who are wearing high heeled shoes, and >>>>>> a significant number of them are nude or posed in sexually provocative >>>>>> positions. >>>>>> >>>>>> There are random women who are wearing shoes and are mixed in with the >>>>>> porn-stars and strip-tease dancers. These women are being objectified and >>>>>> sexualized without their consent because of the way the the images are >>>>>> displayed in the category. See Wikipedia article on Sexualization >>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexualization for a description of the >>>>>> term. >>>>>> >>>>>> In each language that has Wikipedia articles about high-heeled shoes, >>>>>> the content is about a type of footwear, so the links in the articles that >>>>>> lead to commons are directing people to nudity or sexual content that they >>>>>> would not anticipate. There are other problems with some of the images, >>>>>> including unclear consent for the image to be uploaded by the subject of the >>>>>> image. >>>>>> >>>>>> I see this category as a concrete example of systemic bias coming from >>>>>> having a male dominated editing community. >>>>>> >>>>>> Leather boots is only other category that I found that also has a >>>>>> large number of images of people. It also contain a disproportionate number >>>>>> of images of women who are nude or in sexually provocative poses. >>>>>> >>>>>> I think that it is important to continue to talk about these issues in >>>>>> the hope that more people with became educated about the problems with with >>>>>> our current methods to collect, categorize, and disseminate content. >>>>>> >>>>>> Sydney Poore >>>>>> User:FloNight >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> 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 >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia Foundation<http://www.glamwiki.org> >>>> Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Art<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch> >>>> and >>>> Sarah Stierch Consulting >>>> *Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.* >>>> ------------------------------------------------------ >>>> http://www.sarahstierch.com/ >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia Foundation<http://www.glamwiki.org> >> Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Art<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch> >> and >> Sarah Stierch Consulting >> *Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.* >> ------------------------------------------------------ >> http://www.sarahstierch.com/ >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > -- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia Foundation<http://www.glamwiki.org> Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Art<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch> and Sarah Stierch Consulting *Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.* ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.sarahstierch.com/

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ATTENTION MODERATOR- last email
by Karen Sue Rolph 04 Sep '11

04 Sep '11

Would you please remove all other appended content that I did not delete from my email 3 minutes ago? There is a long string of conversation that is unnecessarily included.

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Females and underrepresented students coming onboard
by Karen Sue Rolph 04 Sep '11

04 Sep '11

Dear Colleagues, I am too busy right now to weigh in on everything I'd like to; I have expertise on gender and diversity, which is why I'm here. I am offering the gendergap list to my Wikipedia class (university) students effective next week, so please anticipate new "faces." The greatest concentration will be female, but I am pleased we have a diverse group, ethnically, linguistically, and culturally. Please be kind to our newcomers; we may all make some mistakes while coming to understand Wikipedia's liberties and constraints. I will not assign the list in terms of coursework, but I want (especially female) students to know this forum exists. Some students will have staying power; I see it as a shared privilege to encourage all students demonstrating an inclination to get involved with Wikipedia contributing. Thank you in advance for supporting new subscribers to this list, and the goal of greater gender and diversity equity in Wikipedia. KSRolph

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