Hey everybody,
a friend of mine sent me a notice: the Wikipedia article "Cumshot" has a
picture which in my humble opinion is nothing else than pornography.
once again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumshot
I already tried to delete it from the German Wikipedia - but its being
restored immediately ...
there has already been a great discussion about it in the German
Wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Cumshot) and its the
usual thing: moralty, a narrowed mind and everything is being used
against critics of the picture...
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Cumshot
its almost the same in the English Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cum_shot arguing you need to have it,
because it's an encyclopedia - to me seems really bizarre.
I really doubt, that there is ANY need for a picture in articles like
this one.
I really doubt if there is ANY need of the article... but I would be
able to get along with it. accept it. especially if it has - like the
English one has, the German one not - a more deeper view of the
intellectual discussion, like the critique of Dworkin und the answer of
Moore. (And I really like to have this in the German Wikipedia too -
when i find the time, I'm going to edit it).
So what do you think could be done, that articles like this are not seen
as an invitation and perfect explanation for using pornographic
pictures... ?
Maybe we can come back to some points Sue Gardner made several Months
ago (talking about the picture of the naked woman in the pregnancy
article): What are the quality-rules we want to have for Wikipedia, to
make it an encyclopedia? what kind of picturing does a good encyclopedia
need - which not?
Maybe the best way of discussing such issues really is from a neutral
point of view and generally discussed for all kinds of pictures - not
only those few pornographic examples.
Katrin
-----------
mailto:katrin@fraulila.de
Frau Lila - Feministische Initiative <http://fraulila.de>
Katrin-Roenicke.de <http://katrin-roenicke.de/>
Meine Kolumne beim Freitag <http://www.freitag.de/community/blogs/katrin>
Hilfskraft am Lehrstuhl für Politische Theorie
<http://www.social-science.hu-berlin.de/lehrbereiche/theorie-der-politik/mit…>
(Please pardon the cross-posting!)
Hello everyone!
We have opened the application process for AdaCamp DC, which will take
place July 10 and 11 in Washington, D.C.. The event will be held just
down the street from where Wikimania will take place starting on July 12!
*What is AdaCamp*?
It is an event, planned by the Ada Initiative, that focuses on
increasing women's participation in open technology and culture. AdaCamp
brings together people to build community, discuss issues women have in
common across open technology and culture fields, and find ways to
address them. Open technology and culture includes open source software,
Wikipedia and other wiki projects, open data, open government, fan/remix
culture, open libraries, and more. Attendance is by invitation and
attendees are selected from qualified applicants through an open
invitation process. Attendance is open to people of all genders.
*APPLY TODAY!
http://dc.adacamp.org/apply/
*And please encourage anyone you know who might be interested.
Applicants of any gender, any background, any age, and experience level
encouraged to apply.
If you are interested in sponsoring AdaCamp, please do let me know!
Thank you,
-Sarah
--
*Sarah Stierch*
*/Wikimedia Foundation Community Fellow/*
>>Mind the gap! Support Wikipedia women's outreach: donate today
<https://donate.wikimedia.org/><<
Dear Wikipedia contributors,
We did it! For the past six weeks, you have all graciously tolerated my
emails requesting participants for my undergraduate senior thesis
project<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Motivations_to_Contribute_to_Wikipe…>
on
users’ motivations to contribute to Wikipedia. On Monday, I reached out to
this community, begging for just eighteen more participants to reach my
target sample size of 100 respondents. We not only reached that goal, but
exceeded it: 161 Wikipedia contributors responded to my questionnaire!
Your insightful responses are invaluable to my project and I cannot express
my gratitude for this community enough, so thank you, thank you, thank you!
When my final paper is written in June, I will make it available to the
Wikipedia community.
Thank you once again for your insight, thoughtful questions, and feedback.
Best,
Audrey
Dear Wikipedia contributors,
In the past few weeks, I have reached out to this community on
numerous occasions,
requesting help with my undergraduate honors thesis, which examines
Wikipedians’ motivations to contribute. For anyone who would like more
information about this project, a detailed description can be found here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Motivations_to_Contribute_to_Wikipe…
.
In my last email, I mentioned that I hoped to attain a sample size of at
least 100 Wikipedians, but had only received 52 responses. I am ecstatic to
report that I now have 82 responses – just 18 responses short of the
targeted sample size. If you have not taken the
questionnaire<https://us1.us.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8ixU9RkozemzC4s>,
please consider donating approximately five minutes of your time to
complete it.
I am so grateful for the Wikipedia community’s support in this project and
will make a final draft of the paper available to the community.
If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please contact
Audrey Abeyta at audrey.abeyta(a)gmail.com.
Thank you in advance for your participation!
Audrey
UC Santa Barbara | Department of Communication
audrey.abeyta(a)gmail.com
Dear Wikipedia contributors,
Your valuable opinions are needed regarding users' motivations to
contribute to Wikipedia. This topic is currently investigated by Audrey
Abeyta, an undergraduate student at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. You can read a more detailed description of the project here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Motivations_to_Contribute_to_Wikipe…
Those willing to participate in this study will complete a brief online
questionnaire, which is completely anonymous and will take approximately
ten minutes. The questionnaire can be accessed here:
https://us1.us.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8ixU9RkozemzC4s.
The researcher hopes to attain a sample size of at least 100 Wikipedians;
as of now, only 52 have responded. Your contributions to this project's
validity are invaluable!
A final draft of the paper will be made available to the Wikipedia
community.
If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please contact
Audrey Abeyta at audrey.abeyta(a)gmail.com.
Thank you in advance for your participation!
Hi everyone, (pardon the cross-post)
I to share a blog I recently wrote that is on the Smithsonian
Institution Archives website. In it I talk about the recent /She Blinded
Me with Science/ women in science edit-a-thon and the importance of
these events and how GLAM partnerships can be just one component in
helping to "close" the gender gap.
http://siarchives.si.edu/blog/preserving-her-legacy-coming-together-preserv…
Perhaps it'll be of some interest to some of you!
-Sarah
--
*Sarah Stierch*
*/Wikimedia Foundation Community Fellow/*
>>Support the sharing of free knowledge around the world: donate today
<https://donate.wikimedia.org/><<
Hi,
Yesterday I and user:Boberger hosted a workshop for Sveriges Kvinnolobby[1]. Learning about the gendergap they started a network called Wikifem to narrow the gap and to improve and create articles about women and the womens movement. Focus from our side was both on how to edit and write an article, but also on notability, discussions, NPOV and understanding the community.
Future plans include edit-a-thons and getting some of the members skilled enough to host their own workshops.
/axel, [[User:Haxpett]]
[1] http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveriges_Kvinnolobby
====================================
Axel Pettersson
tele +46 (0)8 641 81 79
mobil +46 (0)730 59 58 13
haxpett(a)hotmail.com
press(a)wikimedia.se
Wikimedia.se - Stöd fri kunskap!
Hello all,
Following on from recent WP editing workshops in Queensland (see* This
Month in GLAM*
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/March_2012/Contents/Aust…),
I wanted to write about it before I forgot. I am posting here because the
workshop participants were women and leading the sessions brought to mind
my earlier experience gained over many years of teaching and training
adults.
So here are some thoughts about training and gender, followed by some
thoughts about training in general. I wrote this in case it helps anyone
involved in training adults, especially women, who are not students in a
formal educational environment. There are two bases for these comments –
the first is that training is different from making a presentation (newbie
trainers often fall into the trap of just talking as if to an audience);
and the second is that women as trainees often have different needs (this
was evident in the recent workshops). You can already see this is a long
post. My apologies. Stop reading here if training is not something you will
ever do. If there is a better place to put this, please let me know. I am
happy to be (politely) advised where to go. :)
*Context*
The recent training days that Wittylama and I ran for newbies in outback
Queensland consisted entirely of female participants (except for one man
who joined in at the last minute after finding out what was happening).
Ninety per cent of them were mature age and I think none had undertaken
tertiary studies. Therefore, somewhat unexpectedly, these training days
became activities that made their own tiny contribution to reducing the
gender gap. In many ways, they were a case study for adult learning in
general and female learning in particular. The sessions provided an
opportunity to observe the trainees’ attitudes and reactions to editing WP.
Some of those observations are here – in some cases they reinforce what has
been previously noted about women and Wikipedia; in others, they refute it.
*Technology*
Contrary to what you might expect, the participants seemed unworried by the
fact that this was a computer-mediated activity. No one seemed daunted by
“the internet” or the information technology. They recognised and accepted
it; thence it was simply a case of using it to get the intended results.
*Perceptions of participation in WP*
One of the interesting things was the reaction to our question: “what
percentage of Wikipedia editors do you think are female?” The answer was
revealing. They guessed it must be from 60% to 80%. The question was asked
just after WP and its sister projects had been introduced – at a point when
the effort, focus, level of detail and commitment needed to contribute
effectively were becoming evident. My impression was that being a
Wikipedian struck them as a quintessentially female activity: unpaid,
detailed, ongoing, educational, done for the good of others. They seemed to
recognise and identify with this constellation of requirements and were
surprised, even a little sceptical, when we said that boys and men had done
most of it. Personally, I think this insight can be interpreted in two
different ways. On the one hand, these women acknowledged WP as worthwhile
and something that they could do. On the other hand, they could see it as
yet another call on their time, demanding effort that would likely go
largely unvalued.
The lesson for training is that the motivational factor needs to be
explicit. That is, in the middle of learning something new, it helps to
state some of the benefits that may seem to be invisible to learners at
that moment: for example, that this is a way of sharing knowledge; that it
is useful and many regard it as fun; that there is a community of willing
helpers. Many of the trainees were librarians or local tourism office
workers, so these are motivations to which they could relate. At this
point, of course, we crossed our fingers and hoped that their “first
contact” with the WP community (or even second or third contact) would not
be with its combativeness.
*Tip:* Remind trainees what they can get out of being a WP editor.
*Women opt for training*
It was not a complete surprise to me that the people who came to the
training were women. Women like training, perhaps because they often think
they do not yet know enough and need more skills. The result is that more
women will volunteer for training and more men will contribute without it.
For stereotypical support of this argument, consider the oft-quoted idea
that men will only “read the manual” as a last resort. On this topic, I am
amused to find that this article exists on the English WP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTFM
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTFM>
*Tip*: Trainees seek competency, so training must work to deliver it.
*Reluctance and timidity*
We did notice that many in the group were reluctant to try editing
publicly, that is, in front of the rest of the group. Many of the range of
fears that I have seen often in the classroom situation over my many years
of teaching, particularly among girls and women, were clearly articulated
by those in our groups. Among those were fears of:
- failure (“I would like to get it right before I try”);
- upsetting the social hierarchy, which is important in groups that have to
work together later (“that’s Mary’s role/territory”);
- putting oneself forward or standing out (“I would rather try it out at
home first”).
*Tip*: Structure privacy into the class activities (balanced with support).
*The classroom*
For many adults, the “classroom” may be an environment that triggers
unhappy memories of failure, discomfort and powerlessness. For those who
have not done any formal education since school, it may well be they do not
have fond memories of being a learner in a classroom. Overcoming this sort
of anxiety means paying attention to course content, method and atmosphere
too. That is:
- expectations of what can be learned need to be realistic;
- the emotional atmosphere needs to be supportive and responsive;
- there should be predictable and reliable breaks.
It also means respecting what the knowledge that adults have and using it
in the session.
*Tip*: Respect adult learners’ knowledge, experience and preferences
-----
The following comments relate to any sort of adult training (regardless of
gender and experience) but are here related specifically to WP training and
to the context in which it takes place.
*Content*
For complete newbies, it is especially tempting to try to teach them
everything and give many warnings. Such an approach is likely to be
overwhelming and counter-productive. The goal is confidence and competence.
*Tip*: Assign tasks that are the most likely to ensure success and remember
that the concentration required of learners is tiring.
*Outcomes and expectations*
*
*
Above all, the trainer needs to be very clear what the outcomes are for the
session in relation to what the trainees can be expected to be able to do
by the end. This does not mean trying to “cover” everything (trying to get
through everything is demoralising and ineffective for learners). The
session should not be based on the expectation that trainees will
understand or commit to doing everything that the trainer can do. So the
trainer must work out in advance what trainees can be expected to do and
help them to do that. This means resisting the temptation to tell them
everything or expect them to be anything other than learners. Therefore,
the questions the trainer needs to answer are:
- “What do I want them to be able to DO at the end of the day?” (This is
better expressed as “What do they need to know to get started on WP?”)
- “What do I teach?” (Perhaps even more importantly, this means considering
“What do I leave out?”);
- “How do I teach it?” A helpful sub-question is “What will they be doing
during the training session?” (If the answer to this is “Listening to me”,
the training will not be good);
- What is in it for them? (This means, “What will motivate them to keep
learning later?”)
*Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes*
Answers to the questions above fall into the three categories: Knowledge,
Skills and Attitudes (KSA). One of the main ways of controlling the scope
of training and building in some likelihood of success, is to articulate
the KSA that the session aims to inculcate in the learner in the limited
time available (typically, not more than one day). Some answers for WP
training of complete newbies are suggested below.
In Wikipedia terms, the *Knowledge* might be an understanding of the core
policies of Verifiability, Neutrality and No Original Research and a
recognition that there are more policies that apply. Policies, rules and
other “don’ts” should only be taught when they are specifically needed –
not in advance or "just in case".
Basic *Skills* for editing Wikipedia are being able to:
- navigate the interface;
- edit the existing content using the simple parts of the code;
- add a correct but simple reference;
- add an image; and
- find the community.
This list turns itself into sections of a training day.
*Attitudes* are important because without the “right” attitude any learner
in any field will lose interest or be unsuccessful in the environment. In
WP, the learner needs to know there is a supportive community available to
help and also that it forms a social space for undertaking the work. The
other component of attitudes is to communicate that WP addresses various
personal motivations (e.g. contributing and sharing, fun, personal
development, working with interesting people). The training needs to
reinforce these motivators, especially since learning itself can be
frustrating and master of the skills often seems a long way off.
*Tips*
In a class of new editors start by editing existing articles rather than
creating new ones. Not only is it more likely to build success, it is a
better way to develop the attitude that being a Wikipedian is about working
together to build quality articles.
- Leave most policies out (including “Notability” since it is more relevant
to creating new articles than editing existing ones).
- Have a member of the community offsite participate by adding some of the
more difficult things (citation templates, infoboxes, tables, etc) or by
improving some of what had just been added. This helps the trainees see how
the community edits content “like magic”, demonstrates how consensus and
incremental improvements are made, and leaves the trainer with more time to
train rather than fixing code.
*A training model*
Since the idea is to build competency and commitment, a model that works is:
1. Introduce;
2. Get to Know;
3. Try it Out;
4. Get Feedback;
5. Continue (“Off you go”).
*Tip*: Given them a chance to practise and give them feedback.
If you have read this far, thanks!
Whiteghost.ink
