I'm tweeting about wiki and open access stuff via the We Are Wikipedia
Twitter account this upcoming week (starting later tonight/tomorrow
morning).
You can follow it here:
https://twitter.com/WeAreWikipedia
--
Sarah Stierch
www.sarahstierch.com
Nope thats about it. The only other possibi k ity would be to ask in irc but thats a lingshort.
Reguyla
Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE device
------ Original message------
From: LB
Date: Sun, Dec 7, 2014 2:22 PM
To: Gender gap mailing list;
Subject:[Gendergap] How to vote today?
I have been trying to get a block lifted for a week now, but my request is at a critical point today - as I'd like to vote at WP:ACE.
I have tried the unblock and Admin help templates on my talk page, the UTRS ticket system, and direct appeals to involved admins. Any suggestions?
For details, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Lightbreather#Request_to_remove_1-w…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Lightbreather#Question_for_administ…
Lightbreather
Unfortunately some made sure that i couldnt vote this year, partly because i was an outspoken critic of the incompetence of arbcom. There are several i would have supported and opposed.
Its also worth noting that the only openly gay candidate has been the subject of some pretty viscious attacks by Fram at ani.
Reguyla
Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE device
------ Original message------
From: Fæ
Date: Sun, Dec 7, 2014 9:04 AM
To: GenderGap;
Subject:Re: [Gendergap] Relevant election questions for Arbcom
Following up on this, after my question a week ago to Arbcom
candidates, it is now clear that there are *no* women standing for
election to Arbcom this year who are prepared to say they are a woman.
There is one openly non-heterosexual candidate standing, though the
candidate guides make it look unlikely he will get elected. The
feedback to my question seems to be that the majority do not
understand why a lack of open candidates might be perceived as an
issue, in fact in several places this has been interpreted as a threat
against anonymity and even been dismissed as trolling.
I corrected my comments at
.
Don't forget, today is the last day you can vote and make a difference
to who will be on English Wikipedia's Arbcom next year. :-)
Fae
On 1 December 2014 at 19:24, Fæ wrote:
>
> On 1 Dec 2014 19:15, "Nathan" wrote:
>> I'm not sure I love the idea of asking people to identify with a gender or
>> sexuality when they haven't done so already. If they have already done so,
>> then the question is superfluous. Better to ask them their position on the
>> actual issue, and if they think there is anything arbcom or the project as a
>> whole can do better.
>
> I understand that POV, however with only one woman candidate my question was
> deliberate. The de facto 'don't ask don't tell' policy is a poor excuse for
> failing properly to address the hostility that some of our contributors who
> are open about their gender or orientation have experienced.
>
> We should not have to be forced into the closet to edit Wikipedia, and if
> Arbcom members fear to be open, what hope is there for everyone else?
>
> Fae
>
>> On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 11:45 AM, Fæ wrote:
>>>
>>> In the light of the contentious Gender Gap Task Force case, I have
>>> raised the following question for candidates in the current election:
>>> "I'm having difficulty visualizing how Arbcom today represents the
>>> diversity of our community. Would you like to identify yourself as a
>>> woman or LGBT, and explain what life experience and values you would
>>> bring to the committee when these become topics or a locus of
>>> dispute?"
>>>
>>> I will be voting for women and open LGBT candidates that bring some
>>> relevant and diverse life experience to committee, and against
>>> everyone else. I am sure they will get enough votes from the majority
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Personal and confidential, please do not circulate or re-quote.
_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
In the light of the contentious Gender Gap Task Force case, I have
raised the following question for candidates in the current election:
"I'm having difficulty visualizing how Arbcom today represents the
diversity of our community. Would you like to identify yourself as a
woman or LGBT, and explain what life experience and values you would
bring to the committee when these become topics or a locus of
dispute?"
I will be voting for women and open LGBT candidates that bring some
relevant and diverse life experience to committee, and against
everyone else. I am sure they will get enough votes from the majority
viewpoint anyway.
You can find all candidate questions and their answers at
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_Dec…>.
Don't forget to vote - there are 6 days left!
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Rationalobserver has posted a survey related to the Gender Gap Task Force
Arbitration decision on the Civility talk page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Civility#Survey
Seems pretty relevant to the recent discussions here.
Kaldari
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 1:16 AM, Russia Aviation <russiaviation(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> The answer to a hypothetical query by TDA
> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=367632.10;wap2
> "Simon Tushingham [Sitush]"
>
> "I was an active user in Wikipedia for the past many many years. I had
> more than 30,000 edits to my name. From 2011, most of the sections in
> Wikipedia were under the control of organized cabals. I wrote to Jimmy
> Wales many times warning against this. But many of the users who
> voiced against this were later banned. In the section I was following,
> the leader of the Cabal was from Manchester, known by his alibi "Simon
> Tushingham". Despite this guy committing all sorts of one-sided edits,
> Wales supported him. Tushingham frequently bragged in Wikipedia that
> he regularly talked to Wales in his cell phone and were good friends
> in real life. I had enough and quit Wikipedia in 2011. I know many
> more who did the same.
> Wikipedia is similar to a ponzi scheme. They publicized themselves as
> a "free" and "unbiased" online encyclopedia. Once they had enough
> following, they kicked out the old users and showed their true
> colors."
>
> In reply to :
>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=6362…
>
> "So you won't comment on the case, but how about a hypothetical? Let's
> say there is a male editor who, after the conclusion of an arbitration
> case, begins following a female editor from the same case all over the
> site for months. When that editor is reported for this behavior and
> there is a proposal to bar the male editor from interacting with the
> female editor, another male editor comes to his defense and suggests
> if the male editor is barred from interacting with the female editor
> that maybe he will start "following her around" instead. After the
> proposal is passed the other male editor announces he is going to be
> doing work on Wikipedia regarding a link, which just happens to be the
> personal website of the female editor. The female editor objects and
> questions his intentions. This male editor then begins taunting her
> with personal details researched online and plainly expresses his
> intentions to write a bio about her here. Despite several other
> objections and the female editor's own protests, this male editor
> creates a draft that he explains is fully intended to be made into a
> live article all about the female editor. It is apparent that certain
> details have been cherry-picked from primary sources and articles
> about the female editor and presented in a way that is clearly aimed
> at being unflattering towards her. Despite numerous editors suggesting
> his actions are woefully inappropriate he insists that he is a
> perfectly good editor who is being neutral towards this person he
> detests. Would you consider it acceptable for the Arbitration
> Committee to ban the female editor for commenting about this male
> editor's behavior, while giving the male editor essentially nothing
> more than a warning after praising his efforts on this site?--The
> Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 21:23, 1 December 2014 (UTC)"
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Gender Gap" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to gender-gap+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>
Is that addressed to me? Not sure. In any event, the first link doesn't
seem to me either a "lack of civility" or a "gender gap issue," but rather
another one of the tens of thousands of more or less unimportant
conversations that happen backstage at Wikipedia by people killing time in
between contributing to the encyclopedia.
That said...
(1) Political organizing should happen off wiki, not on wiki. This is just
as true for WikiProject Conservatism as it is for WikiProject Gender Gap
Task Force. Wikipedia is not the place. Go for it, just not there.
(2) GGTF misfired by obsessively identifying with civility patrolling as
its primary function. At a minimum, that is putting the cart before the
horse. Going further: I would argue that it is an an absolutely misplaced
predilection, that a very low-importance contributing factor to WP editor
gender disparity has been elevated into The Main Reason without statistical
evidence. It's a hot-button topic at WP and it was a fight poorly chosen.
(3) Here's what needs to happen:
*A. Quantify and track the actual gender gap at WP over time.* Anecdotally,
female participation at events like Wikimania is significantly greater than
the 1F:7M ratio that would be anticipated from the estimated ratio of
registered editors. Does this mean that the differential is exaggerated due
to an undercount or under-self-reporting of female editors? Why are there
not annual estimates made and tracked by WMF or by GGTF itself?
*B. Survey to determine the actual reasons for participation or
non-participation.* This is something GGTF can do. Analyze the editing
patterns of randomly selected female and male Wikipedians, as well as those
who decline gender identification. Then get in touch with each of these
three sets to identify what they feel are the strengths and fundamental
problems of the Wikipedia experience. Similarly, poll the M/F/Decline To
Answer pools who fall inactive for six months as to the cause of their
non-participation.
*C. Coordinate pro-active recruitment.* Edit-a-thons, university outreach,
etc. targeting new female participants. This is the main way that gender
disparity will be overcome — one new editor at a time.
*D. Targeted, organized mentoring.* Watch the new editor pool and target
female newcomers. Help them through the learning curve. Too often newcomers
of both genders are left isolated; bring them into the community.
Count — Survey — Recruit — Teach.
Tim Davenport
"Carrite" on WP
Corvallis, OR
=====
>>>Not sure if this will produce a new thread or attach to the existing one
(I've checked my spam folder, there's nothing there) but anyway....
>>>Tim: I just wondered whether you regard this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemi…
>>>...as a lack of civility or a gender gap issue?
>>>In particular this comment:
"...As has been indicated on the talk page of the proposed decision,
repeatedly, there is some question as to exactly which
women this group seems to be reaching out toward, specifically, whether it
is more or less of a more or less radical feminist perspective...."
>>>I thought it summed up in a nutshell what the GGTF was really up
against. It's a kind of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
* Are you now or have you ever been a feminist who believes that sex work
is the opposite of feminism?
Anyone who answers yes that question is judged to be a "radical", a
subversive who wants to push POV and therefore they are fair game.
>>> On WP's list of feminists there were a very odd mish-mash of categories
of feminist
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=544136790
and
lots of names missing e.g. Gail Dines. I did a major rewrite to organize it
chronologically and it meant that "anti-pornography feminists",
"anti-prostitution feminists" and "socialist feminists" could go onto the
list
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=545667727
>>> The list has recently been changed to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feminists and I'm working with a
couple of editors to see how we can improve it further.
>>> I've largely avoided trouble by sticking to admin based work such as
this, and similar work:
Cleaning up bibliographies, e.g. Joseph Schumpeter, from this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=63356603…
to
this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=63434390…
Creating an article for the International Association for Feminist
Economics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Association_for_Feminist_Econom…
and improving the article for the Human Development and Capability
Association
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_and_Capability_Association
then creating biographies for past presidents of IAFFE and fellows of the
HDCA.
Adding DOBs to notable scholars and then adding them to Wiki's calendar
(births).
>>>These organisations / individuals argues against sex work on the grounds
of the perception of women that is generated (i.e. as a thing / object).
The problem with the MRA, pro-porn, pro-sex work POV is they have no
problem with anti-porn etc. POV provided it is in a box labelled "mad" or
"religious" with a sub-text that the only people that could possibly
support that POV are from the moral right and are probably racist and
homophobic as well. The other problem that the MRA have is that, human
development and capability, which includes feminist economics / inequality
/ care work etc. collectively constitutes a 'single broad topic'
(WP:SPATG), so they are unable to stop editors, who wish to edit in this
area, from doing so. The natural place for this work is within the Gender
Studies project. Which is why they write nonsense like this:
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/fighting-wikipedia-corruption-censorsh…
(if
there were really the kind of censorship that they are talking about on WP
then there would be no Pornography Project).
>>> Any attempt to show 3 distinct POVs
(a) Pro-sex work
(b) Right-wing anti-sex work (on moral / judgemental grounds), and
(c) Left-wing anti-sex work (on negative perception grounds) - the POV that
dare not speak its name
... is met with a steel fist hammered onto the table.
>>> I made a video for use in the article "sex wars", an article which is
all about the separation between (b) and (c)
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feminist_sex_wars&oldid=546995190
It was deleted instantly on the grounds that the "Video makes little sense
and does not add to informational value of article." I dispute that it
"makes little sense" and why does it even need to add informational value?
Why can't it just be to add aesthetics to the article as pictures and
videos often are?
>>> As soon as I step off the path of admin related tasks that the MRA-mob
can't get me for, and stray into article content I am jumped on,
obstensibly for technical reasons but they are almost exclusively by
editors whose other edits are connected to porn and sex-positive feminism,
who have pretty much hijacked the Feminism project and they are trying to
do as much damage as possible to the Gender Studies project as they can as
well.
>>> It may be time for an article on "fourth-wave feminism" which is
separate to the "history of feminism", but the article would have to say
that the term is used by both (a) and (c),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism#Fourth_Wave . You're not
supposed to mention (c), you're only supposed to mention (a) and (b) - and
then arch your eyebrows at the moral and out-of-touch group that is (b).
Anyone trying to create it would run into the MRA trying to lump (b) and
(c) together. The talk page would be full of stuff like, "well the article
should say that, 'group (b) have been called fourth-wave, but it is just a
very, few number of places and the term is far more attributed to group (a)
than any other group of feminists'.
>>> This message is longer than I originally intended it to be but I do
think that there are a lot of well meaning editors on WP who are either
unaware or a bit naïve when it comes the antics of the people that we are
talking about. It is also naïve to think that they are not co-ordinating
their handiwork off-wiki.
>>> Marie
Here's a new blog about getting funded to do an international event
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/11/14/get-the-wikimedia-foundation-fund-inte…
Keep in mind that Emily said that WM DC is planning a diversity conference.
That's not the same as a "gender gap meetup" type of thing... but perhaps
there is an opportunity to connect to that.
For example: we hosted AdaCamp DC in the days prior to Wikimania (during
the hack-a-thon, and some participants at AdaCamp went back and forth...)
and it was fabulous.
So perhaps there is an opportunity to do a gender gap activism/wiki hack
type of event prior to that.
-Sarah
--
Sarah Stierch
-----
Diverse and engaging consulting for your organization.
www.sarahstierch.com
Sorry about screwy formatting... Let's try that again...
On 12/2/2014 11:22 AM, Carol Moore dc wrote:
> *Nathan* nawrich at gmail.com
> <mailto:gendergap%40lists.wikimedia.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BGendergap%5D%20Gendergap%20achievement%20award&In-Reply-To=%3CCALKX9dSohgumfQBmSBW7bfC23uJ%3DgiD5i9E6X%2BE6Wi7oecZpQQ%40mail.gmail.com%3E>
> /Mon Dec 1 20:24:58 UTC 2014
> Wrote:
> /
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> So as I was replying to Tim, it occurred to me that there wasn't much
> pleasure or recognition to be gained from working in the trenches on the
> culture of Wikipedia or the gender gap problem as a whole. Individuals are
> most likely to have bans, blocks and battle scars to show for their effort.
>
> So perhaps the task force, the list, or a willing chapter could establish
> an award or two to be given to those who invest their volunteer time on
> this issue?
>
>
CM Reply:
First, there is an award at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bia…
However, the fight can be a reward in itself, once you develop a thick enough skin.
I wrote the song "Fighting for my freedom" in 1987
that includes the verse: "Look at me these last few years,
cursed, reviled and broken, By left and right and
other males for being too outspoken,"
http://youtu.be/YVsZedlwfcc
I've had so many incidents of males outraged by
my telling it like I see before and since, I barely
notice any more. Fighting for freedom in any way
is a long term effort and you have to develop a thick skin.
Otherwise it's hide in the corner of your cubicle and
your bedroom and try to forget that we're on a
patriarchal path to nuclear destruction if things don't
change fast... Enough rant for today.
Also, perspective wise, someone turned me on to this article
which describes something that has happened to a number
of editors, sometimes by the same group of "characters".
check it out.
http://wikipediocracy.com/2013/07/08/how-to-ban-a-pov-you-dislike-in-9-easy…
I'll have to investigate what other goodies are listed
at that site for certain projects I've barely begun to work on...
CM