(Sorry, I did not mean to start a new thread. I was trying to respond to an existing thread,
and don't know how to format the subject header to do this (wish there were instructions)).
This is my last post to this thread, and I'll talk more about that at the bottom of the
message.
We do expect our admins to be fair-minded, and on most subjects they
are. However, we
also expect our admins to be 18-to-28 year old
childless single males with a particular
mindset. They are only human, and I am not decrying this this, simply noting it.
Obviously, most of the problem here with admins and most editors is of the "But what's
wrong with the
pinup calender, I just can't understand your objection, please explain it again
for the five hundredth time so I can decide if your being insulted is valid" variety.
But that's not true of every single editor.
Oliver, I am not insinuating anything. I am stating something clearly.
I work with these editors very regularly and have for a while. It is very difficult work. I loathe it
and often dread sitting down at the keyboard. I very very much prefer doing translations and
other work like that. However, if you volunteer to work in the soup kitchen you also have to
scrub the pots.
I know more about this particular narrow subject than probably anyone. It is hard gained
knowledge. I know what am talking about. So I don't appreciate the abuse, although I am
quite used to it and expect it.
These people - a few editors, but not that few - are very dedicated. Dedication is admirable,
depending on what you are dedicated to. Motivations vary between and even within
individuals and are tricky to discern and characterize. I'll just say that these people are not
National Organization for Women members and leave it at that.
I don't offer a solution because I don't have one.
Oliver, I do not appreciate your going into combat stance and also putting me in this
position. I didn't start this thread, did not name it HELP, and make no claim for aid on my
own behalf. I was pointing out a a couple of people who might be in for a difficult experience
and might appreciate a friendly face.
(Actually, the folks I am talking about may have gone to ground for awhile. But they'll be back when you all have moved on.)
Finally Oliver, Fred, and some others - and I'll include myself - not as a matter of being
male, but as a matter of being clueless and insensitive - would it be asking
too much for you to back off and give the sisters some space? I have a talk page on the
English Wikipedia and am willing to engage there with other males in in combative tests of
verbal jousting skill. Not posting to this thread again, suggest some others might consider
that also.
If 85% of Wikipedians were women I don't think there'd be quite as much porn on there. ;-) I think there is also an age bias among Wikipedia contributors (according to the research) and I think this does bias tone of the site along with gender. However I'm more about getting women editing Wikipedia than pondering the sociological questions (despite my degree in sociology!).
I guess it was the sociologist in me that asked the question about what the resource would look like if the gender stats were reversed but there may well also be differences if the average age of contributors were different.
regards
Rosie Williams
http://collectiveaction.com.au
@collectiveact
> From: gendergap-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Gendergap Digest, Vol 1, Issue 96
> To: gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:20:21 +0000
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Women4Wikipedia (Oliver Keyes)
> 2. Re: PZ Myers takes on the gendergap (wrt atheism) (Sandra)
> 3. Re: PZ Myers takes on the gendergap (wrt atheism) (Ism Woonpton)
> 4. Re: Implications and solutions... Hardcore images essay -
> HELP! (Carol Moore in DC)
> 5. Re: PZ Myers takes on the gendergap (wrt atheism) (Sandra)
> 6. A proposal (Oliver Keyes)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2011 22:13:54 +0000
> From: Oliver Keyes <scire.facias(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Women4Wikipedia
> To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects
> <gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <AANLkTinHPkkRVhivV0qx1-tVBKJWOstOBryYFrE-wqpY(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> It depends. I don't think you can generalise and say that gender is the
> distinction here; rather, it's a distinction of interests and norms. I
> recommend http://www.mindspillage.org/wiki/Women_on_Wikipedia as a good
> read. " the culture is not biased against women, but rather biased toward
> certain traits and against others--and that generally men are more likely to
> be in the group whose characteristics are more accepted"; in other words, we
> could have an identical culture if 85 percent of the editors were female,
> they'd just be a very specific subset of women.
>
> On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 10:06 PM, Collective Action <
> collective_action(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > It has occurred to me to wonder what Wikipedia would look like if 85% of
> > its editors were female?
> >
> >
> > regards
> > Rosie Williams
> > http://women4wikipedia
> > @collectiveact
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Gendergap mailing list
> > Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
> >
> >
>
Yesterday Moscow State University journalism Professor and Arthur C. Clarke
specialist Larisa Makhaylova cited Naomi Klein's 20 minute TED talk --
http://youtu.be/0ZhL7P7w3as as supporting interstellar colonization from a
feminist perspective.
I suspect female Wikipedians would be likely to agree, and I hope everyone
enjoys the different perspective.
I know PZ and his atheism might not be to everyone's taste, but apparently
atheist organizations are also struggling with a gender gap. He made a post
on his blog yesterday that really resonated with me. The full post is
here<http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/02/feminist_hypersensitivity_or_m.p…>,
but what really resonates with me is this bit:
"You want women to find your organization pleasant and interesting and worth
contributing to? Then don't form panels full of men trying to figure out
what women want, talking over women who try to get a word in edgewise,
belittling women's suggestions with jokes, and trying to determine how We
Well-Meaning Men can give Those Women what we think they want."
Listen to the women instead of talking over them, guys. Seriously.
-fluff
While I had a problem with general discussion of the topic, once I got
to Bukkake article, a term I never had heard of before, I could easily
see the problem and that there are needed solutions both to make it
inviting to women and to discourage any kind of sexism related to
extensive editng of these articles. (After looking at a dozen of these
articles in last couple days I noticed I've had run ins on other types
of articles with a few of the editors that were uncomfortable.)
First, note that Bukkake is an example of the infamous "circle jerk" (a
notable male only activity with lots of WP:RS) but not only is there *no
article about it,* but the term forwarded to an article about people
masturbating each other - not even accurate.
And of course Gay Bukkake which I just searched and has WP:RS isn't
mentioned. So instead of two similar graphics of a woman being the
object, they obviously need one with a man being the object. The
"snowballing" article, something else new to me similarly showed two
women doing it, even though overwhelmingly it is gay men and
heterosexual couples doing it. All that just shows quite a bit of sexist
and even homophobic POV.
Anyway, more females and gay males (another under-represented here?)
willing to deal with these POVs would help. Plus two suggestions below.
Also, admin wise, maybe Sexual Content needs its own ANI do it doesn't
freak out all the people who don't want to hear about it.
On 2/17/2011 1:15 PM, Brandon Harris wrote:
> It's absolutely possible to deal with this by simply following the
> principle of "least surprise".
>
> In this specific case, the problem could easily have been avoided by:
>
> a) Moving "Bukkake" to "Bukkake (Sexual Act)"
> b) Making the "Bukkake" page a disambiguation page with a pointer to
> "Udon" and one to the sexual activity.
--- On *Thu, 17/2/11, Ryan Kaldari /<rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org>/*wrote:
Yep, try
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:People_using_vacuum_cleaners
So do we all agree that the Principle of Least Astonishment needs to be
encoded into some kind of policy or guideline? In other words, images
with a sexual context should only appear in articles/categories that
also have a sexual context. Otherwise, Wikipedia naturally tends towards
an editorial policy dictated by 20-year-old single white males who see
no problem with keeping pictures of naked women in every corner of
Wikipedia and Commons.
On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 7:36 AM, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 14:11, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote:
>> Should we discuss such problems or should such posts have been rejected
>> by a moderator or the poster warned and required to revise their post?
>>
>> I have high toleration for disorder, but have found lately that wholesale
>> deletion has been useful when I get behind. The conversations here have
>> not been substantial or focused enough to command sustained attention.
>>
> I wouldn't mind seeing more moderation. I've just changed my
> preferences to digest mode, which means I'm going to miss things, but
> it was becoming too much and not focused enough.
>
> I wonder whether it would make sense to have two lists -- one for
> Wikipedia-specific suggestions, and another for the broader issues.
"Wikipedia-specific suggestions" seems better to be defined as English
Wikipedia suggestions. It would be a good practice of thought why
those questions came here, not to other and solid Wikipedia dedicated
fora, wikipedia@lists. wikimedia.org or its sister EnWP specific list.
Have you girls and guys never known those two lists? Or ...?
>
> Sarah
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
--
KIZU Naoko / 木津尚子
member of Wikimedians in Kansai / 関西ウィキメディアユーザ会 http://kansai.wikimedia.jp
Hi all,
I am an Australian mother who has begun a campaign to increase women's participation in Wikipedia in light of the recent media attention on the issue. I have set up a basic web site at http://women4wikipedia.net as a base to organise Womens Wikipedia Hackfests between now and International Womens Day (8 March). You can find previous chat transcripts at the site and other resources. I've also hooked Sue Francis up with Social Media Women (Sydney, Australia) to do an IWD presentation on Women4Wikipedia.
I've begun hosting Twitter chats on the subject of Women & Wikipedia (our 3rd is Mon 21 Feb) and I think there is only another 3 before IWD by which time I hope that we'll have inspired some women to organise somen Womens Wikipedia Hackfests (before or after IWD is fine).
Everyone is welcome to the weekly Twitter chats and I need all the help I can get. Given the recent article in Datamation on the Ada Initiative http://bit.ly/fih76w I thought it raised some interesting issues in terms of how women in open source is portrayed in the media.
Mon 21 Chat will be on the topic of 'Sexism & Internet Security' What should women be aware of online
& when editing Wikipedia? I thought it would be a good time to give out a few pointers on internet safety for women to combat some of the negative media coverage. It should be noted that I'm not a Wikipedia/technology expert so I can do with any help offered. I started this campaign for the very reason that you don't have to be an expert to edit Wikipedia and because I was so surprised at the low participation rates of women.
Please find Twitter Chat times (Monday 9am UTC/GTM) at http://women4wikipedia.net or http://wthashtag.com/Women4wikipedia which you can also use to participate if you have a Twitter account.
I am also building a list of articles edited or created by women on Wikipedia. We've only just begun and already have 2 more women Wikipedians. If you would like to add your contrib page to the list please email me or contact me via Twitter. It is to show people that women actually can and do edit Wikipedia. Thanks to Kathy O'Donnell for forwarding me links to this mailing list and pleased to meet you all! :-)
regards
Rosie Williams
http://collectiveaction.com.au
@collectiveact
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sue Gardner <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: 16 February 2011 10:51
Subject: [PRESS] Discovery News: Is There A Gender Gap Online?
To: Communications Committee <wmfcc-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Is There a Gender Gap Online?
By Cristen Conger | Mon Feb 7, 2011 11:31 AM ET
http://news.discovery.com/tech/is-there-a-gender-gap-online.html?print=true
When the online encyclopedia Wikipedia recently celebrated its 10th
birthday, media outlets highlighted its stunning growth, number of
articles, range of topics -- and its contributor gender gap.
A 2010 study co-sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation discovered that
barely 15 percent of Wikipedia contributors are women, with the lion’s
share of the articles being written, edited and updated by men in
their mid-20s.
“(Online) public contexts such as web forums and Wikipedia, especially
if they’re associated with domains such as politics, technology, or
knowledge, are still overwhelmingly male-dominated,” said Susan C.
Herring, a professor of information science at Indiana University who
specializes in online communication. “These domains are important, and
women’s relatively lesser participation in them is potentially a cause
for concern.”
But that doesn’t mean women don’t have a presence on the Web. A few
years ago, we wondered whether there was a gender gap in terms of who
was getting online. A finding from the 2005 Pew Internet & American
Life Project answered that.
The widely publicized Pew survey found a slightly higher number of
American women online than men. And in the current social networking
age, the ladies are still leading the pack. Multiple surveys,
including a 2010 comScore report, consistently show more female
engagement on sites like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.
So when it comes to gender and the Internet today, the more pertinent
question isn’t whether more men or women are surfing the Net, but
whether they’re surfing the Net differently.
Take online communication, for instance. Real-world gender differences
translate to differences in Internet interaction as well.
“My research into the gender dynamics of online discussion forums
found that men tend to be more adversarial, and to tolerate
contentious debate, more than women,” Herring said. "Women, in
contrast, tend to be more polite and supportive, as well as less
assertive … and (they) tend to be turned off by contentiousness, and
may avoid online environments that they perceive as contentious.”
Those dynamics help explain why women have gravitated toward sharing
on social networking sites while men move toward public domain content
creation like Wikipedia, where articles can erupt with editing wars
between contributors.
“Sites such as Facebook are 'walled gardens' -- users can select
their friends and in general have more control over who enters their
online space than in open forums, where any random person can come
along and harass them or start a flame war,” Herring explained.
“Facebook and Twitter are also oriented towards sharing personal
information and social exchange, which women and girls are more drawn
to do than men and boys are.”
Considering women’s active role on the Internet, online advertisers
and sites are working to overcome certain gender barriers that have
naturally arisen and finding new ways to attract larger female
audiences.
In the case of Wikipedia, for instance, founder Jimmy Wales along with
the Wikimedia Foundation have set a goal to increase its female
contributor base to 25 percent by 2015.
And for younger generations growing up wired (or wireless) the
ever-evolving Web landscape could become a more gender-neutral space
with men and women equally engaged in social networking, content
creation and collaboration.
“The Web seems to be evolving towards a better overall gender
balance,” Herring said. “That is, instead of mostly male environments,
there are now some environments in which females participate very
actively as well.”
--
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation
415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
The other day it occurred to me that a particular friend of mine could
be a great contributor to Wikipedia, and so I asked her if she ever
did. She said that she used to, and in fact started an article about a
particular topic (a particular biological taxon - I won't be more
specific at this point, but it is an extant article). I asked her if
there was a particular reason she stopped, and her answer was,
"Yes, the last time I tried to, though admittedly that has been a few
years ago, I was unable to. I can't remember what the impediment was
but I'm basically a lazy person. If I have to jump through even one
hoop, I lose my passion."
Now perhaps she tried to edit an article protected for a very good
reason, or who knows what happened, but this event was enough to make
her stop. I imagine she's not the only person to react this way. Is
this reaction more typical of one sex than another? I have no idea. I
just thought I'd throw it into the mix of known reasons some people
don't edit Wikipedia.
Aleta/LadyofShalott
Forgive me if someone posted about this and I just missed it, but if not...
Apparently today there was a public event in Chicago titled "Wikipedia: in
search of women",[1] held at a discussion group sponsored by Illinois
Humanities Council. Did anyone go to this or correspond with the event
organizers?
1. http://www.prairie.org/events/24650/wikipedia-search-women
--
Steven Walling
Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org