Greeting all, it looks like I'm late for the party, but
since I am being hung as Gender Gap, I may as well join
the mailing list.
I may not know much about Gender, but I do know that using
slurs based on gender, race, or sexual orientation is not
cute, or "just swearing". It is bigotry, and it is deeply
offensive. This is identity politics, pure and simple, and
it has no place on Wikipedia.
I am indebted to Kevin Gorman for
his
statement, "Neotarf is being topic-banned from a project
they were a productive contributor to on a handful of flimsy
diffs." I have always been one of the Arbitration committee's
biggest fans, but this decision is disturbing on a number of
levels.
A WikiProject operating under the professed aims of the
Foundation has been subjected to unprecedented harassment, again
and again. So, did the Arbcom tell the bullies that the Gender
Gap project's talk page was not the right venue to discuss
whether the project should exist or not, as they
would have with any other project or article page? No. The
bullies are told to please be nice very nicely and this time we
really mean it. The targets of the bullying have had their
fragile and emerging leadership destroyed and discredited, and
their workspace salted with discretionary sanctions. The
harshest treatment of all was reserved for someone who was
passing by and tried to help. It is yet to be seen what effect
this will have on any potential "allies" programs that may be in
the works.