I’m all for practical but I think
awareness probably isn’t as high as you might hope. I think the report
produced by Wikimedia Deutschland is a good recent summary of the state of play
and could be a basis for a structure for discussion:
I find when I am talking to people about
the subject, the conversation tends to run along these lines.
What are the stats? This is answerable
globally, but if you are having a chapter conversation, then they will want to
know locally and AFAIK we don’t have those stats at a national level. Maybe
this is something chapters should be asking for in the next WMF editor survey?
Does it matter? Believe me, a lot of people
get really stuck at this point and frame it as “well, if women don’t
want to edit Wikipedia, does it really matter? It’s their choice, isn’t
it?” This is something that really needs to get reframed. Yes, of course,
many women don’t Wikipedia because they simply aren’t interested in
doing so (ditto many men). But there are barriers to entry and barriers to
continued participation by women who are interested in doing so compared to men.
Try to reframe it “are women equally able to edit Wikipedia” or “are
there barriers to women editing?”.
The question “does having fewer
women impact the content of Wikipedia?” will come up. Or as a less
desirable framing of the question, “does it matter if we have less
coverage on Wikipedia about romantic comedy movies?” or “how can
women have a different point of view about cricket scores?”. Sometimes it
will surface as “since we don’t want POV in an encyclopaedia, why
do women’s POVs matter?”. Here I often point out that what we hold
up as a “gold standard of encyclopaedia” is a traditional view of
book-published encyclopaedias from the last couple of centuries. They were
written largely by men, were constrained by physical bulk, and the modern
reader clearly likes them less than Wikipedia, so using them as an argument
for perpetuating any structural aspect of traditional book encyclopaedias needs
to be explored in that context. Also, it is not a women’s “POV”
that we should be talking but the absence or briefness of aspects of topics
that women seem to find more interesting than men. As a concrete example, I
went recently on a Wikipedia photo run with a guy. We went to a popular lookout
and picnic area. Beyond the obvious things to photograph (the view), he was
interested in photographing the highway below and the large flag pole. I was
interested in photographing the statue of the dog (long story about the dog
omitted) and the love locks on the fence over the waterfall. The guy questioned
why I’d photograph those things as “we wouldn’t be writing
about them in the article, would we?”. He felt that neither of these was “encyclopaedic”.
The article now has the dog story and the love locks and it was amazingly easy
to find the citations in the local newspaper because they were “human
interest” stories. I think there’s room in Wikipedia for more than
just dry facts and statistics. Again, try to turn the question around into “does
Wikipedia contain what women want to read?”. (As an aside, all our
policies in Wikipedia are written by editors, curiously we don’t involve
readers in our policies but arrogantly assume that we know what they want.)
Having convinced people that this is a
real issue rather than just an interesting statistic, it is time to turn to the
more difficult questions of what we can do about it. But again, make it clear
that the problem is not “how do we fix the women so they edit Wikipedia
more” but rather “how do we fix Wikipedia so women will edit more”.
Generally people approach it with the first mindset and that tends to lead to
the outreach and edit training solutions, which don’t seem to work all
that well in practice. If you look at it from the perspective of not changing
women, but changing Wikipedia, then different and more productive conversations
may occur. For example, I suspect the Visual Editor will help reducing the
technological barriers to entry by women (and many men too). But we also need
to change the Wikipedia culture.
These days nobody would say “of
course women are welcome to work here, but best they stay out of the lunchroom
because the noticeboard is covered in nude centrefolds”. Many workplaces
have had to address cultural issues that make women unwelcome. Now nude
centrefolds may not be Wikipedia’s major problem (although I have
stumbled on some pretty unsavoury photos on Commons at times whose “educational
value” seems pretty dubious) but how editors interact is a problem. The
whole bold-revert-discuss is NOT the natural way women work. I think many women
see reverting as a huge slap in the face and they don’t stay around to
discuss. If you watch women in the workplace, they tend to discuss and build
consensus before doing things. I think the notion that any editor has the right
to be the judge, jury and executioner over another person’s edits is
given power to some people who are evidently only too willing to abuse it. Is
it only me who finds it disturbing when they see a user contribution list that
is just roaming around reverting non-vandalism? We’ve got some real
bullies out there and no cultural mechanism to deal with them, as the recent
ArbCom decision seems to show. Indeed, in which workplaces is it OK to call
women a “cunt”? Hmm.
Because we don’t have the solutions
to the gender gap in a “ready to roll out” package. I think the
thing to do is to get people to talk about what things they see in everyday
life or the workplace that are done to promote diversity and ask “what
are the equivalent things Wikipedia should be doing?”. For example, in
the 1970s, we started to see requirements that committees had at least one
women representative on them, and nowdays much greater expectation of female representation.
Should we have the same thing in a AfD discussion? It cannot close until we
get at least the view of one self-identified female editor. Or if our target is
25%, that 25% of votes should be cast by self-identified female editors. Why
don’t we try that?! It worked in the workplace, more women got appointed
to committees, more women got recruited by selection committees with female
representation, more women got promoted, etc. The other thing that worked in
workplaces was the macro-statistics. It was easy to justify any decision not to
employ a women in a particular job (the guy had more experience although her
qualifications were better, or vice versa as suited the purpose) but when you
looked hiring practices across the organisation or across departments, the
stats told a different story overall. When every department manager had a requirement
to improve their department’s statistics (and their bonus might depend on
it), things did change. With all of these things, it might not be the
mechanisms themselves that made the difference, but it might be that the
mechanisms told people that their organisation was determined to change its
gender balance and that it was probably the smart idea to get on board rather
than resist. Right now at Wikipedia, we are strongly in the “resist”
phase (deny the problem exists, deny the problem is really a problem, deny that
anything can be done about the problem because that’s “just how we
do things around here”, etc).
I note that WMF is starting a new
strategic planning process. Maybe it’s something the chapters at the
conference might want to discuss in terms of gender gap. The current strategic
plan has the 25% target but didn’t appear to have any implementations to
try to make it happen. It seems to have been a “let’s all pray it
goes to 25%”.
So in terms of whether it’s
Wikimania or the Chapters conference, I think we need both an off-the-shelf set
of “talking points” along the lines above. Common questions, common
answers. But also from a train-the-trainer perspective, teaching people about
this issue of “framing” and “reframing” because when
you lead these kind of discussions, you have to be alert that you don’t
allow the framing to slip into:
“women have a problem, how do we fix
women” and show them how to reframe it into “Wikipedia has a
problem, how do we fix Wikipedia” at both the micro and macroscopic
levels
The need to emphasise that unless
something is done differently, the outcome will not magically change. There is
no “business as usual” solution here. And you need to teach people
that cultures can be changed if the organisation wants it to be so and makes
that very clear. And for Wikipedia, some cultural change can be enforced in
software. For example, if you undo, if you had a tick a box to say under which
policy you were undoing, then suddenly it might be a bit harder to “undo
because I don’t like it”. It could also trigger a message to the
editor whose edit was being undone with explanation and advice in order move
away from the “slap you in the face and don’t bother to talk to you
about it” culture. There’s lots of things we could try in the
platform to reduce or at least detect aggressive behaviours. But right now, I
don’t think we have a groundswell of people saying “yes, we need to
change how we operate” and maybe we need these kinds of conversations so
people begin to see the need for them.
Anyhow, that’s my 10c.
Kerry
From:
gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Chris Keating
Sent: Tuesday, 30 December 2014
4:29 AM
To: Increasing female
participation in Wikimedia projects
Subject: [Gendergap] Wikimedia Conference
(was - Diversity training forfunctionaries)
Hi Anne,
Kerry and Christina - and everyone else,
So the
Wikimedia Conference programme committee appears keen to do something useful in
terms of creating space for gender - gap work. So I wondered if you had any
further thoughts about what *might* work at the Wikimedia Conference.
As Anne
points out it is an audience of people from Wikimedia movement organisations -
board members, executive directors (where they exist), and a smaller number of
other staff. Compared to other Wikimedia events there is probably a greater
language and geographical diversity. There is also a reasonable degree of
awareness of the issue - better than one would find if you put english
Wikipedia administrators in a room.
The main
focus for the conference is going to be on helping Wikimedia organisations
grow, learn and improve - we are looking to give people practical
outcomes, and are avoiding theoretical discussion as far as possible.
Thoughts
on what we can put in the programme on this issue are very welcome :) (I'll
pass everything on to the programme committee, though I suspect I'm not the
only member of it subscribed to this list).
Thanks
and happy new year!
Chris
On 19 Dec 2014 07:21, "Kerry Raymond" <kerry.raymond@gmail.com>
wrote:
Can I suggest that the Wikimedia Conference do a train-the-trainer
session with a view to the chapters running sessions locally in addition to the
Wikimania session. Not many people get to go to Wikimania so the chapters
approach would be more scalable.
Kerry
From: gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org]
On Behalf Of Risker
Sent: Friday, 19 December 2014
2:16 AM
To: Addressing gender equity and
exploring ways to increase the participationof women within Wikimedia projects.
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Diversity
training for functionaries
While it might be
suitable as a "pilot" at the Wikimedia Conference (I promise not to
harp on the name here), it's a by-invitation conference focused on chapter/affiliate
executives, many of whom have very limited on-wiki presence. I'm not
persuaded that they're the target audience.
In fact, I'd
suggest this would probably be best suited to a full-day session targeted at
active Wikimedia project administrators and those with higher level permissions
(think: oversighters, who frequently deal with requests from women who feel
harassed because of gender; checkusers tracking down sockpuppets of harassers,
and stewards, who can act in either role on projects that don't have their own
CU/OS). There is not much overlap between these active on-wiki
leaders and the leaders of chapters/affiliates. Strikes me that this
would be more ideal for Wikimania, perhaps as a pre-WM session if that can be
arranged.
Risker/anne
On 18 December
2014 at 11:04, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Christina -
this sounds very interesting - would you be happy for me to propose it as a
possible topic in the Wikimedia Conference, for which I'm on the programme
committee?
Chris
On Tue, Dec 16,
2014 at 12:03 PM, Christina Burger <christina.burger@wikimedia.de>
wrote:
Hi everyone,
Please allow me to briefly introduce myself before coming to the
point: I am Christina Dinar and I work at Wikimedia Deutschland for
1,5 years now. Originally, I was employed to take care of community
projects that address newbies and enhance the diversity in Wikipedia
as well other Wikimedia projects. I came with the professional
background of doing workshops with young adults in political
education, doing diversity trainings in order to address some of their
existing social and violent behavioral problems with each other.
Somehow it never got to that moment that I could actually offer this
knowledge and experience to the German Wikipedia Community–my
professional focus here shifted and I started to work in other fields.
Coming from this background, I could definitely offer a diversity
workshop at Wikimania, for functionaries as well as on the level of
introduction as a train-the-trainer. We even have developed diversity
guidelines (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Charting_diversity), that
theoretically frame the approach on diversity to the specifics of the
Wikimedia world. If I get some positive feedback on offering this
workshop at Wikimania–ideally not alone but with another interested
person–I am not sure what the best way to proceed is: Wait for the
submission process, or get in touch with the organizers to ask for a
room and time for this special workshop (as others did in the past)?
I had drafted a proposal for our diversity conference back in 2013
that we could use and build upon - (it was very general at that time, today I
would address more the specfics of WM-movements..):
Diversity? Deal with it! – Diversity as a concept has long development
in management and especially in human ressource management in order to
practically deal with diversity of people coming and working together
from different backrounds and levels of knowledge. This 45-min lasting
workshop you will actively engage in situations what actually to do
and how possibly to act when divers and different opinions, people and
backgrounds and communication cultures come together. Different
strategies will be developed within the group participants leaving
them with set of tools and strategies how to deal with diversity in
real life and the online world.
I am very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Warmly,
Christina
Christina Dinar
Team Communitys
Volunteer Support
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963
Tel. (030) 219 158 260
Mobil: +49
17639238378
http://wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
2014-12-14 23:06
GMT+01:00 Jim Hayes <slowking4@gmail.com>:
yes, training
could work at wikimania
the education foundation and eval. folks had seminars during hackathon,
and a track at
https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programme
what would a
required list of HR, managment seminars look like?
On Sun, Dec 14,
2014 at 2:32 PM, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote:
I've
added myself to the list of interested people :)
Thinking
out loud, would that kind of thing work in person at the Wikimedia Conference
and/or Wikimania?
On 12 Dec 2014
19:33, "Siko Bouterse" <sbouterse@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Along similar
lines, this pilot training has been suggested for admins:
And The Ada
Initiative said they were interested in providing training for such a pilot.
WMF grantmakers like myself would be pleased to see something like this develop
into a proposal, if folks felt it was worth trying.
It might make
sense to pilot at the admin level before focusing on functionaries like
stewards, because admins have more day-to-day interactions with individual
editors (and thus more opportunities to facilitate an on-wiki environment that
supports diversity).
On Fri, Dec 12,
2014 at 11:16 AM, Reguyla <reguyla@gmail.com>
wrote:
I think this might
be a good idea but it would be pretty hard to implement and I think,
unnecessary. Most of the functionaries got to where they are because they have
a calm demeanor and generally are fair in how they treat others. Additionally,
its not usually the functionaries who are the problem. So without requiring the
editors to perform the diversity training, I'm not sure how much it would help.
On Fri, Dec 12,
2014 at 1:48 PM, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote:
Don't know if this has been floated before - apologies if so - but:
Part of the problem we have is the sheer depth of ignorance among otherwise well-intentioned community members.
This depth of ignorance is naturally shared by the people who play leadership roles in the community. So we end up with stewards, arbitrators and bureaucrats who potentially end up reinforcing the gender gap problem because they just have no clue how the structure they maintain can sometimes be a tool to exclude people.
How about offering some form of diversity training to functionaries to help broaden perspectives and raise understanding? Obviously, from the point of view of supporting them to do their difficult and fairly thankless roles better, rather than beating them with diversity sticks.
It could happen (indeed, WMF could make it happen with some volunteer input); could it help?
Chris
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