On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 8:03 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 9:52 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not going to opine on the decision that's being voted upon by Arbcom; I've been there, and ultimately the decision is based on the quality and
nature
of the evidence that people bother to present
Risker, I think your remarks are overall spot-on. I take your point about any decision only being as good as the evidence which informs it, but what I'm seeing happening in this case specifically goes beyond that, IMO.
Just reading through the diffs and links in this case, it's hard for me to see the proposed decisions as being based solely or ultimately on the evidence presented. From my reading, there's a pretty visible undercurrent here of babying an editor with a clear and unambiguous history of toxic behavior. The best outcome ArbCom was able to muster is apparently to give air cover to admins who enforce basic site policy, as opposed to the ludicrous state of affairs where admins who enforce civility policy are reverted by other admins and the individual is openly declared to be "untouchable".
That this same individual is also on record ranting about a "feminist agenda" and "alienation of male editors" while a topic-ban isn't being seriously considered speaks volumes about the impact of the gender gap on the set of shared beliefs and consciousness in our community. If our community was majority-female, would such remarks be regarded as conducive to neutral participation in a topic? If it was gender-balanced, would they be?
I think inclusion is often about treating the same behaviors the same way. If you imagined people switching roles in the case, would the sanctions remain the same? From my understanding of some of the history here, it seems more likely that one particular contributor who is anti-social to the point of toxicity is being protected by an old boys club in the community, and ArbCom's weak enforcement approach is simply an institutional reflection of that bias.
As with any institution implicitly acting in accordance with biases that exist in the larger community it serves and from which it constitutes itself, these biases are expressed more explicitly and openly in informal venues, such as user talk pages. But I see in this case the trappings of an evidence-based approach, not the reality.
Erik
That's a slightly simplistic summary, eliding the fact that Eric C. is also very often non-toxic, and has a long history of collaborating in a very professional and respectful manner with many diverse women editors to bring a large number of articles to good or featured status.
A good number of those women spoke up for him on the Proposed Decision talk page. And even more women took issue with the way the gender gap is often framed here.
Note also that when Eric spoke of alienating male contributors, this was in the specific context of affirmative actions (which even those proposing them warned carried a risk of provoking a backlash). Two arbitrators had the decency to oppose that finding of fact based on the omission of that context.
I do think the arbitrators should revisit Newyorkbrad's idea of a GGTF topic ban for Eric. (Generally, Newyorkbrad's comments in this case were spot-on for me throughout.) I did find some of Eric's contributions to the GGTF pages were excessively argumentative and confrontational, and not helpful. But I am very glad he is not getting banned.
I do regret seeing the ban for Carol pass.
Again, I would encourage people to set up their own Gendergap discussion site and blog off-wiki ... and also to listen to those women who spoke up in the case who feel that the current framing of the Gendergap issue does not represent them.
And since I am posting here, let me remind everyone again that we still do not seem to have the gender split from the 2012 editor survey. We have had excuses, promises and silences from the Foundation on this, but no data.
What was the gender split in the 2012 survey? Donor money paid for this survey. Why is the information still not available, over two years after the survey ran?
It should be a really easy question to answer: x% female, y% male.
Best, Andreas