On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:24 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
Women's views are too often drowned out on talk pages, simply because of their numerical inferiority. A noticeboard would help.
While I understand the concern about the potential for drama, I think any method used to make Wikipedia more gender-neutral will attract a share of drama. Having an institution to look at women's issues is a pretty mainstream idea.
The UK has a [[Minister for Women and Equalities]] (a poorly researched article at this time); there is a [[Minister responsible for the Status of Women (Canada)]]; a [[Minister for the Status of Women (Australia)]]; even Afghanistan has one: [[Ministry_of_Women's_Affairs_(Afghanistan)]].
Denmark has a [[Minister_for_Gender_Equality_(Denmark)]]; Sweden has a [[Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality (Sweden)]], etc.
The United States have affirmative action. We should not fear controversy, or grumbling; our democratically elected governments don't let that stop them either. If the Wikipedia community cannot support something that is standard in democratic society, then we do have a problem with our demographics, and whatever problem we have will become readily apparent.
I wouldn't mind calling it a gender issues noticeboard. (That would be [[WP:GIN]] as opposed to [[WP:WIN]].)
Andreas
Go ahead and do it if you feel passionate about it (of course), but you asked for people's views, so I'm just saying that you should be prepared for an awful mess of drama and bickering, some of which is likely to drive out the very women we're trying to retain.