I saw an incident recently on WP that's fairly common, but it's not clear to me what we should do about it, if anything.
A woman editor did something that a few male editors didn't like, and she was taken to task for it. In the course of the discussion, the Wikipedia biography of a woman was mentioned and linked to, and her photograph showed her as attractive. One of the men taking part in the discussion said something positive about the image -- then he added that policy prevented him from going into detail about his feelings about it. (I won't quote him so as not to identify him, but it was words to that effect.)
It's a remark typical of young men, and he almost certainly intended no harm. But the effect on me as a reader was that it undermined the woman taking part in the discussion. She also felt that way, and said so. The response was that her objection was laughable.
What should we do when we witness this kind of thing? I've never said anything in these situations, because I see them so often, and there's a risk of turning it into a dramafest. I also know that some people, men and women both, would say it's too minor a thing to comment on.
So -- should we be saying something, and if so what and how, or is it best to ignore?
Sarah
Please look at Wikipedia:Revision_deletion#Criteria_for_redaction
particularly:
2. Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material that has little/no encyclopedic or project value and/or violates our Biographies of living people policy. This includes slurs, smears, and grossly offensive material of little or no encyclopedic value, but not mere factual statements, and not "ordinary" incivility, personal attacks or conduct accusations. When attack pages or pages with grossly improper titles are deleted, the page names may also be removed from the delete and page move logs.
3. Purely disruptive material that is of little or no relevance or merit to the project. This includes allegations, grossly inappropriate threats or attacks, browser-crashing or malicious HTML, shock pages, phishing pages, known virus proliferating pages, and links to web pages that disparage or threaten some person or entity and serve no other valid purpose, but not mere spam links.
but keep in mind:
"A certain low degree of inappropriate or disruptive posting is normal within a large community. In general, only material that meets the criteria below should be deleted. Users should consider whether simply reverting or ignoring would be sufficient in the circumstances. If deletion is needed, only redact what is necessary (i.e. leave non-harmful fields visible), and give a clear reason for the removal.
The community's decision was that RevisionDelete should not be used without prior clear consensus for "ordinary" incivility, attacks, or for claims of editorial misconduct. The wider community may need to fully review these at the time and in future, even if offensive."
If whatever it is poses a risk of turning it into a dramafest it is not within the normal range of inappropriate or disruptive posting, as in this case there may be a need to not single out the offender, therefore it may be useful to use Wikipedia mail to bring the matter to the attention of OTRS, which is the people with the oversight tool. Even if suppression is not appropriate deletion can still be done and a quiet and private warning given. So, if it is serious, in your opinion, (tell them why if you think it is) email User:Oversight
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Special:EmailUser/Oversight
Fred