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
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-November/004945.html>,
"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* ad nauseum* 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.