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, "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.