On Monday, 2 July 2012 at 06:24, koltzenburg@w4w.net wrote:
Hi Tom, hi @all
Wikimedia have decided to allow the list to be created
since we are addressing not only one gender gap but, seemingly quite a few, including those that come alonf the lines of what has come to be called sexual orientarion, I have a question about the creation process of the new list. I recently heard elsewhere that
it was difficult to bring WF to "allow" the list to be created in the frame of lists.wikimedia.org (http://lists.wikimedia.org)? how come?
You can see the discussion that led to the creation of the mailing list here: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37888
I disagreed rather strongly with the suggestion made that two of the proposed list administrators (Varnent and Fae) would have a "POV"*, but agreed to be a list admin instead.
Eventually, there was not really any "difficulty", just confusion and miscommunication. All's well that ends well.
I'm not sure I agree that LGBT is another gender gap. The point of the list isn't that it's dealing with a clear need to increase participation like gendergap is. It's based on two things: dealing with problematic editor interaction issues if and when they occur and trying to increase outreach to LGBT communities and organisations – sort of like GLAM: there are historical and cultural organisations Wikimedians can work with to counter systemic bias etc. (As with women's history, LGBT history is often written out of the literature, and thus out of Wikipedia.)
There's obviously some overlap given that gender, gender identity and sexual orientation are all bound together, but I wouldn't otherwise want to draw comparisons with what gendergap is doing and what the LGBT list is doing.
* To quote Lady Gaga: if I have a POV or a COI, I was born that way.
-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/