On 29 April 2013 23:34, Michael J. Lowrey <orangemike@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:07 PM, Risker <risker.wp@gmail.com> wrote:

Michael, I have to say that I find your comment offensive. NOBODY expects to be denigrated on Wikipedia, and being "privileged" is no excuse for doing so. This is EXACTLY the kind of behaviour this list was created to try to modify.

Risker/Anne

How so? I would have said the same thing, for the same reason, if the author had been male. The evidence is that a lot of what she complains about is the EXACT SAME THING that happens to anybody who comes into Wikipedia and
attacks editors: some morons act like morons, and a few other cynics start looking to see whether the complainant's hands are clean. Sadly, our morons acted like sexist morons, thus confirming all the worst assumptions of those who don't know how a wiki works. That doesn't give her a free pass from the same constant attention to which all of us, editors and outside critics alike, are subject.

And damned if I'll be told to shut up when I point out that an ordinary working writer would be less likely to get an op-ed in the N.Y. Times than one of the heirs to a profitable publishing company which might easily be viewed as an obvious purchaser of the moribund N.Y. Times company, for what amounts to Hachette's pocket change.

But of course, it's vulgar (meaning "of the common people") to point out when class privilege takes place. How offensive of me.

Now could we go back to working on substantive matters instead of slanging at each other?

Michael, you miss my point entirely. This is exactly the kind of nastiness - trashing someone who takes umbrage at the way Wikipedia does something that directly relates to her own real life - that brings the project into disrepute, and that women in particular find hostile.

This entire story is about how truly absurd our categorizations are, and how it relegates subjects into niches that make it even more difficult to find them. Yes, it's inherently sexist, and it's inappropriate; however, it's also deeply entrenched and seems to be almost impossible to break through.

What it isn't about is what "privilege" the subject of the article may or may not have had anywhere in her life. That she got an op-ed in the NYT is because the NYT is interested in what she wrote about; they don't publish op-eds just because of who the author is, they publish it because they think there is something interesting about the article. It is a major BLP violation for you to allege otherwise. I hope you're not going anywhere near any of the affected articles, or the editors who have had anything to do with any of the related articles.

Risker/Anne