Laura, I'm the one who's called you out here. I don't think it is any more tolerable for sexism to be directed toward men as when it is directed toward women, and I am reasonably certain that is the case with many (present and former) subscribers to this list. There are two active moderators for this list, one male and one female. When one moderator has attacks directed at her, it is up to the other moderator to address them. List moderation is list moderation, and it doesn't have a gender. If anything, I would prefer that this list be *more heavily* moderated than other WMF lists.
In particular, I do not want to see people denigrated for coming up with ideas and brainstorming on this list, which I believe is where this post about moderation has come from. It's not acceptable, regardless of whether it comes from a woman or a man.
Thanks. It really makes me as a women expressing concerns about feeling unsafe and unable to talk about issues in terms men on the list feel unimportant and resolved because a man has said they do not care who moderates. Clearly the fact that a man has stepped up to enforce civility on women and other men do not care about the moderator's gender means my concerns are over blown. Thank you. As a woman interested in the gendergap, as one who feels like her voice is silenced by men, I am ecstatic that you have spoken up on my behalf. I will now go silently sit in my corner, because my voice and the voices of other women are clearly being tended to by men.
On Monday, May 7, 2012, Ryan Kaldari wrote:
I don't care who is moderating, but it would be nice to have more
civility on this list. When I resigned as moderator, I invited
several people to take my place (all women). They all declined
citing the contentious nature of the list, except for SlimVirgin.
SlimVirgin, unfortunately, was not able to moderate for very long
due to health issues. That leaves us with Sue, SarahS, and Kevin.
Sue is far too busy to actually moderate the list and SarahS often
has a COI in moderating since she is frequently the target of
attacks. So that leaves Kevin. Now that SlimVirgin has rejoined the
list, perhaps she would be interested in helping to moderate again?
Ryan Kaldari
On 5/6/12 2:16 PM, Laura Hale wrote:
On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 7:03 AM, Kevin
Gorman <kgorman@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi all -
Given this, I'm going to change how the moderation of this
list is
handled a little bit moving forward. Previously, there has
been no
hands-on moderation of this list. From now on, there will
potentially
be some. It won't be draconian - and really, I hope it'll
never be
used at all - but I think it's important to guarantee that the
atmosphere of this list remains friendly, and I wanted to
announce how
I will be approaching it.
This really makes this place safe. Thank you very much. We've
done an excellent job resolving the leadership gendergap on WMF
with male +1, female +0.
Honestly though, I can tell you that while I am glad for a
moderator, having a male come in and tell me they will be making
this a safe place, given the historical problems of men making
this feel UNSAFE on this list and the increase in male
participation, this makes me uncomfortable and more like this will
be an even more unsafe space. :( The first thing you, as a male
who knows there are issues with women who feel unsafe
participating in this list because of those problems, is make a
declaration of firm male leadership and less tolerance of this
type of behavior. It feels like a major disconnect, where the end
result is women will feel MORE silenced lest they offend you.