On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 1:52 PM, Risker <risker.wp@gmail.com> wrote:

If exactly the same article had been written by someone who has a long and colourful history of behaviour considered to be very uncivil, nobody would be thinking it was an okay article. It's only okay because Keilana wrote it, it wouldn't be okay if someone with a history of alleged misogyny wrote it *using exactly the same words*. I doubt very much that the Signpost would have published it had it been written by any number of other people - in fact, I'm doubtful it would have been published if written by any male editor, though Rob could tell us otherwise - but even if they did publish it, the reaction would have been infinitely more severe if not for the name of the author.

Risker/Anne

I think that is purely speculation. You may be right, but it seems like the opposite could just as easily be true - that because it was written by a woman, many people felt much more comfortable ignoring the substance of what she wrote and attacking the attitude and tone she used to write it.

In any case, it seems like it has long been settled that the general use of profanity on Wikipedia is accepted but not celebrated. Only in extreme cases is it considered actionable when actually directed at an individual. So it's hard to understand why many editors of long-tenure have reacted in such a strongly negative manner to this op-ed; it may be the unique nature of the Signpost, but like Gamaliel I would be surprised to learn that many users regard the Signpost in the same way devotees do the New York Times. The most likely conclusion is that profanity and vulgar language are almost exclusively deployed by men on Wikipedia, and the difference here is that readers were shocked --shocked!-- to read it from a woman.