Hi all -
I've been in a significant academic time crunch for the last several weeks, and Sarah is currently AFK, which is why neither of us have participated in this thread so far. One of us (Sarah, me, or Cindy,) will probably have further comment on this thread in general and may reach out to some of you individually in the near future, but I wanted to send out a general note that the mods are reading this thread and some sort of action is likely to be forthcoming.
For now: I agree with Fluffernutter that a lot of the behavior that has occurred on this thread is not productive. I subscribe to this list because I believe it should be a place where we can have important discussions. I believe that the gendergap in Wikimedia projects has significant real-world implications that need to be addressed to avoid significant long term consequences. I believe that many of the subscribers to this list, including many people who have participated here, believe the same way.
If you do believe the same way, I would ask that when you start to type a post to this list, please consider whether or not your comment will benefit our mutual goals, or whether it will harm them. If you feel you can't make a comment that will be productive (or at least neutral) at any given point, please hold off on sending your email for a while - even if it's just for a few hours - to allow tensions and feelings on all sides to de-escalate.
Thanks, Kevin Gorman