Hello Jessy -
I see that your second effort[1], where you eliminated all references to
physical appearance of either gender was accepted. I think that was
appropriate. I think what was a bigger issue in your first effort was that
you just switched male to female and vice versa, but left in the part about
physical appearance in both cases. Your second effort was exemplary - it
reflected completely gender-neutral attributes (cleverness, athletic
ability) and is an excellent way to have addressed the gender bias in the
information. Just switching the gender without changing the attribute
didn't really make the references less biased or more gender-neutral. That
you identified positive gender-neutral attributes with a woman in these
examples was a major coup on your part, and is possibly one of the best
examples of addressing a systemic bias I've seen in a while.
It occurs to me that you figured out all by yourself how to improve the
Wiktionary entry while also removing the systemic bias, by sticking to it
and thinking more broadly about the issue. I'm not sure that you'll get
recognition for this work, mostly because most editors get very little
recognition. One thing that I personally have found to be rewarding is to
receive a "thanks" message from another editor, which I have received for
edits on Meta, English Wikipedia, and Commons. It appears to me that the
"Thank" extension isn't active on English Wiktionary. If someone is more
technically minded than me, perhaps this can be verified and a phabricator
task initiated in order to get it active. Then I would encourage you to
use it; many editors on Wiktionary will recognize (and probably appreciate)
being thanked since it is active on other projects they probably edit, and
will start reciprocating.
Risker/Anne
[1]
https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=so&type=revision&diff=4…
On 26 April 2017 at 13:27, Jessy D. King <jessy.d.king(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
I'm new to this list, this is my first post.
If Wikipedia is a boy's club, Wiktionary is an uber boy's club. It *so*
desperately needs people interested in addressing systemic bias.
Every time I try to make completely legitimate fixes to address systemic
bias of the male privilege variety (for example,
https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=so&type=
revision&diff=42598962&oldid=42598906 )
it is reverted very quickly (in the just-referenced case, within 10
minutes). Then a fight must ensue in which I'm accused of being things like
"dishonest", "disrespectful" and 'railing'. The person in
this case has
demonstrated his double standards in his edit summary and in his comments
to me on his talk page, and that is absolutely (unfortunately) the norm
amongst long-term Wiktionary editors.
It is incredibly demoralising. My contributions to Wiktionary include
adding etymologies, adding quotations, all with absolutely no gender issues
involved, yet none of that work is ever recognised in any way, and I'm
treated like a resented interloper. The majority of long-term Wiktionary
editors seem to bitterly resent the very suggestion of addressing systemic
bias. It is a really, really nasty little uber boy's club in there. Which I
realise may not encourage anyone to join, I'm just being honest.
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