On 6/25/2014 11:50 PM, Sarah wrote:
Thanks, Sarah. The first links to Meta. I completely forgot about
the Gender Bias task force which I signed on to but evidently
unwatched during some period of frustration. Of course, the task
force only focuses on working on articles, not behavior problems
women editors need help with.
Re: issue of discussing content vs. behavior issues off wikipedias,
I just remembered a recent ANI where a female editor complained that
a male editor was criticizing her harshly on a few off-wiki sites
for problematic content in her science-related edits. While he was
judged insensitive, he wasn't sanctioned and such off wiki criticism
was supported. One editor wrote that "Criticising the quality of an
editor's work, whether here or elsewhere, is not harassment. " and
"If you would like to curtail editors' freedom to speak out about
Wikipedia's failings in public, this in itself will be a media
story, and rightly so." Should behavior toward women be considered
as part of editors' work??
For more details on this case see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive835#Harassment
(Also see the resulting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editor_review/Cwmhiraeth
about the complaining female editor and another editor's complaint
about it being a "show trial" at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive838#Wikipedia:Editor_review.2FCwmhiraeth
) Perhaps the female editor was judged too assertive in looking for
DYKs and Good articles, while didn't fact checking/referencing
carefully enough. Not stereotypically female behavior?
However, questioning behavior too aggressively off wikipedia
evidently remains a no no. I was once blocked for a week for asking
an editor whether his overwhelming history of editing in articles
about bondage of females was related to his obvious and annoying
harassment of me on a noticeboard, after which I mentioned the issue
on the Wikia Feminism page which I thought was a part of Wikipedia
(duh). The latter evidently was the bigger "no no".
These are the kind of stories we used to tell here but don't any
more. Where can we??
Is Wikipedia ready for women discussing how to deal with specific
issues involving bad male editor behavior on or off wikipedia. Would
a concerted effort by women to get the community to OK that work?
Of course, a concerted effort to just consciousness raise on the
issues generally would be great. There is a facebook group where
occasionally something specific is mentioned. And going straight to
ANI with problems you aren't sure about is difficult; even going to
ANI with real problems and real diffs can be fruitless, especially
if you are up against people who just make stuff up and don't even
provide diffs.
Perhaps the Gender Gap task force at least could allow links to
actual ongoing ANIs/Editor Reviews/Arbitrations/noticeboards/etc.
One thing that I could not find searching en.Wikipedia is an Essay
called something like KEEPING WOMEN ON WIKIPEDIA that would deal
explicitly with the problems women face and the various solutions,
going though the list of Dispute resolution options, Wikiprojects
and other support efforts, including at Meta. Also include some of
the points mentioned in the Geek Feminism article linked by Valerie:
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Statement_of_purpose:_communities_including_men
Of course, we would need some admins willing to quickly ban
disruptive (probably male) editors from editing that essay.
Such an essay could be linked to a number of relevant projects and
help pages and copied to all the languages.
Thoughts?
CM