Kumioko has been removed from the list - Leigh did so earlier, and I agree with her decision. Of the posts Carch had a problem with, I don't see most of them as an issue.  Due to health issues I've been almost completely MIA for the last long period of time and missed the posts as they occurred, so I couldn't have taken action as they came even if I had objected to them.  If Carch doesn't want to join the list because of them that's certain his choice, but I think the inappropriate elements of the posts he linked to were more or less appropriately handled by other gendergap members.  If an inappropriate for the list line of discussion gets shut down by other list members, I don't think it's desirable to take harder mod action against it.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the email chain pondering about legal repercussions for people engaged in online harrassment, it's a discussion that is occurring in a wide variety of venues including plenty of other mailing lists, the popular press, and governments.  It would've been different if it had been people organizing to try to create legal consequences for a particular Wikimedian, but as far as I can see it wasn't.  Frankly, I don't see anything in that discussion skimming through it that couldn't have taken place on-wiki, and I've seen discussions not dissimilar to it take place on-wiki.  I wouldn't like to see a discussion aiming to create legal consequences for a particular contributor here generally speaking, because if it was unjustified it would be shitty on our part, and if it was justified this list is frankly speaking a terrible mechanism for organizing around it, but I see nothing wrong with talking about it in abstract. 

I don't see anything wrong with talking about the merits of particular arbcom candidates even if it results in a chunk of list members voting as a group. Arbcom's functioning has a pretty significant linkage with the health of ENWP's community, and whether or not sexism, racism, etc are accepted.  The on-wiki voter guides are not dissimilar, and I would bet money they have a more significant block vote effect than any discussion here will.  I don't like the suggestion of using editathons to create a cabal of new voters, but it's not a suggestion that was implemented, didn't gain significant support here, and bluntly pretty impractical.  I would take issue with people actively using the list to organize a voting bloc of people who don't regularly edit, but that didn't happen and I doubt there will be a situation where that will happen. I don't see a point in taking mod action against someone who makes a suggestion that is made in good faith but isn't terribly appropriate, especially given that we *need* innovative ideas if we're likely to make a dent in anything, and it's unsurprising that some brainstormed ideas won't be viable because they violate community norms too strongly. FWIW, I wouldn't have a problem with people organizing editathons specifically about ENWP's governance structures or the problems in them even if they contained plenty of opinion as long as they weren't actively trying to create a bloc of voters who just took instructions about how to vote from other people.

Talking about doxxing or researching Eric isn't really appropriate, but I don't see any meaningful previously private information in that thread as to be worth sanctioning anyone, and Fluffernutter appropriately promptly pointed out that.  I don't agree with Fluff that all discussion of individual editors is blanket inappropriate, but I can see situations where it would be, as long as it didn't delve in to undisclosed portions of their non-Wikimedia lives.  On something of an individual note, if someone wrote a decent analysis of how Eric came to the prominence that he has, or other extremely prominent editors came to their positions, I would probably find it pretty interesting and could see it appropriately discussed on the list. I find ethnographic type studies of Wiki(p|m)edia quite fascinating, and think that well done case studies of particularly prominent people or events in Wikipedia's history would be pretty fascinating, too.

----

Kevin Gorman

On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 1:18 PM, <gorillawarfarewikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:

On Friday, Dec 12, 2014 at 3:38 PM, marinka marinkavandam.com <marinka@marinkavandam.com>, wrote:

On topic, are we going to see some more debate about the Slate piece? Anne/Risker is suggesting there was a basic misunderstanding on the part of the author: that the whole thing had nothing to do with gender gap discrimination but behavior. Would that be your view, Molly? It does strike me as insular.

In my view, the case centered on the behavior of a number of contributors, largely (but not solely) at he Gender Gap Task Force. I would like to think the rename to “Interactions at the GGTF” would clarify that the case was about the interactions and not the task force, but I realize the difference is perhaps too subtle.

– Molly (not a pseudonym)

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