On 2/20/2011 5:24 PM, Marc Riddell wrote:
Sue, as you know, this is the area of my greatest concern regarding the future of the Wikipedia Project. The gender gap is a part of the larger problem you described above: That of a combative, hostile and defensive culture that presents an unchecked arena for Community Member harassment and abuse - that prevents the type of healthy, intelligent and productive collaboration that can, and will, improve and maintain the quality of the Project. Is there, are there, plans to mount a similar initiative to tackle this larger problem? To approach it as a gender-neutral problem?
Marc Riddell
Frankly, I've been a bit discouraged by the lack of interest in these specific current efforts I mentioned 10 days ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Civility#Proposal Someone else proposed language to WP:Civility to make slurs vs. homosexuals a no -no and I pointed out it wasn't clear that slurs against women as women are not sufficiently outlawed in the proposal (or now). And of course people are now saying adding one or two words to make both clear is just too much bureaucracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/dispute_resoluti... Main relevant proposals are relating to easier blocks for bad behavior. (Elsewhere dealing with editors who gang up on others, whether from POV or just enjoy trashing females, has been discussed so that may yet be a related proposal on that page.) I was working on a proposal when the NT TImes articles came out and got sidetracked. Anyway, we definitely need more female input.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Username_policy#Need_more_warnin... Do we need stronger warnings to new users (esp women)* when they register * that using real names (or sex) can lead to harassment? Or even a check mark box for them to check they've read about that possibility on registering ? (Obviously, using my real name, I've had problems!)
Thanks...
Carol in dc