I'm Phoebe Ayers. I've been involved as a an editor on enwp since 2003, and have been involved in various Foundation projects, most notably planning the international Wikimania conference. I am currently serving a term on the Wikimedia Foundation board (I was selected for a chapter-appointed seat in 2010). In my day job, I'm an academic reference librarian at the University of California (still a female-dominated field!), where I specialize in engineering information.

I've also been involved in a number of wiki research projects, and co-authored a book about the English Wikipedia in 2008 ("How Wikipedia Works"); I also talk about the projects a fair amount in public. Because of this, I've been in the business of trying to observe the projects from a high level for a long time.

One thing I have found that is quite difficult when trying to get a sense of Wikipedia is the fact that individual experience is so varied -- because the site is so big and so complex, and so dependent on individual encounters, it's possible and even likely for two similar people to have wildly different experiences as editors (if one encounters a troll and the other doesn't, if one subject area has belligerent people working on it but another doesn't, etc). On the other hand, there are several ideas that seem to have had a good deal of consensus over a long period of time: that the project culture is hostile and a bit dysfunctional; that it can be difficult to get work done; that women have bad experiences, and so on. I am less interested in making this a question only of gender than finding out why these things happen on our projects, and how to stop them.

I was warmly welcomed back in 2003, female username and then real name, and never really had any bad experiences because of it. I've certainly had my share of fights with editors, and have been trolled a bit on IRC (and had more than my share of fights on the mailing lists), but nothing I'd write home about. (I also have never deeply invested myself in working on controversial areas). I have however certainly seen people I know suffer indignities at the hands of off-site forums, and get into protracted arguments on the site, and have experiences like some of the ones listed on this thread -- both men and women.

At the same time I've seen some extraordinarily good things happen too, and I am equally interested in finding and modeling good interactions -- either good responses to bad behavior, or in general examples of being a great Wikipedian, and celebrating those. This is not an area where I think we can flip a setting and expect things to change overnight (well, we could lock the database, but other than that...), but we can work hard on norms-setting.

I am also interested in Foundation culture -- especially for those of you who have been involved as Meta-pedians for a long time, knowing what you think of it. (The Foundation's community of volunteers -- people who work on "meta" work -- is even smaller than the community behind the projects, but is in many ways more balanced). I am also particularly interested in experiences from projects other than the English Wikipedia.

best, -- phoebe