Is it appropriate for the Foundation to refer to women as "chicks" and use the title "fellow" for staff positions? I'm not adamantly opposed to either, but I am convinced we can do much better.
On the issue of noticeboards, does anyone know of any actual reasons that any noticeboard has not tended to help solve the problem it was intended to address? All of them seem to have been relatively successful to me, and certainly have been lesser drama magnets than the general WP:ANI noticeboard which they tend to relieve by moving quality responsibilities from the administrators to the wider community.
It seems to me that the English Wikipedia would be far better with a systematic bias noticeboard to cover both gender and geographic concerns.
On 2/24/11 2:13 PM, James Salsman wrote:
Is it appropriate for the Foundation to refer to women as "chicks" and use the title "fellow" for staff positions? I'm not adamantly opposed to either, but I am convinced we can do much better.
[speaking as me, not as a Foundation representative]
The term "fellow" has *many* different meanings; Wiktionary can provide a good many of them. In this particular instance, "fellow" follows the academic term; meaning a person taking a stipend to conduct a specific area of study. In that term, it also follows another definition of the term "fellow"; that of a companion, a comrade, an associate.
And my understanding of "WikiChix" is that it's a community movement, not a Foundation one for all that it was founded by a Board of Trustees member. It's also based off of the LinuxChix movement, again a community movement. Some women embrace this term, some do not. Over the last 5-10 years or so there has been a movement to begin reclaiming the various signifiers of femininity that were eschewed during the feminist revolution of the 70s: the color pink, needlecraft, the term "chick," etc. Personally, i embrace "chick"... it makes me feel young and not like the old lady i fear i'm becoming way too quickly ;)
We can argue etymology until the cows come home. But in my mind, it's a red herring. Words do shape Worlds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity, or as we call it in anthropology the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis), but i'm not sure this is the battle to fight. This is especially true in light of all the other problems/solutions that have been highlighted on this list and others which are related: new user welcoming committees, less biting of people (new or otherwise), and other on-wiki social changes that would make the site welcoming to new editors of all genders. i personally would rather devote my efforts to working on these other issues than arguing over what we call the people who come in to work on projects, or what individuals call their mailing lists.
If we spend too much time fighting over words, we really will lose sight of the forest for the trees.
-Christine
Is it appropriate for the Foundation to refer to women as "chicks" and use the title "fellow" for staff positions? I'm not adamantly opposed to either, but I am convinced we can do much better.
On the issue of noticeboards, does anyone know of any actual reasons that any noticeboard has not tended to help solve the problem it was intended to address? All of them seem to have been relatively successful to me, and certainly have been lesser drama magnets than the general WP:ANI noticeboard which they tend to relieve by moving quality responsibilities from the administrators to the wider community.
It seems to me that the English Wikipedia would be far better with a systematic bias noticeboard to cover both gender and geographic concerns.
I've raised the general question of a gender-based notice board at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Gender_issues
Women chose Wikichix themselves and can change it if they wish. "Fellow" is pretty much standard; what would be your alternative?
Fred
My reaction to "fellow" is pretty much the same as Christine's. I read it as an academic term (ie, a fellow is a person who has a fellowship), which is as gender neutral as one can be in academia. Then again, that's my environment, so I don't know how others interpret it.
I'm not sure where the Foundation refers to "chicks", so I can't comment on that.
Nepenthe
On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 5:23 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
Is it appropriate for the Foundation to refer to women as "chicks" and use the title "fellow" for staff positions? I'm not adamantly opposed to either, but I am convinced we can do much better.
On the issue of noticeboards, does anyone know of any actual reasons that any noticeboard has not tended to help solve the problem it was intended to address? All of them seem to have been relatively successful to me, and certainly have been lesser drama magnets than the general WP:ANI noticeboard which they tend to relieve by moving quality responsibilities from the administrators to the wider community.
It seems to me that the English Wikipedia would be far better with a systematic bias noticeboard to cover both gender and geographic concerns.
I've raised the general question of a gender-based notice board at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Gender_issues
Women chose Wikichix themselves and can change it if they wish. "Fellow" is pretty much standard; what would be your alternative?
Fred
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________________________________ From: James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, February 24, 2011 4:13:47 PM Subject: [Gendergap] the terms "chicks" and "fellows"; systemic bias noticeboard
It seems to me that the English Wikipedia would be far better with a systematic bias noticeboard to cover both gender and geographic concerns.
Honestly it would depend on the traffic levels. But it is a reasonable suggestion to start one more general notice board first and refine into several more detailed noticeboards when it becomes cumbersome.
Birgitte SB