It’s one thing to read about the sort of harsh reactions women get while editing that discourages them from continuing.
It’s a second thing to experience it yourself.
Late last week I was browsing Slate when I read their reprint (http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/06/11/lolly_wolly_doodle_brandi_tem...) of this month’s Inc. magazine cover story, about a company called Lolly Wolly Doodle, a children’s clothing company started by Brandi Temple a woman in North Carolina with no real prior business experience, who had by her own admission never wanted to be anything more than a trophy wife when she was younger. She apparently figured out how to sell on Facebook, something major retailers have failed to do, and she’s now the CEO of a rapidly-growing company that’s gotten some serious venture-capital funding, doing over half of its $10 million+ annual business on FB and by their own lights the largest retailer on that site.
I checked to see if we had an article on this company. We didn’t, so I started one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolly_Wolly_Doodle, complete with an infobox with the company logo and a free image of one of its dresses I found on Flickr. I reflected as I did so that the reason that this company had gotten all the media coverage it had in the tech and business press yet remained off our radar said entirely too much about our gender gap ... if we had just a few more probably regular editors who also are avid Pinterest users, I bet, we’d have had at least a stub a long time ago.
But, that was all water under the bridge. Or so I thought.
I nominated it for DYK on Friday. Late today, I get these responses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nominations... https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nominations...
They were enough to ruin the good mood I was in following the USA’s World Cup win over Ghana and our neighbor coming over to invite my wife and I to her daughter’s graduation party. I have real trouble believing that Eppstein even read it (“whole paragraphs” are sourced to the company’s own history on its webpage? Huh? That it’s not neutral and too promotional? Everything it is sourced and attributed. And that dismissive conclusion about “story-telling mode about the struggles of the founders to find their way in the world” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think a similarly-written story about a business set up by men would get this level of criticism.
Sorry if anyone was bothered by this, but I had to vent. I will be going into greater detail about why this review was so off base when I request that someone else review it instead (something I have very rarely done with all the DYKs I’ve nominated).
Daniel Case
Awesome article. Sorry to hear about your troubles with the peanut gallery.
Ryan
On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 6:45 PM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case < dancase@frontiernet.net> wrote:
It’s one thing to read about the sort of harsh reactions women get while editing that discourages them from continuing.
It’s a second thing to experience it yourself.
Late last week I was browsing *Slate* when I read their reprint ( http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/06/11/lolly_wolly_doodle_brandi_tem...) of this month’s *Inc.* magazine cover story, about a company called Lolly Wolly Doodle, a children’s clothing company started by Brandi Temple a woman in North Carolina with no real prior business experience, who had by her own admission never wanted to be anything more than a trophy wife when she was younger. She apparently figured out how to sell on Facebook, something major retailers have failed to do, and she’s now the CEO of a rapidly-growing company that’s gotten some serious venture-capital funding, doing over half of its $10 million+ annual business on FB and by their own lights the largest retailer on that site.
I checked to see if we had an article on this company. We didn’t, so I started one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolly_Wolly_Doodle, complete with an infobox with the company logo and a free image of one of its dresses I found on Flickr. I reflected as I did so that the reason that this company had gotten all the media coverage it had in the tech and business press yet remained off our radar said entirely too much about our gender gap ... if we had just a few more probably regular editors who also are avid Pinterest users, I bet, we’d have had at least a stub a long time ago.
But, that was all water under the bridge. Or so I thought.
I nominated it for DYK on Friday. Late today, I get these responses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nominations...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nominations...
They were enough to ruin the good mood I was in following the USA’s World Cup win over Ghana and our neighbor coming over to invite my wife and I to her daughter’s graduation party. I have real trouble believing that Eppstein even read it (“whole paragraphs” are sourced to the company’s own history on its webpage? Huh? That it’s not neutral and too promotional? Everything it is sourced and attributed. And that dismissive conclusion about “story-telling mode about the struggles of the founders to find their way in the world” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think a similarly-written story about a business set up by men would get this level of criticism.
Sorry if anyone was bothered by this, but I had to vent. I will be going into greater detail about why this review was so off base when I request that someone else review it instead (something I have very rarely done with all the DYKs I’ve nominated).
Daniel Case
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Welcome to our lives Daniel :)
Good efforts all around. I stopped participating in DYK's (nominating my own stuff) after drama llamas claimed promotional language about long dead subjects and more.
I always say : so fix it.
But, they never do :)
Good article, screw the system!!
Sarah On Jun 16, 2014 6:45 PM, "Daniel and Elizabeth Case" < dancase@frontiernet.net> wrote:
It’s one thing to read about the sort of harsh reactions women get while editing that discourages them from continuing.
It’s a second thing to experience it yourself.
Late last week I was browsing *Slate* when I read their reprint ( http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/06/11/lolly_wolly_doodle_brandi_tem...) of this month’s *Inc.* magazine cover story, about a company called Lolly Wolly Doodle, a children’s clothing company started by Brandi Temple a woman in North Carolina with no real prior business experience, who had by her own admission never wanted to be anything more than a trophy wife when she was younger. She apparently figured out how to sell on Facebook, something major retailers have failed to do, and she’s now the CEO of a rapidly-growing company that’s gotten some serious venture-capital funding, doing over half of its $10 million+ annual business on FB and by their own lights the largest retailer on that site.
I checked to see if we had an article on this company. We didn’t, so I started one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolly_Wolly_Doodle, complete with an infobox with the company logo and a free image of one of its dresses I found on Flickr. I reflected as I did so that the reason that this company had gotten all the media coverage it had in the tech and business press yet remained off our radar said entirely too much about our gender gap ... if we had just a few more probably regular editors who also are avid Pinterest users, I bet, we’d have had at least a stub a long time ago.
But, that was all water under the bridge. Or so I thought.
I nominated it for DYK on Friday. Late today, I get these responses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nominations...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nominations...
They were enough to ruin the good mood I was in following the USA’s World Cup win over Ghana and our neighbor coming over to invite my wife and I to her daughter’s graduation party. I have real trouble believing that Eppstein even read it (“whole paragraphs” are sourced to the company’s own history on its webpage? Huh? That it’s not neutral and too promotional? Everything it is sourced and attributed. And that dismissive conclusion about “story-telling mode about the struggles of the founders to find their way in the world” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think a similarly-written story about a business set up by men would get this level of criticism.
Sorry if anyone was bothered by this, but I had to vent. I will be going into greater detail about why this review was so off base when I request that someone else review it instead (something I have very rarely done with all the DYKs I’ve nominated).
Daniel Case
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Welcome to our lives Daniel :) Good efforts all around. I stopped participating in DYK's (nominating my own stuff) after drama llamas claimed >promotional language about long dead subjects and more.
Yeah, well, I’ve been nominating DYKSs for almost as long as I’ve been editing, so I have come to expect some occasional obtuseness from reviewers who aren’t acquainted with my other work. But this time it felt like a forearm across the mouth. It is bad enough that, after having composed my reply/request for another reviewer, I still feel like taking a break from Wikipedia for a while and working on another project (or even TV Tropes) for the rest of the evening.
Daniel Case
Eppstein was off-base, but you escalated it into the realm of the personal attack. That's both counterproductive and even somewhat hypocritical. In particular, your blanket denigration of academics is amazingly offensive to many more Wikipedians than just your wayward reviewer.
Powers &8^]
-----Original Message----- From: Daniel and Elizabeth Case [mailto:dancase@frontiernet.net] Sent: 16 June 2014 21:45 To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects Subject: [Gendergap] Oh man, I feel like a woman ...
It's one thing to read about the sort of harsh reactions women get while editing that discourages them from continuing.
It's a second thing to experience it yourself.
Late last week I was browsing Slate when I read their reprint (http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/06/11/lolly_wolly_doodle_brandi_te mple_s_north_carolina_children_s_clothing_startup.html) of this month's Inc. magazine cover story, about a company called Lolly Wolly Doodle, a children's clothing company started by Brandi Temple a woman in North Carolina with no real prior business experience, who had by her own admission never wanted to be anything more than a trophy wife when she was younger. She apparently figured out how to sell on Facebook, something major retailers have failed to do, and she's now the CEO of a rapidly-growing company that's gotten some serious venture-capital funding, doing over half of its $10 million+ annual business on FB and by their own lights the largest retailer on that site.
I checked to see if we had an article on this company. We didn't, so I started one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolly_Wolly_Doodle, complete with an infobox with the company logo and a free image of one of its dresses I found on Flickr. I reflected as I did so that the reason that this company had gotten all the media coverage it had in the tech and business press yet remained off our radar said entirely too much about our gender gap ... if we had just a few more probably regular editors who also are avid Pinterest users, I bet, we'd have had at least a stub a long time ago.
But, that was all water under the bridge. Or so I thought.
I nominated it for DYK on Friday. Late today, I get these responses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nominations /Lolly_Wolly_Doodle https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nomination s/Lolly_Wolly_Doodle&diff=613195333&oldid=612812989 &diff=613195333&oldid=612812989
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nominations /Lolly_Wolly_Doodle https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nomination s/Lolly_Wolly_Doodle&diff=613195754&oldid=613195333 &diff=613195754&oldid=613195333
They were enough to ruin the good mood I was in following the USA's World Cup win over Ghana and our neighbor coming over to invite my wife and I to her daughter's graduation party. I have real trouble believing that Eppstein even read it ("whole paragraphs" are sourced to the company's own history on its webpage? Huh? That it's not neutral and too promotional? Everything it is sourced and attributed. And that dismissive conclusion about "story-telling mode about the struggles of the founders to find their way in the world" Maybe it's just me, but I don't think a similarly-written story about a business set up by men would get this level of criticism.
Sorry if anyone was bothered by this, but I had to vent. I will be going into greater detail about why this review was so off base when I request that someone else review it instead (something I have very rarely done with all the DYKs I've nominated).
Daniel Case
Eppstein was off-base, but you escalated it into the realm of the personal attack. That's both counterproductive and even somewhat >hypocritical. In particular, your blanket denigration of academics is amazingly offensive to many more Wikipedians than just your >wayward reviewer.
I apologize to all those who were offended ... yes, I’m not entirely outside the circle of academia myself (among which that sort of criticism is not unheard of, actually). I probably might not have flown off the handle so much if Eppstein hadn’t ended his review with something that sounded so snippy and dismissive, and it wasn’t so late.
Daniel Case
Hi Daniel,
On Mon, 16 Jun 2014 21:45:19 -0400 "Daniel and Elizabeth Case" dancase@frontiernet.net wrote: [SNIPPED]
sorry to hear about that. But you can try coping with it - gently and tactfully.
Please read:
* http://unarmed.shlomifish.org/909.html - also see the notes and the comments.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Heaven_%28film%29 - about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saladin whose deads speak better than his few words, and whose English Wikipedia page loses the forest for the trees.
And you may derive a lot of inspiration from some more recent sources such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppet_Show , and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Little_Pony:_Friendship_Is_Magic .
Finally, see my own http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Summerschool-at-the-NSA/ which shows a modern variation of Saladin’s approach to benevolent psychological warfare, and is kind-of like a 2013 modernisation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged .
Regards,
Shlomi Fish