Sparked by the recent...situation..
http://reagle.org/joseph/pelican/social/wikipedia-and-gendered-categories.ht...
Sar
Interesting commentary as far as it went. I wish he'd delved a little further into what he was saying.
Perception is important. I think people can act in good faith (for instance to reduce the size of a massive category) without realizing the effect of how the result looks. It may not be meant in a sexist way, but if the effect is "ghettoization", it looks sexist, and that does matter. There is the real need though to find women novelists, male nurses, etc. for studies. Apparently German WP has a system whereby one can query category intersections that are defined by the end user. ?This souns like a plausible solution, but I haven't used it myself (and do't speak German).
Just thinking out loud here... Lady
On 4/29/13, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com wrote:
Sparked by the recent...situation..
http://reagle.org/joseph/pelican/social/wikipedia-and-gendered-categories.ht...
Sar
-- *Sarah Stierch* */Museumist and open culture advocate/*
Visit sarahstierch.com http://sarahstierch.com<<
On 04/29/2013 10:03 PM, Lady of Shalott wrote:
Interesting commentary as far as it went. I wish he'd delved a little further into what he was saying. ... Just thinking out loud here...
I'm actually on this list :) and was just thinking out loud as well to see if I could understand the incident since I was seeing pretty strong claims (both "Wikipedia is sexist" and "this is journalism run amok.") For instance, people continue to report that Filipacchi is a reporter for NYT when these were op-eds.
Thanks for your reply, Joseph - fair enough! :) I agree with you - I think there have been some major lapses of assumption of good faith from both (all?) sides.
(Ouch looking back at my post, I'm wishing I could hit edit. The edit summary would be something along the lines of "typo fixing".)
On 4/29/13, Joseph Reagle joseph.2011@reagle.org wrote:
On 04/29/2013 10:03 PM, Lady of Shalott wrote:
Interesting commentary as far as it went. I wish he'd delved a little further into what he was saying. ... Just thinking out loud here...
I'm actually on this list :) and was just thinking out loud as well to see if I could understand the incident since I was seeing pretty strong claims (both "Wikipedia is sexist" and "this is journalism run amok.") For instance, people continue to report that Filipacchi is a reporter for NYT when these were op-eds.
More thinking out loud :) ...
Following on from Joseph's observations of taxonomy and Web 2.0-ish tagging (and perhaps echoing larger debates about the sociality of Wikipedia as a platform), I guess I see it as an issue of top-down vs bottom-up approaches to organising knowledge. Where top-down sees knowledge as finite and splits it into categories, and bottom-up sees knowledge as infinite and for want of a better word "taggable." And thus making Wikipedia more searchableŠ whatever parameters the user wantsŠrather than the prescriptive nature of categories.
I know the amount of times I've gone through obscure categories looking for females in that category - having to visit every article page to work out if the subject is male or female. It would be so awesome to be able to tag 'female,' 'physicist,' 'nuclear physicist,' etc. And bottom-up seems more in line with the wiki way of organising too.
On 30/04/13 12:26 PM, "Lady of Shalott" ladyofshalott.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for your reply, Joseph - fair enough! :) I agree with you - I think there have been some major lapses of assumption of good faith from both (all?) sides.
(Ouch looking back at my post, I'm wishing I could hit edit. The edit summary would be something along the lines of "typo fixing".)
On 4/29/13, Joseph Reagle joseph.2011@reagle.org wrote:
On 04/29/2013 10:03 PM, Lady of Shalott wrote:
Interesting commentary as far as it went. I wish he'd delved a little further into what he was saying. ... Just thinking out loud here...
I'm actually on this list :) and was just thinking out loud as well to see if I could understand the incident since I was seeing pretty strong claims (both "Wikipedia is sexist" and "this is journalism run amok.") For instance, people continue to report that Filipacchi is a reporter for NYT when these were op-eds.
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 9:15 PM, Joseph Reagle joseph.2011@reagle.orgwrote:
On 04/29/2013 10:03 PM, Lady of Shalott wrote:
Interesting commentary as far as it went. I wish he'd delved a little further into what he was saying. ...
Just thinking out loud here...
I'm actually on this list :) and was just thinking out loud as well to see if I could understand the incident since I was seeing pretty strong claims (both "Wikipedia is sexist" and "this is journalism run amok.") For instance, people continue to report that Filipacchi is a reporter for NYT when these were op-eds.
______________________________**_________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/gendergaphttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
And nobody, of course, addresses the class issue: that Filipacchi is a privileged scion of one of the largest global publishing companies, and is not accustomed to having her own self-interest questioned in a classic WP:BOOMERANG fashion by vulgar Wikipedians nobody who MATTERS ever heard of.
Michael, I have to say that I find your comment offensive. NOBODY expects to be denigrated on Wikipedia, and being "privileged" is no excuse for doing so. This is EXACTLY the kind of behaviour this list was created to try to modify.
Risker/Anne
On 29 April 2013 22:35, Michael J. Lowrey orangemike@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 9:15 PM, Joseph Reagle joseph.2011@reagle.orgwrote:
On 04/29/2013 10:03 PM, Lady of Shalott wrote:
Interesting commentary as far as it went. I wish he'd delved a little further into what he was saying. ...
Just thinking out loud here...
I'm actually on this list :) and was just thinking out loud as well to see if I could understand the incident since I was seeing pretty strong claims (both "Wikipedia is sexist" and "this is journalism run amok.") For instance, people continue to report that Filipacchi is a reporter for NYT when these were op-eds.
______________________________**_________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/gendergaphttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
And nobody, of course, addresses the class issue: that Filipacchi is a privileged scion of one of the largest global publishing companies, and is not accustomed to having her own self-interest questioned in a classic WP:BOOMERANG fashion by vulgar Wikipedians nobody who MATTERS ever heard of.
-- Michael J. "Orange Mike" Lowrey
"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes." -- Desiderius Erasmus _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Note these well-researched articles:
Andrew Leonard: http://www.salon.com/2013/04/29/wikipedias_shame/
James Gleick: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/apr/29/wikipedia-women-problem/
Andreas
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 4:07 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Michael, I have to say that I find your comment offensive. NOBODY expects to be denigrated on Wikipedia, and being "privileged" is no excuse for doing so. This is EXACTLY the kind of behaviour this list was created to try to modify.
Risker/Anne
On 29 April 2013 22:35, Michael J. Lowrey orangemike@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 9:15 PM, Joseph Reagle joseph.2011@reagle.orgwrote:
On 04/29/2013 10:03 PM, Lady of Shalott wrote:
Interesting commentary as far as it went. I wish he'd delved a little further into what he was saying. ...
Just thinking out loud here...
I'm actually on this list :) and was just thinking out loud as well to see if I could understand the incident since I was seeing pretty strong claims (both "Wikipedia is sexist" and "this is journalism run amok.") For instance, people continue to report that Filipacchi is a reporter for NYT when these were op-eds.
______________________________**_________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/gendergaphttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
And nobody, of course, addresses the class issue: that Filipacchi is a privileged scion of one of the largest global publishing companies, and is not accustomed to having her own self-interest questioned in a classic WP:BOOMERANG fashion by vulgar Wikipedians nobody who MATTERS ever heard of.
-- Michael J. "Orange Mike" Lowrey
"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes." -- Desiderius Erasmus _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
I agree with Risker. O_o - it's the whole "asking for it" mentality.
-Sarah
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 8:07 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Michael, I have to say that I find your comment offensive. NOBODY expects to be denigrated on Wikipedia, and being "privileged" is no excuse for doing so. This is EXACTLY the kind of behaviour this list was created to try to modify.
Risker/Anne
On 29 April 2013 22:35, Michael J. Lowrey orangemike@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 9:15 PM, Joseph Reagle joseph.2011@reagle.orgwrote:
On 04/29/2013 10:03 PM, Lady of Shalott wrote:
Interesting commentary as far as it went. I wish he'd delved a little further into what he was saying. ...
Just thinking out loud here...
I'm actually on this list :) and was just thinking out loud as well to see if I could understand the incident since I was seeing pretty strong claims (both "Wikipedia is sexist" and "this is journalism run amok.") For instance, people continue to report that Filipacchi is a reporter for NYT when these were op-eds.
______________________________**_________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/gendergaphttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
And nobody, of course, addresses the class issue: that Filipacchi is a privileged scion of one of the largest global publishing companies, and is not accustomed to having her own self-interest questioned in a classic WP:BOOMERANG fashion by vulgar Wikipedians nobody who MATTERS ever heard of.
-- Michael J. "Orange Mike" Lowrey
"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes." -- Desiderius Erasmus _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:07 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Michael, I have to say that I find your comment offensive. NOBODY expects to be denigrated on Wikipedia, and being "privileged" is no excuse for doing so. This is EXACTLY the kind of behaviour this list was created to try to modify.
Risker/Anne
How so? I would have said the same thing, for the same reason, if the author had been male. The evidence is that a lot of what she complains about is the EXACT SAME THING that happens to anybody who comes into Wikipedia and attacks editors: some morons act like morons, and a few other cynics start looking to see whether the complainant's hands are clean. Sadly, our morons acted like sexist morons, thus confirming all the worst assumptions of those who don't know how a wiki works. That doesn't give her a free pass from the same constant attention to which all of us, editors and outside critics alike, are subject.
And damned if I'll be told to shut up when I point out that an ordinary working writer would be less likely to get an op-ed in the N.Y. Times than one of the heirs to a profitable publishing company which might easily be viewed as an obvious purchaser of the moribund N.Y. Times company, for what amounts to Hachette's pocket change.
But of course, it's vulgar (meaning "of the common people") to point out when class privilege takes place. How offensive of me.
Now could we go back to working on substantive matters instead of slanging at each other?
On 29 April 2013 23:34, Michael J. Lowrey orangemike@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:07 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Michael, I have to say that I find your comment offensive. NOBODY expects to be denigrated on Wikipedia, and being "privileged" is no excuse for doing so. This is EXACTLY the kind of behaviour this list was created to try to modify.
Risker/Anne
How so? I would have said the same thing, for the same reason, if the author had been male. The evidence is that a lot of what she complains about is the EXACT SAME THING that happens to anybody who comes into Wikipedia and attacks editors: some morons act like morons, and a few other cynics start looking to see whether the complainant's hands are clean. Sadly, our morons acted like sexist morons, thus confirming all the worst assumptions of those who don't know how a wiki works. That doesn't give her a free pass from the same constant attention to which all of us, editors and outside critics alike, are subject.
And damned if I'll be told to shut up when I point out that an ordinary working writer would be less likely to get an op-ed in the N.Y. Times than one of the heirs to a profitable publishing company which might easily be viewed as an obvious purchaser of the moribund N.Y. Times company, for what amounts to Hachette's pocket change.
But of course, it's vulgar (meaning "of the common people") to point out when class privilege takes place. How offensive of me.
Now could we go back to working on substantive matters instead of slanging at each other?
Michael, you miss my point entirely. This is exactly the kind of nastiness - trashing someone who takes umbrage at the way Wikipedia does something that directly relates to her own real life - that brings the project into disrepute, and that women in particular find hostile.
This entire story is about how truly absurd our categorizations are, and how it relegates subjects into niches that make it even more difficult to find them. Yes, it's inherently sexist, and it's inappropriate; however, it's also deeply entrenched and seems to be almost impossible to break through.
What it isn't about is what "privilege" the subject of the article may or may not have had anywhere in her life. That she got an op-ed in the NYT is because the NYT is interested in what she wrote about; they don't publish op-eds just because of who the author is, they publish it because they think there is something interesting about the article. It is a major BLP violation for you to allege otherwise. I hope you're not going anywhere near any of the affected articles, or the editors who have had anything to do with any of the related articles.
Risker/Anne
On 04/30/2013 12:03 AM, Risker wrote:
Michael, you miss my point entirely. This is exactly the kind of nastiness - trashing someone who takes umbrage at the way Wikipedia does something that directly relates to her own real life - that brings the project into disrepute, and that women in particular find hostile.
Agreed.
Indeed Mike, how dare you accuse the august NYT of being influenced by so-called "class privilege". That's ridiculous. The New York Times is not biased and publishes op-eds solely based on their individual merits. The opinions contained within have nothing to do with the "privileges" their authors may have or not have.
Pff. Pretty soon you'll be suggesting that the fact that 83% of their columnists are men and that 92% are white has something to do with gender and race "privilege". And after that, what. Are you going to suggest that gender and race affect viewpoint as well? Are you going to suggest that there's some sort of class gap on Wikipedia too? Utter tosh. I hope you don't intend on editing any Wikipedia articles based on these ridiculous assertions.
Nepenthe
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 4:12 AM, Joseph Reagle joseph.2011@reagle.orgwrote:
On 04/30/2013 12:03 AM, Risker wrote:
Michael, you miss my point entirely. This is exactly the kind of nastiness - trashing someone who takes umbrage at the way Wikipedia does something that directly relates to her own real life - that brings the project into disrepute, and that women in particular find hostile.
Agreed.
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The tool is here, and is linked from all German category pages:
http://toolserver.org/~magnus/catscan_rewrite.php
de:WP does not use intersection categories as used in the English Wikipedia. For example, American women poets would be added to the following three categories, among others:
American Woman Poet
Readers looking for the intersection of these three categories would use the CatScan tool, and enter the desired categories there. The tool then provides a list of all the articles that have these three categories applied to them.
This system keeps the categories more straightforward, and pretty well avoids the sort of subtle bias Wikipedia has been caught with here. Defining the precise intersection of interest is up to the user.
A
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 3:03 AM, Lady of Shalott <ladyofshalott.wp@gmail.com
wrote:
Interesting commentary as far as it went. I wish he'd delved a little further into what he was saying.
Perception is important. I think people can act in good faith (for instance to reduce the size of a massive category) without realizing the effect of how the result looks. It may not be meant in a sexist way, but if the effect is "ghettoization", it looks sexist, and that does matter. There is the real need though to find women novelists, male nurses, etc. for studies. Apparently German WP has a system whereby one can query category intersections that are defined by the end user. ?This souns like a plausible solution, but I haven't used it myself (and do't speak German).
Just thinking out loud here... Lady
On 4/29/13, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.com wrote:
Sparked by the recent...situation..
http://reagle.org/joseph/pelican/social/wikipedia-and-gendered-categories.ht...
Sar
-- *Sarah Stierch* */Museumist and open culture advocate/*
Visit sarahstierch.com http://sarahstierch.com<<
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
This system keeps the categories more straightforward, and pretty well avoids the sort of subtle bias Wikipedia >has >been caught with here. Defining the precise intersection of interest is up to the user.
But the corresponding weakness is that it depends on the editors hitting all the right categories to work properly (as well as the tool itself, which as heavy toolserver users know is not always the case). Someone may categorize in two of three but not the third (guess which one might get forgotten?)
Daniel Case
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 5:43 AM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case < dancase@frontiernet.net> wrote:
This system keeps the categories more straightforward, and pretty well
avoids the sort of subtle bias Wikipedia >has >been caught with here. Defining the precise intersection of interest is up to the user.
But the corresponding weakness is that it depends on the editors hitting all the right categories to work properly (as well as the tool itself, which as heavy toolserver users know is not always the case). Someone may categorize in two of three but not the third (guess which one might get forgotten?)
Compare it to the weaknesses of the current category system. 98% of editors don't know what they are doing. Categories and subcategories are applied inconsistently all the time. Nobody has an overview of the entire tree structure, or even a major branch of it. Something that is a subcategory of American novelists today may stop being one tomorrow, just by dint of a single edit, and no one would be the wiser (unless they keep hundreds of categories on their watchlist). The category tree (or weave, as categories can have several parents) changes daily, with categories created, renamed, recategorised, and deleted. There are incessant arguments about how to name, categorise and diffuse categories, and about perceived iniquities. Wiki-gnomes spend days working and undoing each other's work. It's insane.
Using a defined set of basic tags in combination with something like CatScan – ported across to the Foundation server if you like, and given a friendly front-end with shortcuts to the most common searches – would do away with that.
On the issue of using tags instead of categories (which is mentioned in Joseph Reagle's article), I've been involved in some discussions on this issue. The two major hurdles for this are how do you make tagging work across languages (for projects like Commons and Meta), and figuring out whether tags should augment or replace the categorization system. The first problem may be solved by Wikidata; the 2nd problem is probably solved by using both for a while and then eventually abandoning categories. There's a possibility that the multimedia development team that is being spun up over the next few months may try to tackle this, but there's nothing concrete on the agenda yet.
Ryan Kaldari
On 4/29/13 11:15 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 5:43 AM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case <dancase@frontiernet.net mailto:dancase@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>This system keeps the categories more straightforward, and pretty well avoids the sort of subtle bias Wikipedia >has >been caught with here. Defining the precise intersection of interest is up to the user. But the corresponding weakness is that it depends on the editors hitting all the right categories to work properly (as well as the tool itself, which as heavy toolserver users know is not always the case). Someone may categorize in two of three but not the third (guess which one might get forgotten?)Compare it to the weaknesses of the current category system. 98% of editors don't know what they are doing. Categories and subcategories are applied inconsistently all the time. Nobody has an overview of the entire tree structure, or even a major branch of it. Something that is a subcategory of American novelists today may stop being one tomorrow, just by dint of a single edit, and no one would be the wiser (unless they keep hundreds of categories on their watchlist). The category tree (or weave, as categories can have several parents) changes daily, with categories created, renamed, recategorised, and deleted. There are incessant arguments about how to name, categorise and diffuse categories, and about perceived iniquities. Wiki-gnomes spend days working and undoing each other's work. It's insane.
Using a defined set of basic tags in combination with something like CatScan – ported across to the Foundation server if you like, and given a friendly front-end with shortcuts to the most common searches – would do away with that.
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Compare it to the weaknesses of the current category system. 98% of editors don't know what they are doing. >Categories and subcategories are applied inconsistently all the time. Nobody has an overview of the entire tree >structure, or even a major branch of it.
And would this be any less truer of tags?
Something that is a subcategory of American novelists today may stop being one tomorrow, just by dint of a single >edit, and no one would be the wiser (unless they keep hundreds of categories on their watchlist). The category >tree (or weave, as categories can have several parents) changes daily, with categories created, renamed, >recategorised, and deleted. There are incessant arguments about how to name, categorise and diffuse categories, >and about perceived iniquities.[citation needed]
In all the years I’ve been on Wikipedia I think I’ve only once been involved in any dispute over a category’s existence where I didn’t agree (and still don’t) with the outcome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_Au... (I suppose it’s only coincidental here that the category in question was mostly populated by articles about women). Indeed, I find it interesting that WP:LEW includes only one example from the category namespace, with everything else very well represented.
Using a defined set of basic tags in combination with something like CatScan – ported across to the Foundation >server if you like, and given a friendly front-end with shortcuts to the most common searches – would do away >with that.
Without really solving the underlying problem, IMO, and making it harder to fix when it recurs.
As more people have noticed on this list since this incident, the problem is not with sexism, but with the way categories are managed on Wikipedia. For example the German painter Caspar David Friedrich, who many would argue is in a category all his own, is in both categories "German romantic painters" and "German landscape painters", but is no longer in the category "German painters". You really need a tool like AWB or Catscan to find him (tip: from any English Wikipedia page, type in WP:AWB or WP:catscan). It would be nice if we could specify "flat" when accessing a category, so we could get the whole list, no matter how many thousands of people are in there.
2013/4/30, Daniel and Elizabeth Case dancase@frontiernet.net:
Compare it to the weaknesses of the current category system. 98% of editors don't know what they are doing. >Categories and subcategories are applied inconsistently all the time. Nobody has an overview of the entire tree
structure, or even a major branch of it.
And would this be any less truer of tags?
Something that is a subcategory of American novelists today may stop being one tomorrow, just by dint of a single >edit, and no one would be the wiser (unless they keep hundreds of categories on their watchlist). The category >tree (or weave, as categories can have several parents) changes daily, with categories created, renamed, >recategorised, and deleted. There are incessant arguments about how to name, categorise and diffuse categories, >and about perceived iniquities.[citation needed]
In all the years I’ve been on Wikipedia I think I’ve only once been involved in any dispute over a category’s existence where I didn’t agree (and still don’t) with the outcome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_Au... (I suppose it’s only coincidental here that the category in question was mostly populated by articles about women). Indeed, I find it interesting that WP:LEW includes only one example from the category namespace, with everything else very well represented.
Using a defined set of basic tags in combination with something like CatScan – ported across to the Foundation >server if you like, and given a friendly front-end with shortcuts to the most common searches – would do away >with that.
Without really solving the underlying problem, IMO, and making it harder to fix when it recurs.