On Wednesday, February 02, 2011, jidanni at jidanni.org wrote:
K> our "mascot"? An overtly sexualized, large-breasted woman who people K> regularly draw in bikinis and maid costumes? I mean, I know K> Wikipe-tan is not actually The Problem. But she's the most egregious K> example I think we have of the sort of unconscious "boyzone" culture
I had never seen that, and now that I have I find it embarrassing for Wikipedia.
I agree; my wife's reaction was "Urrgh", and she points out that if you go to the youtube channels of our 14-year-old son's mates, you find that sort of image there. ;)
But first things first: I am Andreas, self-employed, living in the UK; have been editing WP since 2006 (I think), as User:Jayen466. I mostly edit in the area of new religious movements, with a bit of German history and popular music on the side.
My wife is my business partner and, frankly, sometimes resents the degree to which I get sucked into Wikipedia (as I do myself); it's not something she'd ever want for herself.
However, she has written a couple of music articles. She is a former music journalist and says the thing that turned her off most about trying to contribute here was that her first article was deleted within hours, because it had a key word that set off a bot (the article cited three mainstream press sources that had in-depth coverage of the subject). The comments by the new-page patroller made it clear to her that he hadn't even read the article. Her second article was speedied by a new page patroller within minutes of her first clicking Save, while she was still in the process of expanding the article and adding sources. This patroller is a chap who, somewhat unusually, has awarded himself eight barnstars on his user page – one of them patting himself on the back for the fact that "You play whack-a- mole with terrible new pages like no one I've ever seen! Awesome!" He made himself look ridiculous in her eyes, and she resented having to discuss music with someone who clearly had none of the prerequisites required to judge the notability of the topic concerned, and just seemed keen to get another deletion under his belt in his private whack-a-mole fantasy.
I helped her out, and both articles eventually made DYK, but my wife's enthusiasm was permanently dimmed. While she can live with the clunky mark- up language, she would have welcomed a different attitude towards new contributors.
I think women react differently to incidents like this. A bloke will dig his heels in and on some level relish the pissing contest, and if need be waste three hours online on it.
A woman will think, "I can't be bothered to waste my time arguing with that ignorant twerp", and go and do something else – and remember that WP ain't worth her time. In this way, enthusiasm is killed very quickly.
This is just anecdotal evidence, but it may mirror the experience of many other people.
Best, Andreas
Hi Andreas! Welcome to the list.
I think women react differently to incidents like this. A bloke will dig his heels in and on some level relish the pissing contest, and if need be waste three hours online on it.
A woman will think, "I can't be bothered to waste my time arguing with that ignorant twerp", and go and do something else – and remember that WP ain't worth her time. In this way, enthusiasm is killed very quickly.
I totally agree! This is what happened to me when I first started editing. I originally just gave up and say "Screw this" and moved along.
:D Sarah
Perhaps I missed something previously posted..
...is there a "taskforce" page of sorts via Wikimedia? (like GLAM, etc)
It'd be great to create something. I'm not that great with coding, or I'd start on something.
It could feature information on articles needed, different groups/focuses within the taskforce (i.e. "African American Women," "Women in Law"), new pages created, pages that need expanding, etc, photographs of women-related stuff in Commons, etc.
Also information on events or activities. Organizational efforts, etc. I'd also love to see some form of a Wikipedian in Residence ideas tossed around (imagine a Wikipedian in residence as a volunteer at a women's shelter to encourage women to contribute as a therapeutic concept, after-school programs)
Just tossin' around ideas, so happy to have this list to do this!
Sarah
There is a page here:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/wiki/Proposals_for_increasing_fe...
It got off to kind a rough start though. It needs substantial improvement. I'm not sure that is the best main page title for it either.
Fred
Perhaps I missed something previously posted..
...is there a "taskforce" page of sorts via Wikimedia? (like GLAM, etc)
It'd be great to create something. I'm not that great with coding, or I'd start on something.
It could feature information on articles needed, different groups/focuses within the taskforce (i.e. "African American Women," "Women in Law"), new pages created, pages that need expanding, etc, photographs of women-related stuff in Commons, etc.
Also information on events or activities. Organizational efforts, etc. I'd also love to see some form of a Wikipedian in Residence ideas tossed around (imagine a Wikipedian in residence as a volunteer at a women's shelter to encourage women to contribute as a therapeutic concept, after-school programs)
Just tossin' around ideas, so happy to have this list to do this!
Sarah
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
--- On Sun, 6/2/11, Sarah Stierch sarah@sarahstierch.com wrote:
From: Sarah Stierch sarah@sarahstierch.com Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Hello and a (small!) manifesto To: "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sunday, 6 February, 2011, 17:26
Hi Andreas! Welcome to the list.
I think women react differently to incidents like this. A bloke will dig his heels in and on some level relish the pissing contest, and if need be waste three hours online on it.
A woman will think, "I can't be bothered to waste my time arguing with that ignorant twerp", and go and do something else – and remember that WP ain't worth her time. In this way, enthusiasm is killed very quickly.
I totally agree! This is what happened to me when I first started editing. I originally just gave up and say "Screw this" and moved along.
:D
Sarah :) Andreas
A woman will think, "I can't be bothered to waste my time arguing with that ignorant twerp", and go and do something else and remember that WP ain't worth her time. In this way, enthusiasm is killed very quickly.
This is just anecdotal evidence, but it may mirror the experience of many other people.
Best, Andreas
Cracking down on hasty deleters and new-page patrolers is productive of much heat and little light. It amounts to a lot of heavy lifting for very little outcome.
I think many women have enough patience or insight to stick around long enough to get though preliminary unpleasantness, survive the systemic problems we have, and make substantial contributions to content and policy, particularly if there is social support.
Fred
On 2/6/11 10:10 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
Cracking down on hasty deleters and new-page patrolers is productive of much heat and little light. It amounts to a lot of heavy lifting for very little outcome.
I think many women have enough patience or insight to stick around long enough to get though preliminary unpleasantness, survive the systemic problems we have, and make substantial contributions to content and policy, particularly if there is social support.
I don't think this is a wise perspective.
The treatment that new users receive is very clearly one of the reasons why they don't stick around. Simply saying "oh, they'll get over it in time" doesn't do anything to help solve the problem, it only perpetuates it.
On 2/6/2011 1:19 PM, Brandon Harris wrote:
On 2/6/11 10:10 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
Cracking down on hasty deleters and new-page patrolers is productive of much heat and little light. It amounts to a lot of heavy lifting for very little outcome.
I think many women have enough patience or insight to stick around long enough to get though preliminary unpleasantness, survive the systemic problems we have, and make substantial contributions to content and policy, particularly if there is social support.
I don't think this is a wise perspective.
The treatment that new users receive is very clearly one of the reasons why they don't stick around. Simply saying "oh, they'll get over it in time" doesn't do anything to help solve the problem, it only perpetuates it.
Yeah, I'm not the only person on this mailing list who has stated that I stopped editing in the beginning due to this issue. The main reason that I decided to start editing again was because I was a member of a team, a team that stands by one another when an outsider stirs the pot. :)
And yes, that's from social support, but, new editors rarely have that.
Sarah
On 2/6/2011 1:19 PM, Brandon Harris wrote:
On 2/6/11 10:10 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
Cracking down on hasty deleters and new-page patrolers is productive of much heat and little light. It amounts to a lot of heavy lifting for very little outcome.
I think many women have enough patience or insight to stick around long enough to get though preliminary unpleasantness, survive the systemic problems we have, and make substantial contributions to content and policy, particularly if there is social support.
I don't think this is a wise perspective.
The treatment that new users receive is very clearly one of the reasons why they don't stick around. Simply saying "oh, they'll get over it in time" doesn't do anything to help solve the problem, it only perpetuates it.
Yeah, I'm not the only person on this mailing list who has stated that I stopped editing in the beginning due to this issue. The main reason that I decided to start editing again was because I was a member of a team, a team that stands by one another when an outsider stirs the pot. :)
And yes, that's from social support, but, new editors rarely have that.
Sarah
I speak from experience here as a former arbitrator, heavy-handed enforcement campaigns are bad news.
We need to value all new editors and support them; the practical question is how to notice when a new editor is getting into this kind of trouble. Editing as a group is a way of accomplishing that as you can communicate between yourselves when this kind of nonsense starts.
On BatMUD, where I wasted a few years, they finally created a special group of experienced players called Newbie Helpers; there has always been a newbie channel and a FAQ on Getting Started. We might think about some way to facilitate communication. On a MUD a channel is pretty much instant messaging; we might actually use a telnet connection to set up a "talker" and combine it with our software. Kind of like IRC but I've never had much patience with all the coding involved with that.
Conversation on a MUD channel is much simpler:
Newbie: Help the big rabbit is killing me! Newbie: Run!
Fred
--- On Sun, 6/2/11, Brandon Harris bharris@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 2/6/11 10:10 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
Cracking down on hasty deleters and new-page patrolers
is productive of
much heat and little light. It amounts to a lot of
heavy lifting for very
little outcome.
I think many women have enough patience or insight to
stick around long
enough to get though preliminary unpleasantness,
survive the systemic
problems we have, and make substantial contributions
to content and
policy, particularly if there is social support.
I don't think this is a wise perspective.
The treatment that new users receive is very clearly one of the reasons why they don't stick around. Simply saying "oh, they'll get over it in time" doesn't do anything to help solve the problem, it only perpetuates it.
I agree with Brandon. These episodes were nearly a year ago, but they left a lasting, and hurtful impression on my wife (while the guy she tussled with has probably long forgotten about it). And it sounds like that impression is one shared by a lot of people who tried to contribute. We should look at that, as a systemic issue. This doesn't mean that I am interested in "cracking down" on the hapless hasty deleter or new-page patroller who rubbed my wife the wrong way. Those guys mean well in what they do, and they are supported by the culture that has grown around new-page patrolling. But that culture could do with some tweaks -- not by punishing offenders, but by trying to develop a bit more sensitivity to what it's like for a person who has never contributed to Wikipedia before, is still struggling with the software, has just clicked Save, and is looking with a mixture of trepidation and pride at their first article-in-the-making.
In my wife's case, on one of her articles she actually clicked "Save" when she meant to click "Preview". A minute later, the article was speedied.
Also discussed at Jimbo's en:WP talk page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Female_participation
Andreas
On 2/6/11 10:10 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
Cracking down on hasty deleters and new-page patrolers is productive of much heat and little light. It amounts to a lot of heavy lifting for very little outcome.
I think many women have enough patience or insight to stick around long enough to get though preliminary unpleasantness, survive the systemic problems we have, and make substantial contributions to content and policy, particularly if there is social support.
I don't think this is a wise perspective.
The treatment that new users receive is very clearly one of the reasons why they don't stick around. Simply saying "oh, they'll get over it in time" doesn't do anything to help solve the problem, it only perpetuates it.
You are absolutely right, Brandon. This is a systemic problem that has been in existence nearly as long as the Project has. And it has been documented countless times. If this were a technical problem it would have been solved long ago. If it were a problem that the Foundation felt was affecting financial contributions to the Project, it would have been a problem given a high priority to solve. Instead, the problem involves people. And the powers that be don't seem to know, and are not willing to learn, how to solve it. The attitude seems to be, "If a person leaves, there are plenty to replace them." There seems to be a high regard for content in the encyclopedia, but a very low one for those who create it. This is a recipe for disaster.
Marc Riddell
On 2/6/11 11:02 AM, Marc Riddell wrote:
You are absolutely right, Brandon. This is a systemic problem that has been in existence nearly as long as the Project has. And it has been documented countless times. If this were a technical problem it would have been solved long ago. If it were a problem that the Foundation felt was affecting financial contributions to the Project, it would have been a problem given a high priority to solve. Instead, the problem involves people. And the powers that be don't seem to know, and are not willing to learn, how to solve it. The attitude seems to be, "If a person leaves, there are plenty to replace them." There seems to be a high regard for content in the encyclopedia, but a very low one for those who create it. This is a recipe for disaster.
I think you're incorrect with this assessment, actually.
I am an employee of the Foundation, and I can tell you that my primary task is solving this problem (the overall "participation" issue, that is). I have several ideas about it and will be rolling up some discussion points in the coming days.
This is my starting point, however: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jorm_(WMF)/Collaborative_Systems
On 2/6/11 11:02 AM, Marc Riddell wrote:
You are absolutely right, Brandon. This is a systemic problem that has been in existence nearly as long as the Project has. And it has been documented countless times. If this were a technical problem it would have been solved long ago. If it were a problem that the Foundation felt was affecting financial contributions to the Project, it would have been a problem given a high priority to solve. Instead, the problem involves people. And the powers that be don't seem to know, and are not willing to learn, how to solve it. The attitude seems to be, "If a person leaves, there are plenty to replace them." There seems to be a high regard for content in the encyclopedia, but a very low one for those who create it. This is a recipe for disaster.
on 2/6/11 2:16 PM, Brandon Harris at bharris@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think you're incorrect with this assessment, actually.
I am an employee of the Foundation, and I can tell you that my primary task is solving this problem (the overall "participation" issue, that is). I have several ideas about it and will be rolling up some discussion points in the coming days.
Good, I will be monitoring the process.
This is my starting point, however: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jorm_(WMF)/Collaborative_Systems
This link led me to this page with this message: "User account "Jorm (WMF" is not registered."
Marc
The link worked for me, and I found that your ideas mirrored some ideas from the Community Health strategic planning task force.
Sydney (FloNight) On Feb 6, 2011 2:27 PM, "Marc Riddell" michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
On 2/6/11 11:02 AM, Marc Riddell wrote:
You are absolutely right, Brandon. This is a systemic problem that has
been
in existence nearly as long as the Project has. And it has been
documented
countless times. If this were a technical problem it would have been
solved
long ago. If it were a problem that the Foundation felt was affecting financial contributions to the Project, it would have been a problem
given a
high priority to solve. Instead, the problem involves people. And the
powers
that be don't seem to know, and are not willing to learn, how to solve
it.
The attitude seems to be, "If a person leaves, there are plenty to
replace
them." There seems to be a high regard for content in the encyclopedia,
but
a very low one for those who create it. This is a recipe for disaster.
on 2/6/11 2:16 PM, Brandon Harris at bharris@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think you're incorrect with this assessment, actually.
I am an employee of the Foundation, and I can tell you that my primary task is solving this problem (the overall "participation" issue, that is). I have several ideas about it and will be rolling up some discussion points in the coming days.
Good, I will be monitoring the process.
This is my starting point, however: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jorm_(WMF)/Collaborative_Systems
This link led me to this page with this message: "User account "Jorm (WMF" is not registered."
Marc
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On 2/6/11 11:02 AM, Marc Riddell wrote:
You are absolutely right, Brandon. This is a systemic problem that has been in existence nearly as long as the Project has. And it has been documented countless times. If this were a technical problem it would have been solved long ago. If it were a problem that the Foundation felt was affecting financial contributions to the Project, it would have been a problem given a high priority to solve. Instead, the problem involves people. And the powers that be don't seem to know, and are not willing to learn, how to solve it. The attitude seems to be, "If a person leaves, there are plenty to replace them." There seems to be a high regard for content in the encyclopedia, but a very low one for those who create it. This is a recipe for disaster.
on 2/6/11 2:16 PM, Brandon Harris at bharris@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think you're incorrect with this assessment, actually.
I am an employee of the Foundation, and I can tell you that my primary task is solving this problem (the overall "participation" issue, that is).
Brandon, the "overall 'participation issue'" is a large and complex one involving many parts. I will be interested in how you approach the person-to-person-interaction part. This is the part I am most concerned about.
Marc
On Feb 6, 2011 2:49 PM, "Marc Riddell" michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
On 2/6/11 11:02 AM, Marc Riddell wrote:
You are absolutely right, Brandon. This is a systemic problem that has
been
in existence nearly as long as the Project has. And it has been
documented
countless times. If this were a technical problem it would have been
solved
long ago. If it were a problem that the Foundation felt was affecting financial contributions to the Project, it would have been a problem
given a
high priority to solve. Instead, the problem involves people. And the
powers
that be don't seem to know, and are not willing to learn, how to solve
it.
The attitude seems to be, "If a person leaves, there are plenty to
replace
them." There seems to be a high regard for content in the encyclopedia,
but
a very low one for those who create it. This is a recipe for disaster.
on 2/6/11 2:16 PM, Brandon Harris at bharris@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think you're incorrect with this assessment, actually.
I am an employee of the Foundation, and I can tell you that my primary task is solving this problem (the overall "participation" issue, that is).
Brandon, the "overall 'participation issue'" is a large and complex one involving many parts. I will be interested in how you approach the person-to-person-interaction part. This is the part I am most concerned about.
Marc
Marc, Concerned as in "interested " or "worried "?
Sydney
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Feb 6, 2011 2:49 PM, "Marc Riddell" michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
On 2/6/11 11:02 AM, Marc Riddell wrote:
You are absolutely right, Brandon. This is a systemic problem that has been in existence nearly as long as the Project has. And it has been documented countless times. If this were a technical problem it would have been solved long ago. If it were a problem that the Foundation felt was affecting financial contributions to the Project, it would have been a problem given
a
high priority to solve. Instead, the problem involves people. And the
powers
that be don't seem to know, and are not willing to learn, how to solve it. The attitude seems to be, "If a person leaves, there are plenty to replace them." There seems to be a high regard for content in the encyclopedia, but a very low one for those who create it. This is a recipe for disaster.
on 2/6/11 2:16 PM, Brandon Harris at bharris@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think you're incorrect with this assessment, actually.
I am an employee of the Foundation, and I can tell you that my primary task is solving this problem (the overall "participation" issue, that is).
Brandon, the "overall 'participation issue'" is a large and complex one involving many parts. I will be interested in how you approach the person-to-person-interaction part. This is the part I am most concerned about.
Marc
on 2/6/11 2:57 PM, Sydney Poore at sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
Marc, Concerned as in "interested " or "worried "?
Sydney, very definitely, worried!
Marc
2011/2/6 Brandon Harris bharris@wikimedia.org:
On 2/6/11 10:10 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
I think many women have enough patience or insight to stick around long enough to get though preliminary unpleasantness, survive the systemic problems we have, and make substantial contributions to content and policy, particularly if there is social support.
I don't think this is a wise perspective.
The treatment that new users receive is very clearly one of the reasons why they don't stick around. Simply saying "oh, they'll get over it in time" doesn't do anything to help solve the problem, it only perpetuates it.
and it probably has two more effects: * it acts as a filter to only let a specific personality type enter wikipedia * it educates newbies the wrong way how to behave in wikipedia
It is also one of my personal reasons for leaving Wikipedia (I don't want to live in a house any more where well-meaning people are regularly beaten up when they try to enter)
greetings, elian (wikipedian since 2002, wikipedia researcher 2006-2008, passive observer with occasional edits since then)
2011/2/6 Brandon Harris bharris@wikimedia.org:
On 2/6/11 10:10 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
I think many women have enough patience or insight to stick around long enough to get though preliminary unpleasantness, survive the systemic problems we have, and make substantial contributions to content and policy, particularly if there is social support.
I don't think this is a wise perspective.
The treatment that new users receive is very clearly one of the reasons why they don't stick around. Simply saying "oh, they'll get over it in time" doesn't do anything to help solve the problem, it only perpetuates it.
and it probably has two more effects:
- it acts as a filter to only let a specific personality type enter
wikipedia
- it educates newbies the wrong way how to behave in wikipedia
It is also one of my personal reasons for leaving Wikipedia (I don't want to live in a house any more where well-meaning people are regularly beaten up when they try to enter)
greetings, elian (wikipedian since 2002, wikipedia researcher 2006-2008, passive observer with occasional edits since then)
The question for those who are actively involved is how to get to a better place from where we are now: defining attainable goals and creating ways to achieve them.
Actually there are two types and scales of "being beaten up": internal and external. Nothing that happens internally compares to the external pressure. We have very little control over external harassment.
Fred
However, she has written a couple of music articles. She is a former music journalist and says the thing that turned her off most about trying to contribute here was that her first article was deleted within hours, because it had a key word that set off a bot (the article cited three mainstream press sources that had in-depth coverage of the subject). The comments by the new-page patroller made it clear to her that he hadn't even read the article. Her second article was speedied by a new page patroller within minutes of her first clicking Save, while she was still in the process of expanding the article and adding sources. This patroller is a chap who, somewhat unusually, has awarded himself eight barnstars on his user page – one of them patting himself on the back for the fact that "You play whack-a- mole with terrible new pages like no one I've ever seen! Awesome!" He made himself look ridiculous in her eyes, and she resented having to discuss music with someone who clearly had none of the prerequisites required to judge the notability of the topic concerned, and just seemed keen to get another deletion under his belt in his private whack-a-mole fantasy.
Yet more evidence, as if some of us needed it, of the negative impacts of Huggle, Twinkle and other such tools.
Yes, they can and do make a tedious job easier. But it imposes a responsibility on the user to not forget the human element. I started doing newpage patrol back in 2005, before the Seigenthaler incident, back when IPs were still allowed to create articles and there was a lot more crap to sift through, when the process took several steps and the human had to do *everything*. Including look closely at the article.
It was a good way to learn policy. You had to know the G* and A* speedy criteria like the back of your hand (and there were more of them then). You had to know when you could speedy something and when you had to list something at AfD. And sometimes in the latter instance, it got saved or kept. I didn't take it personally if it didn't (in contrast to, of late I see on UAA, when I take any action short of blocking a user I sometimes get complaints that I haven't. And as far as discouraging new users I feel the too-rigid enforcement of one aspect of the username policy, WP:ORGNAME, also does exactly that).
Today, the use of those tools encourages, I have no doubt, the exact sort of gamer mentality that has been called out elsewhere on these threads. I have bee surprised, pleasantly, to hear some of the stereotypical young men in their early 20s amongst the WM-NYC meetup regulars complain about the impact of Huggle and Twinkle.
At our (WM-NYC) midyear WikiConference in New York last year, one of those younger users, J. delanoy, gave absolutely the best lightning talk I've ever seen, a short primer of sorts on the use of Huggle. It was riotously funny and still informative. And one of his slides explicitly said that Huggle was not a video game. I think he'd seen too much of this as well.
Again, one of those basically good things—finally creating the rollbacker user right separate from the full admin toolset and creating the reviewer user right to accomodate the implementation of flagged protection—has had the unintended side effect of creating a "leveling up" structure for users used to online games, who see their presence on Wikipedia as pretty much the same thing.
There is, at least, some correction to this in that when some of these users get to RfA, at times it has been noted they've done precious little article work, and they don't get the tools. At least not that time.
Daniel Case
The comments by
the new-page patroller made it clear to her that he hadn't even read the article. Her second article was speedied by a new page patroller within minutes of her first clicking Save, while she was still in the process of expanding the article and adding sources. This patroller is a chap who, somewhat unusually, has awarded himself eight barnstars on his user page – one of them patting himself on the back for the fact that "You play whack-a- mole with terrible new pages like no one I've ever seen! Awesome!" He made himself look ridiculous in her eyes,
It isn't just *her* eyes. Based on the information provided, I found the user in question. He *is* ridiculous. No, scratch that. He would be ridiculous only if he didn't hurt anybody, and if he had that effect on your wife imagine how many other people out there gave up as well.
As I would have suspected, he's a heavy Twinkle user. He has been on Wikipedia a little less longer than I have; he has rollbacker and reviewer rights but is (thankfully) not an admin. He has, in addition to all the self-applied barnstars (a practice that should be forbidden), two userboxes near the top of his page proclaiming his use of Twinkle (only one is needed, really, if that's something you want to brag about). *And*, near the top of the page, links to both WP:VANISPAM (which I haven't seen invoked in deletion discussions or anywhere for that matter in a long time) and a short essay of his own where he complains about some inconsistencies in the speedy deletion criteria (OK, somewhat rightly) and other aspects of the deletion policies. The solution he advocates is (surprise!) more admins invoking WP:IAR to resolve those conflicts in favor of ... deletion!
Elsewhere on his userpage, his boxes indicate interests in energy, classical music, piano, various Google apps and aspects of computer programming. I hate to say it, but the whole thing just adds up to "extremely socially awkward geek". I'm not at all sure I want to meet him in person.
And looking over his user history, his recent contribs show, indeed, a lot of AfD nominations, talk pages, and very little actual content editing. Nothing on his userpage indicates any interest in content; he doesn't point you to any GAs or FAs or anything else he's had a hand in, or suggest he's a member of any WikiProject save the one on infobox creation. He's, frankly, the stereotypical deletionist (and makes me not doubt the wisdom of taking that box off my own userpage a long time ago). Reading his page and thinking about it, I wish there was some reality to the old "In Soviet Wikipedia, article delete YOU!!" joke.
Frankly, this guy isn't an editor. He's a [[griefer]]. This is a prime example of someone for whom Wikipedia has become a video game where he tries to rack up points by getting as many articles as possible deleted. What else can you say about someone who so clearly brags about this sort of thing and says he enjoys it? This guy screams "referral to the school psychologist needed".
Of course, here I am trashing him out, in a forum he'll likely never read and wouldn't care to know whether it exists or not.
The question is what can we do to prevent people from becoming this sort of user.
I do have some ideas. I have long said we could benefit from making the block function page specific, so that editors could either be allowed to work on a set of pages and those pages alone, or otherwise more effectively topic-banned by being blocked from a certain set of pages, but free to edit anything else (The current setup would be a bit like if, instead of issuing a restraining order that says "don't go within 150 yds/meters of X", the judge had only the option of forcibly excluding the individual from the city, state or country for the time period in question). This would be an extreme option, but better than blocking them wholesale (and might cut down on socking as well).
It could be used to enforce a policy whereby editors are watched via a filter/bot for patterns that suggest this sort of behavior (i.e. X large percentage of deletion-initiating edits vs. Y really small percentage of namespace edits) and then it would be suggested to them that they take a break and do something constructive instead for a while, with the possibility of a page-specific block on AfD etc. and temporary suspension of, say, rollbacker rights, to make sure they do, beyond a certain point. Yes, some editors might consider this heavy-handed and just leave. But look at what they become without this kind of shepherding ... I think the community and the encyclopedia would, on the whole, benefit.
Daniel Case
Of course, here I am trashing him out, in a forum he'll likely never read and wouldn't care to know whether it exists or not.
He had been notified of this discussion before I saw this, and of the discussion on Jimbo's talk page.
And I bet you that there's a good chance he just decides never to edit again in the face of this.
If it were to be replicated with all the other editors like him, would that be the ideal result? It seems to me that you don't usually solve a problem of editors chasing people away from the community by chasing the editors who caused the problem away, because that's simply redefining the parameters of exclusion.
Daniel Case
Of course, here I am trashing him out, in a forum he'll likely never read and wouldn't care to know whether it exists or not.
He had been notified of this discussion before I saw this, and of the discussion on Jimbo's talk page.
And I bet you that there's a good chance he just decides never to edit again in the face of this.
If it were to be replicated with all the other editors like him, would that be the ideal result? It seems to me that you don't usually solve a problem of editors chasing people away from the community by chasing the editors who caused the problem away, because that's simply redefining the parameters of exclusion.
Daniel Case
I doubt he will leave, but he was certainly in need of some feedback. Feedback mechanisms are essential to the functioning of any complex system.
Fred
--- On Mon, 7/2/11, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
I doubt he will leave, but he was certainly in need of some feedback.
You were right there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Timneu22&diff=prev&a...
I did think the incident would have left less of an impression on *him*. ;)
Feedback mechanisms are essential to the functioning of any complex system.
Feedback mechanisms only work if feedback is actually received; there is often little evidence of that.
On a different, but not completely unrelated issue, how do women editors feel about illustrations like those used here (Warning - not safe for viewing at work):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogtie_bondage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukkake
In my experience, any attempt to argue for editorial restraint in illustrating pages like this (e.g., using just *one* image, and leaving the rest to a Commons link) runs into a [[WP:NOTCENSORED]] brickwall. Female editors (with one exception I believe, who has run into this brickwall repeatedly to no effect, and at some cost to herself) are rarely participants in such discussions.
I am fairly certain that a demographically balanced pool of editors would come to a very different consensus than the one presently supported at these and similar pages.
Now one might argue that the majority of women readers and contributors are unlikely to visit these pages, and that therefore their look will not adversely affect their willingness to participate in Wikipedia. On the other hand, if viewed as an expression of prevailing Wikipedia demographics and community norms, they may also be seen as a reflection of an entrenched male-dominated culture that is confident in its ability to nullify and discount any challenge to its standards as illegitimate, and in conflict with project goals.
I think women editors need to do more to challenge this culture. Such an effort in itself, leading by example, might bring more female editors on board, and also get some male editors to reflect on their own assumptions. Perhaps a WikiProject or work group would be in order. Feminist action was necessary to effect change in society, to get people to stop and think, and I believe we need a little of that in Wikipedia as well. Males will not drop it by themselves, and it is not actually good for them to remain unchallenged on such issues.
Thoughts?
Andreas
--- On Mon, 7/2/11, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
I doubt he will leave, but he was certainly in need of some feedback.
You were right there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Timneu22&diff=prev&a...
I did think the incident would have left less of an impression on *him*. ;)
Feedback mechanisms are essential to the functioning of any complex system.
Feedback mechanisms only work if feedback is actually received; there is often little evidence of that.
On a different, but not completely unrelated issue, how do women editors feel about illustrations like those used here (Warning - not safe for viewing at work):
In my experience, any attempt to argue for editorial restraint in illustrating pages like this (e.g., using just *one* image, and leaving the rest to a Commons link) runs into a [[WP:NOTCENSORED]] brickwall. Female editors (with one exception I believe, who has run into this brickwall repeatedly to no effect, and at some cost to herself) are rarely participants in such discussions.
I am fairly certain that a demographically balanced pool of editors would come to a very different consensus than the one presently supported at these and similar pages.
Now one might argue that the majority of women readers and contributors are unlikely to visit these pages, and that therefore their look will not adversely affect their willingness to participate in Wikipedia. On the other hand, if viewed as an expression of prevailing Wikipedia demographics and community norms, they may also be seen as a reflection of an entrenched male-dominated culture that is confident in its ability to nullify and discount any challenge to its standards as illegitimate, and in conflict with project goals.
I think women editors need to do more to challenge this culture. Such an effort in itself, leading by example, might bring more female editors on board, and also get some male editors to reflect on their own assumptions. Perhaps a WikiProject or work group would be in order. Feminist action was necessary to effect change in society, to get people to stop and think, and I believe we need a little of that in Wikipedia as well. Males will not drop it by themselves, and it is not actually good for them to remain unchallenged on such issues.
Thoughts?
Andreas
Not saying anything about what you think is a serious issue is passive aggression, saving up issues while neglecting to give notice that there is a problem.
Wikiproject? Yes, go do it, tell us where you put it. Although perhaps a bit of discussion about the exact nature of the project might be in order.
I'm thinking a Don't bite the newbies administrative notice board might be a good idea too.
User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Female_participation has developed further, with examples of ugly behavior like those here: Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_40#Inability_of_admins_to_recognize_patent_nonsense
And, of course, we have the usual nonsense that this user is the little boy with his finger in the dike and everything would go to hell without him.
And there is some truth in it, as I have pointed out. A campaign against nastiness has its own nasty disruptive effects.
As to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogtie_bondage there is no question that people do this, but it is hard to see an overriding public interest in need for information as is present in say, anal sex.
Bukkake is at least interesting. I guess all of this stuff can be justified on that basis, seeing how the other half lives, so to speak.
I've campaigned futilely against images of Mohammad in the past, same argument, however offensive, some are interested, and it is valid information (if not about Mohammad, about Islamic art and European cartoons).
Fred
On a different, but not completely unrelated issue, how do women editors feel about illustrations like those used here (Warning - not safe for viewing at work):
The issue isn't limited to sex-related articles. Anywhere that female nudity can be justified (however tenuously), it is. For example, there was a debate recently about whether the lead image for the Pregnancy article should be an amateurish photo of a completely nude white woman or a professional photo of an African American woman in a maternity blouse. I'm sure you can guess which one won. And of course the Sun tanning article features the obligatory topless photo. A more interesting case is the article Ochre (a color and pigment). I tried removing the topless photo from that article a while back but was quickly reverted. The photo does have some encyclopedic merit, but having a topless photo in an article about a color seems to violate the principal of least astonishment. Speaking of which, I believe one of the recommendations from the controversial content study was to encode that principle into some type of policy or guideline. Any thoughts on how or if that should be pursued?
Ryan Kaldari
And, of course, we have the usual nonsense that this user is the little boy with his finger in the dike and everything would go to hell without him.
And there is some truth in it, as I have pointed out. A campaign against nastiness has its own nasty disruptive effects.
Tim reminds me of this whole long drawn-out affair:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&pag...
That guy is a great bot programmer, but as is too common his programming skills are inversely proportional to his social skills (He was eventually unbanned and now edits under another name).
Daniel Case
On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 8:37 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
As to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogtie_bondage there is no question that people do this, but it is hard to see an overriding public interest in need for information as is present in say, anal sex.
Bukkake is at least interesting. I guess all of this stuff can be justified on that basis, seeing how the other half lives, so to speak.
For me, the main problem with the picture is not that they're very explicit (because, well, it's about sex), but that there are no pictures of men.
There are 5 photos (why do you need 5 anyway?) illustrating the article on bondage, all are depicting women. Since bondage is about being submissive, this implies women are generally or "normally" the ones being submissive, which is not true and not a good thing to suggest to your readers. Also, it clearly shows who chose the pictures: men*. It's the so-called "male gaze": http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/faq-what-is-the-%E2%80%9C...
For me, looking at the article feels like sneaking into a men's club, where (heterosexual) men watch pornography depicting people like me and show it to each other. It doesn't feel like it's also a place designed for the people like me, I'm only supposed to be depicted on the pictures, not to look at them. So I feel unwell looking at it, but that's not because the pictures are explicit. I would be fine with it if two or three pictures where pictures of restrained men.
Similar problem with the article on bukkake. It says: "The practice then spread to gay pornography, in which several men ejaculate on another man.[5]Pornographic use of the word has been expanded by the lesbian bukkake genre in which several women ejaculate on another woman.[13]" So why are there only pictures of women, and why does the introduction to the article say "Bukkake is a sexual act in which a woman is ejaculated on by several men"? (Actually, there are also men on the pictures in this case, but the pictures are clipped so you only see a very, very small part of their bodys. It's clearly about the women.)
Looking at these articles, it just doesn't feel like Wikipedia is from people for people, but like it's a boys for boys service. So why should I feel encouraged to participate? (Except by sending a photo of me naked...)
* (this might be heteronormative, of course the pictures might also be nice for lesbians)
Best, Lena
Ha! Ok, shibari and rope bondage..."porn" on Wikipedia..etc.. People pay money for photos like this.
This form of bondage is often dominated (no pun intended) by the male tying up the female. It's going to be a lot tougher to get pictures of guys tied up than women, and I do think it's funny that we have to have that many photographs of the women when I can't have more than one image up of a contemporary work of art (there's currently a "discussion" taking place about allowing visual arts to have galleries for works, but of course, that gets shot down - they say it's "decorative"!). I think this shows that males do dominate Wikipedia and the contributing photographers of these images are men who shoot female models.
I searched for "Lesbian pornography" and got this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian_pornography#Lesbianism_in_contemporary_...
Note that notable "lesbian porn stars" have no cited sources, which is entertaining IMHO.
Sarah
On 2/7/2011 3:55 PM, Lena ... wrote:
On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 8:37 PM, Fred Bauderfredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
As to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogtie_bondage there is no question that people do this, but it is hard to see an overriding public interest in need for information as is present in say, anal sex.
Bukkake is at least interesting. I guess all of this stuff can be justified on that basis, seeing how the other half lives, so to speak.
For me, the main problem with the picture is not that they're very explicit (because, well, it's about sex), but that there are no pictures of men.
There are 5 photos (why do you need 5 anyway?) illustrating the article on bondage, all are depicting women. Since bondage is about being submissive, this implies women are generally or "normally" the ones being submissive, which is not true and not a good thing to suggest to your readers. Also, it clearly shows who chose the pictures: men*. It's the so-called "male gaze": http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/faq-what-is-the-%E2%80%9C...
For me, looking at the article feels like sneaking into a men's club, where (heterosexual) men watch pornography depicting people like me and show it to each other. It doesn't feel like it's also a place designed for the people like me, I'm only supposed to be depicted on the pictures, not to look at them. So I feel unwell looking at it, but that's not because the pictures are explicit. I would be fine with it if two or three pictures where pictures of restrained men.
Similar problem with the article on bukkake. It says: "The practice then spread to gay pornography, in which several men ejaculate on another man.[5]Pornographic use of the word has been expanded by the lesbian bukkake genre in which several women ejaculate on another woman.[13]" So why are there only pictures of women, and why does the introduction to the article say "Bukkake is a sexual act in which a woman is ejaculated on by several men"? (Actually, there are also men on the pictures in this case, but the pictures are clipped so you only see a very, very small part of their bodys. It's clearly about the women.)
Looking at these articles, it just doesn't feel like Wikipedia is from people for people, but like it's a boys for boys service. So why should I feel encouraged to participate? (Except by sending a photo of me naked...)
- (this might be heteronormative, of course the pictures might also be
nice for lesbians)
Best, Lena
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Oh! The German article on bondage breaks the record: A total of 11 (!) photos, 10 are clearly showing women (the main picture is somewhat ambigous). http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondage
best, Lena
On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 8:37 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
As to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogtie_bondage there is no question that people do this, but it is hard to see an overriding public interest in need for information as is present in say, anal sex.
Bukkake is at least interesting. I guess all of this stuff can be justified on that basis, seeing how the other half lives, so to speak.
For me, the main problem with the picture is not that they're very explicit (because, well, it's about sex), but that there are no pictures of men.
There are 5 photos (why do you need 5 anyway?)
They illustrate different options.
illustrating the article on bondage, all are depicting women. Since bondage is about being submissive, this implies women are generally or "normally" the ones being submissive, which is not true and not a good thing to suggest to your readers. Also, it clearly shows who chose the pictures: men*. It's the so-called "male gaze": http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/faq-what-is-the-%C2%93mal...
For me, looking at the article feels like sneaking into a men's club, where (heterosexual) men watch pornography depicting people like me and show it to each other. It doesn't feel like it's also a place designed for the people like me, I'm only supposed to be depicted on the pictures, not to look at them. So I feel unwell looking at it, but that's not because the pictures are explicit. I would be fine with it if two or three pictures where pictures of restrained men.
That would seem to be easily fixed, although all seem women here:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/Category:Hogtie_bondage
That said, I'm certainly not going to fool around taking the needed pictures.
Similar problem with the article on bukkake. It says: "The practice then spread to gay pornography, in which several men ejaculate on another man.[5]Pornographic use of the word has been expanded by the lesbian bukkake genre in which several women ejaculate on another woman.[13]" So why are there only pictures of women, and why does the introduction to the article say "Bukkake is a sexual act in which a woman is ejaculated on by several men"? (Actually, there are also men on the pictures in this case, but the pictures are clipped so you only see a very, very small part of their bodys. It's clearly about the women.)
Looking at these articles, it just doesn't feel like Wikipedia is from people for people, but like it's a boys for boys service. So why should I feel encouraged to participate? (Except by sending a photo of me naked...)
Perhaps you could edit in other areas. For example "male gaze" might make an article, or be part of one:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gaze#The_Male_Gaze_and_femini...
People generally edit about what they are interested in.
- (this might be heteronormative, of course the pictures might also be
nice for lesbians)
Best, Lena
Fred
From looking at the jean skirt category on Commons (other projects such as
Wikipedia often have links that take a reader to a page with all the images in a category) you would think that most of the people wearing jean skirts are porn stars or other women who go without panties or go topless. Right now this category is not as populated with this stuff as in the past. Now and again I remove the worst of them so that people will not see them unexpectedly but often I will be reverted.
In my opinion, this hits at the heart of the issue because I feel that if women were editing in a greater numbers from the start of the creation of WMF then we would have more sensitivity to this issue because I don't think that most females want these images to be the way that WMF presents itself to readers.
Sydney
On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 4:40 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 8:37 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
As to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogtie_bondage there is no question that people do this, but it is hard to see an overriding public interest in need for information as is present in say, anal sex.
Bukkake is at least interesting. I guess all of this stuff can be justified on that basis, seeing how the other half lives, so to speak.
For me, the main problem with the picture is not that they're very explicit (because, well, it's about sex), but that there are no pictures of men.
There are 5 photos (why do you need 5 anyway?)
They illustrate different options.
illustrating the article on bondage, all are depicting women. Since bondage is about being submissive, this implies women are generally or "normally" the ones being submissive, which is not true and not a good thing to suggest to your readers. Also, it clearly shows who chose the pictures: men*. It's the so-called "male gaze": http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/faq-what-is-the-
“male-gaze”/
For me, looking at the article feels like sneaking into a men's club, where (heterosexual) men watch pornography depicting people like me and show it to each other. It doesn't feel like it's also a place designed for the people like me, I'm only supposed to be depicted on the pictures, not to look at them. So I feel unwell looking at it, but that's not because the pictures are explicit. I would be fine with it if two or three pictures where pictures of restrained men.
That would seem to be easily fixed, although all seem women here:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/Category:Hogtie_bondage
That said, I'm certainly not going to fool around taking the needed pictures.
Similar problem with the article on bukkake. It says: "The practice then spread to gay pornography, in which several men ejaculate on another man.[5]Pornographic use of the word has been expanded by the lesbian bukkake genre in which several women ejaculate on another woman.[13]" So why are there only pictures of women, and why does the introduction to the article say "Bukkake is a sexual act in which a woman is ejaculated on by several men"? (Actually, there are also men on the pictures in this case, but the pictures are clipped so you only see a very, very small part of their bodys. It's clearly about the women.)
Looking at these articles, it just doesn't feel like Wikipedia is from people for people, but like it's a boys for boys service. So why should I feel encouraged to participate? (Except by sending a photo of me naked...)
Perhaps you could edit in other areas. For example "male gaze" might make an article, or be part of one:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gaze#The_Male_Gaze_and_femini...
People generally edit about what they are interested in.
- (this might be heteronormative, of course the pictures might also be
nice for lesbians)
Best, Lena
Fred
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
From looking at the jean skirt category on Commons (other projects such as
Wikipedia often have links that take a reader to a page with all the images in a category) you would think that most of the people wearing jean skirts are porn stars or other women who go without panties or go topless. Right now this category is not as populated with this stuff as in the past. Now and again I remove the worst of them so that people will not see them unexpectedly but often I will be reverted.
In my opinion, this hits at the heart of the issue because I feel that if women were editing in a greater numbers from the start of the creation of WMF then we would have more sensitivity to this issue because I don't think that most females want these images to be the way that WMF presents itself to readers.
Good example, and thanks for changing the subject...
One or two of those short-short pinups in fine, but it is just repetitive and actually the category as a whole fails to adequately cover the subject.
There are some crews that are more than a little sketchy, commons and wiktionary come to mine. I think the stovepiping we've put into place for sister projects may not be such an effective management technique. They just ignore you if you complain.
Fred
Someone posted a link to
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/Category:Hogtie_bondage
Delving further, we find https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/Main_Page says Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, when in fact the real site is http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page . Or is it?
In fact on any page on either site, one cannot find any link to the corresponding page on the other site.
So now everybody will be passing around two times the amount of links to what in fact is the same material.
OK, I found the pattern for converting one to the other: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/wiki/Category:Hogtie_bondage _________________ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hogtie_bondage
One would hope the owners of Wiki[pm]would redirect etc. one to the other, to stem the proliferation of non-canonical links.
OK on wikitech-l they explained to me this is just fine.
--- On Mon, 7/2/11, Lena ... lenarohrbach@gmail.com wrote:
From: Lena ... lenarohrbach@gmail.com There are 5 photos (why do you need 5 anyway?) <snip>
Agreed. One would be enough, with a Commons link to the rest.
For me, looking at the article feels like sneaking into a men's club,
<snip>
Looking at these articles, it just doesn't feel like Wikipedia is from people for people, but like it's a boys for boys service.
Precisely. That's not what this project set out to do.
Andreas
On 2/7/2011 8:28 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
--- On Mon, 7/2/11, Lena ...lenarohrbach@gmail.com wrote:
From: Lena ...lenarohrbach@gmail.com There are 5 photos (why do you need 5 anyway?)<snip>
Agreed. One would be enough, with a Commons link to the rest.
For me, looking at the article feels like sneaking into a men's club,
<snip>
Looking at these articles, it just doesn't feel like Wikipedia is from people for people, but like it's a boys for boys service.
Precisely. That's not what this project set out to do.
Andreas
Exactly. If this is making three women feel this way, we surely can't be the minority.
Sarah
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
--- On Tue, 8/2/11, Sarah Stierch sarah@sarahstierch.com wrote:From: Sarah Stierch sarah@sarahstierch.com On 2/7/2011 8:28 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
--- On Mon, 7/2/11, Lena ... lenarohrbach@gmail.com wrote:
From: Lena ... lenarohrbach@gmail.com There are 5 photos (why do you need 5 anyway?) <snip>
Agreed. One would be enough, with a Commons link to the rest.
For me, looking at the article feels like sneaking into a men's club,
<snip>
Looking at these articles, it just doesn't feel like Wikipedia is from people for people, but like it's a boys for boys service.
Precisely. That's not what this project set out to do.
Andreas
Exactly. If this is making three women feel this way, we surely can't be the minority.
Sarah
I've started a thread on the article's talk page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hogtie_bondage#Images_2 Andreas
On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 2:38 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:
I've started a thread on the article's talk page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hogtie_bondage#Images_2
Andreas
Thank you! I used your Thread to recommend pictures. Those are licenced cc-by http://malesubmissionart.com There should be pictures that can be used, for example one from page 4 or page 7. Careful: Not safe for work.
Best, Lena
--- On Mon, 7/2/11, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
From: Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net Not saying anything about what you think is a serious issue is passive aggression, saving up issues while neglecting to give notice that there is a problem.
I have given notice that I perceive there to be a problem on-Wiki many times, and the reply has always been the same: Wikipedia is not censored.
The suggestion that our editorial judgment with respect to illustration should reflect and be based on the judgment our sources exercise in that regard has not gone down well. We are all agreed that when it comes to text content, we must follow sources. When it comes to images, however, the community claims the freedom to apply its own ("OR") standards, which naturally reflect our skewed demographics.
Wikiproject? Yes, go do it, tell us where you put it. Although perhaps a bit of discussion about the exact nature of the project might be in order.
Perhaps WikiProject:Gender_neutrality. But I agree there should be extensive discussion first. I am not sure whether this should be an en:WP project, or be located somewhere else like Meta. Some of the problems in WP are imported from Commons: people will often argue that what is available in Commons should be used, and what is not available in Commons can't be used.
So if it just so happens that there are only hogtie bondage images of women, then, the reasoning goes, those images that are there should be used, because Wikipedia is not censored, but images of men just aren't available, sorry, and therefore can't be used.
A gender neutrality project could look at systemic bias in Wikimedia's coverage, be it biographies or images of nudity, and do work to ensure that the female POV is given equal weight to the male POV, males' numeric preponderance notwithstanding. This would be quite a revolutionary undertaking, because it would mean that in some way women editors' views should be given greater weight than male editors' views, to make up for the numerical imbalance. Starting a discussion on such a proposal might be quite instructive to gauge underlying community attitudes.
Has there been any further progress with the work group looking at the recommendations from the Study of Controversial Content? There is some overlap.
Andreas
--- On Mon, 7/2/11, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
From: Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net Not saying anything about what you think is a serious issue is passive aggression, saving up issues while neglecting to give notice that there is a problem.
I have given notice that I perceive there to be a problem on-Wiki many times, and the reply has always been the same: Wikipedia is not censored.
The suggestion that our editorial judgment with respect to illustration should reflect and be based on the judgment our sources exercise in that regard has not gone down well. We are all agreed that when it comes to text content, we must follow sources. When it comes to images, however, the community claims the freedom to apply its own ("OR") standards, which naturally reflect our skewed demographics.
Wikiproject? Yes, go do it, tell us where you put it. Although perhaps a bit of discussion about the exact nature of the project might be in order.
Perhaps WikiProject:Gender_neutrality. But I agree there should be extensive discussion first. I am not sure whether this should be an en:WP project, or be located somewhere else like Meta. Some of the problems in WP are imported from Commons: people will often argue that what is available in Commons should be used, and what is not available in Commons can't be used.
So if it just so happens that there are only hogtie bondage images of women, then, the reasoning goes, those images that are there should be used, because Wikipedia is not censored, but images of men just aren't available, sorry, and therefore can't be used.
A gender neutrality project could look at systemic bias in Wikimedia's coverage, be it biographies or images of nudity, and do work to ensure that the female POV is given equal weight to the male POV, males' numeric preponderance notwithstanding. This would be quite a revolutionary undertaking, because it would mean that in some way women editors' views should be given greater weight than male editors' views, to make up for the numerical imbalance. Starting a discussion on such a proposal might be quite instructive to gauge underlying community attitudes.
Has there been any further progress with the work group looking at the recommendations from the Study of Controversial Content? There is some overlap.
Andreas
Neutral point of view does not compute by number of our editors but by the significance of the viewpoint. Our existing NPOV policy covers both content and images if applied. If images from commons are gender skewed, they are unusable under our content policies.
As far as giving women's view more weight, this is NOT a marriage...
Fred
You were right there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Timneu22&diff=prev&a...
I did think the incident would have left less of an impression on *him*. ;)
You know, one always tries to assume the best about people, to AGF.
But then ...
It's one thing for me to assume this guy is an antisocial geek. It's another thing entirely for him to open his keyboard and prove it.
Daniel Case
You were right there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Timneu22&diff=prev&a...
I did think the incident would have left less of an impression on *him*. ;)
You know, one always tries to assume the best about people, to AGF.
But then ...
It's one thing for me to assume this guy is an antisocial geek. It's another thing entirely for him to open his keyboard and prove it.
Daniel Case
OK, but let's get down to cases. What should we do about it? Think ahead to community reaction, but assume, in good faith, that he is doing his best and could do better. (or is that just a game of going through the motions?)
Fred
OK, but let's get down to cases. What should we do about it? Think ahead to community reaction, but assume, in good faith, that he is doing his best and could do better. (or is that just a game of going through the motions?)
This has now played out more or less as I thought it would: He has twice said he doesn't care, it's not his problem, and after some other discussion by other editors which he decided wasn't involving him he's removed the section from his talk page entirely.
I emailed him saying that was his prerogative and his position was clear, but that I might stop in and audit his patrol log and contributions on occasion in the future.
I'm glad the distraction is over so I can return to doing more content-related editing, as I have some long-range plans. However, things like this will happen again with this editor, and others like him.
It doesn't surprise me that Wikipedia would attract such serious Asperger cases as this. The phenomenon of indivudals with poor social skills (mostly, to be fair, male) finding a haven online where singlemindedly obsessive behavior can be of benefit, as it often is especially on Wikipedia, is not new to Wikipedia.
Frankly, Tim's fault wasn't his alone. The original article he marked had not included the code that makes footnotes show up (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Swim_~&oldid=362817720). Now that, of course, doesn't mean it should be deleted. And in fact it wasn't ... the subsequent work on the article resulted in the tag being removed (the only deletion in the record is from a previous incarnation, in 2008). But reviewing admins should be careful about this, and Tim's absolute refusal to discuss this when asked, even in a less confrontational way, is a cause for concern.
First, these things are not always evident in the Twinkle or Huggle user interface. That's a technical issue.
But given the mentality expressed by his userpage and discussions initiated, it's clear that the benign neglect from the rest of the community has allowed the evolution of a space within Wikipedia where users like this, users who actually flaunt their antisocial tendencies, can thrive under the cover of a necessary project function.
Clearly greater oversight is needed.
Daniel Case
OK, but let's get down to cases. What should we do about it? Think ahead to community reaction, but assume, in good faith, that he is doing his best and could do better. (or is that just a game of going through the motions?)
This has now played out more or less as I thought it would: He has twice said he doesn't care, it's not his problem, and after some other discussion by other editors which he decided wasn't involving him he's removed the section from his talk page entirely.
I need to look at this more and also take a good look at his current behavior.
I emailed him saying that was his prerogative and his position was clear, but that I might stop in and audit his patrol log and contributions on occasion in the future.
I'm glad the distraction is over so I can return to doing more content-related editing, as I have some long-range plans. However, things like this will happen again with this editor, and others like him.
It doesn't surprise me that Wikipedia would attract such serious Asperger cases as this. The phenomenon of indivudals with poor social skills (mostly, to be fair, male) finding a haven online where singlemindedly obsessive behavior can be of benefit, as it often is especially on Wikipedia, is not new to Wikipedia.
I'm not comfortable about running everyone off with mild disabilities, although we are prepared to do so in individual cases based on chronic disruption.
Diagnoses of the sort you are making are inappropriate, however, even in our closed lists. None of us are qualified to do so, and even if we were, have had no opportunity to evaluate him in an appropriate way.
Frankly, Tim's fault wasn't his alone. The original article he marked had not included the code that makes footnotes show up (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Swim_~&oldid=362817720).
This: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Swim_~&diff=...
adding {{hasty}} to the hatnotes, however, is evidence that our system worked in this case.
Now that, of course, doesn't mean it should be deleted. And in fact it wasn't ... the subsequent work on the article resulted in the tag being removed (the only deletion in the record is from a previous incarnation, in 2008). But reviewing admins should be careful about this, and Tim's absolute refusal to discuss this when asked, even in a less confrontational way, is a cause for concern.
First, these things are not always evident in the Twinkle or Huggle user interface. That's a technical issue.
We need to follow up on that observation.
But given the mentality expressed by his userpage and discussions initiated, it's clear that the benign neglect from the rest of the community has allowed the evolution of a space within Wikipedia where users like this, users who actually flaunt their antisocial tendencies, can thrive under the cover of a necessary project function.
We are aware of this problem, which arose quite early on. A number of such users are banned, but they are often quite upset about it and may continue to pester us for years.
Clearly greater oversight is needed.
We can always do better but going overboard is not wise either.
Daniel Case
Respectfully,
Fred Bauder
Diagnoses of the sort you are making are inappropriate, however, even in our closed lists. None of us are qualified to do so, and even if we were, have had no opportunity to evaluate him in an appropriate way.
I apologize for and retract that (qualifying with the notes that a) my son is high-functioning autistic and so I get a great deal of personal experience with this just about daily, and b) as SlimVirgin noted, this issue in general has been discussed before).
Daniel Case
I have initiated a request for comment at:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/User_talk:Timneu22#New_Pages_...
I checked his recent work and immediately came on another hasty, poorly considered nomination.
Please do some research, see what else is up and comment.
Fred
OK, but let's get down to cases. What should we do about it? Think ahead to community reaction, but assume, in good faith, that he is doing his best and could do better. (or is that just a game of going through the motions?)
This has now played out more or less as I thought it would: He has twice said he doesn't care, it's not his problem, and after some other discussion by other editors which he decided wasn't involving him he's removed the section from his talk page entirely.
I need to look at this more and also take a good look at his current behavior.
I emailed him saying that was his prerogative and his position was clear, but that I might stop in and audit his patrol log and contributions on occasion in the future.
I'm glad the distraction is over so I can return to doing more content-related editing, as I have some long-range plans. However, things like this will happen again with this editor, and others like him.
It doesn't surprise me that Wikipedia would attract such serious Asperger cases as this. The phenomenon of indivudals with poor social skills (mostly, to be fair, male) finding a haven online where singlemindedly obsessive behavior can be of benefit, as it often is especially on Wikipedia, is not new to Wikipedia.
I'm not comfortable about running everyone off with mild disabilities, although we are prepared to do so in individual cases based on chronic disruption.
Diagnoses of the sort you are making are inappropriate, however, even in our closed lists. None of us are qualified to do so, and even if we were, have had no opportunity to evaluate him in an appropriate way.
Frankly, Tim's fault wasn't his alone. The original article he marked had not included the code that makes footnotes show up (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Swim_~&oldid=362817720).
This: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Swim_~&diff=...
adding {{hasty}} to the hatnotes, however, is evidence that our system worked in this case.
Now that, of course, doesn't mean it should be deleted. And in fact it wasn't ... the subsequent work on the article resulted in the tag being removed (the only deletion in the record is from a previous incarnation, in 2008). But reviewing admins should be careful about this, and Tim's absolute refusal to discuss this when asked, even in a less confrontational way, is a cause for concern.
First, these things are not always evident in the Twinkle or Huggle user interface. That's a technical issue.
We need to follow up on that observation.
But given the mentality expressed by his userpage and discussions initiated, it's clear that the benign neglect from the rest of the community has allowed the evolution of a space within Wikipedia where users like this, users who actually flaunt their antisocial tendencies, can thrive under the cover of a necessary project function.
We are aware of this problem, which arose quite early on. A number of such users are banned, but they are often quite upset about it and may continue to pester us for years.
Clearly greater oversight is needed.
We can always do better but going overboard is not wise either.
Daniel Case
Respectfully,
Fred Bauder
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 15:23, Daniel and Elizabeth Case dancase@frontiernet.net wrote:
It doesn't surprise me that Wikipedia would attract such serious Asperger cases as this.
I don't think we should be diagnosing anyone, or speaking in terms of illness. But I do think this touches on a major problem on Wikipedia, namely the dominance of the male brain. Some academics -- e.g. see [[Simon Baren-Cohen]]'s ''The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain'' (2003) -- have discussed certain autistic traits as being extreme versions of the male brain. I think we can talk about it without delving into the concept of illness, and simply look at the phenomena.
Women have male-brain traits too, by the way.
What it leads to on Wikipedia is a singular focus on detail and systems. Lots of templates and other tools that make editing tough. Categorization so detailed that things end up being hard to find. Articles created five minutes ago being tagged for deletion, or tagged as orphans, or tagged as in some other way inadequate. Policies and guidelines being imposed rigidly across the board with no room for editorial judgment.
It makes editing hard even for experienced editors. It can mean the simplest thing takes hours. Non-male-brain people (of either sex) are likely to walk away rather than deal with it. So I think it's losing us editors, and failing to gain us new ones, particularly women.
Sarah
--- On Tue, 8/2/11, Daniel and Elizabeth Case dancase@frontiernet.net wrote:
From: Daniel and Elizabeth Case dancase@frontiernet.net Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Hello and a (small!) manifesto To: fredbaud@fairpoint.net, "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tuesday, 8 February, 2011, 21:23
OK, but let's get down to cases.
What should we do about it? Think ahead
to community reaction, but assume, in good faith, that
he is doing his
best and could do better. (or is that just a game of
going through the
motions?)
This has now played out more or less as I thought it would: He has twice said he doesn't care, it's not his problem, and after some other discussion by other editors which he decided wasn't involving him he's removed the section from his talk page entirely.
I emailed him saying that was his prerogative and his position was clear, but that I might stop in and audit his patrol log and contributions on occasion in the future.
I'm glad the distraction is over so I can return to doing more content-related editing, as I have some long-range plans. However, things like this will happen again with this editor, and others like him.
It doesn't surprise me that Wikipedia would attract such serious Asperger cases as this. The phenomenon of indivudals with poor social skills (mostly, to be fair, male) finding a haven online where singlemindedly obsessive behavior can be of benefit, as it often is especially on Wikipedia, is not new to Wikipedia.
Frankly, Tim's fault wasn't his alone. The original article he marked had not included the code that makes footnotes show up (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Swim_~&oldid=362817720). Now that, of course, doesn't mean it should be deleted. And in fact it wasn't ... the subsequent work on the article resulted in the tag being removed (the only deletion in the record is from a previous incarnation, in 2008). But reviewing admins should be careful about this, and Tim's absolute refusal to discuss this when asked, even in a less confrontational way, is a cause for concern.
First, these things are not always evident in the Twinkle or Huggle user interface. That's a technical issue.
But given the mentality expressed by his userpage and discussions initiated, it's clear that the benign neglect from the rest of the community has allowed the evolution of a space within Wikipedia where users like this, users who actually flaunt their antisocial tendencies, can thrive under the cover of a necessary project function.
Clearly greater oversight is needed.
Daniel Case
Timneu22 has now blanked his user talk page, again, deleting the ongoing RfC Fred started on it.
What is really funny is that this user and WP:VANISPAM fan has a Wikipedia biography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Neumark
which as far as I can make out is as clear a case of a vanity biography as I have seen; there is not one decent source among the references. His youtube channel has had all of 125 views since 2006:
http://www.youtube.com/user/timneu22
Notability? This is the sort of biography which, if it were on a garage band, the chap would nominate for deletion within five minutes of creation.
On top of it, the account that created his bio looks like a sockpuppet or meatpuppet ... responding to the AfD within four hours, after not editing for more than a year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tim_Neumark
This is not the sort of person who should be manning Wikipedia's front end.
Andreas
Timneu22 has now blanked his user talk page, again, deleting the ongoing RfC Fred started on it.
And he has now claimed to have left the project.
What is really funny is that this user and WP:VANISPAM fan has a Wikipedia biography:
"It's more than just a little bit ironic, don'cha think?"
which as far as I can make out is as clear a case of a vanity biography as I have seen; there is not one decent source among the references. His youtube channel has had all of 125 views since 2006:
http://www.youtube.com/user/timneu22
Notability? This is the sort of biography which, if it were on a garage band, the chap would nominate for deletion within five minutes of creation.
On top of it, the account that created his bio looks like a sockpuppet or meatpuppet ... responding to the AfD within four hours, after not editing for more than a year.
I have started the SPI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Timneu22 As I noted it is quite possible that there may be others in the drawer.
Further increasing the irony factor, this comes right after my comments on the positives and negatives of the transparency and minimal expectation of privacy on Wikipedia. [[Quod era demonstratum]].
Daniel Case
Let's focus on solving problems, not creating them. I don't think this thread is a productive use of this mailing list's time and energy. Actually, I think the roughness Tim just got at the hands of some of the experienced people (all men, funnily enough) from this list is part of the problem. If Tim is rude, taking him down a peg to even the score won't do much to make the wider community a much nicer place. I don't think any of us likes having one of those days where the dreaded new messages bar pops up every few minutes, especially when it's all these people you don't know turning up out of the blue to complain about your past actions they had no involvement in. Yes, his reaction was predictable; it was predictable insofar as you instigated it.
Really, this mailing list has an unfortunate signal-to-noise ratio already, considering how new it is and how few subscribers there are. We can be better, for example, about focusing on the actual causes of the problem, rather than personal gripes.
Dominic
On 2/9/11 11:36 AM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case wrote:
Timneu22 has now blanked his user talk page, again, deleting the ongoing RfC Fred started on it.
And he has now claimed to have left the project.
What is really funny is that this user and WP:VANISPAM fan has a Wikipedia biography:
"It's more than just a little bit ironic, don'cha think?"
which as far as I can make out is as clear a case of a vanity biography as I have seen; there is not one decent source among the references. His youtube channel has had all of 125 views since 2006:
http://www.youtube.com/user/timneu22
Notability? This is the sort of biography which, if it were on a garage band, the chap would nominate for deletion within five minutes of creation.
On top of it, the account that created his bio looks like a sockpuppet or meatpuppet ... responding to the AfD within four hours, after not editing for more than a year.
I have started the SPI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Timneu22 As I noted it is quite possible that there may be others in the drawer.
Further increasing the irony factor, this comes right after my comments on the positives and negatives of the transparency and minimal expectation of privacy on Wikipedia. [[Quod era demonstratum]].
Daniel Case
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Let's focus on solving problems, not creating them. I don't think this thread is a productive use of this mailing list's time and energy.
I generally would agree, and had you left it at that I would have let the thread die as the discussion has really moved to where it should be.
But, declaring "enough already" and then taking some parting shots, however reasonable they might otherwise be, in a public forum is also emblematic of the behavior you go on to criticize. You *could* have just saved those comments for some private emails to myself and the others. I wouldn't have minded.
Actually, I think the roughness Tim just got at the hands of some of the experienced people (all men, funnily enough) from this list is part of the problem.
I'm certainly aware of the irony there.
If Tim is rude, taking him down a peg to even the score won't do much to make the wider community a much nicer place. I don't think any of us likes having one of those days where the dreaded new messages bar pops up every few minutes, especially when it's all these people you don't know turning up out of the blue to complain about your past actions they had no involvement in. Yes, his reaction was predictable; it was predictable insofar as you instigated it.
So, one should simply not do anything then? I feel that assuming good faith means you hold out some hope that the Tims of Wikipedia can respond positively to the right approach. Leaving them alone because you don't want to start a ruckus is assuming bad faith, and leads to festering organizational problems anywhere, not just Wikipedia.
Really, this mailing list has an unfortunate signal-to-noise ratio already, considering how new it is and how few subscribers there are. We can be better, for example, about focusing on the actual causes of the problem, rather than personal gripes.
It seems to actually have quite a few subscribers, and I would say that any new mailing list has a high noise ratio as the boundaries of its discourse seek to establish themselves.
Daniel Case
On 2/9/11 1:25 PM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case wrote:
Let's focus on solving problems, not creating them. I don't think this thread is a productive use of this mailing list's time and energy.
I generally would agree, and had you left it at that I would have let the thread die as the discussion has really moved to where it should be.
But, declaring "enough already" and then taking some parting shots, however reasonable they might otherwise be, in a public forum is also emblematic of the behavior you go on to criticize.
I didn't take any parting shots, and I don't really want to debate you. I am just asking you to think about what you are doing.
So, one should simply not do anything then? I feel that assuming good faith means you hold out some hope that the Tims of Wikipedia can respond positively to the right approach. Leaving them alone because you don't want to start a ruckus is assuming bad faith, and leads to festering organizational problems anywhere, not just Wikipedia.
I'm not suggesting anyone do nothing. I'm suggesting that (a) you could have done it differently, and (b) no matter how you do it, let's keep this list more strictly focused on the problem at hand. It might involve the community's openness to newcomers, but it doesn't involve a specific editor's conduct or sockpuppetry case.
Dominic
Daniel,
Thanks. This was the most heartening post I've read in relation to anything to do with Wikipedia in a good while. We chuckled, and it was balm on my wife's bruised heart -- it made her say, "It makes you think there is hope for this thing after all."
I am reminded of what Sydney said earlier, that behaviours that are normal in real life -- e.g. that you talk to friends when a situation has upset you -- are not normal in Wikipedia. The assumption in Wikipedia is that any such conversation would serve a nefarious Machiavellian purpose, rather than the simple human need for emotional support.
You can't let your hair down in Wikipedia, because anything you say on a talk page can and will be taken down and used in evidence against you.
I agree with Sydney that new users find this hard to adjust to. Women in particular are likely to miss this type of relating, and be upset when it is used against them. Sometimes we are incivil in the name of civility.
Best, Andreas
--- On Sun, 6/2/11, Daniel and Elizabeth Case dancase@frontiernet.net wrote:
It isn't just *her* eyes. Based on the information provided, I found the user in question. He *is* ridiculous. No, scratch that. He would be ridiculous only if he didn't hurt anybody, and if he had that effect on your wife imagine how many other people out there gave up as well.
As I would have suspected, he's a heavy Twinkle user. He has been on Wikipedia a little less longer than I have; he has rollbacker and reviewer rights but is (thankfully) not an admin. He has, in addition to all the self-applied barnstars (a practice that should be forbidden), two userboxes near the top of his page proclaiming his use of Twinkle (only one is needed, really, if that's something you want to brag about). *And*, near the top of the page, links to both WP:VANISPAM (which I haven't seen invoked in deletion discussions or anywhere for that matter in a long time) and a short essay of his own where he complains about some inconsistencies in the speedy deletion criteria (OK, somewhat rightly) and other aspects of the deletion policies. The solution he advocates is (surprise!) more admins invoking WP:IAR to resolve those conflicts in favor of ... deletion!
Elsewhere on his userpage, his boxes indicate interests in energy, classical music, piano, various Google apps and aspects of computer programming. I hate to say it, but the whole thing just adds up to "extremely socially awkward geek". I'm not at all sure I want to meet him in person.
And looking over his user history, his recent contribs show, indeed, a lot of AfD nominations, talk pages, and very little actual content editing. Nothing on his userpage indicates any interest in content; he doesn't point you to any GAs or FAs or anything else he's had a hand in, or suggest he's a member of any WikiProject save the one on infobox creation. He's, frankly, the stereotypical deletionist (and makes me not doubt the wisdom of taking that box off my own userpage a long time ago). Reading his page and thinking about it, I wish there was some reality to the old "In Soviet Wikipedia, article delete YOU!!" joke.
Frankly, this guy isn't an editor. He's a [[griefer]]. This is a prime example of someone for whom Wikipedia has become a video game where he tries to rack up points by getting as many articles as possible deleted. What else can you say about someone who so clearly brags about this sort of thing and says he enjoys it? This guy screams "referral to the school psychologist needed".
Of course, here I am trashing him out, in a forum he'll likely never read and wouldn't care to know whether it exists or not.
The question is what can we do to prevent people from becoming this sort of user.
I do have some ideas. I have long said we could benefit from making the block function page specific, so that editors could either be allowed to work on a set of pages and those pages alone, or otherwise more effectively topic-banned by being blocked from a certain set of pages, but free to edit anything else (The current setup would be a bit like if, instead of issuing a restraining order that says "don't go within 150 yds/meters of X", the judge had only the option of forcibly excluding the individual from the city, state or country for the time period in question). This would be an extreme option, but better than blocking them wholesale (and might cut down on socking as well).
It could be used to enforce a policy whereby editors are watched via a filter/bot for patterns that suggest this sort of behavior (i.e. X large percentage of deletion-initiating edits vs. Y really small percentage of namespace edits) and then it would be suggested to them that they take a break and do something constructive instead for a while, with the possibility of a page-specific block on AfD etc. and temporary suspension of, say, rollbacker rights, to make sure they do, beyond a certain point. Yes, some editors might consider this heavy-handed and just leave. But look at what they become without this kind of shepherding ... I think the community and the encyclopedia would, on the whole, benefit.
Daniel Case
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Daniel,
Thanks. This was the most heartening post I've read in relation to anything to do with Wikipedia in a good while. We chuckled, and it was balm on my wife's bruised heart -- it made her say, "It makes you think there is hope for this thing after all."
My reply:
You're welcome (and so is she).
At the same time I do owe myself an accounting of this mentality. Because it was once, briefly, mine as well.
Back in the mid-2000s, when both he and I started editing, the public image of Wikipedia was a little different than today. That was when a lot of coverage focused on the vandalism as a general side effect of "anyone can edit". And that was *before* the Seigenthaler incident.
Also at the time, notability hadn't established itself as thoroughly. The boundaries of inclusion were not as clearly drawn (and that's saying something, considering the criticisms of them that still exist today). There was a time when someone tried to get an article about every blog, every blogger, every podcast, every MMPORPG into Wikipedia. And that was on top of the articles about garage bands and neologisms sourced to Urban Dictionary that we still get. (Podcasts in particular were a pain. I only need say three words for anyone who remembers: We Hate Tech). The guideline page WP:NFT, originally titled "Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day" emerged from this era, although it has since been rewritten and toned down from what Uncle G originally wrote (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_for_thi... is closer to the original tenor. This AfD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Walking_Gam...) also is indicative of what we were dealing with at the time).
So many of us got militant and vigilantly policed the boundaries of the encyclopedia. I was a little bit BITEy, too, at times (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Th.... Note that the account trying to keep the article, despite its female username, later turned out to be a sock of the film's male director).
But I moved on eventually, as by 2007 times had changed, I found a lot more content areas to edit besides those I had originally worked on, we found other ways to separate Wikipedia from the larger Internet culture, we became stricter about sourcing articles, and so forth.
For some people, however, those times have never ended.
Daniel Case
I am reminded of what Sydney said earlier, that behaviours that are normal in real life -- e.g. that you talk to friends when a situation has upset you -- are not normal in Wikipedia. The assumption in Wikipedia is that any such conversation would serve a nefarious Machiavellian purpose, rather than the simple human need for emotional support.
Well, at least for some people. I have no problem when people approach me on my talk page, and I don't expect any when I reciprocate. Usually things work out just fine.
However, I don't deny that mentality exists. Some people, either with or without good reason, feel that any attempt to talk to them is just someone laying the groundwork for "tried to resolve it and failed" or some other such escalation into a formal dispute resolution.
I think some editors have been genuinely surprised when I addressed their concerns politely and actually compromised with them. And yes, I've encountered users who treated the incursion into their talk pages as if looking out through the crack between door and wall below a chain.
You can't let your hair down in Wikipedia, because anything you say on a talk page can and will be taken down and used in evidence against you.
Transparency is a two-edged sword, isn't it? I do agree that not all new users are aware that almost *everything* is saved and *anyone*, not just registered users, can look at it. Can we do anything to better let new editors know you have no reasonable expectation of privacy over any edit you make?
Frankly, I think we're just where society as a whole is going to be in a few decades, where this level of transparency will be considered not only normal but desirable and cooperative. Orwell got the concept of Big Brother right, but he didn't anticipate that the only difference between communism and capitalism after the triumph of the latter would be that *everyone* could and would be keeping tabs on everyone else, not just the government. Foucault got it more right ... "Against the peer-group jury", David Riesman wrote in "The Lonely Crowd", "there is no privilege against self-incrimination."
Daniel Case