I agree with most of what risker says. There are several groups on the project that exert undue influence over their articles whether male or female. If the wmf gets involvedvat all, it should be to ensure that policies are enforced evenly throughout the project and these,power cabals are broken up.
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------ Original message------ From: Risker Date: Wed, Dec 10, 2014 2:46 PM To: Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participation of women within Wikimedia projects.; Subject:Re: [Gendergap] Women, cliques and Wikipedia's tyranny of structurelessness
Carol said:
I do think there are structural things that can be imposed by the Wikimedia Foundation to make reforms happen. (Whether they'll choose the right reforms and the right people to make them happen is a whole 'nother story.) But the purpose of this thread is not to discuss specific reforms, but to focus on the issue of male dominated Wikipedia cliques intent on keeping Wikipedia a place where dominant males don't have to put up with these damned women (or "radical feminist c*nts/tw*ats" in their minds) who keep yammering about making Wikipedia a nice (or even safe!) place to edit. Discussion of some womens' complicity in all this obviously is relevant too.
I'm not certain you've got it right here, Carol. I think the cliques (which, given the overall makeup of the project, are almost always male-dominated) don't want to put up with *anyone*, male or female, that opposes their view. I've seen female-dominated cliques on the project (rare as they are) behave equally appallingly. There are corners of the project where any interloper, regardless of gender, is treated with the back of the hand by the "regulars", whether those regulars are male or female.
A friend of mine recently reminded me of the language of "southern ladies" and how they often use perfectly normal sounding phrases to cut people to the core. (A classic example would be "bless his heart" or, more emphatically, "bless his dear little heart" - which to all the world reads like a slight eye-roll, but is actually properly decoded as "that idiot" or (more emphatically) "that *frickin* idiot".) I've seen a lot of examples of that on Wikipedia, where it's been so obvious that the written word *reads* civilly but is intended as a cutting insult - in my experience, women editors use this method out of proportion to the percentage of women on the project - and in some ways it is an even greater insult because it's hard to persuade others that what look like civil words are being used to convey quite the opposite meaning.
Risker/Anne
Does anyone have a proposed "action plan" to do anything about this? On Dec 10, 2014 3:05 PM, "reguyla@gmail.com" reguyla@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with most of what risker says. There are several groups on the project that exert undue influence over their articles whether male or female. If the wmf gets involvedvat all, it should be to ensure that policies are enforced evenly throughout the project and these,power cabals are broken up.
Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE device
------ Original message------
*From: *Risker
*Date: *Wed, Dec 10, 2014 2:46 PM
*To: *Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participation of women within Wikimedia projects.;
*Subject:*Re: [Gendergap] Women, cliques and Wikipedia's tyranny of structurelessness
Carol said:
I do think there are structural things that can be imposed by the Wikimedia Foundation to make reforms happen. (Whether they'll choose the right reforms and the right people to make them happen is a whole 'nother story.) *But the purpose of this thread is not to discuss specific reforms, but to **focus on the issue of male dominated Wikipedia cliques intent on keeping Wikipedia a place where dominant males don't have to put up with these damned women (or "radical feminist c*nts/tw*ats" in their minds) who keep yammering about making Wikipedia a nice (or even safe!) place to edit.* Discussion of some womens' complicity in all this obviously is relevant too.
I'm not certain you've got it right here, Carol. I think the cliques (which, given the overall makeup of the project, are almost always male-dominated) don't want to put up with *anyone*, male or female, that opposes their view. I've seen female-dominated cliques on the project (rare as they are) behave equally appallingly. There are corners of the project where any interloper, regardless of gender, is treated with the back of the hand by the "regulars", whether those regulars are male or female.
A friend of mine recently reminded me of the language of "southern ladies" and how they often use perfectly normal sounding phrases to cut people to the core. (A classic example would be "bless his heart" or, more emphatically, "bless his dear little heart" - which to all the world reads like a slight eye-roll, but is actually properly decoded as "that idiot" or (more emphatically) "that *frickin* idiot".) I've seen a lot of examples of that on Wikipedia, where it's been so obvious that the written word *reads* civilly but is intended as a cutting insult - in my experience, women editors use this method out of proportion to the percentage of women on the project - and in some ways it is an even greater insult because it's hard to persuade others that what look like civil words are being used to convey quite the opposite meaning.
Risker/Anne
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On 12/10/2014 5:14 PM, JJ Marr wrote:
Does anyone have a proposed "action plan" to do anything about this?
First, there definitely are all kinds of groupings and cliques and maybe even a couple dominated by women. Given it was one particular group of guys and their allies that went after GGTF, some of us do tend to focus on them. But in other editing areas it might be some other group.
But obviously there are lots of free lance guys who just let vent at other editors, especially ones they think might be women.
Anyway, I've been collecting a lot of proposals over the last six months from this list and all sorts of Wikipedia pages; I have a few other sources to investigate. At some point after holidays will organize them by category and add any news ones people see I've forgotten or may come up with. Research to look at the options is the first step in any good campaign :-)
Then people can prioritize them both in terms of which they think are most promising and easiest to enact and in terms of which they themselves might want to work on. (Eight people working hard on some minor low priority might be more effective than 20 just generally supporting a higher priority one. Squeaky wheels get the crease and all that.) And then come up with specific proposals and plans for getting them enacted.
I have various sources around on how to plan and actualize a successful campaign will look at and share the best and most relevant.
And hopefully lots of others will be doing the same! And if somebody meantime writes that big embarrassing expose filled with great reform ideas that gets WMF's butt moving, more power to them!! (Feel free to hurry up so I don't have to! :-)
CM