I'm glad to hear that Gayle.
But please remember - female admins get it bad, but, the "attention" I got,
wasn't "upped" when I became an admin. Yes, i'm a bit more of a
"known"
person than perhaps other women in the community (right now) but...I know
women (Cristamuse, Slim Virgin, just to name two) who deal with plenty of
crap and *ARE NOT* admins.
Please remember..it's not just admins. The moment you become a highly
active publicly identified female on Wikipedia, you are automatically prone
to sexualized comments (friendly or not..."sweetie, lassie, etc." or
"you're so pretty"))), harassment, and so forth.
Admins get it pretty damn bad, but non-admins get it bad too. And I don't
want us to forget that, and that's why I think it's so important that women
get support - any editor on that matter.
The moment you make edits to articles like "feminism" "mens rights"
"pro-choice" "pro-life" "pregnancy" etc, you are in the
minefield.
-Sarah
On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 6:04 PM, Gayle Karen Young <gyoung(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:
One of the things I talked to one of the female admins
about is figuring
out how to better support them in the stuff they have to deal with, and
it's on my radar. That's just an FYI.
On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 5:57 PM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
(changing the topic back)
On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 5:29 PM, Sylvia Ventura <slventura(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
Anne, you're absolutely right on the
'high profile'. The broader the
reach, impact, exposure, the more likely you are to become the target of
good and bad 'attention'. The question is, much like in real-life, the
higher up you are in an organization the more 'support' and/or protection
you will likely need/get, as a community should we be able to insure a
similar mechanism. This community resilience won't be built on a MadMax
fighting-your-way-through model (I know it's rather dramatic :)
From all the stories I've heard over the years, admins and arbitrators
get the worst of it -- being in a position where you delete articles or
mediate disputes on the project (and let's face it, the folks who get into
arbitration-type situations on wikipedia are often not the most stable or
reasonable people on earth) seems to be the most direct way to potentially
exposing yourself to lots of harassment. And if you're identified as
female, it's way worse.
Conversely from my experiences being pretty visible on the
*organizational* side of things (and talking to colleagues), there is a low
level of harassment that comes with that gig, but *nothing* like the horror
stories I've heard from some admins.
This is clearly untenable; the projects need to grow experienced
contributors who can serve in positions of leadership and as mentors on the
projects, and we can't expect everyone to just suck it up ("so sorry, you
will have to work with crazy people"). I worry that folks often just find
themselves unsupported. I don't know what the answer is.
-- phoebe
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Gayle Karen K. Young
Chief Talent and Culture Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
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*Sarah Stierch*
*Museumist, open culture advocate, and Wikimedian*
*www.sarahstierch.com*