That's from someone else. Fred

That message was from Hartmut Semken: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2011-February/000571.html who signed themselves "hase" There is a snicklefritz image at http://www.hase.net/ That has been their only post. I didn't like it either, so much so that avoided responding to it. It seemed to me to be a woman, "as long as all men will assume that feminism is about revenge rather than equality, visions of a female dominated <something> will feel scary. Poor guy, i'd say." and seemed to refer to me. That, however, is what he said, not what I said. I think we got trolled. Fred

We need to discuss the dynamics of the list to a certain extent. Not that we will necessarily resolve things satisfactorily. I spent a year of two on a e-list Netdynamics about 10 years ago. We can be more or less productive depending on how we act. Fred

Sandra and Fred, Considering how quickly you guys resolved this after I sent my message, I regret that I said anything -- I would have done better to sit back and let you guys sort it out. 20/20 hindsight. Sorry. I do think that an often-overlooked option is to send a message privately, and make sure you understand what somebody was trying to say, before making public assumptions/accusations. It's possible that was not a good option in this case for reasons I'm not aware of. But it might be a good thing for us all to keep in mind, on a list where misunderstandings and disagreements are likely to be fairly common. -Pete On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Sandra ordonez &lt;sandratordonez(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote:

Thanks for clearing that fred, and thank you for expressing that sentiment as well. It means a lot to me to hear you say that. On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 5:08 PM, Fred Bauder &lt;fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net&gt; wrote: -- Sandra Ordonez Web Astronaut "Helping you rock out in the virtual world." *www.collaborativenation.com*

This is what I'm talking about - So the comment that had sexist undertones is not being discussed, but the fact that a comment was used to express frustrations is being analyzed? There has to be a commitment on this list that we are not going to reproduce the same behavior and environments that are so unattractive to women in the first place. Saying that someone is "scared" of a group with a high percentage of women, or telling a woman "ohh your wrong" when she shares her experience, is really not cool - particularly on this lsit! sandy On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 4:53 PM, Fred Bauder &lt;fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net&gt; wrote: -- Sandra Ordonez Web Astronaut "Helping you rock out in the virtual world." *www.collaborativenation.com*

If there is an automatic "reply to individuals" response - with "reply all" an option - that might help. Some mailing list programs have that. It encourages people to think about if they want responses to go to the whole list - and if they should. Some people might have to go back and reply to whole list because of an error; but it's better than seeing a lot of posts just as well sent to just one person and continuing among two or three people. Thanks Cm in DC

--- On Sat, 19/2/11, Birgitte SB &lt;birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com&gt; wrote:From: Birgitte SB &lt;birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com&gt; Subject: Re: [Gendergap] [Fwd: Re: Women4Wikipedia] To: "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" &lt;gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Date: Saturday, 19 February, 2011, 2:23 If you want a to write a thread to a supportive group so you might figure how to address a situation that bothers you without being invalidated, Wikichix is more appropriate list this one. If you want to write a thread about how we might achieve results in narrowing the gender-gap on Wikipedia and seeing some sort of shift happen within an open community this is the list to use.  Those are not value judgments.  Both desires are valid and appropriate; just different. Wikipedia is an open wiki. This means that every element of humanity that you despise, every element that despises what you love, and even elements which you were never really acquainted with before exist there.  And none of these elements can be removed.  They can be avoided.  They can be mitigated.  But they will *always* be popping up.  If we are going to wait until Wikipedia, or any open wiki, only involves dealing with people who are committed to being "cool" (liberal; in the older sense of the word), it will never happen.  We have to shift the participation level on the wikis *as they exist*; not as we would like them to exist.  Full of human beings from different cultures, with different understandings, and different capacities for empathy.  We need to increase participation of women even as they are offended and confronted with misogyny.  Not remove offense and misogyny in order to increase the participation of women.  That is just not going to work on an open wiki.  You can manage the removal of the most offensive and misogynist elements if you are reasonable and dedicated to doing so.  But in an absolute sense it will not make much difference.  Those women who are turned off by the things that have been used as examples here these past few day, will still be turned off by what remains when those examples and everything of a similar level has been removed. There are many valid reasons for wanting so see the examples being brought here changed, but increasing the participation of women is not really one of them. We will not succeed in closing the gender gap by spending our efforts failing to remove everything from an open wiki that turns women off Wikipedia.  We will succeed in closing the gender gap when we are able to reach women and bring their attention to things in Wikipedia that will turn them on.  Merely seeing an open wiki become somewhat less offensive to women will not make women passionate about Wikipedia.  But women who are passionate about Wikipedia will give much less weight to those elements within an open wiki that offend them. Birgitte SB                 That was the best word on the matter so far. Bravo. Andreas

I have no objection whatever to an environment that is woman-friendly and support making Wikipedia more woman-friendly. As to yoga, I'm a fan, of Arjuna. Fred