The depressing thing to me is that the English Wikipedia community takes all of 10 minutes to work itself into a frenzy about the use of profanity in a positive, non-personal way, but if an editor on Wikipedia calls a female editor a cunt, no one dares to bat an eye. On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

"Badass" isn't a compliment.

I feel very sad that you fellows don't see the problem in using this kind of language to describe women. "Badass" isn't a compliment. After the first two descriptions, I was fully expecting to see "brilliant motherf***er" to describe the third one. I'm surprised it wasn't used, in fact. The subjects of our articles deserve to be treated much better than this. Further, I'm incredibly disappointed that this got published in The Signpost. On Emily's own page...well, okay. But instead of drawing attention to the women who are the subjects of the articles, almost all of the discussion is about the language used to describe them....and pointing out that several of them already had articles about them that were improved, rather than that they'd not been written about at all. All in all, it impressed me as an island of lovely flowers in a garden with a winter's worth of St. Bernard droppings. Risker On 21 February 2016 at 17:13, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

Unless my vision has completely eroded, I do not see the word "cunt" anywhere in that article, Ryan. Nobody on this list has ever said that calling someone a cunt is a good thing. What I do not understand is why anyone on this list would think that calling someone a "badass" is a good thing. Risker On 21 February 2016 at 18:19, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 5:25 PM, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: I was referring to the common defense of that term on English Wikipedia (which I imagine you are familiar with). It's hard to notice the outcry against Keilana's Op-ed and the acceptance of other editors' use of the C-word (sorry, Fae)[1] without feeling like there is some kind of double-standard. What I do not understand is why anyone on this list would think that According to Wiktionary it means "Having extreme appearance, attitude, or behavior that is considered admirable." Synonyms are listed as "cool" and "awesome".[2] It's obviously slang, but still sounds like a compliment to me. 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Communicating_on_Wikipedia_while_f… 2. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/badass#Adjective _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

I feel very sad that you fellows don't see the problem in using this kind of language to describe women. "Badass" isn't a compliment. After the first two descriptions, I was fully expecting to see "brilliant motherf***er" to describe the third one. I'm surprised it wasn't used, in fact. The subjects of our articles deserve to be treated much better than this. Further, I'm incredibly disappointed that this got published in The Signpost. On Emily's own page...well, okay. But instead of drawing attention to the women who are the subjects of the articles, almost all of the discussion is about the language used to describe them....and pointing out that several of them already had articles about them that were improved, rather than that they'd not been written about at all. All in all, it impressed me as an island of lovely flowers in a garden with a winter's worth of St. Bernard droppings. Risker On 21 February 2016 at 17:13, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

I think I've made myself clear, Pete. I don't think that anything I say will make a difference, any more than anything I have ever said has changed the sub-optimal behaviour of any editor who thinks it's acceptable professional behaviour to cuss all over the place. I'm just really disappointed that people who used to be in the "let's make this a more pleasant and positive place to do our work" have gone over to the other side. Risker On 21 February 2016 at 19:38, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

Thank you, Pete, for the reminder about this message. There's a lot going on this week. The response to the op-ed has given us a lot to think about. We expected a strong response and some objections, but we did not anticipate anything like this. We do want a response, and sometimes we deliberately try to provoke a negative response if we think the issue is important, as we did in this case. We do want to take into account the responses and consider the reasonable ones respectfully, even if we disagree with them, while reserving the right to respond appropriately to the responses that are ridiculous or offensive. Many of the responses rest on premises with which I fundamentally disagree (which I'll get to in a bit), so I doubt I will be able to find common ground with those particular editors, unfortunately. The biggest impression that was made on me by these responses was realizing how others see The Signpost. One commenter called Emily's column “an alternative weekly-style piece”. While I take our mission and specifically the news coverage quite seriously, I often see The Signpost as a cheeky alternative weekly whose mission is to be edgy and provocative. Until now, I did not realize how many people saw The Signpost not as an edgy outsider but as a Wikimedia institution and our newspaper of record, and feel that it has a responsibility to act more in the manner of The New York Times than The Village Voice. I don't want The Signpost to become stodgy or staid, but I wonder if I shouldn't take into account the views of those editors more often. It is heartening to see how important The Signpost is to so many editors, and I'd like to continue to be intellectually provocative while not needlessly offending those editors. My main issue with the objections is that want The Signpost to be or perceive it as only one thing. I want The Signpost to reflect the vast diversity of people and viewpoints in Wikimedia. I want it to be able to be more than one thing. Risker complained that we “would rather be sensationalistic than informative”. I want it to be both. I want it to be serious and funny, professional and irreverent, a cheerleader for Wikimedia and a gadfly that points out its flaws. We publish anywhere from four to twelve sections each week, from a variety of authors and viewpoints. News is different from Traffic which is different from the Arbitration Report which is different from whatever person is presenting their opinion in the Op-Ed section that week. Different authors present different viewpoints and different tones, in different ways in different pieces in different weeks. I want to experiment with new viewpoints and new formats to supplement what we're already doing. Perhaps this column was a failed experiment, but I don't regret trying it because if we don't risk failure we won't be able to improve The Signpost. This diversity of views and tones also applies to the issue of systemic bias and the author herself. This was one expression, it was never intended to be the final word on the issue of systemic bias, and there should be room in The Signpost and in the minds of its readers for multiple ways of dealing with that topic. This particular expression should not be expected to reflect the entire issue or all of its advocates, and the idea that an irreverent online column would prevent someone from attending an in person event related to this issue or reflects on all the people participating in the event is, frankly, baffling. Likewise, the author of that piece should not be limited in expressing herself in one particular way about Wikimedia issues. There are many ways we should be able to express how we feel about this thing that we love and that is so important to our lives. She can be professional with her professional dealings and also express herself in a bawdy, irreverent way in a different context. The idea that she cannot or should not be a multifaceted person and be able to express that is a limitation of the imaginations of some readers, but those limitations should not be imposed on the author herself. One objection we did not anticipate is the idea that this particular expression would be seen as offensive towards the scientists discussed in the piece. We thought it was fairly clear that this was a celebration of the lives and work of female scientists by a feminist author. While perhaps in some contexts “badass” might be intended as a pejorative, in the column it is obviously used in the more widely used positive sense of that word and no offense was intended. This is a fairly common and accepted usage. For example, a forthcoming book from the major publisher Simon and Schuster is called “The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu”, about saving ancient manuscripts from Al Qaeda. As a librarian, I am not offended by this description and I recognize it as celebratory. However, I do realize now that some people many not wish to be described in a certain manner, and we will discuss this internally when considering future columns describing living individuals. On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 7:49 PM, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

I think I've made myself clear, Pete. I don't think that anything I say will make a difference, any more than anything I have ever said has changed the sub-optimal behaviour of any editor who thinks it's acceptable professional behaviour to cuss all over the place. I'm just really disappointed that people who used to be in the "let's make this a more pleasant and positive place to do our work" have gone over to the other side. Risker On 21 February 2016 at 19:38, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

@Risker, the double standard is that several individuals dropped f-bombs on the page, but only the woman got tsked. Talk pages of various users, not to mention the arbitration committee's pages, routinely contain f-bombs, which I have never seen anyone remark on. JimboTalk has occasionally seen some respectful and considerate pushback, but nothing like the strident comments on the Signpost piece. True, there was a former arbitrator who had an essay about the word deleted, but that was before my time. In the current climate, an individual can drop the c-bomb on a women's task force page with impunity, while someone who marks such a thread with a NSFW tag can be permabanned for doing so. Wikipedia has become f-Wikipedia; Keilana has claimed her place at the table. On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 11:33 PM, J Hayes <slowking4(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

@Risker, if your high school student are that benign, perhaps I will move to Canada.

Give me a break, Neotarf. I am critiquing the article and the decisions by its author and its publisher. It doesn't surprise me that having someone of Keilana's stature drop more f-bombs in a couple of paragraphs than I heard on a bus full of high school students this morning will change the climate to suggest that it is now perfectly acceptable to curse out people everywhere under every circumstance. For some strange reason, it appears the people on this list are celebrating that fact. And it has nothing to do with gender, really, and everything to do with making Wikipedia a pleasant place to work. Keilana's actions have encouraged people to make it less so. Risker/Anne

On 24 February 2016 at 13:45, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote: and colourful history of behaviour considered to be very uncivil, nobody would be thinking it was an okay article. It's only okay because Keilana wrote it, it wouldn't be okay if someone with a history of alleged misogyny wrote it *using exactly the same words*. I doubt very much that the Signpost would have published it had it been written by any number of other people - in fact, I'm doubtful it would have been published if written by any male editor, though Rob could tell us otherwise - but even if they did publish it, the reaction would have been infinitely more severe if not for the name of the author. Risker/Anne _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

I think you miss my point, Slowking. It wouldn't have been published at all if not for the author. If a man had written it, I doubt it would have made its way out of Gamaliel's inbox. And if a man with a reputation for negative interactions with women had written it, and somehow or other those aliens from Wikimedia-L had abducted Gamaliel and published the piece, there would have been a 500,000 byte discussion on AN or ANI about whether or not to indef the guy. In other words, the only reason there's a controversy is that the Signpost published a piece that it would have rejected if it had been written by roughly 95% of the active editorship. I'm relatively certain if I'd written exactly the same piece, they would have published it - but if you did, Slowking, it would not have seen the light of day. Risker/Anne On 24 February 2016 at 13:59, J Hayes <slowking4(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

In any case, it seems like it has long been settled that the general use of profanity on Wikipedia is accepted but not celebrated. Only in >extreme cases is it considered actionable when actually directed at an individual. So it's hard to understand why many editors of long->tenure have reacted in such a strongly negative manner to this op-ed; it may be the unique nature of the Signpost, but like Gamaliel I >would be surprised to learn that many users regard the Signpost in the same way devotees do the New York Times. The most likely >conclusion is that profanity and vulgar language are almost exclusively deployed by men on Wikipedia, and the difference here is that >readers were shocked --shocked!-- to read it from a woman.

A number of us who are concerned about civility on Wikipedia do not see swearing in and of itself as uncivil. Many people may include professionalism and decorum under the umbrella of civility, but others do not, and they are not hypocritical because they do not. The problem is not the words themselves, but when those words are used by editors to attack other editors. On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 7:08 PM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case < dancase(a)frontiernet.net&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

What I don't understand is if administrators like Risker and Mike Peel are so concerned about civility on Wikipedia that they object to Keliana's swearing, why aren't they the people that are making hard blocks against vested contributors who are unambiguously violating civility with personal attacks? Instead, Keliana is the one doing that. She's the one actually putting herself on the line to try to change the civility climate on Wikipedia. Banning swear words from the Signpost isn't going to do that. Consistently blocking users who attack other editors as "worthless" or "low-lifes" or "idiots" (or a million other non-swearing insults) will. Risker: I will be happy to support a ban on swearing if you will support a ban on personal attacks and be willing to act on it. What do you say? On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 7:03 PM, Pete Forsyth &lt;peteforsyth(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

Compare the reaction that Keilana's Op-ed got with the reaction that the Signpost article "Wikipedia's cute ass" got: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-12-17/Featu… Notice any differences?

On 21 Feb 2016, at 21:54, Ryan Kaldari &lt;rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: The depressing thing to me is that the English Wikipedia community takes all of 10 minutes to work itself into a frenzy about the use of profanity in a positive, non-personal way, but if an editor on Wikipedia calls a female editor a cunt, no one dares to bat an eye. _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Risker &lt;risker.wp(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I'm curious what you mean by this exactly. Do you mean you think I published it because I know Emily personally and would not have published it as a submission from an unknown author? Or are you saying I might not have published a similar article by a male author? (For what it's worth, I re-published an article by a male academic in the Signpost last year that had the phrase "asshole consensus" in the title. )

On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 10:42 AM, Robert Fernandez &lt;wikigamaliel(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: published it have ) I would appreciate seeing that article for comparison, as I am a little taken back by the use of swear words in the titles. Would you find it please? -- John Vandenberg _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap