http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Inciden...
The first "unblock" statement shares the link to the joke and the reprimand by an admin on the users page telling them they can get blocked for ongoing comments like that. Fluffernutter points out that there is a "boyzone" in Wikipedia and that it's not right to mock a users gender. I do appreciate Fluffernuter speaking up about this, I know it's not always something that she likes to get mixed up with (so to say - as we talked about in IRC today).
A dialogue takes place ranging from people thinking the joke wasn't sexist, to Fluffernutter is being "PC".
I don't believe that the user the joke was directed at participates in the conversation - for all we know they might have not been offended - but, this is just another example of how people seem to be unclear about what "sexist" behavior is.
Where I've worked and attended school, it was always very clear that behavior or comments like that were/are not prohibited, but more often than not, people don't speak up when people behave poorly (silent victims). Unlike on Wikipedia, where people generally do speak up - the shroud of the internet, I suppose.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, an educational environment. And when people have to start questioning "Is this offensive or not? Is it sexist or not?" then clearly there is a problem with something in the culture and system.
-Sarah Stierch
Thanks for posting this, Sarah. I was hesitant to link to it while it was an active thread. My basic feeling in this case was that the user's comments weren't *particularly* terrible, and all of us who are sensitive to gender issues have probably seen way worse. A block may well have been overkill in this situation. However, I'm concerned that the way that thread played it out gave an overwhelmingly strong impression that "oh, you're not a woman" sort of comments are completely fine, and that anyone who says otherwise is a PC, tiny, reactive minority. I was really disappointed to be the only person who showed up to that thread who could understand how the comments could even be *perceived* as a problem. Just when we think gender concerns may be penetrating the wiki's consciousness, we get something like and I go, "...oh. Sigh."
There's nothing to be done with regard to this particular case at this point, and I hasten to ask that people not descend on the (now-close) thread, or the (now-unblocked) user. But I would like to see a conversation about how we can address this sort of "Of COURSE it's fine!" attitude.
-Fluffernutter
On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 12:07 PM, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.comwrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Inciden...
The first "unblock" statement shares the link to the joke and the reprimand by an admin on the users page telling them they can get blocked for ongoing comments like that. Fluffernutter points out that there is a "boyzone" in Wikipedia and that it's not right to mock a users gender. I do appreciate Fluffernuter speaking up about this, I know it's not always something that she likes to get mixed up with (so to say - as we talked about in IRC today).
A dialogue takes place ranging from people thinking the joke wasn't sexist, to Fluffernutter is being "PC".
I don't believe that the user the joke was directed at participates in the conversation - for all we know they might have not been offended - but, this is just another example of how people seem to be unclear about what "sexist" behavior is.
Where I've worked and attended school, it was always very clear that behavior or comments like that were/are not prohibited, but more often than not, people don't speak up when people behave poorly (silent victims). Unlike on Wikipedia, where people generally do speak up - the shroud of the internet, I suppose.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, an educational environment. And when people have to start questioning "Is this offensive or not? Is it sexist or not?" then clearly there is a problem with something in the culture and system.
-Sarah Stierch
-- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for Wikimedia http://www.glamwiki.org Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch and Sarah Stierch Consulting
*Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.*
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
You are right, of course, what we do is bad enough, without having to answer for the expectations of what our gender is expected to do.
Fred
Thanks for posting this, Sarah. I was hesitant to link to it while it was an active thread. My basic feeling in this case was that the user's comments weren't *particularly* terrible, and all of us who are sensitive to gender issues have probably seen way worse. A block may well have been overkill in this situation. However, I'm concerned that the way that thread played it out gave an overwhelmingly strong impression that "oh, you're not a woman" sort of comments are completely fine, and that anyone who says otherwise is a PC, tiny, reactive minority. I was really disappointed to be the only person who showed up to that thread who could understand how the comments could even be *perceived* as a problem. Just when we think gender concerns may be penetrating the wiki's consciousness, we get something like and I go, "...oh. Sigh."
There's nothing to be done with regard to this particular case at this point, and I hasten to ask that people not descend on the (now-close) thread, or the (now-unblocked) user. But I would like to see a conversation about how we can address this sort of "Of COURSE it's fine!" attitude.
-Fluffernutter
On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 12:07 PM, Sarah Stierch sarah.stierch@gmail.comwrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Inciden...
The first "unblock" statement shares the link to the joke and the reprimand by an admin on the users page telling them they can get blocked for ongoing comments like that. Fluffernutter points out that there is a "boyzone" in Wikipedia and that it's not right to mock a users gender. I do appreciate Fluffernuter speaking up about this, I know it's not always something that she likes to get mixed up with (so to say - as we talked about in IRC today).
A dialogue takes place ranging from people thinking the joke wasn't sexist, to Fluffernutter is being "PC".
I don't believe that the user the joke was directed at participates in the conversation - for all we know they might have not been offended - but, this is just another example of how people seem to be unclear about what "sexist" behavior is.
Where I've worked and attended school, it was always very clear that behavior or comments like that were/are not prohibited, but more often than not, people don't speak up when people behave poorly (silent victims). Unlike on Wikipedia, where people generally do speak up - the shroud of the internet, I suppose.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, an educational environment. And when people have to start questioning "Is this offensive or not? Is it sexist or not?" then clearly there is a problem with something in the culture and system.
-Sarah Stierch
-- GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for Wikimedia http://www.glamwiki.org Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Arthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch and Sarah Stierch Consulting
*Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.*
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Inciden...
The first "unblock" statement shares the link to the joke and the reprimand by an admin on the users page telling them they can get blocked for ongoing comments like that. Fluffernutter points out that there is a "boyzone" in Wikipedia and that it's not right to mock a users gender. I do appreciate Fluffernuter speaking up about this, I know it's not always something that she likes to get mixed up with (so to say - as we talked about in IRC today).
A dialogue takes place ranging from people thinking the joke wasn't sexist, to Fluffernutter is being "PC".
I don't believe that the user the joke was directed at participates in the conversation - for all we know they might have not been offended - but, this is just another example of how people seem to be unclear about what "sexist" behavior is.
Where I've worked and attended school, it was always very clear that behavior or comments like that were/are not prohibited, but more often than not, people don't speak up when people behave poorly (silent victims). Unlike on Wikipedia, where people generally do speak up - the shroud of the internet, I suppose.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, an educational environment. And when people have to start questioning "Is this offensive or not? Is it sexist or not?" then clearly there is a problem with something in the culture and system.
-Sarah Stierch
I'm just looking into this and am not happy. There was a great wind from all quarters...
It gets complicated fast. What the hell is this:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Refere...
Fred
* Sarah Stierch wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Inciden...
User Medeis does not identify as female in any easily recognizable way. It is difficult to avoid gender in the english language without running into other problems (repeating the name all the time is likely seen as aggressive, for instance). When a misplaced "he" slips, getting caught would be embarassing and if you feel like responding, deflecting that with an attempt at humour is quite normal, as is making reference to the issue, so the "*That* clarifies it. :)" is quite expected.
Knowing that I would either not point the gender mixup out at all, or at the least, would make it a <small>(...)</small> top-level comment rather than a response without deemphasis, so the information is there, but people would not feel particularily inclined to respond.
If I wanted to help the blocked user to avoid this kind of remark, I'd send them a private message linking a tutorial that discusses ways to write in a gender neutral manner and other gender etiquette issues that are relevant on Wikipedia, like whether it's okay to say "she" when the name sounds very female but you cannot be certain of it, or how to react when you are mistaken, as may have been the case here. I could not find one in the english Wikipedia namespace though, it may have to be written first.
The first "unblock" statement shares the link to the joke and the reprimand by an admin on the users page telling them they can get blocked for ongoing comments like that. Fluffernutter points out that there is a "boyzone" in Wikipedia and that it's not right to mock a users gender. I do appreciate Fluffernuter speaking up about this, I know it's not always something that she likes to get mixed up with (so to say - as we talked about in IRC today).
Well, "boyzone" might not be a good word to use when you want to convey that gender should not be highlighted inappropriately. It's been some time, but I've been part of online fora frequented mostly by young women and remarks like the one here directed at me were quite normal and mutually understood as good humour in almost all cases. It doesn't take all that much, in the right context, to make a similar remark that would actually hurt whoever it is directed at, though. I got that aswell.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, an educational environment. And when people have to start questioning "Is this offensive or not? Is it sexist or not?" then clearly there is a problem with something in the culture and system.
There are actually two dimensions to "sexist". If we all agree that sexist remarks are bad and wrong, then remarks you do not find bad or wrong cannot be sexist, so you have a conflict between the intuitive understanding and the textbook definition. It's normal that our intu- itions are sometimes a bit off. Centuries ago it may have been normal to say and mean certain things about women that today everybody would readily recognize as highly offensive, or hilariously ludicrous. Such changes do not occur over night and everwhere at the same pace.
If we do not have to question whether, say, "a woman's place is in the kitchen" is offensive, that may mean we all agree that's her place. If the exchange had been "Her current age is a prime number", "*That* clarifies it. :)" we wouldn't find that offensive and don't have a word like "sexism" for the remark, we rather wouldn't understand where this is coming from. Whether it's gender or prime numbers, the two comments didn't really contribute to the discussion, and wandering into the off- topic quickly leads to communication problems (see my initial comments).
It seems obvious to me that no offense was intended here. I very much doubt that blocking a user will help him avoid communication accidents in the future. Neither would I expect an administrator leaving notes on sexist jokes on a user's pillory-esque public talk page to help much. I would be much more impressed by a brief and carefully worded private note explaining some other user's perspective on what I wrote with no expectation on me to take any action (including responding to the mail).
Next time I am about to write something similar, I would have this on my mind and would try to look at that through this other perspective I have learned about and could adapt without feeling uncomfortable with my own intuition. In contrast, if I feel like I should react to such a note, I would have to decide whether to reject the criticism, or admit to having behaved poorly, or something similar; any of that would annoy me a lot, and next time I would primarily recall being annoyed, rather than concentrate on how my communications come across. My experience is quite universally that the subtle and helpful approach works much better in cases where there is hope for a net positive change.
Hi Björn, thanks for a very thoughtful email. I just want to point out that the problematic comment the user made was not calling another user a woman. It was that, when told they WERE a woman, the user said that "THAT clarifies it" and then, when told that that was a bit snarky, clarified that what he meant was "they can't be a woman, women don't act like that." It's the "women don't act like that" part that I (and apparently I alone?) find problematic. Think about hearing that statement if you were, say, a M2F transsexual, who has been rejected by people before for not being a "real" woman. And now someone comes along and says that since you don't act in a manner they approve of, you're not a woman? That's one more rejection, one more invalidation, of you as a person.
Invalidating someone's life experiences or gender identity is offensive. I'm very sorry that so few people seem to realize the damage that words like that can do, and I'm even sorrier than so many people seem to think that I'm a terrible, offensive person for having pointed out in public that these things can be offensive to real people.
I'm greatly discouraged by the feedback I'm getting here, the loudest of which seems to be telling me that if someone makes an offensive comment, it's incredibly rude to tell them they're being offensive.
-Fluffernutter
On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 12:17 AM, Bjoern Hoehrmann derhoermi@gmx.netwrote:
- Sarah Stierch wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Inciden...
User Medeis does not identify as female in any easily recognizable way. It is difficult to avoid gender in the english language without running into other problems (repeating the name all the time is likely seen as aggressive, for instance). When a misplaced "he" slips, getting caught would be embarassing and if you feel like responding, deflecting that with an attempt at humour is quite normal, as is making reference to the issue, so the "*That* clarifies it. :)" is quite expected.
Knowing that I would either not point the gender mixup out at all, or at the least, would make it a <small>(...)</small> top-level comment rather than a response without deemphasis, so the information is there, but people would not feel particularily inclined to respond.
If I wanted to help the blocked user to avoid this kind of remark, I'd send them a private message linking a tutorial that discusses ways to write in a gender neutral manner and other gender etiquette issues that are relevant on Wikipedia, like whether it's okay to say "she" when the name sounds very female but you cannot be certain of it, or how to react when you are mistaken, as may have been the case here. I could not find one in the english Wikipedia namespace though, it may have to be written first.
The first "unblock" statement shares the link to the joke and the
reprimand
by an admin on the users page telling them they can get blocked for
ongoing
comments like that. Fluffernutter points out that there is a "boyzone" in Wikipedia and that it's not right to mock a users gender. I do appreciate Fluffernuter speaking up about this, I know it's not always something that she likes to get mixed up with (so to say - as we talked about in IRC today).
Well, "boyzone" might not be a good word to use when you want to convey that gender should not be highlighted inappropriately. It's been some time, but I've been part of online fora frequented mostly by young women and remarks like the one here directed at me were quite normal and mutually understood as good humour in almost all cases. It doesn't take all that much, in the right context, to make a similar remark that would actually hurt whoever it is directed at, though. I got that aswell.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, an educational environment. And when people have to start questioning "Is this offensive or not? Is it sexist or not?" then clearly there is a problem with something in the culture and system.
There are actually two dimensions to "sexist". If we all agree that sexist remarks are bad and wrong, then remarks you do not find bad or wrong cannot be sexist, so you have a conflict between the intuitive understanding and the textbook definition. It's normal that our intu- itions are sometimes a bit off. Centuries ago it may have been normal to say and mean certain things about women that today everybody would readily recognize as highly offensive, or hilariously ludicrous. Such changes do not occur over night and everwhere at the same pace.
If we do not have to question whether, say, "a woman's place is in the kitchen" is offensive, that may mean we all agree that's her place. If the exchange had been "Her current age is a prime number", "*That* clarifies it. :)" we wouldn't find that offensive and don't have a word like "sexism" for the remark, we rather wouldn't understand where this is coming from. Whether it's gender or prime numbers, the two comments didn't really contribute to the discussion, and wandering into the off- topic quickly leads to communication problems (see my initial comments).
It seems obvious to me that no offense was intended here. I very much doubt that blocking a user will help him avoid communication accidents in the future. Neither would I expect an administrator leaving notes on sexist jokes on a user's pillory-esque public talk page to help much. I would be much more impressed by a brief and carefully worded private note explaining some other user's perspective on what I wrote with no expectation on me to take any action (including responding to the mail).
Next time I am about to write something similar, I would have this on my mind and would try to look at that through this other perspective I have learned about and could adapt without feeling uncomfortable with my own intuition. In contrast, if I feel like I should react to such a note, I would have to decide whether to reject the criticism, or admit to having behaved poorly, or something similar; any of that would annoy me a lot, and next time I would primarily recall being annoyed, rather than concentrate on how my communications come across. My experience is quite universally that the subtle and helpful approach works much better in cases where there is hope for a net positive change. -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/
Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 8:56 AM, ChaoticFluffy chaoticfluffy@gmail.comwrote:
another user a woman. It was that, when told they WERE a woman, the user said that "THAT clarifies it" and then, when told that that was a bit snarky, clarified that what he meant was "they can't be a woman, women don't act like that." It's the "women don't act like that" part that I (and apparently I alone?) find problematic. Think about hearing that statement if you were, say, a M2F transsexual, who has been rejected by people before for not being a "real" woman. And now someone comes along and says that since you don't act in a manner they approve of, you're not a woman? That's one more rejection, one more invalidation, of you as a person.
Thank you for sharing the "other" part of the issue (what a pun!) - the "women don't act like that." It's insulting, hurtful and and is more so for people with gender dysphoria or who are going through gender "evolutions" if you will.. My entire life I've been told women don't do the things I do ("you're a DJ? and a woman?") and it makes you look at yourself and question who you are. And to know you aren't "behaving like a woman," or "acting like a woman," is just plain...bizarre. It's the 21st century. What's acting like a woman? What's acting like a man?
Invalidating someone's life experiences or gender identity is offensive. I'm very sorry that so few people seem to realize the damage that words like that can do, and I'm even sorrier than so many people seem to think that I'm a terrible, offensive person for having pointed out in public that these things can be offensive to real people.
You're *not* a terrible, offensive person - name calling is just a mechanism that people are using to deny that they could possibly be acting "terrible" or offensively. But, I'm not a psychologist - I've just been called quite a few names in my day and it seems like a pattern.
This is the hard part of what we're all examining here - we have to discuss these things, and people are going to call us names, declare us of having agendas and seek ways to "stop" us or shush us. I *really* appreciate you speaking up, sharing your thoughts and so forth, especially as an admin. To have people with power speak up, really is an impactful thing. And it's not a witch hunt - it's on the internet, it's right there, for all to read, and you as an admin participated and read it. You did what most people seem to don't - you spoke against the "Wiki-grain."
<3
I'm greatly discouraged by the feedback I'm getting here, the loudest of which seems to be telling me that if someone makes an offensive comment, it's incredibly rude to tell them they're being offensive.
+1
People often don't like being pointed out on their behavior, when it's bad. Who does? But this is grown up time, so kids, if you can dish it "like a grown up" (a rather immature one!), you should be able to take it like a grown up and listen when your colleagues say "You're out of line." What would you expect in an educational environment? I suppose people have been getting away with this stuff for so long they are used to it.
And it is a BOYZONE. Women only make up 9% of Wikipedia editors, and keep in mind that highly active and vocal Wikipedians make up a very small percentage of ALL EDITORS. So imagine, if only 9% of women "edit" Wikipedia...only about 1-2% of us are vocal and highly productive. If we're not working in a "boyzone" "manzone" "dudezone" "peniszone" "gentlemanzone" or whatever is preferred, then...?
But at least I know if I upload too many copyright violations as a n00b because I don't understand copyright law and the wiki-speak on the documentation pages doesn't help, I can get my account blocked for a while instead of getting help on how copyright works on Wikipedia. On OTRS I get a lot of inquiries from people who have their accounts blocked for a week because they have no clue that they "can't do that" and complain about how complex things are. At least we're blocking people for having good intentions.
-Sarah
On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 11:56 PM, ChaoticFluffy chaoticfluffy@gmail.comwrote:
Invalidating someone's life experiences or gender identity is offensive. I'm very sorry that so few people seem to realize the damage that words like that can do, and I'm even sorrier than so many people seem to think that I'm a terrible, offensive person for having pointed out in public that these things can be offensive to real people.
Yes, they do.
I'm greatly discouraged by the feedback I'm getting here, the loudest of which seems to be telling me that if someone makes an offensive comment, it's incredibly rude to tell them they're being offensive.
I hope you're not discouraged. I've seen similar problems when dealing with race related issues. Some one says something racist. Some one else points out the person made a racist comment. The person who gets in trouble isn't the person who made the racist comment, but the person who pointed it out. Why? Because won't you think of the poor racist, and how their feelings are hurt. Don't you realise how offensive it is to be called a racist or told that something they said was racist?
Related to that whole issue of the need to apologise for calling some one out regarding their sexist behaviour, and not in this case but in a wider context for women and what they deal with online and office, involves rape apologists. If you start looking at online news stories that talk about rape, you'll often find variations of them that include "She was asking for it."(Though that does appear to be a theme on WP when women have to deal with problematic men: "That's just WP. Deal with it. Act like a person. The rest of the people (93% male) can and you should be able to do that to.") There has been some rather interesting responses to this including a number of rallies condemning these statements when coming from authority figures. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SlutWalk , which probably has the bare bones for a Good Article if anyone is inspired to take it there.
Sincerely, Laura Hale
* ChaoticFluffy wrote:
Hi Björn, thanks for a very thoughtful email. I just want to point out that the problematic comment the user made was not calling another user a woman.
If you think we would be better off if the comment had not been made in the manner it has been made, I think we should look at what lead to it and how to avoid similar circumstances that may lead to similar comments in the future. I offered an interpretation and steps to mitigate this kind of problem in the future in line with my personal experience. I do not care about identifying the greatest offense, I care about educating people so they can understand reactions to their communications and be- havior before they communicate and do things. Consider how this incident would have unfolded if the blocked user had never called the other user a "he". It wouldn't have, there would have been no reason to point this apparent mistake out, no need to respond, no warning, no response to the warning, no block, no discussion about the block, no thread here, etc.