Checking the votes at https://vote.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?limit=1000&title=Special%3ASecurePoll%2Flist%2F392&dir=prev against the English Wikipedia database, shows an interesting statistic. Of the 590 votes cast only *one* voter has an account marked with their gender as female.
Obviously many people prefer not to use the user preferences on-wiki to mark their gender, however it still seems a remarkably low figure for a project which has a strategic objective to be welcoming to users who identify as women.
Fae
What is your proposed solution? On Dec 9, 2014 8:14 AM, "Fæ" faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Checking the votes at < https://vote.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?limit=1000&title=Special%3ASecure...
against the English Wikipedia database, shows an interesting statistic. Of the 590 votes cast only *one* voter has an account marked with their gender as female.
Obviously many people prefer not to use the user preferences on-wiki to mark their gender, however it still seems a remarkably low figure for a project which has a strategic objective to be welcoming to users who identify as women.
Fae
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On 09/12/2014 13:14, Fæ wrote:
Checking the votes at https://vote.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?limit=1000&title=Special%3ASecurePoll%2Flist%2F392&dir=prev against the English Wikipedia database, shows an interesting statistic. Of the 590 votes cast only *one* voter has an account marked with their gender as female.
I think your data here is flawed because I count at least multiple voters who have their account preferences set to be described using female pronouns. Are you actually querying English Wikipedia or Vote-Wiki?
KTC
The statistic comes from querying the English Wikipedia database. This includes a table of user preferences which itself is where the on-wiki preferences stores information like preferred gender.
Here's the SQL for anyone interested (it includes other redundant stuff, I was re-using something I already had to hand): SELECT user_name, user_editcount, LEFT(user_registration,4) AS reg, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT ug_group SEPARATOR ' ') AS grps, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT CONCAT(up_property,':',up_value)) AS prop FROM user u LEFT JOIN user_properties ON up_user=u.user_id LEFT JOIN user_groups ON u.user_id=ug_user WHERE user_name="''' +u +'''" AND up_property="gender" GROUP BY user_name ORDER BY user_editcount DESC;
(Where "u" is a variable iterating over the listed voters.)
As others are pointing out, the statistic of 1/590 is a fact, but it does not have a context of the sample space. I.e. we know that using user-preferences is not the way that most people declare stuff about their identity. If userboxes are more popular that might be an indicator, however it is difficult to draw any conclusions based on any retrospective metrics like these, which has been the norm for discussions on whether there is systemic bias on Wikipedia for many years, invariably resulting in few solid actions being taken.
Perhaps one meaningful conclusion is that the fact that in this vote there was a lack of process to ensure that systemic bias was avoided or measured. It would be better if votes such as Arbcom's or trustee elections took active steps to ensure diversity in the voting community, and the candidates standing (I believe this is already an active process for inviting WMF trustee candidates or appointed posts). Having the measurements of diversity would then be a good test as to whether the communications plan was effective and the strategic targets for improvement were being met.
Fae
On 9 December 2014 at 13:25, Katie Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
On 09/12/2014 13:14, Fæ wrote:
Checking the votes at
https://vote.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?limit=1000&title=Special%3ASecurePoll%2Flist%2F392&dir=prev against the English Wikipedia database, shows an interesting statistic. Of the 590 votes cast only *one* voter has an account marked with their gender as female.
I think your data here is flawed because I count at least multiple voters who have their account preferences set to be described using female pronouns. Are you actually querying English Wikipedia or Vote-Wiki?
KTC
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On 09/12/2014 13:45, Fæ wrote:
The statistic comes from querying the English Wikipedia database. This includes a table of user preferences which itself is where the on-wiki preferences stores information like preferred gender.
Here's the SQL for anyone interested (it includes other redundant stuff, I was re-using something I already had to hand): SELECT user_name, user_editcount, LEFT(user_registration,4) AS reg, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT ug_group SEPARATOR ' ') AS grps, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT CONCAT(up_property,':',up_value)) AS prop FROM user u LEFT JOIN user_properties ON up_user=u.user_id LEFT JOIN user_groups ON u.user_id=ug_user WHERE user_name="''' +u +'''" AND up_property="gender" GROUP BY user_name ORDER BY user_editcount DESC;
(Where "u" is a variable iterating over the listed voters.)
As others are pointing out, the statistic of 1/590 is a fact
Err....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action=query&list=use... https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action=query&list=use...
and others.
KTC
Going to be honest here, I think the more interesting statistic is that there are only 590 voters in an active user base of about 30,000. I think this may reflect a change in the degree of importance the community places on the Arbitration Committee.
On the "female editors participating" front, I'm fairly certain just from looking at the names and picking out ones I recognize as being women editors, that at least 10% of the participating electorate was female. I never bothered to set my gender preference (indeed, I know that preference was added to accommodate languages for which the word "user" is gender-specific, such as German, Spanish, etc), even though I've been openly female for most of my wiki-career. (I realise that it sounds like I "came out" as being a woman...when I look back on the earliest years of enwiki, there was a far less significant gender imbalance.)
Risker/Anne
On 9 December 2014 at 08:55, Katie Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
On 09/12/2014 13:45, Fæ wrote:
The statistic comes from querying the English Wikipedia database. This includes a table of user preferences which itself is where the on-wiki preferences stores information like preferred gender.
Here's the SQL for anyone interested (it includes other redundant stuff, I was re-using something I already had to hand): SELECT user_name, user_editcount, LEFT(user_registration,4) AS reg, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT ug_group SEPARATOR ' ') AS grps, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT CONCAT(up_property,':',up_value)) AS prop FROM user u LEFT JOIN user_properties ON up_user=u.user_id LEFT JOIN user_groups ON u.user_id=ug_user WHERE user_name="''' +u +'''" AND up_property="gender" GROUP BY user_name ORDER BY user_editcount DESC;
(Where "u" is a variable iterating over the listed voters.)
As others are pointing out, the statistic of 1/590 is a fact
Err....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action= query&list=users&ususers=KTC&usprop=gender https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action= query&list=users&ususers=Fluffernutter&usprop=gender
and others.
KTC
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On 12/9/2014 9:08 AM, Risker wrote:
Going to be honest here, I think the more interesting statistic is that there are only 590 voters in an active user base of about 30,000. I think this may reflect a change in the degree of importance the community places on the Arbitration Committee.
They should say the election isn't valid unless, say, 2000 vote, and keep advertising that fact til 2000 vote. Far too easily manipulated this way.
We'll see if the two most problematic candidates because of support for anti-GGTF people are elected.
There have never been anywhere near that many people voting for Arbcom elections; in fact, that's more people than voted in the last Board of Trustees elections for the elected seats, and hugely more than get a "vote" for the chapter/affiliate-selected Board seats.
The fact of the matter is that not that many people actually care about Arbcom, and never really cared. The people who care are usually those who have interacted with the dispute resolution system on multiple occasions. The majority of active administrators participate, for example; but the number of active admins has also nosedived, so we may be seeing the effects of that reflected in the interest in voting, and even in the number and quality of candidates. Back in the earlier days, there were often 30-40 candidates.
Risker/Anne
On 9 December 2014 at 11:08, Carol Moore dc carolmooredc@verizon.net wrote:
On 12/9/2014 9:08 AM, Risker wrote:
Going to be honest here, I think the more interesting statistic is that there are only 590 voters in an active user base of about 30,000. I think this may reflect a change in the degree of importance the community places on the Arbitration Committee.
They should say the election isn't valid unless, say, 2000 vote, and
keep advertising that fact til 2000 vote. Far too easily manipulated this way.
We'll see if the two most problematic candidates because of support for anti-GGTF people are elected.
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There have never been anywhere near that many people voting for Arbcom elections; in fact, that's more people than >voted in the last Board of Trustees elections for the elected seats, and hugely more than get a "vote" for the >chapter/affiliate-selected Board seats.
I wonder if the apparent decline in votes also has to do with the move to making the ballots secret—there are more than a few entries on the various [[WP:100]] multiples that came from the old way of open ballots, which was often an invitation for those unsatisfied with drama to provoke even more of it in the ensuing discussion threads, or by the very act of running.
The fact of the matter is that not that many people actually care about Arbcom, and never really cared.
+1 (and I would use a higher number, but there’s only one me). Thank you for stating one of the biggest unstated truths of Wikipedia in just so many words.
The people who care are usually those who have interacted with the dispute resolution system on multiple occasions.
And then stating the reason for that truth. I have always believed that the amount of drama on-wiki is overstated; most of the people who complain about it are the sort of people Risker describes above—people who have been party to ArbCom cases, have provided evidence, have supported either those bringing the cases or having cases brought against them, have been or are in some way formally involved in the dispute resolution process. Some people never go back there, or find the experience so dispiriting, even in the case of a favorable outcome, that they take a long break or leave the project altogether afterwards, because of the way being involved in an ArbCom case or some other long-running dispute just takes over your wikilife for the duration. But it seems more of those people stay and continue to focus most of their energies on the various formal and informal dispute resolution procedures, regardless of their involvement.
Now, of course, having a core of otherwise disinterested “watchers” on the dispute resolution processes is not a bad thing by itself. The question might be whether we have too many, or whether some of those people should remember what they came to Wikipedia to do and go back to editing and creating article content for a while.
I have also noticed it’s these people, primarily, who seem most pessimistic about the state of the project either in person, or on-wiki. Well of course they would feel that way if they have changes to ArbCom cases on their RSS feeds. One is reminded of the joke about the drunk looking for his lost keys under the streetlight.
Your comment suggests an inquiry which might make an interesting paper or presentation for someone at some conference or event: See how many of the people listed (like myself) on Highly Active Users make how many edits to dispute-resolution sections of the site in project namespace like AN/I, Arbcom or (prior to its recent deprecation) RFC/U. And how much the heaviest contributors to those pages (other than active or former Arbs or clerks, who have a reason to do so) make to article namespace. I bet there’s not going to be much overlap, that the Venn diagram will be kissing socially at best.
In fact, it would be interesting to see pages like HAU or whatever broken down by edits to namespace. Or have a page that recognizes the heaviest/most active contributors to article namespace.
The majority of active administrators participate, for example; but the number of active admins has also nosedived, so >we may be seeing the effects of that reflected in the interest in voting, and even in the number and quality of >candidates. Back in the earlier days, there were often 30-40 candidates.
I participate in ArbCom elections primarily because I am not just an active admin, but a functionary as well, and feel a sense of duty and community responsibility (Plus there is a higher chance, when one has one of the more advanced tools, that decisions on how to use or not use them may possibly involve ArbCom cases past, present or future, so it’s a good idea to at least keep an eye on things and say your say about who has that job). But it’s not something I’ve ever been passionate enough about to the equivalent of, say, putting a bumper sticker on my car.
Daniel Case
OOPS,
Absolutely correct, I had a programme error. Re-running this gives a more credible set of numbers: Total voted: 590 Total identified with gender: 255 Male 224 Female 31
So open males = 38%, open females = 5%. Which indicates that a good *guesstimate* of the number of women voting was 11%.
I might also have skipped a voter, I think there should be 591, but I have given up on debugging that one.
Fae
On 9 December 2014 at 13:55, Katie Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
On 09/12/2014 13:45, Fæ wrote:
The statistic comes from querying the English Wikipedia database. This includes a table of user preferences which itself is where the on-wiki preferences stores information like preferred gender.
Here's the SQL for anyone interested (it includes other redundant stuff, I was re-using something I already had to hand): SELECT user_name, user_editcount, LEFT(user_registration,4) AS reg, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT ug_group SEPARATOR ' ') AS grps, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT CONCAT(up_property,':',up_value)) AS prop FROM user u LEFT JOIN user_properties ON up_user=u.user_id LEFT JOIN user_groups ON u.user_id=ug_user WHERE user_name="''' +u +'''" AND up_property="gender" GROUP BY user_name ORDER BY user_editcount DESC;
(Where "u" is a variable iterating over the listed voters.)
As others are pointing out, the statistic of 1/590 is a fact
Err....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action=query&list=use... https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action=query&list=use...
and others.
KTC
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one take away is how few voters there are.
we have a lot of feminist editathons coming up should we consider recruiting at events to get new editors over 150 edits, with a view of block voting in next year's election?
if we organize now, we could run a civility slate of candidates.
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 9:08 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
OOPS,
Absolutely correct, I had a programme error. Re-running this gives a more credible set of numbers: Total voted: 590 Total identified with gender: 255 Male 224 Female 31
So open males = 38%, open females = 5%. Which indicates that a good *guesstimate* of the number of women voting was 11%.
I might also have skipped a voter, I think there should be 591, but I have given up on debugging that one.
Fae
On 9 December 2014 at 13:55, Katie Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
On 09/12/2014 13:45, Fæ wrote:
The statistic comes from querying the English Wikipedia database. This includes a table of user preferences which itself is where the on-wiki preferences stores information like preferred gender.
Here's the SQL for anyone interested (it includes other redundant stuff, I was re-using something I already had to hand): SELECT user_name, user_editcount, LEFT(user_registration,4) AS reg, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT ug_group SEPARATOR ' ') AS grps, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT CONCAT(up_property,':',up_value)) AS prop FROM user u LEFT JOIN user_properties ON up_user=u.user_id LEFT JOIN user_groups ON u.user_id=ug_user WHERE user_name="''' +u +'''" AND up_property="gender" GROUP BY user_name ORDER BY user_editcount DESC;
(Where "u" is a variable iterating over the listed voters.)
As others are pointing out, the statistic of 1/590 is a fact
Err....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action=query&list=use...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action=query&list=use...
and others.
KTC
-- Katie Chan Any views or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the view of any organisation the author is associated with or employed by.
Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine
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On 9 December 2014 at 09:37, Jim Hayes slowking4@gmail.com wrote:
one take away is how few voters there are.
we have a lot of feminist editathons coming up should we consider recruiting at events to get new editors over 150 edits, with a view of block voting in next year's election?
if we organize now, we could run a civility slate of candidates.
Slates are specifically banned from arbcom elections. The majority of candidates who are running this year (and the past several years, for that matter) have stated they were very pro-civility. However, I'm not sure that it makes a difference, since Arbcom decisions and actions have so little impact on the project as a whole. Aside from actions against individual editors (i.e., banning or otherwise sanctioning individuals), pretty much everything else they "decide" has to be implemented by the broader community, and the committee has no way to leverage these things. Better than half the time when Arbcom asks the community to review certain things, it's ignored; discretionary sanctions are entirely based on who is willing to risk the boomerang effect of reporting someone at the DS noticeboard; and there is no apparent willingness of the community to proactively address these issues. Again, I think you're caught in the trap of believing Arbcom has more power and authority than it really has.
Risker/Anne
I bet the majority of people 1) have no clue what arbcom is 2) probably don't care much if they do because most people won't end up there
So someone will surely have to invest a lot of time and money in educating a lot of people who only edit occasionally about Arbcom.
I have been editing Wikipedia for 8 years and I don't even think I have voted in those elections.
Sarah On Dec 10, 2014 6:10 AM, "Jim Hayes" slowking4@gmail.com wrote:
one take away is how few voters there are.
we have a lot of feminist editathons coming up should we consider recruiting at events to get new editors over 150 edits, with a view of block voting in next year's election?
if we organize now, we could run a civility slate of candidates.
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 9:08 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
OOPS,
Absolutely correct, I had a programme error. Re-running this gives a more credible set of numbers: Total voted: 590 Total identified with gender: 255 Male 224 Female 31
So open males = 38%, open females = 5%. Which indicates that a good *guesstimate* of the number of women voting was 11%.
I might also have skipped a voter, I think there should be 591, but I have given up on debugging that one.
Fae
On 9 December 2014 at 13:55, Katie Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
On 09/12/2014 13:45, Fæ wrote:
The statistic comes from querying the English Wikipedia database. This includes a table of user preferences which itself is where the on-wiki preferences stores information like preferred gender.
Here's the SQL for anyone interested (it includes other redundant stuff, I was re-using something I already had to hand): SELECT user_name, user_editcount, LEFT(user_registration,4) AS reg, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT ug_group SEPARATOR ' ') AS grps, GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT CONCAT(up_property,':',up_value)) AS prop FROM user u LEFT JOIN user_properties ON up_user=u.user_id LEFT JOIN user_groups ON u.user_id=ug_user WHERE user_name="''' +u +'''" AND up_property="gender" GROUP BY user_name ORDER BY user_editcount DESC;
(Where "u" is a variable iterating over the listed voters.)
As others are pointing out, the statistic of 1/590 is a fact
Err....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action=query&list=use...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=json&action=query&list=use...
and others.
KTC
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Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine
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I bet the majority of people 1) have no clue what arbcom is 2) probably don't care much if they do because most people won't end up there
Exactly. I suspect the irrelevance of ArbCom to so many editors is perhaps a good thing ... perhaps more disputes than we are ever aware of get resolved at the lowest levels, the way they’re supposed to be, with no long-term effect on the participants’ enthusiasm for contributing further. Daniel Case
I don't think most disputes get "resolved". I think one person simply gives up. Maybe they don't think the issue is that important, maybe they feel that they don't have the time to argue it, maybe they feel that the other person involved is too unpleasant to want to try to engage with, maybe they've found that no matter what they do, they never make a difference. (I've walked away for all of those. But it doesn't mean the person involved is happy with the outcome, it's probably just another of those "straws" that eventually break the camel's back and one day the person walks away forever from contributing.
Kerry
_____
From: gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:gendergap-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Daniel and Elizabeth Case Sent: Thursday, 11 December 2014 6:27 AM To: Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase theparticipationof women within Wikimedia projects. Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Arbcom election
I bet the majority of people 1) have no clue what arbcom is 2) probably
don't care much if they do because most people won't end up there
Exactly. I suspect the irrelevance of ArbCom to so many editors is perhaps a good thing ... perhaps more disputes than we are ever aware of get resolved at the lowest levels, the way they're supposed to be, with no long-term effect on the participants' enthusiasm for contributing further.
Daniel Case
What’s missing from this?:
I don’t think most disputes get “resolved”. I think one person simply gives up. Maybe they don’t think the issue is that important, >maybe they feel that they don’t have the time to argue it, maybe they feel that the other person involved is too unpleasant to want to try to engage with, maybe they’ve found that no matter what they do, they never make a difference.
Give up? It’s “maybe one person realizes the other person was right, and does it their way from then on, without any hard feelings.” It has happened to me quite a few times. That’s the sort of outcome I was talking about. Of course, I think of these in terms of pure content disputes (should we or should we not mention something? how should we format this table? and so forth ...) because that’s what most of those I’ve been involved in have been. Disputes over someone’s conduct are something else entirely, because it’s harder for people to admit they were wrong in that department. And why I always say it cannot be repeated enough that, when you realize the argument is no longer about what you were originally arguing about but has instead become a meta-argument about the argument itself, you should stop immediately as it will no longer accomplish anything constructive to continue. Daniel Case
Well, I would call the case where "one person realizes the other person was right" an agreement not a dispute :-) but I agree with the thrust of what you are saying. Certainly there are interactions among editors that are helpful, productive and friendly. The question is whether we get enough good experiences that the occasional bad experience doesn't dint our enthusiasm. The Clubhouse paper
http://files.grouplens.org/papers/wp-gender-wikisym2011.pdf
suggests that new editors will have bad experiences in their first eits, and that bad experiences are positively correlated with attrition.
Kerry
_____
From: Daniel and Elizabeth Case [mailto:dancase@frontiernet.net] Sent: Thursday, 11 December 2014 2:16 PM To: kerry.raymond@gmail.com; Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase theparticipation of women within Wikimedia projects. Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Arbcom election
What's missing from this?:
I don't think most disputes get "resolved". I think one person simply gives
up. Maybe they don't think the issue is that important, >maybe they feel that they don't have the time to argue it, maybe they feel that the other person involved is too unpleasant to want to try to engage with, maybe they've found that no matter what they do, they never make a difference.
Give up? It's "maybe one person realizes the other person was right, and does it their way from then on, without any hard feelings." It has happened to me quite a few times. That's the sort of outcome I was talking about.
Of course, I think of these in terms of pure content disputes (should we or should we not mention something? how should we format this table? and so forth ...) because that's what most of those I've been involved in have been. Disputes over someone's conduct are something else entirely, because it's harder for people to admit they were wrong in that department. And why I always say it cannot be repeated enough that, when you realize the argument is no longer about what you were originally arguing about but has instead become a meta-argument about the argument itself, you should stop immediately as it will no longer accomplish anything constructive to continue.
Daniel Case
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 8:45 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps one meaningful conclusion is that the fact that in this vote there was a lack of process to ensure that systemic bias was avoided or measured. It would be better if votes such as Arbcom's or trustee elections took active steps to ensure diversity in the voting community, and the candidates standing (I believe this is already an active process for inviting WMF trustee candidates or appointed posts).
How would you suggest we ensure diversity in the Arbitration Committee candidates and voting community? It's one thing to *encourage* diversity among the Committee and voters, and another to *ensure* it. For one it would require women (and members of other groups that are in the minority on the Committee and on Wikipedia more widely) to be willing to run, which I think is asking a lot with the current state of affairs with respect to the Committee.
– Molly (GorillaWarfare)
Here's a thing re the voting.
*I wanted to vote*, but couldn't because my original, 1-week "sock" block was extended by a week, for "evading" my block. Setting aside whether the original block was fair - my reason for editing anonymously was for privacy, but others called it avoiding scrutiny - the extension of my block was not fair because the IP that caused it was not me, which I think I argued well.
My last effort, on the last day of voting, to get the "evasion" block lifted was going to the unblock IRC (that was quite an experience) and proposing that I only vote and not do anything else until the block extension expired. Admins there would not agree to that proposal, plus they gave me some snark because of my ignorance of how the unblock process works.
In fact, added to my list now of not-content issues (and I really would prefer to work on content) to address is the SPI/block process. It was aggravating as hell to want to discuss my situation privately, but be ignored, thereby not being able to defend myself without outing/confirming personal information. My choices were 1. Argue my position publicly and confirm outed, personal information (my IP address), or 2. Stay quiet and look guilty by not denying the charge. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it.
Lightbreather
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 11:33 AM, GorillaWarfare < gorillawarfarewikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 8:45 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps one meaningful conclusion is that the fact that in this vote there was a lack of process to ensure that systemic bias was avoided or measured. It would be better if votes such as Arbcom's or trustee elections took active steps to ensure diversity in the voting community, and the candidates standing (I believe this is already an active process for inviting WMF trustee candidates or appointed posts).
How would you suggest we ensure diversity in the Arbitration Committee candidates and voting community? It's one thing to *encourage* diversity among the Committee and voters, and another to *ensure* it. For one it would require women (and members of other groups that are in the minority on the Committee and on Wikipedia more widely) to be willing to run, which I think is asking a lot with the current state of affairs with respect to the Committee.
– Molly (GorillaWarfare)
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Wearing my community member hat, I'm going to put my hand up and say I'd really hate to see *any* blocked user unblocked specifically so they could vote in *any* process, whether RFA, AFD, Arbcom or Board of Trustees.
Risker/Anne
On 9 December 2014 at 14:33, LB lightbreather2@gmail.com wrote:
Here's a thing re the voting.
*I wanted to vote*, but couldn't because my original, 1-week "sock" block was extended by a week, for "evading" my block. Setting aside whether the original block was fair - my reason for editing anonymously was for privacy, but others called it avoiding scrutiny - the extension of my block was not fair because the IP that caused it was not me, which I think I argued well.
My last effort, on the last day of voting, to get the "evasion" block lifted was going to the unblock IRC (that was quite an experience) and proposing that I only vote and not do anything else until the block extension expired. Admins there would not agree to that proposal, plus they gave me some snark because of my ignorance of how the unblock process works.
In fact, added to my list now of not-content issues (and I really would prefer to work on content) to address is the SPI/block process. It was aggravating as hell to want to discuss my situation privately, but be ignored, thereby not being able to defend myself without outing/confirming personal information. My choices were 1. Argue my position publicly and confirm outed, personal information (my IP address), or 2. Stay quiet and look guilty by not denying the charge. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it.
Lightbreather
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 11:33 AM, GorillaWarfare < gorillawarfarewikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 8:45 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps one meaningful conclusion is that the fact that in this vote there was a lack of process to ensure that systemic bias was avoided or measured. It would be better if votes such as Arbcom's or trustee elections took active steps to ensure diversity in the voting community, and the candidates standing (I believe this is already an active process for inviting WMF trustee candidates or appointed posts).
How would you suggest we ensure diversity in the Arbitration Committee candidates and voting community? It's one thing to *encourage* diversity among the Committee and voters, and another to *ensure* it. For one it would require women (and members of other groups that are in the minority on the Committee and on Wikipedia more widely) to be willing to run, which I think is asking a lot with the current state of affairs with respect to the Committee.
– Molly (GorillaWarfare)
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Well, I believe I have on a community member hat, too, although I may be sitting in a corner with it right now. Are you familiar with the details of my block extension for "evasion"? First, it was made by an admin who possibly should *not* have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#When_blocking_may_not_be_used because of his involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators#Involved_admins. Second, I explained that it was not me (the last/best yesterday https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Lightbreather&diff=637210976&oldid=637195908.) And third, and most convincingly, an (often) opponent of mine explained that he didn't believe it was me. Still, the involved, blocking admin decided to apply Occam's razor over the benefit of the doubt - or good faith, in WP terms.
On a separate note, this makes me wonder about something: Is an editor allowed to request an RFC/U on themselves?
Lightbreather
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 12:36 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Wearing my community member hat, I'm going to put my hand up and say I'd really hate to see *any* blocked user unblocked specifically so they could vote in *any* process, whether RFA, AFD, Arbcom or Board of Trustees.
Risker/Anne
On 9 December 2014 at 14:33, LB lightbreather2@gmail.com wrote:
Here's a thing re the voting.
*I wanted to vote*, but couldn't because my original, 1-week "sock" block was extended by a week, for "evading" my block. Setting aside whether the original block was fair - my reason for editing anonymously was for privacy, but others called it avoiding scrutiny - the extension of my block was not fair because the IP that caused it was not me, which I think I argued well.
My last effort, on the last day of voting, to get the "evasion" block lifted was going to the unblock IRC (that was quite an experience) and proposing that I only vote and not do anything else until the block extension expired. Admins there would not agree to that proposal, plus they gave me some snark because of my ignorance of how the unblock process works.
In fact, added to my list now of not-content issues (and I really would prefer to work on content) to address is the SPI/block process. It was aggravating as hell to want to discuss my situation privately, but be ignored, thereby not being able to defend myself without outing/confirming personal information. My choices were 1. Argue my position publicly and confirm outed, personal information (my IP address), or 2. Stay quiet and look guilty by not denying the charge. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it.
Lightbreather
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 11:33 AM, GorillaWarfare < gorillawarfarewikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 8:45 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps one meaningful conclusion is that the fact that in this vote there was a lack of process to ensure that systemic bias was avoided or measured. It would be better if votes such as Arbcom's or trustee elections took active steps to ensure diversity in the voting community, and the candidates standing (I believe this is already an active process for inviting WMF trustee candidates or appointed posts).
How would you suggest we ensure diversity in the Arbitration Committee candidates and voting community? It's one thing to *encourage* diversity among the Committee and voters, and another to *ensure* it. For one it would require women (and members of other groups that are in the minority on the Committee and on Wikipedia more widely) to be willing to run, which I think is asking a lot with the current state of affairs with respect to the Committee.
– Molly (GorillaWarfare)
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On 9 December 2014 at 15:14, LB lightbreather2@gmail.com wrote:
Well, I believe I have on a community member hat, too, although I may be sitting in a corner with it right now. Are you familiar with the details of my block extension for "evasion"? First, it was made by an admin who possibly should *not* have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#When_blocking_may_not_be_used because of his involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators#Involved_admins. Second, I explained that it was not me (the last/best yesterday https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Lightbreather&diff=637210976&oldid=637195908.) And third, and most convincingly, an (often) opponent of mine explained that he didn't believe it was me. Still, the involved, blocking admin decided to apply Occam's razor over the benefit of the doubt - or good faith, in WP terms.
On a separate note, this makes me wonder about something: Is an editor allowed to request an RFC/U on themselves?
I do know why you were blocked, and I think it was appropriate, and I'll leave it at that except to point out that the rule was instated in 2007 or 2008 because editors were making a mockery of arbcom cases and other key discussion spaces by using multiple accounts/editing logged out/pretending to be someone else/etc.
And no, there's no point in asking for an RFC/U because RFC/U has now been deprecated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_% 28proposals%29#Do_Away_with_RFC.2FU
You could try an editor review, although that will focus primarily on editing rather than other issues.
Risker/Anne
What proportion of the rest had accounts explicitly marked as male? My first thought is that most people of all genders probably get to that section of Preferences, go "Why would mediawiki want to know my gender in the first place? This is dumb" and skip it. Or they never fiddle with their preferences to that extent in the first place.
Keep in mind also that "identifies in preferences as female" is not a unified set with "is female", as you noted. Just glancing at a couple screens' worth of the log I see a handful of users who I know to be, or know probably are, female. So I'm hesitant to draw any gender-proportion conclusions from whether or not people ticked a somewhat obscure box.
This doesn't mean that female voters probably aren't very much in the minority in the election, but given what we already know about proportion of females on Wikipedia as a whole, that's entirely consistent with what expectations would be.
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 8:14 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Checking the votes at < https://vote.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?limit=1000&title=Special%3ASecure...
against the English Wikipedia database, shows an interesting statistic. Of the 590 votes cast only *one* voter has an account marked with their gender as female.
Obviously many people prefer not to use the user preferences on-wiki to mark their gender, however it still seems a remarkably low figure for a project which has a strategic objective to be welcoming to users who identify as women.
Fae
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