Hi there,

I'm Kizu Naoko (tip: Naoko is my given name; in East-Asian tradition surname precedes given name), joined the project in 2004. I've been long active in so-called Meta issues, specially coordinating translations related to the Foundation. I'm also interested in outreach, specially collaboration with academia. Last year I launched a group dedicated to Wikimedia outreach, "Wikimedians in Kansai" with some fellow Wikimedians, and hope it help out for collaborations between Wikimedia movement and other Japanese people.

I don't say I haven't been harassed on Wikimedia project, but it was very rare my gender was a factor. Unfortunately the worst harassment / stalking both cyber and in real life / seem to be such a rare case, but it's quite complicated and for me too unpleasant to give details right now, I'd just comment that it is sometimes a risk for females to expose their gender.

While I welcome creation of this list and agree it'll be a center place to discuss, I'd like point out its efficiency and influence will be limited and we need to cope with some other means if we'd really like to solve this issue in project wide, not in English projects only (btw I as Wikiquote admin believe English Wikiquote is no female-hostile environment at least until now). Although English is the lingua franca of Wikimedia project, English discussion can only effect those who can understand English, specially in this type of complicated issues which requires a deep comprehensive thinking and discussions. I know multiple editors who declined to participate strategic planning or outreach wiki just because they were or felt not good at English. Discussions in English are good per se, but if we'd like to tackle this issue in Wikimedia project as whole, we should deal with language barriers at the same time, in regard of the possibilities certain regional cultures may be more hostile toward intellectual activities of female than in the average English-speaking community.

Cheers,

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Philippe Beaudette pbeaudette@wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi everyone, I'm Philippe Beaudette, and I'm a community staff member at the WMF. I'm also (putatively) on vacation, so nobody tell my boss I'm here, okay? Oh.... uhm... hi, there, Sue! But seriously, this is one of the most exciting topics I've seen in a long time. Like much of the community, I'm passionate about outreach and finding new ways to engage people, and i'm horrified by the numbers (both from the UNU-Merit survey and anecdotal) that show such a gender gap. I'm thrilled to see this mailing list exist. I will likely be a lurker on this list, but my commitment to the list is to read it carefully and fully, though I don't think I'll engage much. I'm mostly here because i know there are smart, passionate people here thinking through these issues, and I'd like to learn from them. Best wishes, pb

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Philippe Beaudette Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

pbeaudette@wikimedia.org

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