does a wiki have single authorship (like the original britannica) or multiple authorship? does it value anonymity? is gender discrimination more likely when it is known?
On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 1:32 AM, koltzenburg@w4w.net wrote:
I would prefer we not track gender at all.
why not for a wiki like Wikipedia?
and, in your opinion, what exactly makes this wiki "a ton harder" to deal with?
thanks, Claudia
---------- Original Message ----------- From:Sam Katz smkatz@gmail.com To:Research into Wikimedia content and communities <wiki-research- l@lists.wikimedia.org> Sent:Fri, 6 Mar 2015 17:29:22 -0600 Subject:Re: [Wiki-research-l] a cautious note on gender stats Re: Fwd: [Gendergap] Wikipedia readers
It seems to me you are extrapolating from insufficient data. identity and presentation are not the same thing, but I guess the question in this context is "what is presentation in an online setting?" "how is gender shown in an online setting?"
That's pretty easy in one sense, but then you have "in a wiki like wikipedia" and it's a ton harder.
I would prefer we not track gender at all.
--Sam
On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 5:16 PM, koltzenburg@w4w.net wrote:
yes, I agree the point you raise is interesting
in attacks, however, the perceived gender is probably more important than how the attacked user might identify (or not)
and again, this might be one of the reasons why people identifying as female* tend to refrain from joining surveys and simply prefer not to be forced to say "who" they "are" - just like many others who do not identify as (e.g., heterosexual) males feel that online spaces get less safe if they say anything about their gender/s or sexual identity/identities... how come?
sometimes I think: if only more contemporaries in hegemonic positions would be willing to switch perspectives for a minute or two, nonsensical statements like "less than 20%" - posited as outcomes of "research" - could be done away with, I guess
as for another attempt at switching one's perspective, who are those 80%? trans*, inter*, and male people? or fluid identities, maybe?
best, Claudia
---------- Original Message ----------- From:Sam Katz smkatz@gmail.com To:kerry.raymond@gmail.com, Research into Wikimedia content and communities wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent:Fri, 6 Mar 2015 16:57:58 -0600 Subject:Re: [Wiki-research-l] a cautious note on gender stats Re: Fwd: [Gendergap] Wikipedia readers
To those following: I think this is a valid question I am raising. The question of whether written communication has a different way of relating than oral, in the context of a wiki, which by definition is collaborative, tracks users but allows anonymous editing, is a valid question.
Anonymity and pen names were first used often times by women.
I will also note that in terms of interface biases, Facebook and other platforms (Acquia Commons) that use photos of their users as adornments, to show what users have posted do worse than wikipedia in terms of encouraging safety and courage ("be bold in editing") among their users.
Clarifying what the question is in this thread is a good first step towards answering it. If I was confused, I stand corrected, but I believe this is an important discussion to have.
On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 4:18 PM, Kerry Raymond kerry.raymond@gmail.com wrote:
Do you say that as a man or as a woman?
As a woman, you are assumed to be male routinely in real
life and online.
Many people make no effort whatsoever, letters addressed
to "Dr Sir" etc.
Has it got better over the years? Yes, in my real life,
it has got somewhat
better over the years. But getting involved in Wikipedia
and its discussions
about gender is like being back in 1970s. "Do we really
have a gender gap?"
"Does it matter if we have a gender gap?"
Kerry
-----Original Message----- From: wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On
Behalf Of Sam Katz
Sent: Saturday, 7 March 2015 2:54 AM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] a cautious note on gender
stats Re: Fwd:
[Gendergap] Wikipedia readers
hey,
I just want to note that I am not convinced that gender
expression
online or indeed expression in general is the same as it
is in real
space. Granted, this may be stylistically what you are
trying to
prove. But I just wanted to add my two cents, that
indeed it may not
have a gender bias directly if the structure does not
impose it.
On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 9:08 AM, koltzenburg@w4w.net
wrote:
Hi Frances,
your assumption (an "unknown" user in a language where personal nouns are gendered will always display the masculine form) is correct for deWP, I just tested it
from a
new dummy account.
you might call it a truly sytemic bias, and especially so because community majority has not seen to changing that space into gender friendly space for all, it seems.
so this adds another item of disharmony to my cautious note on gender stats
best, Claudia ---------- Original Message ----------- From:Frances Hocutt fhocutt@wikimedia.org To:Research into Wikimedia content and communities wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent:Thu, 5 Mar 2015 16:43:04 -0800 Subject:Re: [Wiki-research-l] a cautious note on gender stats Re: Fwd: [Gendergap] Wikipedia readers
> On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 4:30 PM, Mark J. Nelson > mjn@anadrome.org wrote: > > > > > Frances Hocutt fhocutt@wikimedia.org writes: > > > > > One change that could address the latter incentive is to change the > > > defaults on MediaWiki so that masculine grammatical gender is not the > > > default for new users. It could be randomly assigned, and then some men > > as > > > well as some women would have the incentive to set their gender > > preferences. > > > > That's how it currently works, according to the manual, with the default > > gender set to 'unknown': > >
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgDefaultUserOptions
> > > > I'm not sure if that's a recent change, or what's in effect on > > Wikimedia's own wikis, though. > > > > I'm aware that it defaults to "unknown". My > understanding--and please correct me if I'm wrong-- > is that an "unknown" user in a language where > personal nouns are gendered will always display > the masculine form (i.e. Usuario for a user of > unknown gender on es.wp). So, a male user doesn't > need to change his gender in preferences in order > to be described accurately where a female user > would need to set her gender in order to be > described as "Usuaria". Hence, different > incentives, and ones that could be addressed with > different default behavior for an "unknown" user. > > -Frances ------- End of Original Message -------
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