Pine, I would absolutely disagree with you about off-wiki transparency. Why should a woman
have to publicly disclose the contents of a thoroughly disgusting sexual email for public
entertainment because they reverted some guy's edit. Why should a women be expected to
provide details of an physical unwanted contact at an event for other men to pontificate
about? That's what transparency would mean. The right of the 90% of Wikipedia
contributors who are men to get to decide if a woman has the right to be offended by these
things. Let's put it all out there in the open so everyone can get involved.
"Couldn't it just have been a friendly hug?". "So did his hand actually
tweak your nipple or just brush part of your breast?" And so on.
And of course anyone in the world with a web browser could watch on too, such as the
women's partner, her parents, her children, her colleagues. And of course IPs and new
accounts could come along and join in the conversation and get involved too in the
interrogation. "How lowcut was your dress? Did you have a bra on?"
Transparency would not work off-wiki and I don't think it works on-wiki for harassment
issues. You might think it does because I suspect a lot of stuff doesn't get reported
on the public forums. The folks in private process (such as oversight) probably see a lot
of ugly stuff that the rest of us don't, or the woman just walks away from Wikipedia
because they don't know there are private ways to report problems or they think
it's easier just to walk away.
If you want to address diversity, I think you have to address the need for privacy in
complaints processes. Although I have only outlined issues relating to women here, I am
sure there are similar issues for people of other races, other religions, other cultures
and so on.
Kerry