Matt R wrote:
>--- Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>>geni wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Since when did we care about gender on wikipedia?
>>>
>>>
>>Since we started using personal pronouns, whenever that was. I wasn't
>>around then, but I suspect it was fairly early on.
>>
>>
>Granted, we are sometimes -- but only sometimes -- aware of another editor's
>gender on Wikipedia, but does it make a big difference? Do I know (say)
>[[User:SpLoT]]'s gender? Should I care? If I did, would it make much difference
>to how I would interact with that person? For me, the answer is "no".
>Admittedly I don't edit articles like [[feminism]], but my experience is that
>Wikipedia is a place where gender is relatively unimportant. Maybe your
>experience is different.
>
>But to respond to your original point, I just can't see that there exists
>special and distinct male and female perspectives that would make much
>difference in ArbComm matters. Surely we just want sensible, wiki-savvy,
>plain-old *people*? I'm open to persuasion otherwise.
>
>
In terms of their individual qualifications, I agree that we mostly just
want sensible people regardless of gender. My concern is for the
composition of the overall pool, and getting a broad selection of
well-qualified candidates. There are many different perspectives that
would be valuable, but with respect to gender, a very easy one comes to
mind. The Arbitration Committee has periodically dealt with cases of
harassment, and doubtless such cases will unfortunately recur. We have
had instances where women on Wikipedia have been systematically harassed
on account of their gender, and women generally have a particular
appreciation of that concern; I doubt anybody could effectively harass
men on Wikipedia based on their being male.
I would add that fundamentally, few of us have the perspective of being
in a permanent minority, as opposed to the shifting "political"
minorities over a given point of debate. In terms of the overall editor
population (for the English Wikipedia), we primarily have just two
groups that qualify as sizable and recognizable minorities that interact
with a prevailing majority group. These two are women and non-native
English-speakers. Their input is valuable, and potentially helpful in
working with smaller or less identifiable minorities (some of whom are
even more under-represented). It should be cultivated instead of
trending toward tyranny of the majority.
--Michael Snow