On Nov 12, 2006, at 3:58 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
Sigvardsson seemed to be suggesting that we need
to do something to
"fix" the gender imbalance issue on Wikipedia. I
think that nothing
can be done, people will and should come and go as
they please,
regardless of gender. I'm not really sure what
kinds of ideas
Sigvardsson might have other than, as Barrett
pointed out, quotas,
which are totally ridiculous and unnecessary in
these circumstances.
Sorry if my inference was incorrect/mangled.
Quotas are not the only way to encourage female participation in aspects of Wikipedia.
- Encourage female friends who are knowledgeable
about subjects to contribute 2) Encourage female contributors to stand for adminship and the arbcom 3) Consider the importance of gender balance in arbcom in making your selections in the arbcom elections.
None of these involve establishing quotas - they involve considering issues of gender (or race, or sexuality, or anything else you're invested in here) in making choices.
I think that's the wrong approach there. We've gone from we need to establish quota's to everyone should take other factors into account when deciding to elect. We should look at wiki-philosophy, maturity, and contributions. If nobody revealed anything about themselves (ie Gender, race, local, biases), then that's what we'd do. Asking us to vote for someone because of a reason that isn't related to DR or ArbComm at all is silly. Next thing will be that we need more people who self identify as anarchists, communists, and facists on the ArbComm.
-[[en:User:Royalguard11]]
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