Having not participated in last years ArbCom elections, I was quite
shocked to see, that with the important role the Arbitraton Committee
has in safeguarding the ideals and policies of the English wikipedia,
these elections are being held with an open ballot.
I cannot have any confidence in such an election. Open ballots bring out
the worst in politics - bullying, fear of retaliation, groupthink, and
voting with the hope to gain political favor in the future. While an
open ballot appears open on the surface, as history has demonstrated, it
is anything but.
There is a reason that most free elections use secret ballots. Only in
secret can someone make their true opinion known, without fear of
bullying, fear of retaliation, undue influence of others, or hurt
feelings.
Secret ballots also allow for good judgement to be exercised in cases
where a moral dilemma would otherwise exist - how do you deal with
voting against someone who you are close friends with, or who is in a
position of power over you, be it actual or percieved? In an open
ballot, this at the very least means either hurt feelings, or votes that
do not reflect one's true beliefs as to right choice to make in an
election.
We have facilities for secret ballots and approval voting. Those
facilities work well, as demonstrated in the last board elections.
Why on-wiki voting was chosen in favor of this, I don't know, to me it
defies logical sense.
In conclusion, I condemn this election in the strongest possible terms,
as being flawed, subject to tampering, and as being anything other than
a free election. I would hope that I'm not the only person that it this
way, but even if I am, I know that I cannot in good concience stand for
such an unjust and flawed process.
I would encourage anyone else that feels strongly about this to make
their voice heard, and loudly, so that future elections do not follow
the same flawed path, and so that we can have confidence in our
elections process.
--
Stephanie Daugherty
stephanie(a)sosdg.org
User:Triona on en.wikipedia.org
Hello,
It seems best for the peace of the community that the Wikichix-l list is
not hosted on Wikimedia servers.
Could you move it to another place please Angela ? A Yahoo Group maybe ?
Please receive my apologies.
Ant
> Michael Snow wrote:
>
> Traditional list etiquette encourages that approach, yes, although
> really I think the odds have more to do with how the message is crafted
> than with whether it is delivered publicly or privately. Here it was a
> difficult balancing act. It is evident that at least some people do not
> see much of a problem, perhaps not surprising since bias and
> discrimination often operate in subtle and systemic ways. As a result,
> it is sometimes necessary to publicly call out examples.
>
> However, Snowdog is a valuable part of the community and has a good
> reputation, so I wasn't happy to be so critical. I did try to "play the
> ball, not the man" (sexist idiom, but the right gender in this case) by
> focusing on the comment itself and what was offensive about it. I am
> thankful that he continues to participate, with good grace and in a
> constructive fashion. A "botched joke" may cost John Kerry the chance to
> run for President again, but it shouldn't cost anyone the chance to post
> again to this list.
>
> --Michael Snow
Well, it was clear to me, from the beginning, that the issue of the thread was gender bias and sexist remarks. So basically my "sexist joke" was a field test (I'm not so stupid to make such comments in a place where those comments are in discussion).
Working primarily on the italian Wikipedia, and since this issue has started on en.wiki (on which I do not follow the ongoing discussions), I wanted to realize quickly, and maybe brutally, how this kind of things are felt. So thanks Michael for your public reply, and you all forgive me if I used you as Guinea-pigs.
Roberto (Snowdog)
------------------------------------------------------
Ordina subito la scintillante lampada a forma di Renna di Babbo Natale: lascerai i tuoi ospiti... a bocca aperta !
http://click.libero.it/dmail06dic06
[snip]
> In sum, female participation in the german wikipedia seems appallingly
> low, however we find a slightly higher ratio of women in "higher"
> ranks like admins, jury members than the overall participation numbers
> would suggest.
[snip]
I did a very very quick check on the italian Wiki.
Admins: 8 out of 71 are female (11,3%)
Bureaucrats: 2 out of 5 (40%)
Check Users: 0 out of 3 (0%)
Board of WMI 1 out of 5 (20%, but she is the chairwoman)
Regarding sexist remarks I can't remember any relevant episode, nor any complaint by women. The fact that I don't remember doesn't means that it never happened, but being pretty active on it.wiki pratically from the beginning, I'm confident to say that is not a problem. I will ask to the ladies on it.wiki their opinion anyway.
One consideration. In my experience, whenever computer are involved, be it my class at University, workplace, Wikipedia, or spending the evening playing with PlayStation with my friends, the female population drops to 20% of the total.
It has been like this in the last 20 years. I don't know why this happens, but there are chanches that this percentage is endemic.
Roberto (Snowodog)
------------------------------------------------------
Ordina subito la scintillante lampada a forma di Renna di Babbo Natale
lascerai i tuoi ospiti... a bocca aperta !
Sam Korn wrote:
> There is, I think, a strong argument that notes such as Michael's
> should be sent *privately*, rather than to the list. Certainly on
> occasions -- and I think this could be one of them -- it can be useful
> to emphasise a remark like this, especially as it is in the context of
> the greater discussion.
>
> But generally, if you want to invite someone to deport themselves
> better on a mailing list (or indeed on a wiki), it is much more
> friendly and likely to get a better response to send them a private
> email.
Traditional list etiquette encourages that approach, yes, although
really I think the odds have more to do with how the message is crafted
than with whether it is delivered publicly or privately. Here it was a
difficult balancing act. It is evident that at least some people do not
see much of a problem, perhaps not surprising since bias and
discrimination often operate in subtle and systemic ways. As a result,
it is sometimes necessary to publicly call out examples.
However, Snowdog is a valuable part of the community and has a good
reputation, so I wasn't happy to be so critical. I did try to "play the
ball, not the man" (sexist idiom, but the right gender in this case) by
focusing on the comment itself and what was offensive about it. I am
thankful that he continues to participate, with good grace and in a
constructive fashion. A "botched joke" may cost John Kerry the chance to
run for President again, but it shouldn't cost anyone the chance to post
again to this list.
--Michael Snow
I have to admit, I'm getting bored by this wikichix discussion...
The advocates of the new list tell us over and over again that there
is a problem but none of them has so far given a detailed answer of
what the problem exactly consists. So I decided to do their homework
for them and made a short analysis of my home wikipedia, the german
wikipedia. Maybe this turns the debate into a more constructive one...
==Gender ratio in the german wikipedia==
Schroer & Hertel, psychologists from Wuerzburg, found a gender ratio of
86% to 14% in a voluntary survey among german Wikipedians.
[http://wy2x05.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/publications/pdf/wikipedia_po…]
I made a different approach today and took the 500 most active
contributors from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Beitragszahlen
and sorted them by gender, according to my personal knowledge, gender
revealing user names (male or female prenames) or personal details
revealed on user pages. Users where no gender could be assigned were
marked as unknown.
Came up with a gender ratio even worse, only 5,8% among the 500 could be
clearly identified as female.
Gender Number %
male 420 84,0
female 29 5,8
unknown 50 10,0
==Admins, Buerocrats, Checkusers==
Among the 245 administrators of the german Wikipedia, 18 have identified
themselves as female, a percentage of 7,3, slightly higher than the
percentage among the 500.
male 227 92,7%
female 18 7,3%
Sum 245 100,0%
Both two buerocrats are male, two of the three checkusers are female.
==Admin candidatures==
A count of failed and successful admincandidatures (data from 2005 and
2006) revealed no great differences among the genders. The rate of
successful female candidatures is with 64,7% vs. 59,2% slightly higher.
Sex Sum
male female unknown sum
unsuccessful nr. 95 6 6 107
% 40,8% 35,3% 50,0% 40,8%
successful nr. 138 11 6 155
% 59,2% 64,7% 50,0% 59,2%
Sum nr. 233 17 12 262
% 100,0% 100,0% 100,0% 100,0%
==User bans==
Four users in user ban votes could be clearly identified as female
(Statistics based on a summary done by Sebmol). Half of them were banned
compared to 35/22 among - probably - male users.
m. f. unknown sum
no ban 22 2 1 25
ban 35 2 2 39
Sum 57 4 3 64
==Other==
Jury members of the writing contests, m/f
1st: 4/1
2nd: 4/1 (one male acting as a replacement of an elected woman)
3rd: 4/1
4th: 5/1
5th: 4/2
==Culture==
Harassment of female users is usually sanctioned by the community.
Vandals usually ignore the gender of admins they insult (I'm refering
here to the countless insult accounts like "Admin X is gay", "Admin X
is fucking Admin Y")
Unappropriate comments to female users can lead to the loss of admin
elections (cmp.
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Adminkandidaturen&oldid…
where an otherwise well suited candidate lost his elections due to
comments some female users perceived as sexist)
One case of stalking is known to me, in this case the stalker came
from outside (acting as anonymous IP), the affected user was provided
with moral and legal support from other community members.
One other affair worth being mentioned is those of a couple of
userboxes which were perceived as sexist (example: a picture of a red
haired porn star with the text like "This user loves the color red",
"This user loves women", "This user loves blonde women" etc.) Those
were speedy deleted.
The major gender-related debate concerns the naming conventions.
German Wikipedia uses the generic masculine form for article titles
and categories, a rule which was repeatedly put in question. However,
these debates seem to be driven mostly by male users, female users
rarely weigh in and if they do, they do on both sides (see
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Diskussion:Namenskonventionen/Binnen…).
==Real life and Wikipedia==
Since the issue of childcare has been raised already... Based on IRC
conversations and real life meetings, this seems to me rather a male
problem in the german wikipedia. There are much more fathers than
mothers who have to accomodate their wikipedia activity with the needs
of their children.
==Summary==
In sum, female participation in the german wikipedia seems appallingly
low, however we find a slightly higher ratio of women in "higher"
ranks like admins, jury members than the overall participation numbers
would suggest.
To discover a gender bias in Wikipedia culture more thorough research
would probably be needed, the here quoted most prominent examples
rather suggest a high awareness in gender issues and a willingness
from the community as whole to sanction transgressions.
HTH,
David
rfrangi(a)libero.it wrote:
>[snip]
>
>
>> From the day I heard Angela was on the board because she had big boobs
>>
>>
>[snip]
>
>Huh!?! Really? Where does she hide 'em?
>
>But seriously,
>
You think trying to make a joke excuses comments like that? I hope that
Angela has developed a thick skin (in the figurative sense, not the
literal physical one) from her experiences, but she shouldn't have to be
subjected to this. It's exactly these sorts of comments, yes these sorts
of "jokes", that create what is known as a hostile work environment and
can lead to sexual harassment lawsuits.
I've expressed concern before about the gender disparities in our
community, and wondered about their causes. I had hoped that since
gender is not always apparent online, the problem was largely
inadvertent and that much of it could be addressed in a positive fashion
by simply continuing to encourage women to participate. But between the
things Anthere relates and this kind of response to them, I am appalled.
--Michael Snow