On 28 May 2014 21:37, Molly White gorillawarfarewikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Harassment: Has harassment been addressed in a comprehensive way on all sites, including all of the WP site? As an example, Wikipedia has had a problem with low and declining female participation for years, and the WMF has often stated that it would like to address it. Are women actively encouraged to participate on Wikipedia by the WMF or other organizations? If we're not doing everything to protect women and all other Wikipedians, is it morally or ethically correct to perform outreach to potentially vulnerable groups? I'd especially like to hear about this from a female perspective.
A great start would be to hold this conversation in a safe space where people can discuss without fear of reprisal. I do not mean to say that wikimedia-l, nor any other public Wikimedia mailing list or page, is an inherently unsafe place to hold this discussion—that's not the case at all. But trying to hold this discussion after all the drama that you have been passing through this list in the past few days makes this a scary place for myself and others to post.
You have ensured that this list has Wikipediocracy's rapt attention. Although I don't doubt the folks over there pay some attention to the regular goings-on of this list, the threads that you have been motivating and interacting with mean that every comment to this list is being scrutinized, and anyone they dislike is being torn apart. You have also shown that you have been interacting with and, at least to some degree, sympathizing with at least one person who, I feel, is dangerous.
You have created a space where comments are being picked apart by a group of people eager to find or fabricate any flaw. My revision-deletion of an extremely violent and threatening edit was construed not as a standard admin action but as some sort of "clean-up" after someone whom they feel I am desperate to protect or cover up. You have drawn the attention of a dangerous user, who had not had contact with me for quite some time until now. You have the attention of at least one, likely more, of the people who created the racist, sexist, and threatening attack/doxxing pages mentioning me at EncyclopediaDramatica.
So you'll have to excuse me when I'm somewhat unwilling to give my more in-depth "female perspective" here and now.
Yours, Molly (GorillaWarfare)
I'm going to second what Molly says here, Wil. I'm a woman who has held positions that have attracted abuse and harassment (directed both at me and my family) throughout the movement for years, and the first time I have ever felt unsafe on this mailing list was today.
You knew that the subject you were raising here had already caused a Wikimedia staffer to take the (very unusual) step of advising his ED that s/he felt unsafe because of your actions, not to mention the post that was left on a talk page. Let me tell you, Wil, 85-90% of women would never edit Wikipedia again if that post had been left on their talk page. And yet, you could not leave it alone. It was all about you, and how you were done wrong by, and how you didn't like how someone who has a long history of making violently and sexually graphic abusive posts on English Wikipedia (and other places) was treated. (I'm pretty sure he didn't get around to telling you why he was banned, but you knew by the time you were drawn away from IRC.)
So..you perpetuated the feeling of unsafeness for your own purposes rather than respect that your actions (whether intentionally or not) had created that unsafe setting. Several community members tried to draw you away from continuing in this vein, myself included, but you were not to be deterred. Your determination to continue to perpetuate this unsafeness, by actively participating in the ridiculing of Wikimedians, is precisely the kind of behaviour that makes Wikimedia projects so unpleasant for women.
I've been trying very hard to keep an open mind about you, despite your unwillingness to modify your behaviour or even try to work with the Wikimedia community. But today, you went too far.
Risker