[Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2

[phoebe ayers]

On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 9:03 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
<cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> Michael Snow wrote:
>>
>> Similarly, we know that the community population skews young and male.
>> That has important consequences, and some of those unfortunately
>> reinforce our lack of diversity. It's been pointed out what a
>> male-centric approach we sometimes have, in the enthusiasm and manner
>> with which certain subjects are covered, and the oblivious attitude
>> toward potential offensiveness of various images. This comes across to
>> all too many women as a hostile culture. Most large online communities
>> do not have the kind of gender imbalance we have. This is a serious
>> issue we need to address. The foundation could do targeted outreach
>> forever to recruit underrepresented groups (whether it's ethnicity, age,
>> gender, or other factors), and it would accomplish very little without
>> significant improvements in our culture.
>>

<snip>
> person on the Board of Trustees who came strongest in
> defense of a unfettered retention of sensual images of
> educational value was its (single?) female member. It

Uh... much as I like Kat (and she's not the only female member,
there's also Bishakha), singling out her view as representative of all
women on the projects is, arguably, part of the problem. Are there so
few women speaking up as part of the community discussion that this is
really necessary?

(One interesting exercise is to count the number of posts by women on
this very list. Even controlling for pseudonyms and unknown
variability, it's still around 1/10 or lower, a good number of which
are from me. Many of the rest are from WMF staffers. Did you notice? I
do, every time I post, and not just because I try to not excessively
spam the list.)

-- Phoebe