[Gendergap] study about gendered names and IRC

[Sarah Stierch]

I haven't had any problems, but, I don't hang out in rooms where perhaps 
things might happen or certain types might hang out (i.e. #Wikipedia-en, 
where I have seen some really sexist and gross things said.) - and I go 
by my real name (SarahStierch).

When I was younger and used IRC (in the early 1990's) I used the 
username "Grrrl" and did get a numerous amount of sexual DM's, from what 
I can remember, and that was during a time when BBSes and "the internet" 
was even more male dominated than it is (dial up and fidonet anyone?), 
and hanging out in alternative community rooms often led to people 
seeking some pretty obnoxious things (i.e. hanging out in the goth room 
meant "normal" guys coming in looking to "do hot goth girls".). I 
remember being a teenager hacking free accounts on AOL and oh god, 
sometimes it was just out of control and I'd have to literally cease 
having gender specific names.

The report put the bots in generic rooms like #teens and #wow (for World 
of Warcraft) - and it doesn't surprise me that the bots would get 
bombarded with horny IRC dudes.

I still think the fact that Wikimedia relies on IRC as it's "main chat 
service" is rather archaic. (But I don't have a more brilliant idea, yet.)

-Sarah

On 12/14/11 12:30 PM, ChaoticFluffy wrote:
> Hmmm, interesting. I've often wondered whether I would have had a less 
> pleasant experience fitting into the wiki(p|m)edia IRC channels if I 
> had an obviously-gendered nick. As it is, I get maybe one random pm a 
> month, if that, and most of those are of the vague 
> "hi"-followed-by-silence sort. None that I can remember have ever been 
> sexually explicit, though I think I might have gotten threats once or 
> twice. Maybe one day I'll run my own little experiment and masquerade 
> under a clearly-female name and see how that changes...
>
> -Fluffernutter
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 2:05 AM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari at wikimedia.org 
> <mailto:rkaldari at wikimedia.org>> wrote:
>
>     I just read the following paper which describes an interesting study
>     that was conducted regarding IRC:
>     http://www.enre.umd.edu/content/rmeyer-assessing.pdf
>     <https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.enre.umd.edu/content/rmeyer-assessing.pdf&embedded=true&chrome=true>
>
>     The researchers created several IRC bots with different names - some
>     female, some male, and some ambiguous. They put the bots in
>     several high
>     traffic IRC channels, and had them record all the private messages
>     they
>     received. The bots themselves were completely silent.
>
>     The bots with male names received an average of 3.7 private
>     messages per
>     days that were sexually explicit or threatening. The bots with
>     ambiguous
>     names received an average of 24.9 such messages per day. The bots with
>     female names received an average of 100 such messages per day!
>
>     This is a very sad statistic, and probably goes a long way towards
>     explaining why there aren't that many women on IRC these days.
>
>     On a happier note, if you want to hang out on IRC and not get sexually
>     harassed, you can always join #wikimedia-gendergap!
>
>     Ryan Kaldari
>
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>
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-- 
Sarah Stierch Consulting
--
Historical, cultural, new media & artistic research & advising.
http://www.sarahstierch.com
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