[Gendergap] Hello and a (small!) manifesto

Thu Feb 3 22:17:04 UTC 2011

I like that you brought up the age difference, I do think that is valid 
in many areas. As a 30 year old who knows more about Hentai film than I 
care to admit I think for me it's more of a professionalism and 
"quality" thing over offensive. I just think it's stupid and lends 
itself to the invalid-ness that Wikipedia is trying to shake off.

Other wiki's like Encyclopedia Dramatica thrive on cartoons and 
obnoxious tacky stuff (yeah ok, Pedobear is funny, but...) to represent 
it. I don't need my scholarly labor and research to be associated with 
that crap.

On 2/3/2011 4:57 PM, Nepenthe wrote:
> I wonder if Wikipe-tan is more of a generational issue than a gender 
> one. I'm pretty much as humorless feminist as they come, but being in 
> my early 20s, I grew up with anime and Wikipe-tan is no more 
> disturbing to me in the Wikipedia context than if we had come up with 
> a Disney-style mascot not wearing pants. (Granted, that OS-tans are 
> pretty universally female is undoubtedly a gender issue and the anime 
> style is a legitimate concern as well, but I think it's part of 
> culture at large, not one that Wikimedia can really address.)
>
> I guess my point is that it might be a wash whether Wikipe-tan drives 
> off more older editors who find her offensive than she attracts 
> younger editors who find her friendly and familiar. It's really a side 
> point though. It never occurred to me that Wikipe-tan might be 
> considered embarrassing or inappropriate and I'm finding this 
> conversation eye-opening.
>
> Nepenthe
>
> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 3:06 PM, Steven Walling <swalling at wikimedia.org 
> <mailto:swalling at wikimedia.org>> wrote:
>
>     On Feb 3, 2011, at 12:40 PM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>>>     On Wednesday, February 02, 2011, jidanni at jidanni.org
>>>     <mailto:jidanni at jidanni.org> wrote:
>>>>     K> our "mascot"? An overtly sexualized, large-breasted woman
>>>>     who people
>>>>     K> regularly draw in bikinis and maid costumes? I mean, I know
>>>>     K> Wikipe-tan is not actually The Problem. But she's the most
>>>>     egregious
>>>>     K> example I think we have of the sort of unconscious "boyzone"
>>>>     culture
>>>>
>>>>     Ah, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipe-tan .
>>>
>>>     I had never seen that, and now that I have I find it
>>>     embarrassing for
>>>     Wikipedia.
>>
>>     IIRC Wikipe-tan was only originally meant to be the mascot for
>>     WikiProject
>>     Anime and Manga; how she became the avatar for the project as a
>>     whole, I
>>     don't know. She's hardly an inclusive or representative figure
>>     (I'm not a
>>     anime/manga otaku, aside from the other issues) and we can
>>     certainly do
>>     better.
>>
>>     My own personal notes on signs of a "boyzone" culture at
>>     Wikipedia: the
>>     appearance of [[Lindsay Lohan]], [[Reese Witherspoon]] and [[Uma
>>     Thurman]]
>>     as Main Page FAs within a two-year timespan. And also the one FA
>>     that Raul
>>     quite sensibly (IMO) has decided will never be on the Main Page.
>>
>>     In the same category, there's also the discussion from the top of
>>     [[Talk:KaDee Strickland]] downwards, that ensued after that
>>     article was on
>>     the Main Page. It's hard for me not to see some of it as
>>     misogynistic ...
>>
>>     Daniel Case
>>
>>
>>
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>
>     The whole Wikipe-tan issue isn't limited to Wikipedia itself
>     either. I participate regularly in the Featured Picture process on
>     Wikimedia Commons, and have lately been struggling against media
>     in a similar vein.[1]
>
>     There is a substantial editorial debate  around fan art like
>     this that is in flux on Commons. On the one hand, it's relatively
>     easy to make the argument that they're not educational media.
>     However, you still get people who in all seriousness support
>     promotion of media like this with comments such as, "I like her
>     big tits." (That's one extreme example, but it's still a direct
>     quote.)
>
>     Additional voices would be welcome, especially since Commons is a
>     much smaller community. I think perhaps one of our first
>     commitments should be to filling the informal leadership gap
>     others have mentioned by stepping up and saying what we find to be
>     unacceptable.[2]
>
>     1. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anime_Girl.svg
>     2. This talk was humorous, but I think there's some truth in the
>     slide:
>     http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steven_Walling_Wikipedia_mascots_-_Ignite_Portland_8_-_Portland_Oregon.jpg
>
>     Steven Walling
>     Fellow at the Wikimedia Foundation
>     wikimediafoundation.org <http://wikimediafoundation.org/>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
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