[Gendergap] Gendergap Digest, Vol 9, Issue 6

[Maggie]

I was once warned for canvassing, because I told people offsite how to vote
in a discussion about to keep certain page. These people were mostly of a
female audience and interested in women's history, and the group who were
wanting to delete were mostly anglo men.

Also, Peter, when a person is offended by something someone else has said
and you don't understand it---it's probably best not to comment on it.

I actually *have* read it very closely due to that situation. But thanks for
assuming that I am not capable of doing so.

--Maggie


> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2011 10:02:22 -0700
> From: Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Gendergap] Canvassing
> To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects
>        <gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <CEFD590F-2C51-468E-9274-2DCC9C7CAA3C at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> On Oct 1, 2011, at 6:55 AM, Maggie wrote:
>
> > Wikipedia is set up so that only people who look for these
> articles/pictures will know about voting procedures. So of course if there
> is a vote, the majority would probably be overall positive unless serious
> canvassing went on to let people who care about the other side know about it
> so it evens out. Canvassing is set up to prevent this--I believe it's
> actually a way of biasing the community to serve only the community, and not
> the readers. Because the readers are--the world. Telling people about the
> topic is just like how any election goes. I guess unless you are in some
> sort of fake election where people are led to believe that their votes
> actually count.
>
> Maggie, I can relate to the frustration you're expressing. But I'd like to
> draw a distinction between the Canvassing guideline itself (which I consider
> a helpful and insightful document, that illuminates important collaborative
> practices) and the way accusations of Canvassing may be made in certain
> contexts.
>
> The Canvassing guideline is an important part of our world. If you haven't
> read it recently, I highly recommend it:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CANVASS
>
> It is often quoted by people who, I think, *haven't* read it closely, and
> used to criticize behavior that is actually constructive. That is a problem,
> but it's not a problem with the guideline itself.
>
> -Pete
>
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