Andreas - when you say "until the Foundation does something," what are you looking for them to do?
You can always directly write the legal team and ask them for input on what "they" could do regarding your concerns. That's what I would do if I was you.
As you very well know, grantmaking and technical aren't able to do much of anything, due to our new focus. However, community members are welcome to develop Individual Engagement Grants and chapters are able to acquire funding for programs and projects, and the gender gap is something everyone loves to talk about over and over and over again but no one seems to be willing to step up as individuals or as chapters to make large scale changes outside of outreach activities. (And I am grateful for all people do on this list, but..I'm just sayin...it seems to be the same people over and over again bringing this up, however, all people seem to do to about it is complain and talk about it, and take no action, and it's really tiring and depressing to watch and puts the burden on those of us who have limited time and are already burnt out).
-Sarah
On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 10:12 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 5:49 PM, Nepenthe topazbutterfly@gmail.com wrote:
The more I look into it, the more it seems like it's a pointless endeavor. From the deletion discussions I've looked at ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Save_the_Re...), a photo of two nude young women in a tree considered in scope. After all, it's been categorized! (Is that really all it takes? Absurd.) And it could be used to illustrate the article on Bagby Hot Springs!
Of the seven images Commons proposes to have illustrate encyclopedic articles on Bagby Hot Springs, 3 are of nude women.
It's female nudes all the way down.
Nepenthe
I would say that until the Foundation does something to set a different direction, it is indeed pointless to argue about things like this in Wikipedia or Commons.
However, sexism and the gender gap have been prominent topics in the press these last couple of weeks. Talk to journalists instead. You may find them more sympathetic, and such an effort has a better chance of bringing about change.
On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.comwrote:
On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 2:24 PM, Mary Mark Ockerbloom < celebration.women@gmail.com> wrote:
Regarding the question of "what can you do", I had the experience last week of starting a new job. I had to read through the guidelines for the organization, which included a section on Equal Opportunity and Freedom from Harassment. Prominent on the first page:
"Harassment Defined
- Hostile Environment Harassment prohibited under this policy includes verbal, visual,
or physical conduct relating to matters of race, national origin, sex, sexual preference, religion, age or disability which is unwelcome to the reasonable person, and a. has the purpose or effect of interfering with a person's work performance b. has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment. "
Item 2 goes on to deal with more direct incidents such as "unwelcome sexual attention, sexual advances," etc.
I also looked at the relevant page on Wikipedia, to see what Wikipedia's policy is. (Sorry I don't have the link to hand to include.) It covered item 2. But "Hostile environment", item 1 on my workplace's guidelines, is not included.
Note too that item 1 is not limited to sexual materials; this is not identified as a "feminist problem" but as a type of behavior potentially relevant and unacceptable to anyone.
I would suggest that one reason that it's hard to get people to address this sort of situation is that it's not clearly identified at a high level as unacceptable behavior which creates a "hostile environment"
A very interesting point, which reminded me of "The Benevolent Dictator Incident":
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_incident
Wikimedia has a "friendly space" policy for physical meetings, but apparently no exact equivalent for its online environment.
To give an example, Commons has a "hot sex barnstar", present on a number of user talk pages, which does not appear to have violated any Wikimedia policy, judging by its existence for more than a year now. The imagery is grossly pornographic, and would be unacceptable in almost any workplace outside of the adult entertainment industry:
NSFW: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hot_sex_barnstar.png
Similar imagery is sometimes found on user pages.
It is widely accepted that the open display of pornographic photographs or drawings is a key contributor to a sexually hostile workplace. This is something that could have been addressed as part of the Foundation's terms of use:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use#4._Refraining_from_Certain...
However, the present terms of use appear to permit anything that is not outright illegal. If the Wikimedia Foundation is serious about addressing the gender gap, why does it not apply customary workplace standards to its online environment?
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