[WikiEN-l] NY Times article on gender gap in Wikipedia contributors

Tue Feb 1 02:20:29 UTC 2011

Truth is, I'm not even sure I want to get into this. And, for the record,
this inquiry concerns only the English Wikipedia Project. I spend 99% of the
time I have to devote to the English Wikipedia Project at editing articles;
the other 1% being spent on the Mailing Lists. So, consequently, I know very
little about the authority structure that exists in the Project. But
something that has been bothering me for some time now; something that has
been touched on very cautiously at various times on this List; and something
that I firmly believe is at the root of many of the problems that have been
discussed on this List (and elsewhere) for some time now. What is the actual
chain of authority that now exists in the Project? This I am certain of:
Sue Gardner is the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. Just like
any corporate structure, her line of authority is clear enough. The
Foundation oversees (my term) and provides the technical equipment and
funding to operate the Project. Is there a similar "structure", "line of
authority" or "buck stops here" entity within the English Wikipedia Project.
Would, could, someone please help me to see and understand it? I need some
basics here so that I can take part in any discussion.

Marc Riddell

on 1/31/11 7:07 PM, Stephanie Daugherty at sdaugherty at gmail.com wrote:

> Regarding vested contributors, they are both a good and a bad thing -
> good in that retaining them means retaining experience, bad in that
> some of them have a sense of entitlement and that a few attract a
> "posse" that helps them to realize that entitlement.
> 
> Cabalism is an unfortunate side effect of weak governance - banding
> into factions helps some to pursue their own agendas even if that is
> just to derail any sort of change that would weaken their position.
> 
> Rfa reform and attempts to streamline desysopping have been largely
> stonewalled by relatively few people. Thats just one area but one of
> the longest running ones.
> 
> I think a good next step might be to start a public debate on the
> issues we are now facing and invite the wmf trustees to participate in
> and lead the discussion.
> 
> I don't think we need to rush headfirst into changes but we can't keep
> letting a few particularly loud and persistant voices keep throwing us
> off track for years at a time either so someone is going to have to
> get the ball rolling and have enough push to keep it moving.
> 
> 
> On 1/31/11, Risker <risker.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 31 January 2011 14:38, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 31 January 2011 18:23, Risker <risker.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> In what way, David? I'm sorry, but the Arbitration Committee isn't
>>> Wikipedia
>>>> Governance Central.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> It's the closest en:wp has.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> I have no idea what the board members are saying on the internal-L
>>> mailing
>>>> list; however, if they're expressing concerns about behaviour there,
>>>> they might want to actually mention it onwiki on the projects  where
>>> there
>>>> are concerns.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> You're snapping at me, as if I'm causing this problem for you. I'm
>>> not, I'm telling you about it.
>>> 
>>> Are you saying you would need them to intervene directly? It may be
>>> feasible for the arbcom - the closest en:wp has to a governing body -
>>> to invite WMF to do so. This would likely avoid directly crossing the
>>> streams (which would be bad) but get an outside force in there if the
>>> internal one really feels it isn't up to the effort.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> David, I'm not snapping at you particularly, although I do think you've
>> hijacked this thread, which is intended to be about the gender gap. (I'll
>> resist the urge to insert a sexist comment here. :) )
>> 
>> The only people in the WMF projects I regularly participate in who are
>> formally recognized as leaders are the WMF trustees.  I would love to see
>> them being more public in sharing their opinions, their observations and
>> their experiences; they have the opportunity to see things from a very
>> different and much broader perspective than those of us at ground level. I
>> am sure that HaeB would be happy to find a place on Signpost for a monthy
>> "Discussion with a Trustee" that could then be flipped over to Translatewiki
>> or wherever to share with multiple other projects.
>> 
>> It is all well and good for (I count three) former arbitrators to say that
>> Arbcom should be enforcing the civility policy, and to act as the governors
>> of the project. But we are not the governors; in July 2009 the community
>> soundly reminded us of that when we tried to set up an advisory council. And
>> by the time a case gets to us, rude behaviour is often only an offshoot of
>> the core problems of the case.
>> 
>> Arbcom is hardly in the position to go through and review the actions of all
>> admins with the hope of rooting out which ones are "uncivil" and which ones
>> aren't.  Even with the diminished number of active administrators, there are
>> still 800 of them, and we aren't a human resources department. I believe Rob
>> also has a good point; most entry-level rudeness and newbie-biting comes
>> from non-administrators, be they RC patrollers who often revert and leave
>> templated user messages without really reviewing the edits, or new page
>> patrollers who are tagging articles for deletion less than 3 minutes after
>> their creation. (I note that WereSpielChequers makes the same point.)
>> 
>> Fred, yes, if someone files a request for arbitration, it's going to be
>> taken seriously and reviewed seriously; the point is that people are not
>> filing requests for arbitration that turn on this issue.
>> 
>> And finally, I'll point out that if you're reading this list, you're a
>> vested contributor. Please stop using that term as if it's a bad thing.
>> 
>> Risker/Anne
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> 