Jump to content

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force/Archive 5

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1←Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7→Archive 10

RfA proposal

I have submitted proposal to help narrow the gender gap in WP's administrator corps. I think this is called for because WP's RfA process has always been sensitive to off-wiki canvassing, poison-pilling, and other factors that makes it an unfair process. Cla68 (talk) 06:12, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Cla68 Who has given you the right to act on behalf of the project as you did by saying "Proposal from the Gender task Project Force" in the headline? This seems like an attempt to ridicule the project to me. Iselilja (talk) 07:53, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
You're right that I shouldn't have used that section title without discussing it here first, but I resent the implication that I wasn't serious about the proposal. I have been through the RfA process, and I thus have personal experience with how corrupted and rigged it is. This proposal, IMO, is the only real way we're ever going to get more female admins into WP's administrative corps. Cla68 (talk) 07:58, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
In any case, you always should preview ideas here since some better ideas might be generated from a proposal. Not that I have any today, but definitely something that needs work on. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 12:32, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
  • That proposal was the most stupid idea I've seen on wikipedia in the last 24 hours, which means it was truly stupid. I am sure it was proposed in good faith, even though it was originally titled "GenderGap task force proposal"[1] despite not being from the task force, not being propsed by a listed member of the task force, and not being discussed here prior to being proposed. I am sure Cla68 is unaware that his methodology of proposing it guaranteed failure as it would in any social setting known to the human race outside dictatorship. In any event, the statement above that "this proposal, IMO, is the only real way we're ever going to get more female admins into WP's administrative corps" is such a tone-deaf insult to every sentient being that I am sure it was not intended to be so. I do not know what prior discussions have been had on this page about how to recruit additional female admin candidates, but looking to the successful strategies employed by groups like EMILY's List which recruit and support Democratic female candidates for office in the United States, may be worth a look.--Milowent • hasspoken 13:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
I'll note, without further comment, that comments on this page about the flaws of affirmative action remedies have repeatedly been met with derogation and accusatory comments, here and at ANI and Arbcom. Perhaps now it's more widely understood that these concerns are well-founded. SPECIFICO talk 13:46, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Since affirmative action is often attacked by virulent racists and misogynists, some skepticism meeting comments on the "flaws" of such programs on this page would not be shocking. This is the same way I'd treat a Boston Red Sox fan making any observation about the New York Yankees. That's about my level of understanding of whatever debate has occurred previously; I'm not suggesting that Boston Red Sox fans are virulent racists and misogynists. I am concerned that your comment suggests you think Cla68's proposal was an intentional lead balloon, which seems to be quite a slanderous accusation.--Milowent • hasspoken 13:51, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

You're concerned? Grow up. Every other oppose vote asked if it was a joke. Take your fake morale outrage out with the trash.Two kinds of pork (talk) 14:07, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

If every other oppose vote asked if it was a joke, that is another serious accusation against Cla68. I would tread carefully here sir. Attacking me by telling me to grow up is unacceptable. I will not stand for it.--Milowent • hasspoken 14:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Stand, sit, float, whatever. Cla68's proposal was regarded as a joke for good reason. Please don't go to ANI and waste everyone's time with this.Two kinds of pork (talk) 14:24, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
I've never started an ANI thread, I actually don't know how, though I presume I could figure it out. But it will be up to Cla68 to determine if he wants to defend his integrity, in whatever methods he chooses.--Milowent • hasspoken 14:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

As someone else wrote on Jimbo wales talk page: It would have worked. Editors running for Admin would all have self-identified themselves as female regardless of their real sex, so the gender gap would have vanished. Count Iblis (talk) 19:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
My best wiki-laugh of the last 32 hours... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

+1 Iselilja (talk) 20:42, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
On the other hand, the fact that two males and one probable male brought questionable "affirmative action" proposals here does not mean that all defacto affirmative actions regarding the gender gap are problematic: having targets for numbers of women in Wikipedia; actively recruiting women editors and administrators; helping retain women editors through various means, including improving enforcement of civility/anti-harassment rules; and promoting the project to potentially interested parties within Wikipedia. I'm personally happy enough with all of that.
Nevertheless, at some point there may be a sensible "affirmative action" proposal or two forth coming from either a man or a women regarding some policy changes or other that may be worth more discussion. I haven't the faintest idea what they might be, so don't ask me to think any up. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:53, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
As I know by personal experience, WP's administrative processes are riddled with behind-the-scenes corruption, canvassing, and inconsistency. An affirmative action type remedy is likely the only way to fix the admin gender gap. My proposal was not a joke. The insults thrown my way will likely be brought up later if there continues to be conflict within this task force. Cla68 (talk) 23:27, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
While I did find that analysis funny and probably accurate, that doesn't mean it's impossible that some new policy that would be helpful could be come up with eventually. But to me it seems like something that would come after a lot more women joined, there were better policies against incivility and harassment, and it still seemed necessary. While I've seen all sorts of dubious stuff at the Admin level (mostly failure to act on bad behavior, I'm not totally cynical at this point. In the interim, to dissuade anyone from just jumping up publicly declaring something comes from the GGTF, I just changed relevant point under "measures" to: Consider as a group other proposals that might help women effectively deal with bias. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 00:24, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
You're touching on something important here. Unless WP's administration is forced into doing something concrete and positive, they will fail to do anything to effectively solve the problem. It will just be the same old thing, over and over. Cla68 (talk) 00:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
I really don't think that your proposal was thought through carefully enough or presented well, but I am quite appalled and disgusted at the way you've been treated for having the nerve to suggest positive action. I knew there was a bit of a problem here, but it's worse than I thought. However, I think we have to accept - and I mean this literally and without any pejorative implication - that white heterosexual males find it hard to understand what positive/affirmative action is for and how it works. We need to be more subtle. Deb (talk) 10:57, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for joining, Deb. More women here, just like more women on Wikipedia, might help create a more serious and productive atmosphere.
Speaking only to the proposal itself, I do think it is correct that there are lots of editors who would love to be Admins but either were shot down or think they would be. If only 10 of them decide to declare themselves as women, either in their current personas or as new ones that have a "quick learning curve" in order to fast track becoming admins, it would be an abuse. And one that probably would get worse over time as more male editors got into the "game". And it would lead to distrust of whether actual women admins were women, especially if/when they used their ability to block or ban editors, some of whom would then throw that accusation on top of all the others to protest the admin action. Getting more women in and keeping them in through enforcement of policies vs. incivility and harassment have to be higher priority goals, at least until a less abusable proposal comes along. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:18, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
I am appalled and disgusted by the racist and sexist insult against white heterosexual males, and adding "without any pejorative implication" doesn't help, it's not an implication, and it's certainly not subtle, it's a blatantly offensive attack against a group you have no reason or evidence to bash here. Who are you going to blame next? The Jews? The Asians? The Masons? We are not going to cure racism and sexism by replacing it with racism and sexism targeted at another group. Cut it out. Please. Completely. Cut it out. --GRuban (talk) 14:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
It's not clear exactly who you replying to. [Later strike of my erroneous statement per Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Own_comments and recommendation of User:ScottyWong who closed the Disruption at Wikiproject ANI I don't think anyone ever mentioned "white heterosexual males" here in any context.] In the context of who might abuse the proposal in question, maybe there would be some Arab or Latino guys or openly LGBT individuals who felt they'd be discriminated against for their ethnic heritage or sexual orientation, but who might "make it" if they stated they were a female of that heritage. Not a great way to deal with possible discrimination, but one that some might choose as easier, if such a proposal was in place. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:36, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
You might want to clarify that. As is:maybe there would be some Arab or Latino guys or openly LGBT individuals who felt they'd be discriminated against for their ethnic heritage or sexual orientation, but who might "make it" if they stated they were a female of that heritage verges into transphobic territory. AnonNep (talk) 14:46, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
[Insert: Just noticed. I think you'd need a couple paragraphs to explain why to me, and maybe several more for other editors who have been skeptical here. But feel free to explain on my talk page. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:49, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Carol, I wrote in response to Deb's comment; I see I over-indented one, apologies, corrected. It does, in fact, use that exact phrase, "white heterosexual males" as part of an uncalled-for attack. If you want to find a specific phrase that you doubt exists on a page, most web browsers have a search feature triggered by control-f or command-f. You responded to Deb's comment yourself, was it really so long that the phrase was lost within it? --GRuban (talk) 14:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
It is not an attack, it's a statement of fact that white heterosexual males often find it difficult to understand the reasoning behind "affirmative" or "positive" action, whichever term you prefer. I think I made it clear that this is an issue we have to deal with instead of simply blaming white heterosexual males for all discrimination. Deb (talk) 15:06, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
It's a racist and sexist attack. It's grouping people by their race, sex, and sexual preference, and then saying that they - (They meaning what? All of them, some of them, most of them? Left unspecified!) - don't understand something. It's wrong, both in the sense that it is offensive and actively harmful to the purpose of our group, and in the sense that it is inappropriate to the context, and in the sense that it is inherently logically fallacious. It is harmful to our purpose because it is trying to replace discrimination against one group by singling out another. It's inappropriate to the context because it is being made in the context of the shooting down of Cla68s proposal, and you have no evidence that those who shot it down were white heterosexual males, so it looks an awful lot like blaming the usual scapegoats. It is inherently logically fallacious because if it is supposed to mean that all white hetero males don't understand something, then it is clearly incorrect, since certainly numerous white hetero males do, and if it is supposed to mean that some white hetero males don't understand something, then it is meaningless, since certainly plenty of people who are at least one of not white or not het or not male also don't understand, and if it is supposed to mean that most white hetero males don't understand, then it is an assertion without any data to support it that certainly needs plenty. But the most important part is that it is offensive. Cut it out. --GRuban (talk) 15:29, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, duh [later note:"duh" is in regards to my somehow overlooking that a woman made broad generalizations on "white heterosexual males"]. Let's just say that's one woman's opinion and others will have others. Perhaps more in the scope of WP:Wikiproject LGBT and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject African diaspora. I personally don't usually narrow it down that much [later note:"it" being analysis of why some men engage in problematic behavior in regards to women. Had a lot going on earlier when posted and should have waited]. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
If you want to enforce civility and anti sexism and racism, you need to apply it equally to everyone. Grognard 123chess456 (talk) 22:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Encouraging, and if necessary enforcing, civility is the important thing and probably easier to analyze in regards to Wikipedia behavior. And I think with a little reflection most of us can figure out the difference between sexist or racist words and action and those that are a bit ignorant or insensitive. Between those willing to discuss and correct any inappropriate behavior and those committed to bigotry/dominance/running off their adversaries, etc. Also the difference between initiating bad behavior and losing ones temper because others keep initiating it. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:06, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
  • By the way, I was wrong about the traditional passing percentage in RfA, it's 70%, not 65%. So, if I were to do it again I would probably propose something like reducing the passing percentage for women editors to 60%. The thing people need to understand is why this is necessary. The RfA process is serioiusly tainted and unfair, which is why something like this is necessary. Cla68 (talk) 23:16, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
If you want to start an RfC on User:Cla68's proposal, do it on User:Cla68's talk page. It's not appropriate for here since it's his personal proposal. As a group of people supporting the project, we have not even discussed definitively what form proposals here take and what endorsing them would mean and what the applicable policies are, so it's just something here that different people have different views on. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 12:27, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
The last part of my comment was cut off, I meant that "I could start an RfC. Less than 20% would support it though". I wouldn't actually do it, and I also mean affirmative action in general. Grognard 123chess456 (talk) 12:43, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for clarification. Affirmative action here mostly means just encouraging women to join, which is Wikimedia Foundation Policy. Civility/etc. are ways of keeping women and men from being run off the site by uncivil individuals. What you oppose are structural changes that would favor women over men, which also can be called affirmative action. While I doubt any would pass, it is not impossible something acceptable might come along someday. So you really can't say "we're against any and all affirmative action measures for all time." You can say "such and such proposal which is being supported by a number of people should not be implemented". However, in this case a only a couple people support Cla68's. So it's really a moot point. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:22, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Women writers

  • Via an invitation to join, I just became aware of this new Wikiproject. I believe I got invited because over the past few days a number of articles I have created were tagged for the project, which made me realize I've written quite a few bios of female authors. I guarantee this is because I've happened across them and they didn't already have articles. Folks like Elizabeth Bisland, Isabel Scott Rorick, and the intriguing Ruth Cranston. So it seems to be a project worth checking out.--Milowent • hasspoken 17:56, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to join WikiProject Women writers

Hello WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force/Archive 5! We are looking for editors to join WikiProject Women writers, an outreach effort which aims at improving articles about women writers on Wikipedia. We thought you might be interested, and hope that you will join us. Thank you!

--Rosiestep (talk) 04:04, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Countering systemic bias/open tasks#Women

As listed on the main page, Wikiproject Countering Systemic Bias Open Tasks/Women and women's studies has two lists of articles of women that need to be created or beefed up. (I just fixed up the main page to make it clear the countering systemic bias listing is the main "go to" one for this project.)

At some point I want to clean that up some more and go through the following (already listed on main page) to add likely articles:

It's a matter of putting them in proper categories, removing ones which look like they are in good shape, removing dated commentary, etc. Anyway, feel free to join in the fun and put a note on any you've done if you do it while this list still up. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 05:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Draft of Resources page

Many Wikiprojects have such resources pages. Given all the denials there is systemic bias or a gender gap or that it matters or that we should do something about it, we certainly need one. The draft page linked explains content and has a draft intro.

The biggest issue probably is, as I put it there: whatever the Gender Gap task force's policy might be on additions, deletions, etc. Clearly stated policies will help define appropriate entries and vandalism, be it off topic entries or removing entries not liked. I think stated policy should include these points:

  • New entries:
  1. Should be relevant to closing the gender gap
  2. Should be relevant to existing subcategories; bring new category proposals to the GGTF Resources talk page
  3. Should have a link to a working site (unless it is a book or a temporarily nonworking link is noted)
  4. Should not duplicate existing entries from same source or be trivial summaries of a better source
  5. Comments on significant findings/comments should be 25-50 words
  • Deletions:
  1. Should be of material that does not conform to the above; vandalism will be removed promptly
  2. Other material found to be problematic as discussed on the GGTF Resources talk page
  • Other questions and discussions should be brought to the GGTF Resources talk page

Thoughts? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:15, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for pulling this together, Carol. Are you thinking of putting a link on the main page, or presenting it in some other way? As for what to add and remove, yes, the above all sounds good. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:27, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I think (1) should read
1. Should be relevant to reducing systemic bias.
In deletions,
Strike (1) "vandalism will be removed promptly" as redundant, since vandalism does not conform to page content requirements.
Strike (2) since content which is disputed can be stricken and discussed on talk to seek consensus, per ordinary WP editing protocol.

SPECIFICO talk 18:32, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Evidently no one has noticed that this is a listing full of the evidence that others have been demanding for weeks and I kept promising. You are welcome. Let's discuss section by section. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:16, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
You'll need to cite text or page numbers. I'm sure you've read every word of the listed documents, but a bibliography like that is too general to be cited as evidence or used to discuss specific assertions of fact. SPECIFICO talk 18:31, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
I believe it is meant only to be a list, a clearinghouse, of sources that someone creating or editing a related article might find useful. What to cite (text, pages) would depend upon the editor and topic. Lightbreather (talk) 00:37, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Correct, Lightbreather: I included a few quotes from overviews of research and things I found significant, just as an idea of how the list could be a bit more useful, without providing too much detail. But I know most people aren't going to follow the threads. And it is really long, so it occurs to me it could be divided up into 3 pages.
  • Since there are so many research fields, a separate "research page" with a short paragraph on each study and various commentary, including the most detail RS on the study;
  • a Wiki links page with links to other projects;
  • an articles and blogs page that would include the best RS on top and all the other interesting things that are educational and helpful for this project if not WP:RS for articles, as we would tell them. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:07, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

The intro section suggests there have been denials of a gender gap. I haven't seen one. Can you think about rewording that? Actually, the entire sentence is confrontational. Why is it necessary. Surely one can explain the need for a resources page with something like - many wikiprojects have resources pages to provide a useful list of relevant information. That's a bit too bland, but why not make it positive, instead of confrontational?--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:40, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

In another thread here SlimVirgin SPECIFICO suggested: If Carolmooredc keeps her suggested references in her own user space, there will be no need for discussion or consensus. I think that such links provide a good way to encourage editors to share without concern about their efforts being judged here.
I think we do need a resources page that can be edited as other members see fit and others can debate how it will go. Obviously, certain parties are so intent on reverting me that putting it up in any other way will just lead to trouble. However, until it is clear from a more mature editing environment here, or some outside intervention, that we can have such discussions without constant nitpicking and questions about whether the project should even exist, any major projects evidently will have to be put on hold. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:00, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm not questioning the need for a resources page. I support it. I've contributed to it. My question, which still stands, is why not just propose a resources page, rather than making inflammatory remarks such as claiming someone has denied that there is a gender gap. I haven't seen that once, much less multiple times.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:56, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

What needs removal from research section?

Wikimedia Foundation sponsored studies

Extended content

Foundation editor surveys

  • Ruediger Glott, Philipp Schmidt, Rishab Ghosh, Wikipedia survey overview, UNU-MERIT (with Wikimedia Foundation), Maastricht, Netherlands, March 2010. (Over 58,000 self-selected Wikipedians from 22 language editions in 231 countries responded; contributors reported as about 87% men and 13% women); (Archived original), accessed August 14, 2014.

}}

Funding gender gap projects

Extended content
{{{1}}}
  • Nontechnical Movement Support: Grants, Evaluation, Legal Support and Communications, "Overall Grantmaking Targets (by the end of June 2015)" section reads in part: "Increase support to challenging the gender gap to at least 1.5 percent of total grants spending, and host at least two diversity events in order to build out an executable gender gap strategy (baseline: 2013-14 YTD grants to gender gap issues ~1 percent; current year’s target: 1 percent)..." accessed August 12, 2014

Outside studies

Extended content
  • Laura Hale, Writing styles of women, on Wikimedia, 2011
  • Reagle, Joseph; Rhue, Lauren (2011). "Gender Bias in Wikipedia and Britannica". International Journal of Communication. 5. Joseph Reagle & Lauren Rhue: 1138-1158.
  • Judd Antin, Raymond Yee, Coye Cheshire, Oded Nov, "Gender Differences in Wikipedia Editing", WikiSym’11, October 3-5, 2011, study funded by Research Fund at UC Berkeley. Perhaps the most significant finding is that male editors tend to make an edit followed by revisions to that edit, whereas women tend to make single, larger edits and less revisions.
  • H. T. Welser, D. Cosley, G. Kossinets, A. Lin, F. Dokshin, G. Gay, and M. Smith, Finding social roles in Wikipedia, Proceedings of the 2011 iConference, page 122-129, 2011. (Provides interesting context.)
  • Lam, S.; Uduwage, A.; Dong, Z.; Sen, S.; Musicant, D.; Terveen, L.; Reidl, J. (October 2011). "WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia's Gender Imbalance" (PDF). WikiSym '11. ACM. Quote: "culture that may be resistant to female participation." (Notes that contributions of users who identified as women are significantly more likely to be challenged or undone by fellow editors, according to a 2011 report by the University of Minnesota.)
  • Collier, B., & Bear, J. (2012). “Conflict, criticism, or confidence”. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work- CSCW ’12 (p. 383). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. DOI
  • Sook Lim; Nahyun Kwon (2010). "Gender differences in information behavior concerning Wikipedia, an unorthodox information source?". Library and Information Science Research. 32 (3): 212–220.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) DOI
  • "Gender gap coverage in media and blogs" section of a December 5, 2013 Wikimedia blog entry summarizes article. In short: based on a qualitative analysis of 42 articles from US news media and blogs, and 1,336 comments from online readers authors see a “broader backlash against women, and particularly feminism” in the U.S. news media and blogs. They question whether the Wikimedia Foundation is properly addressing the issue.

In progress

  • Julia Adams, Hannah Brueckner, “Wikipedia and the Democratization of Academic Knowledge”, a two-year National Science Foundation grant for exploring gender-specific patterns of representation of scholars and scholarship. One of the project’s goals is to contribute to improving quality and reducing bias on academic – and more general – Wikipedia."


Studies on similar topics and/or communities

Extended content

Thanks for your attention. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:16, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I may be misunderstanding the task here. Are there three sections proposal for removal from the research section? Why? I haven't reviewed them all, but I know some of them, and they appear relevant. Ok, I've now read the preceding section, and see the impetus.--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:31, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
I think it would be better to move this thread to the resources talk-page, currently at User talk:Carolmooredc/My_Sandbox_1. It's making this page a bit hard to negotiate. Also, Carol, do you mind if I link to your sandbox on the main task-force page? It's a great thing you've pulled together, so it would be good to have it available there. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:19, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Got to run out in a second, but feel free to link where appropriate under resources. Yes, people might go by that talk page and say what they think does or does not belong in such a Resources Page here and we can figure it out over the next few weeks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:49, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Done. SlimVirgin (talk) 06:06, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Bigotry against women proposal

Per the section above, I'm moving this controversial proposal from the Project to talk page for discussion:

SPECIFICO talk 13:02, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually it's not that controversial in that editors there think it needs to be done. And thus it doesn't need to be on main page here. Of course, "controversial" here means among those who think there is a gender gap and something should be done about it, not those who want to nitpick the project out of existance.
I mean the LGBT Wikiproject doesn't let people against LGBT's dictate what's on their page, does it? (This is in response to various comments above about "anyone can comment.") Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:10, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Has someone proposed particular changes to be made to the essay? It already includes "gender" in its list of prejudices, and it doesn't appear to say anything about any of the individual targets of bigotry other than listing them. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:44, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I suppose it would go into a new section as part of the "User directed" examples "1.1.3 Gender based" --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 03:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I had some things in mind I wrote down on my do list, but haven't had a chance to deal with. Plus I'm still accumulating relevant info and sources. See next thread relevant to sources. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:26, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Carol, I find your comment those who think there is a gender gap and something should be done about it, not those who want to nitpick the project out of existance crosses the line of AGF. Has anyone said they want the project obliterated? Short of abundant evidence, it will be helpful to all if you bite your tongue and keep that opinion to yourself. All it does is creates unnecessary tension. Please. Two kinds of pork (talk) 02:04, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I think Carol's observation is completely appropriate, and I endorse it. I am offended you are telling her to bite her tongue. Self-harm is not an appropriate thing to recommend to another editor, I hope you will refactor that suggestion. And surely there are editors who in good faith think this project shouldn't exist. This sort of thing has happened to many other projects.--Milowent • hasspoken 02:33, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps it has, but it's gotten to the point that everyone here needs to bend over backwards to be respectful to each other. Look at it this way, the jab in her quote didn't add anything helpful, did it? Why not just leave it out? Believe me, I've typed plenty of things that were snarky and relevant. I found it was more helpful to remove the snark. I support this project. Carol has implied numerous times that I don't. That is far more offensive then asking someone to bite their tongue. But that's just my opinion.Two kinds of pork (talk) 03:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

How male editors/men can be better participants here.

I’ve watched the disruptive editing. I’ve seen the “I’m innocently asking something without realizing it’s a giant assertion of my male privilege, and is meant to protect that privilege from changes.” And, I’ve seen the ways in which men/male editors attack women editors on here. If Wikipedia has a systemic bias, so too does it have an ignorance issue – because I doubt many of the men on here want to be the assholes they come off as (WP:GOODFAITH here).

So I thought, as someone who identifies as a man and is committed to closing the gender gap here, I would leave a few tips for my fellow male-identifying homo sapien sapiens (bots and cyborgs are welcome to read too). I ask that you read these, think about them, and add to them if you have anything productive or constructive to add.

  • Before responding to a thread/comment/etc, ask yourself why you are responding: is it out of genuine concern for the topic? Is it to prove a point? Is it because you are personally offended? Where does your answer come from: concern for the WikiProject or concern for yourself? If any of those answers is about you, it’s probably better to write your feelings down in a word document or blog, and not on Wikipedia. People experience things, and you are not the arbiter of whether their experiences were "real" or not. You might think efforts are misguided, but find ways to constructively engage and not be a negative niles.
  • Before citing WP:_____ in response to anything, ask yourself why you are citing it: to win an argument? Wikipedia is not about winning. To make the encyclopedia better? Remember, Ignore all rules if it makes the encyclopedia better - and having more perspectives and points of view from the other side of the (socially constructed) gender binary undoubtedly makes the encyclopedia better. Or, are you citing WPs to demonstrate your expertise of Wikipedia over someone else? That's not welcome here or anywhere on Wikipedia.
  • We all fail at life/humanity sometimes. I've done it. It's ok to say you're sorry, or that you're wrong, or that you shouldn't have typed something that you did. People will appreciate it. So, if you've been on the wrong side of the above, maybe you should send a message to the editors you were engaged with that says "I'm sorry. I feel very passionate about this topic, but I know I can be a better person about it. Just wanted to let you know I realized that. Looking forward to editing some more with you in the future." You'll feel better about yourself, and be on your way to being a better editor.
  • Are you really interested in the gender gap, in a constructive way? If not, move on. Life is too short, there are too many articles that need to be written and revised, and Wikipedia is about using team work to create a free and open encyclopedia. If you are interested in fixing the epic gender gap, take a seat and listen. You can learn a lot about yourself and how to be a better editor here.

Thebrycepeake (talk) 18:35, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Erics response, and the responses to that are moved to the next section (by me). I believe Eric raises one of the three or four basic questions that need answering. If anyone has "issues" they can move it back here, at the risk, perhaps, of obfuscating the discussion. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:58, 4 September 2014 (UTC).
Thanks, Thebrycepeake. Thoughtful post. Lightbreather (talk) 19:27, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, excellent. And the basis of a wonderful essay, we may hope :-) !!! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:35, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Excellent points! --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 03:27, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
  • @ Thebrycepeake - Re: "is it out of genuine concern for the topic? Is it to prove a point? Is it because you are personally offended? Where does your answer come from: concern for the WikiProject or concern for yourself?" - How about this option: out of concern for Wikipedia that it not be turned into a politicized battleground to fight some sort of gender war. I'd say this project and WikiProject Conservatism (both driven by what they perceive as systemic biases at WP and both of which at times resort of a battleground worldview) are equally in need of close scrutiny and to be called out when they step over the battleground line, as well as to have their outspoken and politicized critics monitored and reined in periodically. I'd say that's a totally valid reason for my participation here and there. Wikipedia is itself the project, the work groups exist to improve WP, not to undermine or politicize it. Carrite (talk) 23:11, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
I think that you have a valid concern, but then I get here: "Wikipedia is itself the project, the work groups exist to improve WP, not to undermine or politicize it." By nature of being a project, Wikipedia is political. What gets included and excluded, those are political too. The fact that, say, facts about gender disparities in various scientific medical fields (to say nothing of this place), or violence against women in various public spheres of life, are systematically deleted despite meeting the typical criteria makes it quite clear that Wikipedia was politicized from the get go. If a group of individuals says "we're being systematically excluded from an inclusive project," I suppose the most democratic thing to do is find a way to include them -- also a political decision. So it all comes back to the question: are you commenting here out of a concern for the project? What types of evidence are you bringing to constructively engage with the project in a productive way? Or, are you commenting in a way that is more distractive, disruptive, and about your own political commitments (and not that of a strong and diverse encyclopedia)? Thebrycepeake (talk) 00:29, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

If anyone wants some real issues to look at

Here are some articles with serious concerns that members of this task force might find worth looking at. I will say no more. Montanabw(talk) 02:01, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

@Montanabw: You're adding an in-progress AfD, that's canvassing. This task force is about the gender gap on Wikipedia. As far as I know, the last four articles are fine, but the first one isn't, because you're linking to an in progress AfD, which counts as influencing a discussion. You should probably remove that link. Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 03:15, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Nonsense, I just mentioned that it exists. No violation of WP:CANVASS here. Montanabw(talk) 04:16, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I doubt that link is going to influence the debate, its a super long discussion. Its rather silly to see some of the "delete" votes based on the voters allegedly knowing the story better and calling the press irretrievably biased. WP:GNG and sourcing is all we do around here. The only valid delete votes are those really advocating for a merge, instead of keeping a dedicated article arising from an ex-boyfriends jealous screed and its aftermath. Like deletion sorting, its often ok to notify groups with an interest in the topic. But I think the link can be safely removed here too.--Milowent • hasspoken 03:57, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
  • So, because you posted the links, I finally broken down and read what GamerGate is about. I regularly work on the WP:TOP25 and though i see these names/events mentioned a bit on twitter, none of this has come close to the sort of press attention a legitimately big news story gets. E.g., on the current WP:5000 (5000 most viewed wikipedia articles in the last week), GamerGate is #874, Zoe Quinn is #1204, Anita Sarkeesian is #4641. (That tropes game is unlisted.) To be sure, that's more popular than 99% of wikipedia's articles at this moment, but its ultimate a rather niche fight propagated by gamer drama communities. (Cf. 6-hour prison break of the perp of the Chardon High School shooting on Sept 11 got that article to #58.)--Milowent • hasspoken 03:57, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, feel free to remove if its too off-topic. There's no way I can stand the "debate" with any of the folks on those articles.--Milowent • hasspoken 04:27, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, decisions are made by those who show up. I figured that it made some sense to post links of interest to task force members. What they do with that info is entirely voluntary. Montanabw(talk) 05:01, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Absolutely not canvassing to mention AFDs of interest to the project. In fact, many projects have bots that do that automatically. --GRuban (talk) 13:58, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't think it is of interest to the task force. The name of the task force is "gender gap", not "gender bias". This might be good to notify Wikiproject feminism, but the GGTF is for discussion of how women can get involved in Wikipedia more. I don't see how any of this can relate. Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 14:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
[Insert: Indeed. The front page links to Feminism and Gender Studies projects that DO have ALERT Sections or pages. We don't need such a page or section here, so postings, especially of multiple items to save creating new sections, is perfectly appropriate. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:31, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Redaction of 17 odd comments?

reasonable question asked and answered, but unrelated to the Gender Gap issues, so closing

I just noticed a number of comments from about 6 threads and 9 individuals were redacted on the 17th and 18th September - we cant see the content at all.
Wikipedia:Revision_deletion says these redactions can happen for: non-public personal information, Removal of potentially libelous information, Removal of copyright infringement, Hiding of blatant attack names on automated lists and logs, Removal of vandalism. I don't remember anything all that nasty happening in those, including the archiving of a thread.
Even if there was one individual's complaint about one or two posts, that would not call for removal of more than a dozen irrelevant posts would it?? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 12:22, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Have you ever seen editors SEED posts with unacceptable material in order to get a lot of surrounding material removed in order to avoid sanction for it? (Later note: Or any other dodgy motivations.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:23, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
The surrounding material is not removed (and has not, as far as I can tell, in this case; the archived thread is still archived, and I recognize a few other edits as still being there). The diffs are not available to non-admins, but admins can still see them, so authorship can still be determined. isaacl (talk) 14:07, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
OK, I see that one thing I thought was the problem - answer to "blue sky" question above - is still there. So you mean even though you can't find the diff the material is there? Can you get a diff from arbitrator if you need it? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:28, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
The first redacted edit in the sequence of redacted edits should be the one corresponding to the removed content, as far as I know. You can ask Salvio giuliano, the admin who performed the action, more about it. Obviously providing the diff for the removed content would defeat the purpose of redacting it, though any admin should be able to give you any other diff. isaacl (talk) 14:48, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Obviously it's the useable diffs people might need in some situation. Happily probably not this one :-) So many policy/technical tidbits one has to learn.... Hmm, what if it's your own diff and you want to know what you did wrong for future reference? Guess you ask the admin and see if he'll tell you. Unless you kept a copy already. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:17, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Carol, if you have questions, the best thing is to ask Salvio on his talk page. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:27, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Actually, looking around, the answers to my personal questions became clear right after last post. But given it took 8 years for me to find out why there would be so many lines through so many edit summaries, and to discover that everything but the redacted part (even if it's just one word) remain, I guess people around just a few months or years will be happy to see yet one more mystery solved. Someday you'll be able to ask the website a question and you won't have to go to 3 policy pages and one or more talk pages to get an answer. It will just spit it out! A girl can dream. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:43, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
If you substitute "admin who performed an action that I have questions about" for "website", you should be able to get a response. isaacl (talk) 15:56, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I admit I still need to ask. User_talk:Salvio_giuliano#RevDelete_of_17_comments_on_Gender_gap_task_force. --GRuban (talk) 15:49, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

If you go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force#If anyone wants some real issues to look at and search for your user name, you'll see that your comment is still present. isaacl (talk) 16:00, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm the one who requested the removal. For obvious reasons, I won't identify what was removed. That sounds mysterious, but it isn't a big deal, an honest error, I believe. However, because of the way wiki-software works, you cannot simply remove one post, as each subsequent diff will also contain the material, so each diff, up until the post has been removed must be suppressed as well. (I am not an oversighhter, but I do revdel in many cases, usually related to copyright. I wondered if oversighters have a magic tool to do something different, but I now conclude they do not, and it works the same way as revdel.). You are free to ask Salvio, but I am certain Salvio cannot say much. He cannot even say who asked for it, but I can. The removal involved only a single sentence, although, as explained, it may look like much more.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:01, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Hopefully this sort of confusion will be avoidable someday, when WP:Flow is implemented. —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:48, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Not much that I can add to what has already been explained, but, yes, unfortunately, when there arises the need for an admin or an oversighter to redact something, all revisions containing the information in question need to be hidden, even if this means revdeleting or suppressing many "innocent" edits. It's how the system works. In this case, to remove one word (the real name of an editor), I had to suppress 17 revisions; however, I only redacted one word, the content of all other edits is still there.

As a side note to SPhilbrick, suppression works pretty much the same as revdeletion: we use the same extension, but there is one more checkbox we can tick. Salvio Let's talk about it! 17:03, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the confirmation.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:26, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Marie Claire list

SPECIFICO mentioned this list, the articles are:

  1. Barbara Bush
  2. Chelsea Clinton
  3. Rachel Lloyd
  4. Alicia Keys
  5. Nancy Lublin
  6. Gabrielle Giffords
  7. Stephanie Schriock
  8. Eva Longoria
  9. Melinda Gates
  10. Frida Giannini
  11. Tammy Tibbetts
  12. Olivia Wilde
  13. Kimberly Bryant
  14. Dina Habib Powell
  15. Taylor Swift
  16. Shakira
  17. Cecile Richards
  18. Jennifer Hudson
  19. Christy Turlington Burns
  20. Jennifer Garner

A very narrow selection of women, but of course creating or improving them is no bad thing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:31, 10 September 2014 (UTC).

Here is a list from Glamour (magazine)

  1. Maritza R. Alarcón
  2. Kendall Ciesemier
  3. Arielle Alter Confino
  4. Jordana Alter Confino
  5. Erika Alden DeBenedictis (lol - see 23131 Debenedictis.--Milowent • hasspoken 21:36, 19 September 2014 (UTC))
  6. Syreeta Gates
  7. Tavi Gevinson
  8. Windsor Genevieve Hanger
  9. Sejal Hathi
  10. Sarah Hemminger
  11. Stephanie Kaplan
  12. Haley Kilpatrick
  13. Divinity Matovu
  14. Sharmin Mollick
  15. Rachel Nalebuff
  16. Hannah Salwen
  17. Danielle Snyder
  18. Tammy Tibbetts
  19. Zim Ugochukwu
  20. Annie Wang

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:28, 19 September 2014 (UTC).

Another actual discussion/dispute

This is another issue that may be of interest to this project: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content_review#File:Vivian_James.jpg I see no need to also contact the Men's Rights pages, they are already there, Just FYI. Montanabw(talk) 23:11, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Scope

The scope paragraph contains this statement:

Sue Gardner, former executive director of the Foundation, aimed to increase female enrollment to 25 percent by 2015, and to expand the number of female administrators to 25 percent and eventually 50 percent

The link supports the phrase " aimed to increase female enrollment to 25 percent by 2015" but I saw nothing at that site to support the admin comment. Did I miss it? Did she say it elsewhere, in which case another reference is needed. Does the number 50% refer to editors or admins or both? If a source can be found, I'm fine leaving it, but if not, the statement should be trimmed to her actual statement.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:59, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I couldn't find the admin part either in that article, so I've removed it until someone finds a source. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, that was quick. I note that Jimbo mentions that the initiatives have completely failed, and that the Foundation is doubling down. It would be useful to have some links to the new initiatives. I didn't see them on the page. My guess is that they are on Meta somewhere, and I'll go look, but if someone knows where they are, I think they should be included in the list of resources.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:32, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
I do see a link to the meta page on Gender gap, but I'm not seeing anything that sounds like Jimbo's doubling down comment. --S Philbrick(Talk) 16:38, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
I am completely deaf and so cannot check this but the original source for "doubling down", according to the history, was this. I'm not even sure what "doubling down" means: trying twice as hard? - Sitush (talk) 10:12, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I checked the interview, he does say we're "doubling down our efforts." Yes, "doubling down" has come to mean something like twice as hard, in the corporate-speak of the last decade. It was originally a gambling term about doubling a bet on a good hand. It is now similar to saying someone will "redouble their efforts." It both cases is rarely means "double" of anything will actually be done.--Milowent • hasspoken 12:57, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I think my comment yesterday got eaten by internet connection problems. Anyway, someone did stick that number in there after it had been removed from previous versions of descriptions of the BBC interview. I don't have the energy to find who or why. So as always we just have to be vigilant for things that get slipped in. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:43, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, I see now that my wording was a bit unclear. I wasn't challenging whether doubling down belonged in the quote. It does. However if the WMF has actually "doubled down" (increased activity materially) I'd like to see the initiatives they are starting or strengthening. I looked around and didn't find anything that sounded like a new recent initiative. I may have missed it.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:53, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not aware of anything either. I did remove the sentence for that reason, but it was restored and I don't want to keep removing it. But I think unless we make clear what it refers to, people are going to keep wondering. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:51, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I put it back up as a positive statement of intent. Wikimedia blog is the place for constant updates on various projects that impact editor recruitment and retention; the emphasis regarding women may not always be mentioned. Also, Wales has put out on his Talk Page a few proposals regarding a more civil atmosphere that would impact retention of female editors, even if not specifically gender gap oriented. I've mentioned some before. When get a chance will list some for those who don't want to check archives.
Since this is not an article, we can use Wikimedia sources regarding such projects that we think will help recruit and keep women editors. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 00:07, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Article rescue

I had an admin restore Eunice Anderson to my sandbox. If anyone can find sources to rescue this BLP, I would be grateful for your help,Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 00:24, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

I did a little tweak for ya. Hope ya don't mind :) GoodDay (talk) 00:41, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
I've spent a few hours looking for more sources, but am drawing a blank. does anyone here have acess to research databases?Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 17:40, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Foundation gender-gap initiatives

Gender gap strategy, posted by Siko (WMF) and AWang (WMF). SlimVirgin (talk) 21:57, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Google efforts.

Interesting article about Google's attempts at minimising systemic bias. __ E L A Q U E A T E 19:53, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Interesting article about their diversity-training – thanks for posting it. Just making people aware that they have these biases, without realizing it, can make such a huge difference: "Dr. Welle goes on to explain that some of the most damaging bias is unconscious; people do the worst stuff without meaning to, or even recognizing that they’re being influenced by their preferences." SlimVirgin (talk) 20:02, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of admins

I haven't nominated anyone for a while, but my last five nominations were all successful, and as far as I'm concerned those of my nominees who have got through RFA have made good admins. I am hoping to nominate more candidates at RFA, if anyone here is interested in running and would like my nomination then please read my criteria, and if that doesn't put you off then please email me. ϢereSpielChequers 05:54, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Disruption

If someone is being disruptive, please follow one of the usual procedures (my preferred procedure is to ignore disruption, thus making it non-disruptive, but there is a host of WP options available). I am not enjoying having these threads disrupted by gender-specific posturing, particularly the thread above which started with a thoughtful comment from Anne Delong, which is worthy of serious discussion. Buried in the ensuing thread, which will probably never achieve anything, are a number of other issues worthy of discussion, which are lost in the green ink.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: Did you mean to put this section lower in the page? EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 20:14, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
No, I wrote it on 2 September. I just changed my sig to allow it to be archived. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:20, 25 September 2014 (UTC).

Game plan

Friends, Montana has given us food for thought in the list of links above. And we have 53 sign-ups, which is an achievement in itself. Which brings us to the need to marshal this task force in some kind of longer-term prioritised plan. Should it be expressed in a table? Or a sub-page comprising organisational sections?

May I suggest that we toss around an initial plan, produce a pilot table or whatever that allows people to sign up to sub-groups who might collaborate, or might operate as individual editors, to accomplish a task? Perhaps we should also consider a system of prioritisation and gradings, such as those used by many wikiprojects.

And of course we'll encounter the issue of editors' not having much discretionary time; but identifying modest, containable tasks could attract more lifters of all sorts of predilections—there's basic surveying and assessment of articles and topics (and the absence of these); there's copy-editing; there's stub creation; there's even interwiki liaison; plus plus.

Then we might be in a position to:

  1. Notify on talkpages everyone who's signed up to the task force overleaf to visit and consider participation in more narrow-themed tasks.
  2. Approach external people and organisations in the hope of gaining information from them, and if the starts lined up, even one or two to join us. (For example, the poor treatment of female mathematicians on en.WP has already been raised at an international council of academics—not that they'd be willing to come in and do the hard yards, I think, but their students might? There's also a website compendium of female mathematicians, "owned" by someone and not freely licensed, that holds a small glimmer of a chance of cooperation, I suppose.)
  3. Organise for individuals or small groups of Wikimedians to apply for IEG or PEG grants (both of them schemes that thirst for impact in terms of diversity).

What do people think? Tony (talk) 01:36, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Tony, do you mean to create task forces off of the task force? I'm a bit confused. And by the way, it's "women" mathematicians if used in a generic sense, otherwise, it's "men-women" and "male-female" but never "men-female" OK?  ;-) Montanabw(talk) 04:42, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Montana, I wasn't aware of having counterposed female with men; thanks for clarifying the generic sense of "women". I wasn't advocating the creation of different task forces, but simply setting out some options for activities. Tony (talk) 13:36, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Tony, I think this is a great idea. We lack direction and coherence, so anything you can suggest to move us forward would be wonderful. SlimVirgin (talk) 13:42, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
I prefer male-female because of the age-exclusionary nature of "men-women". In sports it is often a different matter, because things are categorised as men-women and/or boys-girls, and clearly in some areas only adults will be included (presidents of the US need to be over 35 for instance). All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:16, 25 September 2014 (UTC).
Generally male/female refers to sex and man/woman/boy/girl refers to gender identity. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 23:26, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikimania 2014

A positive sign as far as narrowing the GG.

Gender Balance by registration

64% Male
36% Female

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC).

That's excellent news. Thanks for letting us know, Rich. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:42, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

HeForShe

Alex Wang just sent the gender gap mailing list the video of Emma Watson's speech to the United Nations, introducing their HeForShe campaign. It's worth sharing here too. Any thoughts about how we could use this idea on Wikipedia? SlimVirgin (talk) 00:49, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Love these celebrity photos with the hashtags at Huffington Post. Looks much more up to date than the Robin Morgan-era "Mind the gap" symbol. Are there any photogenic Wikipedians? —Neotarf (talk) 05:49, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
English-language translation now posted of Charting diversity, a collaborative effort of the German chapter and Beuth University. It's a little academic in its angle, particularly at the start (that's the German preference); and there's no executive summary up-front, which is a pity. But well done. The shocking stats for participation and readership are on p. 8, to add context to the slither of good news Rich posted above. 3.2 Reasons for low female participation in Wikipedia is interesting. They conclude: "The overall picture emerging from the analysis of surveys, reports, and interviews with individual Wikipedians is complex," which doesn't really bring us closer to designing strategic action.

I think a little of this report could be referred to in a funding application such as Slim is planning. And let's not forget the IEG grant to Amanda Menking and David McDonald (a narrative approach to gaining insights into gender on WMF sites), which should be starting to produce data/findings. McDonald points out that we don't know why WP is so much worse for female participation than other interactive social sites. Tony (talk) 10:42, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Gender gap on Twitter

There are two Wikipedia Gender Gap accounts on Twitter that people might want to follow:

There's also The Ada Initiative @adainitiative.

SlimVirgin (talk) 18:55, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, I thought SaidOnWP might be a plant to trap us, but seeing recent quotes, looks like it's for real. I'll still just bookmark it and peek from time to time. The other one seems a good way to get out positive info about positive efforts. Ada Initiative's "F-Word" - Feminism graphic - is pretty ironic in light of various goings on lately. "What the... Feminism! is going on!"??? Well, one doesn't have to adopt a label to do the right thing, that's for sure. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:15, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
I've been following @SaidOnWP and have seen some interesting quotes with diffs; worth following. Also @adainitiative is a gem; for transparency, I'm an AdaCamper. --Rosiestep (talk) 03:31, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Fall 2014 Art+Feminism IEG & PEG Grants Notification

Hello All, the Art+Feminism Edit-a-thon organizers have prepared an IEG grant, and a PEG grant this week for the fall Wikimedia Foundation grant scholarships. These grants will fund several NYC training sessions, another major international Edit-a-thon, and the creation of infrastructure to support this year, and years going forward. The project is seeking community comment / discussion and endorsement signatures (section at the bottom of the page) to help complete the grant process. We encourage you to take a look at these grants, and offer your feedback and/or your endorsement signature if you feel the project worthy. On behalf of the other organizers. --Theredproject (talk) 01:11, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Training admins

One thing I've considered suggesting to the Foundation is that it finance the training of a group of admins to deal with gender-gap issues. I've noticed that admins are often blind to the differences in the way men and women interact. This can lead to a sense of unfairness in the way women editors are treated, and women's issues handled.

I wonder whether we could apply for a grant to set up online training for, say, 20 admins. Perhaps the Ada Initiative would supply the training. Those admins could then be called upon to monitor and close gender-gap-related discussions, or discussions about particular women (whether editors or subjects), where gender is felt to be a factor. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:07, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  • Support. Long overdue. We saw this principle work well in the closing of the move request for the Hillary Rodham Clinton article. There is no reason to believe it does not have merit elsewhere. And the issues are much too complex for a volunteer WikiProject to try to inform themselves and develop a program in an area where they have no qualifications. —Neotarf (talk) 18:42, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes! In addition to whatever "training" exists for admins, great. A permanent admin-related subpage on the topic would be good, too. And we can always write an essay right now. I still haven't even gotten near my first essay. I don't know enough to do that one, except provide suggestions.
I've heard a rumor that Wales said on his talk page he was interested in hiring mediators, but haven't researched to see if that's just a mis-remembering of proposals he do so. Some professional mediators to mediate and teach mediation to volunteers is a great idea, too. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:45, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • There are individual engagement grants that individuals or small groups can apply for; see meta:Grants:IEG. There are also project and event grants; see meta:Grants:PEG. I can't see the difference at the moment.

    We would have to reach out to people in the Foundation and elsewhere who have discussed similar issues (e.g. the editor-retention team). Approach the Ada Initiative to see whether they could provide training, what it would cost, whether it could be done online (via Skype, for example, which would make it a lot cheaper). Put together a proposal and discuss with experienced Wikipedians how to apply. It would be a fair bit of work. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:55, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Like a lot of projects, if somebody gets the ball rolling, others will help push it along Go for it! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:59, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • This is a great idea. I'd be willing to assist with the grant application or interfacing with the Ada Initiative. I think we have a couple of GGTF members who have experience with the IEG process. If we could demonstrate that this is more than a one-off training, we'd be in a better position grant-wise. We could have a page for admins who can close gender-related discussions a la Wikipedia:Admins willing to make difficult blocks or even incorporate a training module into admin school. gobonobo + c 20:17, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Gobonobo, that's exactly what I had in mind, that anyone could request of a particular discussion that it be closed by one of the trained admins, or could request their assistance at any point. My thinking was to suggest 20 to start with, but an on-going thing would be much better. If you can put us in touch with the Ada Initiative, that would be great. I was wondering whether they could be willing to offer training, and even help with the initial selection of admins (devise an interview or questionnaire to establish who would benefit most, etc). Also, see the page posted in the section below. There is more information there about grants. What should our first step be? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:02, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Oh, I love this idea! If you think folks would need to be paid to help organize a training like this, an IEG might be the right way to fund (7 more days to submit a proposal for this round). If you think you'll just need funding for people's travel, etc, a PEG is more likely the right way to fund. We can help you point in one direction or another, depending on your timing and needs. And yes, WMF is thinking about running a grantmaking campaign in March to focus on funding new ideas specifically focused on the gender gap, so if you wanted more time to develop this idea into a grant proposal, we could think about it as part of the "Inspire campaign." Too many options, I know, but happy to help you narrow things down as you decide 1) what parts you'd actually need funding for and 2) when you'd realistically want to run this training. I'm sending Valerie of Ada Initiative the link to this discussion now, too, to loop her in. Any interest in starting to draft something in the IdeaLab meanwhile, which could potentially move into either sort of grant? Cheers! Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:17, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Siko, thank you for posting. It's difficult to know how to proceed. The funding I had in mind would be primarily for the Ada Initiative trainers, and for the admins to travel to the training if it could not be done online (I assume it could be done online; travel would make it expensive, though face-to-face training sessions would be very helpful). Perhaps the first step is to write up something for the IdeaLab (I love your Inspire campaign, by the way – thank you!). I assume it's okay to post a very rough draft on the IdeaLab for now? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:23, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • SlimVirgin, yes, please - that's exactly what IdeaLab is for :) That way we can all join in and help develop further, and it will give you something to point Ada folks to as well. Glad you think the Inspire campaign is worth doing too! Looking forward to more happening there soon. Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Siko, thank you, this is great. I'll start working on something, and others can join in and refine it. I'll ping people once I have something on the IdeaLab (and if someone else wants to start and beats me to it, that's fine too). SlimVirgin (talk) 22:36, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • @SlimVirgin: Do you foresee (or hope for) the community to empower the trained admins in a particular manner? That is, it's wonderful to have people trained to handle these issues, but that doesn't help much if their RfC closes (for example) are reverted, or their ANI judgments ignored, by other editors or admins who think these actions shouldn't involve any consideration of participant gender or gender issues. The community is generally resistant to adding more levels of "power", and I would expect that to emphatically be the case when the "power" is in regard to gender issues, which are often treated as "those women, who just can't take the heat and want us to cater to them". A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:20, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Hi Fluffernutter, I hadn't thought of admins with extra powers. I was hoping we could rely on the cooperation of other admins, so that, if an editor requests that a discussion be moderated and closed by a trained admin, others would agree to step back. They might want to be accepted onto the training programme themselves in future, so that would be an added incentive.

    That may sound a little too hopeful, but most discussion closures are respected, so if there were problems, it would only be in a handful of cases. I think if the training programme took off and people saw it was producing something good, cooperation would increase. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:05, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

  • This may actually be a chance to rejuvenate adminship. The admin corps is quite frankly in shambles. Admins have a reputation for bullying, and at this point there are probably more plans to reform the process than there are admins. Long-established admins are quitting, and I hear that for the first time, there were no new RFAs in either August and September. Perhaps it's time to go for quality, and start putting resources into developing the admins we already have. There is currently no criteria for adminship, other than a popularity contest. This would give admins and perhaps even potential admins a chance for some training credentials and certificates. Long-term, maybe it would be possible to have some dispute-resolution modules developed and added to the admin "tool" kit, but at this point gender is a priority with the foundation and this is a good enough place to start, funding-wise. —Neotarf (talk) 03:51, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
  • this is an excellent suggestion. However instead of direct training, or in addition to, a series of recorded videos that would be available to everyone would give more bang for the buck. Prospective admins can use this "certification" to bolster their chances at RfA. Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 04:09, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
    I'd say 20 is almost too many for a physical meetup for training (around 15 seems to be a good number). For online meetups, one is playing with group audio and/or video hangouts, which may have different optimal numbers (possibly smaller). May I suggest that the selection criteria be relaxed to include those who might intend applying for adminship at some stage in the future? You might control the numbers gently by offering self-selection criteria for both groups. More generally, it's hard to proceed far without knowing more from the Ada Initiative. Tony (talk) 05:23, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
To be honest, this could fall into super vote territory, and paying people to help "fix" Wikipedia could draw the ire of those who hated the foundation's handling of MV/VE/Flow. How can you assure the community that the training won't just lead them to super vote and that this isn't just another WMF grab for power? Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 12:55, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Is there anyone who does *not* hate Media Viewer and Virtual Editor? If the WMF wants to supervote the community, they will just do it, with or without some training packet. By the way, Tony and I have both done a bit through the Signpost to publicize this controversy. —Neotarf (talk) 13:46, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I've posted the proposal on the IdeaLab as what the page calls the "idea creator," but I see this as a gender gap task force project. If the people who've signed up as endorsers prefer to be participants, that would be wonderful. This is something that needs teamwork.
Tony, there's no reason it couldn't be extended to all experienced editors who want to apply. I've added that to the IdeaLab page. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:29, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment/suggestion: Over the years, I have attended a few seminars where we identify our Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator and use that as a segue to talk about different ways of interacting. The first one I attended was quite insightful, making it clear to me that different people interact in different ways. I'll throw out as a suggestion that teaching admins about this issue might be a way of covering useful material, without making the arguably over-simplification that men and women communicate differently. I prefer to think that different people communicate differently, and it is useful to understand these differences. If we found some MB experts, I bet the talk pages would be rich in material to illustrate various ways of communicating. While I try to be aware of these differences, it is easy to lapse into my own preferred style; I would find it helpful to learn how to watch for different approaches, so that I could tailor my responses accordingly.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:17, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Hi, I agree that interaction styles don't split neatly into male and female, and I think the problems we see in the way discussions are handled discourage a lot of men too. But the focus of this task force is the gender gap, so the proposal is to tailor the training to that issue to keep things simple. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:59, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Myers-Briggs is useful. About 25 years ago some libertarians did it of a couple hundred libertarians, including may 40 women; something like 80 percent of them were ENTJs. Which I am too. They are only 1-3% of females (and you have to be to put up with some of those guys). I wonder if there would be a significant number of any one of the 16 personalities among either women editors or admins. Which might be a good segway to my earlier comment below. (Since I can't remember now what the heck the relevance was.)
Below I noted that the Admin how-2-guide seemed more concerned about abused admins that abused editors. However, that is part of our problem. Editors willing to deal with the most abusive editors will get abused back; and the tendency has been for only hard noses to give blocks to abusers and stick it out as Admins. And hard noses aren't the kind likely to want to be sensitive to women's issues on ANI. Another reason to get more of the good guys in there learning about the issues so they can teach by example to the hard noses in the field. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:22, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

In person training

It's the WMF's money and they can do what they want, but I'm afraid many here would view this as another WMF junket giveaway. Tens of thousands of dollars for travel and lodging expenses are going to raise eyebrows. Businesses and universities have been using technology for remote learning quite successfully for many years now. There is no reason this training shouldn't be done frugally. Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 14:04, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Let's not forget existing resources on Wikipedia/Wikimedia that can be tweaked or used:
  • Wikipedia:Administrators'_how-to_guide exists but the only abusive editors it seems concerned with are the ones who abuse admins who've given blocks or whatever. Maybe that needs and "abuse of editors" section which has one or two sentences on women's issues.
  • Wikipedia:Advice_for_new_administrators could probably more easily have that info inserted.
  • Wikipedia:New_admin perhaps this one too
  • Are some good admin-related essays? [Placeholder for links to any I find later]
  • Wikimedia.org help videos exist. Have a small group trained in administration in general, and another one dealing with systemic bias (including gender gap). :Have smaller google hangouts and video chats on these topics.

What others? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:07, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah, thank you! I just about to ask what there was currently. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 21:18, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
I collected a bunch of stuff at Draft Resources page which frankly I haven't studied much yet. (Mostly things listed at Gender Gap email list, things I ran into in my travels around linked articles.) A comprehensive search on it would be good - and that is what we're supposed to be good at, eh? See what you find there and if you find good stuff that needs to be added there, feel free to do so in the appropriate section. 03:46, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
  • How long a training session were you considering? Is it something that could be run at Wikimania? Alternatively could this be run in multiple centres, I work for Wikimedia UK and we could easily supply a room, wifi and coffee if someone was offering to run a session in London (lots of admins live in or near London, and not just admins on this wiki). If anyone fancies running a session in London please drop me an email, this could work as one of our wiki Wednesday events. ϢereSpielChequers 05:23, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Hi WereSpielChequers, the idea is in the early stages, and I'm currently doing lots of reading to try to put something together, but yes, holding workshops at Wikimania and Wikimedia UK would be a great idea, as would filming training sessions so that everyone could learn from them. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:47, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure what sort of training you were envisaging, so suggestions as to what we should cover would be welcome, but if you were thinking of an opportunity for experienced editors to talk to existing admins then yes we could arrange that. An evening session in London for 6-10 people would cost very little to convene, and a geonotice would be a good way to promote it. ϢereSpielChequers 01:12, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Probable lack of current admin/community support

I'm sure that for at least one situation if this proposal gets implemented, some people might disagree with the interpreted outcome by a specially trained admin, so what would happen if there was a consensus against these "gender gap trained" admins? Also, could a gender gap admin overturn a regular closer? Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 12:43, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I think you are reading far too much into this discussion of training of Admins. Whether or not the Foundation takes something like this on, local groups can always have workshops and trainings of editors, wikidata people, and even admins. Latter workshops/discussions can review the many different functions that admins can take on, most of them not even relevant to behavior, and discuss as well how to deal with various behavior issues, including the more obvious incidents of racial/sexual/gender/sex orientation/etc. bigotry. (And know when people are taking some innocuous thing and blowing it out of proportion to make some ridiculous trumped up case. I've certainly had that happen to me enough that I'd like to see admins who know how to read diffs and thus know the difference!) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:56, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
In my view, the goal should not be to produce admins with special privileges to evaluate consensus. The objective ought to be to increase awareness of cultural diversity of all sorts by the editing community, as well as the subset of editors with administrative privileges. This should lead to better informed discussions on points of contention. isaacl (talk) 21:41, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

If anyone wants a laugh

Well I thought it was funny anyway - User talk:Eric Corbett#The god-king has spoken (also check out the sign at the top of the page). --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 18:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Wales page definitely a better place to bring up ideas about a BBC style monitoring system than here. Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales notes that he is an Admin so has the same powers to block or indefinitely ban users as other admins. He's only use it once. What self-control!! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:57, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Wales made other pro-civility statements today[2] and yet another editor stated that, in effect, "big content producers have ra right to be as uncivil as they like" and those who aren't big content providers have no right to complain. In response I put up a home-made "Wikibreak" box on my user page. It's a polite way of saying "I'm too aggravated and disgusted to edit much any more." Creating perhaps more positive boxes is an option for all of us. Maybe I'll make it more positive tomorrow. (Like making one for hiring trained mediators.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 00:32, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Not sure why this section was archived when there's a 20 day automatic archive bot on this talk page, but I've reinstated it. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 06:53, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
And I unhatted it. Maybe it's not the most enlightening discussion we've seen here, but it is information regarding civility issues and what administrator Jimmy Wales and/or the Foundation could do about them if they chose; do not dismiss project concerns as "dramafest". Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 12:27, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
PS: Not the first time we've linked to user pages that individuals found relevant, be it Wales, mine or others. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 12:30, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
On the other hand, if linking to user talk pages never ok do tell and archive this thing. Things that used to seem like no nos have become yes yeses of late. Please discuss before taking action. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:12, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that Wales is out of touch with his own project; he blocked Bishonen, of all people! He is too busy with other things to really stay on top of things here and has a tendency to shoot from the hip. He certainly is not going to be the God-king to solve gender agp issues, remember, this is the guy who started off doing softcore porn sites... Montanabw(talk) 00:20, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for Arbitration on this Task force

As per recent discussions, I have opened a Request for Arbitration: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Requests for arbitration

Please add comments in the Arbitration Request. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:36, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I haven't provided a detailed explanation of the issues. Would one or more of the participants please provide, in their statement to the ArbCom, what issues they think should be addressed? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Why not close this now? The issue is three people disrupting the project despite numerous complaints. If those people actually work more collaboratively, there won't be a problem any more. You haven't even given them a chance to do so. Why not just withdraw this as ill formed and premature? Otherwise I'll have to waste an hour coming up with 500 words explaining why it is and so will others. Please just close it. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:02, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't have to be 500 words. It has to be no more than 500 words. I'm not closing the request, which was suggested among other people by the founder. I will try to add something. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:19, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Can't we ratchet this down, CM? Your complaint was rejected. It's not helpful to repeat your failed accusations while simultaneously denying that they should be adjudicated at Arbcom. Why not just get back to work here? SPECIFICO talk 21:53, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
I think it's pretty clear I want this closed down/declined, in case anyone's confused, and stated it here: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Statement_by_Carolmooredc. I was hoping to take a few days off from this project and take care of other things! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:56, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
I accept your statement. Please consider striking your renewed allegation in this thread of your failed complaint. Enjoy your vacation. SPECIFICO talk 22:02, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, you are not helping to deescalate the situation here. CMDC did not file at ArbCom, someone else did. CMDC appears to not want to go down that road. Reality is that you have been part of the problem by behaving in a tendentious and WP:BAITing manner. However, more trips to the drama boards are not, at present, part of the solution. Everyone taking a nice deep breath and dropping the stick would do. Montanabw(talk) 22:47, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
@Carol, on the one hand you claim you want to shut this down, then in the very next sentence you start your accusations all over again. You can't have it both ways. Stop the passive aggressive nonsense. If Arbcom takes this, I doubt it will go well for you.Two kinds of pork (talk) 22:54, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Comparisons with mental disorders are not going to be very constructive here. —Neotarf (talk) 03:19, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
In the article, low and behold Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) revision IV describes passive-aggressive personality disorder. I think the reverter might have misread the "mental disorder" as being a criticism of me as opposed to a criticism of the inappropriate use of the term passive-aggressive. Note that the initiator brought up the issues and fleshing them out was appropriate. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:15, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Another constructive post. I'd again like to ask you to strike your accusations above. That would be powerful evidence to Arbcom in support of your pleading that the proposed case is not needed and should be rejected. SPECIFICO talk 19:39, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
The case is likely to be rejected based on what I have seen so far, both WP:ANI and arbcom are saying this is a matter for editors here to work out. Nobody here can have it all each side is going to have to give some here and admit they are not 100% right on their views. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:18, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

UPDATE It seems the arbitrators have had a change of heart and the case looks like it is going to be accepted. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:10, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Case accepted

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gender_Gap_Task_Force. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:35, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Women using technology to stop harassment

"How young women joined forces against misogynistic YouTuber Sam Pepper": After Pepper posted a video of himself approaching young women on the street and touching them on the butt, YouTuber Laci Green wrote him an open letter signed by top vloggers in the industry that was reblogged more than 100,000 times:

Please stop violating women and making them uncomfortable on the street for views. Please stop physically restraining them and pressuring them to be sexual when they are uncomfortable....These videos encourage millions of young men and women to see this violation as a normal way to interact with women. 1 in 6 young women (real life ones, just like the ones in your video) are sexually assaulted, and sadly, videos like these will only further increase those numbers.

Pepper has been dropped by his YouTube network and is longer welcome at fan conferences. Says one of his former collaborators, "A sexual predator isn't a good look." The Sam Pepper article is currently a redirect to List of Big Brother 11 housemates (UK)#Sam and has been indefinitely protected from editing by non-admins since August 2013. —Neotarf (talk) 05:32, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The question is if he's notable enough to warrant his own article. If you know of enough quality sources I can see a case being made, but I can also see WP:NOTNEWS and WP:BLP being tossed in your path as well. It seems the incident is more notable than the individual in this case. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 05:42, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Yes, this isn't an encyclopedia of douchebags.Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 21:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Cyberbullying is current article and it has only a couple trivial articles [clarify later: mentions of women]. Search "internet" or "online harassment of women" and you'll find dozens of RS that would be the basis of a good article. Fairly high on my list of articles to create...someday. However, feel free to create it now. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:15, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Big Brother is a mainstream show in the UK, for that reason he story is bigger in the UK and has been covered by the BBC, The Independent and has had a (small) mention in The Guardian. I would have thought they would be enough to pass the notability requirements. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 22:54, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
No, most BB contestants never see the light of a BLP article. They are listed in the shows article, but very few are blue Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 00:34, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
If someone writes it I will back it, the notability comes from the media coverage and the broader issue of harassment. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 08:58, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It isn't in the Laci Green article, although the article has a criticism bit about "citing an apparent opinion Green once made about sexism and Islam" that leads to a dead link. If the criticism bit is notable enough for inclusion, it seems this would be. The whole Green article seems pretty sparsely written. —Neotarf (talk) 12:54, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Mind the Gap

So, the symbol and the phrase "Mind the Gap" - is it known outside the UK? Obviously it means something to people who travel by rail in the UK, but how about people in, say, New Zealand, do they understand it? mMybe the phrase is used worldwide, I don't know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.26.183.53 (talk) 20:22, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

It's used outside the UK, and we even have an article on it (of course!): Mind the gap. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:55, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
While I suspect most subway users are familiar with the phrase, I'm probably not the only person who was (or will be) reminded of the Thigh gap, which considering the subject matter and some of the sensitivities involved is perhaps a reason to not use it. I was going to address this a few weeks ago, but considering the toxic enviornment thought better of it. Not that I mind a double entendre every now and then, but this isn't a good place for such right now.Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 03:29, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
That use is a neologism, and should not be used to run off an older expression. Montanabw(talk) 06:23, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I did not know what a "thigh gap" is until now. I, personally, have not heard of it. Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 12:54, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
The use of "mind the gap" at The Chive to refer to thigh gaps is just community lingo, like "sharp knees" is at Fark. There is no reason it can't be used by GGTF to refer to the gender gap.--Milowent • hasspoken 15:54, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I think it is clever.--S Philbrick(Talk) 12:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
It was in the news a few years ago due to some Victoria Secret ad campaign, which raised in the public sphere some questions of body issues. Should someone mention it in the future, you will know the reason why I suppose. Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 15:49, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I thought you were talking about a gap between the train and platform but evidently you're talking about the gap between a guy's thighs when he doesn't have much down there. I actually would like CLOSE THE GAP better myself. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:22, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I've never heard of it being used towards men in that fashion before, but you travel in different circles it seems. The thigh gap meme is nothing to sneeze at; Young women and girls are subjected to enough body issue stereotypes already. Hopefully the women leave the moronic spacers in the ears fad tto the men. I too would prefer "Close the gap", if only for the reason that is one less kitschy UK meme being used that people seem to be so fond of. Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 18:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Close the gap is a phrase used in Australia for a campaign to reduce the gap in statistics of age at death, child mortality, etc between white and indigenous Australians. AnonNep (talk) 18:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I like Mind the Gap just fine. For those who also associate it with a caution, that's fine, too. I think there's a certain risk to Wikipedia if it doesn't mind the (gender) gap. Lightbreather (talk) 01:24, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
"Mind the Gap". The Gap is something to be AVOIDED, not CLOSED. Just a thought. 141.6.11.21 (talk) 07:56, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
We can't avoid it. Perhaps "mind the gap" is good for the outward facing messages. For the project "dive into the gap" might be better. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:35, 1 October 2014 (UTC).
If I dive into the gap, then I'll probably die. Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 15:16, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

A multipronged strategy

This comment for some reason disappeared in the recent disruptions. I just wanted to pull it out and highlight it:

The WMF doesn't really know what to do about the gender gap. Me, I'm convinced that a multipronged strategy is needed for several parts of the "pipeline": attracting more women to press the save button for the first time (which Lila T believes is the hardest bit); promoting a culture of social support for newbies (well, all editors, but especially newbies); and organising concerted efforts by editors of both genders to improve our coverage of women and women's topics (sport, anyone; science, anyone?). Each of these strategies can be pursued without dependence on the others, and be either individually or socially supported.

Every time I come into contact with a newbie, I write something encouraging on their page. It bounces back very positively when they haven't already experienced brash rudeness. So it becomes self-therapy, if you like. Does everyone on this page encourage a newbie at least once a week? Some of them might be women. Tony (talk) 08:32, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Just to comment on the three points;

Meetups--attracting women to make the first edit

1) Attracting women to make the first edit

In the absence of the WMF being able to identify female users, and get any recommendations from actual women about what makes them want or not want to edit, the project is likely to get saddled with something like pink bunnies, not to mention having all the software disasters, like Visual Editor and Media Viewer blamed on potential female editors. Strategies should focus on facts, not on negative stereotypes of women. But where do you go if you want to find research that has already been done on the subject? What about an annotated bibliography, where someone who wants to research a particular question can find these resources grouped under "recruitment strategies", "best practices", or "blogs about editithons" (or whatever) subtitles.

2) Promoting a culture of social support for newbies

As several comments at recent ANIs have noted, there seems to be a project-wide viewpoint that women who do not want to be harassed should not identify themselves as women. So targeting newbies does make sense.
Most, if not all of the women who participate in this project have a primary area of interest, and divide their attention between making edits in their chosen topic area and trying to remove barriers to their participation. Yet there is no way to identify participants by editing area, so the science editors, literature editor, horse editors, etc. can find each other and distinguish themselves from the editors who signed up for the project in order to argue about whether women's participation is a real issue. Perhaps participants could be encouraged somewhere (on the sign-up page?) to indicate how at they might be able to assist other editors, or any areas where they would like assistance.

3) Improving coverage of women and women's topics

People sometimes find themselves with an extra 20 minutes or so that they can use to edit something. What about a place to add to a list of red-linked or stub articles that need work, along with an indication of their topic area. That way someone who likes to edit in science or medicine can quickly pick out something they like to edit and go to it directly.

—Neotarf (talk) 16:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for posting. My mind remains a bit too boggled right now to think about it all, but maybe this weekend. Hmmmm, what a fascinating looking meetup group that needs women; is it near Washington dc?? 16:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Oh, no, I'm not necessarily saying that any group "needs women" (although they might consider a "take your daughter to pub" event). There are valid reasons for having an event that is all or mostly men or women, and sometimes it just ends up that way. But the above pictures would tend to show that pink bunnies are not necessary to get women to show up; the more effective bait these days seems to be WIFI and power strips. —Neotarf (talk) 17:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
On point number two, I just found this, which might save some duplication of effort. —Neotarf (talk) 17:52, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Sorry, Neotarf, but come on. Pick more generic photos if you must pick photos. The humor has been beaten out of all this already, and this lightheartedness with the photos is a bit too much like a shot below the belt. Drmies (talk) 17:54, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
As someone who's worked hard to encourage meetups of Wikipedia editors in the UK, I find it disgraceful that snide remarks are directed toward our meetings. There were other images that could have been chosen from that meetup showing a female editor was present. When we consider that only around 10% of Wikipedia editors are female, having a female editor among a dozen male editors is pretty representative of the underlying population, so what's your problem with our meetups? As it happens the sole female editor at that meetup became involved in Wikimedia UK activities following a session that Wikimedia UK held to encourage Girl Geeks to edit Wikipedia. Many of the participants at our meetups have gone on to train new editors at editahons in support of our annual Ada Lovelace Day or other initiatives to involve women in Wikipedia. I suggest that the members of this project may care to examine the events organised in the UK for examples of good practice in trying to bridge the gender gap. That would be far more productive than sniping from the sidelines at those who are actually out there doing something about the issue. --RexxS (talk) 18:31, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, pardon the heck out of me, but it looks like some of us are just not up on all the in-jokes that we're supposed to know. I met some of these users for the first time on this page something like a week ago, and to put it mildly, my first impression was not a good one. Seems odd though that someone would automatically assume that posting this photo is somehow "below the belt". I don't see any "snide remarks" or "sniping form the sidelines". —Neotarf (talk) 18:58, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Neotarf: That leads to main Wikimedia.org Gender Gap page which isn't too active. (And no more gentle allusions, please. They are far worse than harsh specifics.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:36, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
No, it's a soft redirect to a meta page--and quite a good one. I don't know how to set up the inter-wiki links. —Neotarf (talk) 18:44, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
You normally simply need to use the language as a prefix. In the case of MetaWiki, it's "meta", so meta:Gender gap gives you the link you want. Similarly "wmuk" is the prefix for the Wikimedia UK wiki as I used in my post above. HTH --RexxS (talk) 20:36, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, I have now managed to use it in reverse, and post a link to this project on meta--but unfortunately not the talkpage. —Neotarf (talk) 23:05, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Some very good points by Neotarf. Tony (talk) 04:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia.org Gender Gap Strategy

Wikimedia.org Gender Gap Strategy project statement reads: "Wikimedia's gender gap has been well-documented and increasing diversity is an area of concern for the Wikimedia movement. Our aim here is to build a collective and coherent strategy for addressing the gender gap as a movement." The strategy has been worked on over a few years by various individuals. Currently list their strategies as: Thematic edit-a-thons, Toolkits, Context research, More friendly-space policies, Gender gap grants campaign, Support WEP and GLAM, Conferences and meetups. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:53, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Remove redirect

I want to create the article Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues but currently that redirects to Caucuses of the United States Congress. Can someone please remove the redirect so that Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues shows up as a red link on the page Caucuses of the United States Congress, so that I can make it an article? I'm really bad at this and I tried to look up how to do it but I don't get it, so if someone could do it for me that would be great. Please let me know on my Talk page. Thanks. Maranjosie (talk) 20:25, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Maranjosie, I've left a note about this on your talk page. Best, SlimVirgin (talk) 21:36, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! That fixes it!Maranjosie (talk) 02:09, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
For anyone else facing this issue, you can create an article by editing a redirect page. If you enter the page title and the redirect target page comes up, it will have a message at the top "Redirected from <redirect name>." Simply click on the redirect name to go back to the redirect, without being redirected! Of course if the page has previously been deleted or merged it pays to exercise a little common sense. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:41, 8 October 2014 (UTC).

Women's History Barnstar

I'm thinking it would be cool to have a barnstar for people who help write articles on women and feminism, especially since Wikipedia has a gender gap. So how about the Women's Work Barnstar, for editors (of any gender) who make significant contributions to articles about women, women's history, and/or feminism? Over on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia Awards under the section I wrote about this (Proposed Barnstar) you can upload a design for this barnstar for consideration. Thanks! Maranjosie (talk) 02:09, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Instead of framing the issue as a "women's barnstar", in the fashion of dividing the world of authors into "writers" and "female writers", why not a "science barnstar" for improving the coverage of science issues by adding women scientists, or an "artists barnstar" for improving the coverage of the arts by adding articles about women artists. Focusing on the professional aspect might also discourage gender symbols or fluffy bunny designs for professionals whose work had nothing to do with gender. You could also give a whole lot more barnstars that way, and maybe even recognize people for designing barnstars, or recognize Wikiprojects who have their own gender-awareness barnstars. Contest, anyone? —Neotarf (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Ok, I'll do a Women's History Barnstar. I like that topic best. I'll put my version on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia Awards, and anyone who wants to can approve it or disapprove it. Maranjosie (talk) 14:00, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
It's up! Let me know what you think. Maranjosie (talk) 16:22, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
I love it! But can we have an all-purpose one that uses the GGTF "Mind the Gap" logo? Lightbreather (talk) 16:37, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Actually, I see there is a Mind the Gap Award on the task force's main page, but a barnstar version would be great. I would l-o-v-e if the very first barnstar that I ever receive is such an honor! Lightbreather (talk) 16:41, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of Stop Porn Culture for deletion

FYI notice of AfD:

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Stop Porn Culture is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stop Porn Culture until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.. --Pudeo' 11:24, 9 October 2014 (UTC) Lightbreather (talk) 14:35, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

An interesting read

I am reading The Argument Culture by Deborah Tannen - most recently this section:

  • Tannen, Deborah (1999). "Fast Forward: Technologically Enhanced Aggression". The Argument Culture. Ballantine. pp. 250-. ISBN 9780345407511. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help) (section, "Gender on the Internet")

I recommend this book for those interested in addressing the gender gap. Lightbreather (talk) 02:41, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Not a lot new there, just more about how women tend to be less confrontational. For someone like me, that means I get thrown under the bus by other women who refuse to "get involved" or 'don't like conflict." Doesn't matter if you don't like conflict; you gotta not put your head in the sand; choose your battles and keep focused - and focused on the right stuff (like, for example, any number of trolls involved with "Gamergate") - now there is where we actually have a problem. Montanabw(talk) 06:10, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
It's a bit problematic to blame women for preferring to avoid unnecessary conflict or to refuse to join in one's own preferred battles; just like it's problematic to call them "Drama queens" or "queen bees" or whatever if they tend to edit in controversial political and economic topics where aggressive males dominate.
We can encourage women to be more assertive - including in demanding a more collaborative and less abusive editing environment. I think it's been great that a lot of women already have spoken out on various gender gap issues here and elsewhere. However, let's cut each other some slack if we don't live up to each others expectations, be it being not assertive enough or in being "too assertive" or in not choosing one's own preferred strategies. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:08, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
It is both problematic AND condescending AND throwing other women under the bus to say something as stereotyping as "women prefer to avoid conflict" or "women prefer a collaborative as opposed to an individualistic environment." Bullshit. We are all individuals, some do, some don't. But if people cut and run, then those of us left are those who are trying to "butt her way though a steel wall," while the rest of you stand around and say "hurry,you're so strong." (You know the poem) And no, Carol, a "queen bee" is a women who likes to put other women in their place so she can be the dominant one who controls the dialogue. And now, because there is a confusion between incivility and sexism, we have an ArbCom case that is apt to result in banning a few people who aren't even the main problem and a conclusion that we need more fuzzy pink bunnies and magic unicorns on wiki to attract women editors (sigh...). Montanabw(talk) 03:29, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Like I said: However, let's cut each other some slack if we don't live up to each others expectations, be it being not assertive enough or in being "too assertive" or in not choosing one's own preferred strategies (and may add), "or whatever". Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:55, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
It may not be new, but it's important. Deborah Tannen is a respected socio-linguist. Her research shows that in general (not all, but a majority of) men tend to communicate and resolve conflict in an agonistic way and in general women use different methods. She makes it clear that neither method is good or bad on its own, or that men or women who communicate and resolve conflict differently are good or bad. What Tannen suggests is that we ought to understand these general differences and consider how to improve our dialogue so that not every discussion is a competition with winners and losers. I am suggesting this applies very much to communication and conflict "resolution" on Wikipedia, and we need to tone it down - especially if we want to recruit and keep a more diverse group of editors (women and non-white). The current environment is advantageous to one group: men educated in Western institutions (and the fortunate others whose personal dispositions happen to work in such an environment). Lightbreather (talk) 17:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Maybe the first chapter explains what I'm talking about better:
--Lightbreather (talk) 17:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
I did put it on the resources list, by the way. Excellent comments and just bought the book. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:09, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Gender inequality in the United States

Can somebody help me out? Baileybrash (talk · contribs) improved Gender inequality in the United States to a much higher quality just under a year ago, and experienced GA reviewer Khazar2 (talk · contribs) declined to pass it, but said the improvements were still worthwhile. It has been sitting awaiting a second GA review for over six months, Baileybrash has not edited since April and Khazar2 is now retired.

So what can we do? I could review the GA candidate, but this topic isn't my area of expertise. And when I'd finished the review, how would I know if anyone would be willing to resolve the issues or not? If somebody here would like to take on the review, and somebody else independently tackle the improvements, I think it would do this project a great credit. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:46, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Maybe post it at the GA cup, they are trying to get more articles reviewed. Montanabw(talk) 04:40, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Have you made the same notice at WT:FEMINISM? Lightbreather (talk) 15:45, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

NFL owners, execs view powerful video on domestic violence awareness

A similar kind of video for the issues of Wikipedia and Wikipedians would be helpful-- is there one already?

  • And another NFL link, which may have a familiar ring if you substitute the phrases "instance of incivility", "it's our job to write articles and "the credibility of the enyclopedia."

Surely with all the public attention on these issues, we have an opportunity to move our own organization forward. -- Djembayz (talk) 23:39, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Just another example of online insanity.[4] Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 03:04, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for posting that link, Carol (Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly, "The Unsafety Net: How Social Media Turned Against Women", The Atlantic, 9 October 2014). It's shocking and definitely worth reading. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:43, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Just another troll site. They exist to get a rise out of people. Alt.tasteless would be proud. The majority of the participants in these groups no doubt feel their obnoxious behavior is just harmless good fun. Sadly it's only a matter of time, before some seriously disturbed person joins the fray and feels license to turn obnoxious behavior into something far worse. Think Amana Todd meets Sandy Hook. Reacting to trolls fans their fire. Unobtrusive monitoring by volunteers and law enforcement, coupled with some high profile prosecutions is what's needed. And speaking of troll organizations, I'm surprised there isn't a list article here. We might be better off not having one, as it could be more trouble than it's worth.Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 05:35, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Straw poll on priorities, direction, and tactics

The text that accompanies the WMF slide on recent state of gender which TONY mentions above suggests two different directions:

1. Transform the overall Wikipedia community into a more positive experience for women
2. Create smaller spaces within the existing community designed for participation by women

Either approach has pros and cons, and the consequences aren't entirely clear.

Which direction would GGTF members prioritize at this point? Is your favored approach a means to an end, or your preferred end result? Are there any possibilities for unforeseen consequences we should consider?

Discuss. -- Djembayz (talk) 20:50, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

First one, I'd say. There are certainly some issues which are not covered or are not adequately covered enough within Wikipedia and who's main audience is women. More civility and the like enforcement is needed. 2nd would create rifts in the community as you can't really bar 50% of the population from participating in something, and who's to say that someone isn't and is a woman? Some verification process? Gender identity is a thing and it gets quite filthy and controversial when people don't respect it. But, if it's meant for participation for women, but men are not excluded or discouraged from it, then that would be fine. Similar to the women's only hotel rooms who the hotel got sued for gender discrimination (and they lost) so they had to rent the rooms to men. They still made it suited to women's needs, so that they complied with the order, but it was really meant for women. Tutelary (talk) 01:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
  • #1, without question (though I am not necessarily agreeing with anything else Tutelary is saying) I don't think women need the "short bus" - or a ghetto. So, for me, #2 is an insult, right up there with half-size basketball courts and fainting couches. People of color, people who are LGBT, all sorts of people are underrepresented on wikipedia. (I for one am appalled at the systemic bias and racism that impacts Native Americans) The only long-term solution is to work on is #1 and here, women's rights have some unique aspects, but in many ways they are also HUMAN rights and if things are better for women, it would create a better environment for everyone. People want a safe space, they can plot offline and within safe places like the geek feminism wiki (god knows that the trolls use Wikipediocracy as their recruiting ground...). I disfavor the "oh honey, let me help you across the street" attitude. To expand that metaphor, I can cross the street all by myself, thank you very much, but I would appreciate it if they WOULD fix the traffic lights and enforce the speed limit so I'm not risking life and limb every time I try... Montanabw(talk) 02:31, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Safe spaces on Wikipedia are impossible. Better enforcement of existing rules is the answer. We need a "recruit women to edit a lot in non controversial areas and make friends, make them admins, and then clobber the trolls" strategy. :-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:31, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia metrics clearly show that long-term editors tend to edit content in a specific area, so I disagree to some extent. I had no trouble making wiki-friends from the get go AND finding controversy landing on my head in the simplest and one would think most non-controversial of places. AND my worst "I'm sick of this shit and I want to quit" fights were originally with editors who appear to be female. My first huge dustup was with a woman editor over, of all things, the correct pronunciation of chaps (where I stuck to my guns and won); my second biggest dustup was editing rodeo articles and encountering the ItsLassieTime sockpuppet, who had dozens of personas, but may well have been female, given the editing pattern (and it was me sticking to my guns again that exposed the whole sock drawer...) ; so, IMHO it is for us, the more experienced, to Defend Each Other! and help newer editors stay safe on these mean streets. Montanabw(talk) 19:33, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Editors can help each other out when we have the time and psychic energy and can figure out what the dispute is about. That's what many of the noticeboards about. Letting a group of women or women-friendly guys here know about problems a lot of women experience differently than men, from incivility to harassment to pervs wanting to talk dirty on our talk pages, to getting late night stalker calls, to double standards applied to us regarding behavior and/or editing is certainly a goal here.
I have seen lately that some editors create tight little gangs of editors who defend each other right or wrong. That should not be a goal here. Meanwhile, when it comes to looser alliances, individuals will choose to join them or not. I tend to go by principles myself and am always happy to find allies on those principles. And sometimes we just have to go it alone, at least til we drift into the right noticeboard where people "get" the problem. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:32, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

To address Djembayz's question, in part at least, this is a false dichotomy. Because the question has been framed in terms of "gender gap", the research has focused on women, but without a control group. That is, questions tend to be asked only of women, and not groups of editors as a whole, so that you can compare populations of women/men with arts/sciences types of editors, which might pull out statistically significant differences, or some completely unexpected information. For instance, who can say that this type of exchange, ("Why are you trying to pin the blame on me for your own indolence/incompetence? You've had plenty of time to fix this article, but you haven't done it".), which someone put on Jimbo's talk page a few days ago, is good for the project as a whole? Who would want to stick around a job like that, even for pay? And yet this remark was addressed to a female editor, who subsequently stopped editing. So is this a "gender problem" because the remark was addressed to a female editor, or a "Wikipedia problem" because it creates a toxic editing environment. —Neotarf (talk) 22:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Obviously incivility (and harassment) are a problem for most editors. In general, women will get turned off to it faster as various studies have shown and thus it becomes a Gender Gap issue. One of the things I wanted to do, but constant disruptions prevented, was to go through the studies and just list their main findings as a separate document. Now behind on so many things don't have time. But anyone who wants to give it a try can check out Draft GGTF Resources. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:19, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Djembayz could you update the links to the text and slide(s) you're referring to? Lightbreather (talk) 18:06, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
@Lightbreather, I don't see anything wrong with the text. Slide 6 is here. —Neotarf (talk) 20:11, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
I read the text, but there was a lot of it. I was wondering which parts led Djembayz to say that it suggests two different directions: 1. Transform the overall Wikipedia community into a more positive experience for women, and/or 2. Create smaller spaces within the existing community designed for participation by women. Lightbreather (talk) 20:36, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Re: Edit-a-thons. They always seem to be about writers, artists and scientists. All are valuable, but what about the rest of the humanities: sociology, psychology, psychiatry, economy etc.? Where are the recruitment drives from both male and female editors who work in these areas who have an in-depth, professional take on what makes people tick. Surely that would be beneficial to Wikipedia as a whole. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 16:27, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Different groups do different subjects. The DC WP group has done a lot of different ones. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:50, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

WMF slide on recent state of gender

Slide 6, presented by Anasuya the other day at the quarterly metrics meeting. See also a few of the subsequent slides. And an interesting dialogue between some key players at the meeting, here. Tony (talk) 04:35, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Curious to know how they know that articles that are of interest to women are underrepresented. Since women are 51% of the population, that's a rather large pool. Have they done a study to indicate what these interests are?Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 17:13, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Hi TKOP. Yes, the statement is based on a study: Lam 2011. You can find the information you are looking for in paragraph 4.2. Regards, Iselilja (talk) 17:26, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm a woman and slide7, "Gender content gap is widespread & persistent" is of interest to me, particularly as it relates to WP:WMNWRITE, a WikiProject I founded last month. I was looking over the number of articles that exist on the EN language Wikipedia regarding Angolan women writers. Did you know that I could only find one, Ana Paula Ribeiro Tavares, within Category:Angolan writers and its subcats? This factoid makes me sad... 2014... just one article on an Angolan woman writer. So if you know me, you can guess that I'll spend some time trying to increase the number of articles on Angolan women writers. But not today as I just feel worn out. I'm assuming that the research on underrepresented articles includes factoids such as the one about Ribeiro Tavares, a factoid which isn't hard to discover. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:39, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Not to worry, take a break and have some fun! Africa wasn't built in a day ... :) Djembayz (talk) 20:48, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
👍 Like Thanks to Tony for bringing this to our attention. The slide and dialogue bring out some key issues, using just a very few words, about the current state of play on both the content and participation side. Djembayz (talk) 20:48, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Well, the trick is for some of us to create content, which is what the encyclopedia is supposed to be about, and then for the rest of us to mutually support the creation of content from the trolls who try to AfD things as "not notable." And for NO ONE to get run off the wiki by the trolls!!! (Strategic retreat, occasionally, and if desperate, a wikibreak, but no quitting!) One place to look is also at the guidelines themselves, which, by the way, anyone can also edit... Montanabw(talk) 03:32, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
These numbers make me sad. Women represent 22-30% of newcomers, but only 8-16% of active editors. Just recovering those that did not stay active would be great - before even recruiting more women! Is there a way to contact those who are inactive and invite them to join the GGTF?
Are we allowed to advertise outright? Why not run ads (using WMF money) in magazines and on websites where women who are likely to make good editors congregate? Women in tech, women writers, and ??? Lightbreather (talk) 18:01, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Not a bad idea. But we might get a better response if the WMF reaches out to these places and encourages them to write a story about women and wikipedia and why their readers should participate. This too would cost money. But if we went with your suggestion, what would an ad look like? What sort of magazines would reach the target audience? Publications for primary school educators might be a good place to start.Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 13:38, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
As for a print magazines, I might try AARP, appealing to retired women with lifetimes of experience and free time on their hands. The AARP website, too. University alumni magazines/web sites? Retirement fund magazines? Lightbreather (talk) 20:55, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Oh! And Facebook ads! Lightbreather (talk) 21:06, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
  • @Tony1: and @Iselilja:, thanks for pointing this out. Hard data like this is exactly what is needed to convince skeptics there is indeed a gender gap in terms of not only editors but content. For those of you who haven't looked at the slides, a NSF study shows that college men tend to focus on science and engineering fields and college women focus on the arts and humanities.Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 13:47, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Let us not forget Draft Resources/Research studies . Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:17, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Absolutely. It was there I found the link to the study (which was only mentioned by name in the slide). Very valuable overview. I posted a link to your page at Norwegian Wikipedia and was thanked for that by an editor there. (Norwegian Wikimedia has an upcoming seminar about the gender gap issue). Iselilja (talk) 16:25, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I really dislike the phrase "Articles on topics of interest to women", you know.. pink stuff, cupcakes, lipstick, that sort of thing - is that what they mean? If it's not then what do they mean? Women scientists? Women politicians? Women explorers? Why would that not be of little / no interest to men? --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 16:11, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I dislike it too, and there's absolutely no reason at all why men wouldn't be equally interested in women scientists, politicians, explorers and even feminists. Have you seen the work that's been done recently on Florence Nagle for instance? Much of it by men? Eric Corbett 16:49, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
I don't know who used the phrase 'Articles on topics of interest to women' or where or why, so making generalizations about what someone allegedly thinks somewhere not too helpful.
I know that I would work mostly on important political topics of interest to me, if I could ever get back to editing. (For almost a year I had to hide my article list and avoid my favorite topics so articles wouldn't be gutted.) But the day after the community dealt with one form of Wikihounding, another was initiated. So I have to waste all my budgeted wiki time finding diffs of bad behavior here for an Arbitration. But I guess that happens to male editor all the time with no one taking it seriously complaint after complaint... it's not some gender gap thing... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:03, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of List of American higher education institutions with open Title IX sexual violence investigations for deletion

FYI notice of AfD:

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of American higher education institutions with open Title IX sexual violence investigations is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of American higher education institutions with open Title IX sexual violence investigations until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion is currently focused on the historical importance (or lack there of) of the list.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.. Thebrycepeake (talk) 01:17, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

RFC on gender based category

Please participate in RFC [5] regarding whether or not the article 2014 Isla Vista killings (the killing spree of Elliot Rodgers) should be in the category "Violence against men" [6]. This category has been described as a category: "for articles on the topic of sexual or gender-based violence against men or boys". --BoboMeowCat (talk) 02:25, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

BoboMeowCat is directly involved in this discussion, proposed the RfC, actively thinks that the cat should be removed, etc. Tutelary (talk) 02:31, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Readers are free to read my (and Tutelary's) vote on RFC if for some reason they are interested in personal opinions, but Tutelary your comment here seems inappropriate because my notice of RFC was neutrally worded and in accordance with RFC guidelines for community input. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 02:43, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Who else but involved people post notifications? Please, no more challenging proper notifications here. If it's really a problem you can find an admin to warn the participant. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 03:25, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Yes, this is neutrally worded. However I fail to see how this is relevant to the interests of the GGTF. If this RfC is perceived to be a battle of the sexes request, this might be perceived as canvassing. But I'll AGF and assume BoboMeowCat was a good kitty (unlike mine who just tried to escape) and notified a wide variety of projects.Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 04:14, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate_notification: The talk page of one or more articles, WikiProjects, or other Wikipedia collaborations directly related to the topic under discussion. Nothing in policy about variety of pages or the topic at hand, be it battle of the sexes or global warming. The question may be a more philosophical issue of gender gap coverage than others, but it is relevant. I myself am undecided about the whole thing and raised various issues there. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 04:26, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Not canvassing. I also posted RfC notices to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject California. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard (because there has been talk of making a separate bio page for perp, Elliot Rodger). Trying to get as many eyes on this as possible, because we've had issues in past because we can not reach consensus, and previous postings to noticeboard didn't get new eyes on the issue (same people debated same things, but just moved it to original research noticeboard). Posted it here because it is a gender based category, and this is only gender wikiproject I'm aware of. If you can suggest any wikiprojects or pages that relate, please do so, or even repost this notice elsewhere yourself. The wider the community input the better --BoboMeowCat (talk) 04:37, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Notifications need to be balanced and non-partisan. Ideally a posting here would be balanced elsewhere. I too dont have a suggestion, but the NPOV board might have an idea. I'm not coming after you, just pointing out how you could do better the next time.Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 04:44, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Why wouldn't people reading this page be concerned about gender issues involving men as well as women? Seems like the people who died in this unfortunate event deserve respect regardless of their gender. If you think another group of editors would be interested, by all means add the notice there. Making this site work involves finishing the work others have started for us, and explaining what we are doing, so they can do it themselves next time. (It's easier to learn wiki editing by viewing examples than from explanations.) -- Djembayz (talk) 12:25, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Do Wikipedians/WMF prefer arguing to actually working on fixing the problem?

Surprising discovery this morning. The page you are now reading, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force, has been viewed 3909 times in the last 30 days. By contrast, the Gender gap strategy page, where WMF is recruiting volunteers to actually work on improving the situation, has been viewed only 4 times today. What gives? -- Djembayz (talk) 12:08, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

If I'm like most people, they see the word "meta" attached to anything and say meh.Two kinds of porkMakin'Bacon 12:15, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Could you explain more? If this is something that people actually care about, what's the difference between it being posted on Meta instead of here? Should it go somewhere else? -- Djembayz (talk) 12:29, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Wikimedia.org really is used more by those interested in foundation work or working among various foundation projects. I don't think much controversial happens there.
English Wikipedia is watched by tens of millions. This task force is doubtless watched or visited regularly by lots of editors, admins, researchers, journalists, government agents, etc. interested in what uppity females, supportive males and potential or actual trolls are up to. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:08, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles are visited by tens of millions, mostly only folks who have edited read talk pages and then only to catch up on the soap operas. J3Mrs (talk) 14:42, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
According to stats.grok.se, the page has been viewed 139 times in October, and as of today, 661 times in the last 30 days. (I think I've visited it myself at least twice in the last month.) isaacl (talk) 17:25, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
To get back to Djembayz question, I think if you read my timeline at Arbitration you'll see that bad faith editors with snide questions and criticisms have (and still are) discouraged and disgusted editors interested in figuring out goals and projects. So a lot of people pretty much have given up on the project cause they are tired of the fighting. That leaves some of us to be scapegoated for others' bad faith disruption. I'm pretty fed up myself; just reacting to random stuff that's posted. Maybe Arbitrators will understand. I'm sure if a bunch of women went to the WP:WikiProject Men's Issues and started similar stuff, we'd have been blocked within days and there would be no need for Arbitration. Hmmm, how come men get to be men and women end up "gender"? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 00:04, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Sue Gardner article

I just was looking at it for a factoid and corrected a ce. I did notice it says nothing in the text about the WMF Gender Gap project, though that's doubtless what she is best known for. And doesn't mention why she left or what she moved on to doing, though User:Sue Gardner gets into that. Research from RS needed. So if someone wants to update it before I get a chance... :-) Lots of refs on her at Draft Resources page, among other places. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:42, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

IEG research project—midpoint report

This may be of interest. Tony (talk) 00:40, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

New "resources" articles, research, and projects pages

Thinking about past discussion of how to use this mass of material at my "Draft resources page", I realized the best thing would be to create three pages of the least controversial links:

At the original "Draft resources page" I have left the material that does not directly mention Wikipedia or that is not "reliable sources".

  • Related projects
  • Research studies/writings on similar topics and/or communities
  • Books
  • Interesting blog and other articles

We could create a GGTF/Related resources page to be called "Related projects and writings" if people want. Though it come become way too much of kitchen sink, in case people want to think about how to describe what should or should not be there. Thoughts? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:17, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Carol, this sounds like a great idea. Tony (talk) 00:42, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of Lorie Masters for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Lorie Masters is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lorie Masters until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 00:15, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

University of Sydney gender diversity Wikibomb

I encountered Canberra Wikibomb last August and mentioned it on this page, see archive. I have now noticed WP:Meetup/Sydney/University of Sydney Wikibomb which concerns a gender diversity event on 31 October 2014. The August event involved many new female editors creating articles on women scientists, and the Sydney event will presumably be similar. Participants here may like to help in some way because this is a good opportunity to recruit female editors. Their main problem is the complete culture shock concerning what writing an article for Wikipedia involves, from trivia like wikisyntax to more important issues like NPOV language and copyvios. Johnuniq (talk) 01:28, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

It would be good to advertise this on the Australian noticeboard on en.WP. Don't bother with the chapter: it's dead. Tony (talk) 07:39, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of Pilar Montero for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Pilar Montero is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pilar Montero until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.Maranjosie (talk) 15:37, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Create category

Could somebody please create the category 18th-century women scientists? There are a lot of women we could add, and it seems odd that 17th-century women scientists is a category but 18th-century is not. I would create it myself but I'm not really good at these things. Thanks. Maranjosie (talk) 13:06, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Never mind, I did it. Maranjosie (talk) 17:46, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Research and Data Showcase

Today's mw:Analytics/Research and Data/Showcase presentation began with a report on word choices by male and female editors. My oversimplified summary is that women here use somewhat more personal pronouns and positive words than male editors. Overall, the communication patterns aren't too different from what is found in other research, although our experienced women editors may be less uncertain or anxious than women from other places. If anyone's interested, it can be watched now on YouTube. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:21, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I haven't had a chance to look at the video. While the report may say that experiences are similar to those found in other research, but it emphasizes other differences:
"Emotions under Discussion: Gender, Status and Communication in Wikipedia" By David Laniado
I will present a large-scale analysis of emotional expression and communication style of editors in Wikipedia discussions. The talk will focus especially on how emotion and dialogue differ depending on the status, gender, and the communication network of the about 12000 editors who have written at least 100 comments on the English Wikipedia's article talk pages. The analysis is based on three different predefined lexicon-based methods for quantifying emotions: ANEW, LIWC and SentiStrength. The results unveil significant differences in the emotional expression and communication style of editors according to their status and gender, and can help to address issues such as gender gap and editor stagnation.
So it does look quite interesting. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 00:29, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Octavia Butler petition

Thought some of you might be interested in this petition to make Octavia Butler the World Fantasy Award statue instead of H.P. Lovecraft, who was racist: http://www.change.org/p/the-world-fantasy-award-make-octavia-butler-the-wfa-statue-instead-of-lovecraft Maranjosie (talk) 13:06, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know, Maranjosie. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:55, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Quote today about taking online harassment seriously / women being driven offline

"There’s a sort of sentiment that online harassment is not real, that we shouldn’t take it seriously. But, you know, as you just showed, Elliot Rodger had his manifesto online and his videos online before he actually took action. So, this is a larger culture of women, you know, one, not being believed about their experiences with online harassment, and when it is seen that they actually are being attacked in really vicious ways, it’s just brushed off as, "Oh, it’s just the Internet," or, you know, it’s just boys being boys, when that’s really not what’s happening here. These threats are very real, whether they are committed or not."

-- Anita Sarkeesian, in today's interview, "Women Are Being Driven Offline ..." -- Djembayz (talk) 00:11, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Djembayz. She argues that women are being driven offline, and that women who watch other women being attacked question whether they want to participate or speak up themselves. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:50, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Yuuuuuup. It's a bummer. But as an optimist, I always think there's a solution. Though this isn't quite the space you can talk about them. I'm going to have to try that site (Women.com or something?) you linked to a while back. Feel free to share it again. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 03:18, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
There's really no connection between manifestos of killers and the Internet. The Unabomber had one, written on paper. Nonetheless there are very serious threats made online, by email, and amazingly social media in all its guises.
In the UK "credible threats of violence, harassment, or stalking" are punishable by up to 6 months (soon to be 2 years) imprisonment, under the Communications Act 2003#Malicious communications. I believe there are existing laws in most countries, that criminalise threats of physical harm, at the very least.
Is it credible that women are being "driven offline"? Well in the sense that some, demographically small, number of women (and men) might choose to disengage from social media, very likely.
In terms of the Wikipedia Gender Gap we (en:wp community and the WMF) have zero tolerance for threats of physical harm, pretty low tolerance of doxxing and outing, (notable exceptions are a couple of Arbcom screw-ups) and the community will not stand for overt harassment or wiki-stalking.
I'm not sure, then, that this adds anything to the resolution of the key Gender Gap questions, except to support the background concept that the Internet at large is not always a nice place.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:44, 21 October 2014 (UTC).
Zero tolerance of threats of harm? Unless you've got friends in high places and claim you were under stress and it was a joke, you mean.
Re no toleration for wikihounding, it took a year of my complaints to admins, at ANI and even at a past arbitration to get a hounder off my back. Considering the outrageous reaction of one of his buddies, I felt like this must be a "Wikipedia first", a man being sanctioned for Wikihounding a woman. I noticed another woman didn't get a guy off her back till it went to arbitration. Makes me want to do that analysis of ANIs for double standards vs. males and women (or push Foundation to pay someone to do it) even more. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:03, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Hi Carol, I am a big fan of yours, the work you have done to reduce Wikipedia's gender gap has been inspirational. Keep up the good work! - Gem FightMisogynyNow (talk) 22:57, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Carol I have no idea what you are talking about. If someone made a credible threat to harm you, your first course of action is to contact the FBI. No on knows more that I the flawed nature of Wikipedia's governance, but oblique references to "bad things that have happened" does not contribute to a constructive discussion.
If you want to do an analysis of ANI's for double standards (and there has been some work on administrator responses to other editors by gender), that would be excellent, a positive contribution to establishing factually, rather than anecdotally, the editing environment.
You will need to record for each section at ANI, the gender of the person being reported (I would discard sections reporting more than one person), the gender of the person doing the reporting (for "boomerang" cases), and the outcome. You may also want to record the gender of the actioning admin, if any, or closing admin if no action is taken. you will also need to decide what constitute an "action" clearly "blocking" is relatively easily measurable, things like "warning" are less so, and for something like that you need a methodology to ensure that a consistent measure is applied (for example that it is mentioned in a section close, or that an admin says "I have left a warning on their talk page").
If existing research on blocks is anything to go by, the ratios are likely to be fairly consistent for blocking, there is also some research on warnings templates, but I don't remember those results.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:54, 22 October 2014 (UTC).
Thanks for comments. Not sure how research on warning templates related (it was by gender?) I assume that would be on wikimedia.org if I wanted to look? Maybe after the current GGTF Arbitration whoever's left standing can encourage other researchers, including those working on the study of wikipedia sexism, can do it. I mean we do want to help outside researchers don't we? Or is that a "no free speech" privately off Wikipedia provision that only applies to GGTF that we haven't heard about? First time it occurred to me. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:06, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Internet harassment studies, Slate, Daily Beast articles

I notice we seem to be veering a bit from women on Wikipedia to women on the internet in general. Unfortunately, studies on harassment on the Internet in general are ambiguous.

Seems that quite often men actually get worse treatment, but women are affected more. So it's hard to tell whether that helps us here on Wikipedia all that much, and I think is a reason for us to focus on specific Wikipedia effects, that are easier to pin down. --GRuban (talk) 18:53, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think they are all that ambiguous.
  • Even just looking at the title of the first one gives a slightly different perspective: On the Internet, Men Are Called Names. Women Are Stalked and Sexually Harassed reads: 44 percent of men and 37 percent of women who use the Internet reported experiencing harassment there. Men “are somewhat more likely than women to experience certain less severe forms of harassment like name-calling and being embarrassed,” Pew found, but they’re also more likely to receive physical threats—I’d call that “severe.” Meanwhile, “women are significantly more likely than men to report being stalked or sexually harassed on the internet.”
Considering women don't tend to jump into a profile political debates and stick to more social media situations, it's not surprising they get fewer threats. If a similar percentage entered those controversial areas the number of women threatened would shift considerably. As I can attest being active here and elsewhere and getting dozen of threats of even the most innocuous statements so guy didn't like.
  • And the second one is about a tiny sample: "a fairly small sample of British celebrities, journalists and politicians whose Twitter timelines were tracked over a two-week period, its findings are nonetheless interesting. On the whole, 2.5 percent of the tweets sent to the men but fewer than 1 percent of those sent to women were classified as abusive."
Again, did they compare what the two were writing about? Some topics raise more hackles than others, no matter who is writing them. Just often bigger hackles if it's a woman. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:46, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
Point well taken, GRuban. Do you have any particular specific Wikipedia-related effects in mind?
Let's say this site reflects a more general trend, in which women tend to find harassment more distressing than men, even though men may be receiving more physical threats and name calling. If women are sufficiently distressed to stand up and demand a friendlier, more collaborative atmosphere, wouldn't that benefit men also? For long-term editor retention, quality improvement and content expansion, doesn't it make sense to branch out beyond the community of mean-spirited people who like nothing better than nasty arguements? -- Djembayz (talk) 01:36, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Oh, entirely agree that civility is great all around. My point is just that treatment of women on the Internet in general is much more complex than on Wikipedia in particular, and especially bringing up mass murderers is, hopefully, even less relevant to our work closing the gap here. I truly truly hope! It's not as if we have any shortage of specific Wikipedia effects to discuss, from Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/research to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gender Gap Task Force. --GRuban (talk) 02:24, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Notifications

In case anyone else, like me, keeps mistyping when using WP:ECHO, George Orwell III and Quiddity (WMF) suggested adding this to your common.js: 

// Add custom Character Inserter entries, to the end of the first 2 groupings
window.charinsertCustom = { 
	"Insert": ' Mention: {\{u|+}}  {\{ping|+}}', 
	"Wiki markup": ' Mention: {\{u|+}}  {\{ping|+}}' 
};

At the bottom of the edit window, it adds "Mention: {{u|}} {{ping|}}". You place the cursor where you want to insert it, click on {{u|}} or {{ping|}}, and add the name, which is incredibly useful. Thank you, Quiddity and George! SlimVirgin (talk) 20:44, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Survey re: gender gap on EN Wiki

As a part of my IEG, Women & Wikipedia, I've created a survey re: the gender gap on the English language Wikipedia. Any and all editors (of all genders and sexes from all countries) who contribute to EN Wiki are welcome to take it--and participation is much appreciated!

Note: A few participants have had issues with the survey, which is run via Qualtrics, timing out. I know that Qualtrics doesn't work well on Chrome, so you may want to try IE or Safari. --Mssemantics (talk) 12:26, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Mssemantics@ this page is a redirect which Ghostery blocks. Would be good if that could be fixed. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:44, 20 October 2014 (UTC).
Thanks, Rich. Pinging Mssemantics to make sure she sees this. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Hi Rich. This talk page or the Qualtrics survey page? Thanks! --Mssemantics (talk) 23:56, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Mssemantics@ The Qualtrics survey. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:50, 22 October 2014 (UTC).
Slim Virgin@ the {{@}} template pings too. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:50, 22 October 2014 (UTC).
Hi Rich, I'm not sure it does (I didn't get your ping). I thought I should let you know in case you're relying on it. There's a list of the things that work at WP:ECHO. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:24, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
Many thanks, I was confused. I acutally should have been using {{Ping}} (aka reply to). Like this @SlimVirgin:. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:13, 25 October 2014 (UTC).
Hi Rich. It looks like the issue between Qualtrics and Ghostery is something I can't fix. I'd recommend opening the link with a broswer in which you aren't running Ghostery, or I can send you a direct link to the survey via Wiki mail. Apologies! --Mssemantics (talk) 00:59, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Oh I can work around this stuff! I just want you to be able to get the largest sample possible. Fixing would be up to qualtrics it's a shame so many large sites abuse the web. I had 32 trackers on one major web site - WP is probably the only place that comes up with 0 junk. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:45, 26 October 2014 (UTC).

Wikiproject and task force guides

Better late than never discovered Wikipedia Wikiproject Council guide which includes handy items like: Topic coordination; Inter-WikiProject coordination and collaboration; Article tagging; Role of the WikiProject Council (when conflict between projects); bots; creating project details. There's even a whole page on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide/Task_forces. (There's like 130+ listed!) Just put it on the main page so we don't forget where it is. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:45, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Polish monument to Wikipedia

Read about this on Facebook Wikipedia Women facebook page and now on Talk:Jimbo Wales. As I asked there, Are those figures genderless or castrati? [7] Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:54, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I've dropped in precisely because of this. I believe they're all men. Can you believe that? I mean ... um ... . It's a very impressive work, and someone has done very well to produce it, but I couldn't promote it or feel anything but embarrassment. It's sad. Tony (talk) 09:49, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
They don't seem to have anything between their legs, they might have been castrated and penectomized. Violence against male sexual organs is not cool. --Pudeo' 15:11, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
They're obviously male - not genderless. They have narrow hips, wide shoulders, and - most telling - crotch bulges. None appear to have breasts. Lightbreather (talk) 16:47, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
That's right, this is Catholic Poland. Not Dutch Amsterdam or Venice Italy. So of course they aren't going to show the explicit sexual details. OK, perhaps we can indicate to the Powers that Be that a nice letter explaining how they should have at least one woman in there would be really great! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:56, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Wrong. (It's a piece of art -- not a social statement. If the artist had made one or two of the figures explicitly women, and these figures are together lifting overhead a heavy globe, it would be a distraction to the art theme. [Why? Because strength to hoist heavy physical objects falls in the realm of something men would typically be assigned to do, for the raw muscle power needed. Put one or two woman in the mix, and you destroy the thematic thrust of the piece, hello. You'd destroy the art of the art piece; or, make into something ouside the artist's intent, to suit your own purpose, modifying his artistic vision in the process, i.e., destroying his artwork.]) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 18:13, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Imagine the Wikipedia sh*tF*t if it had been obviously all women by a woman artist? In any case, art can be crappy and people can say so. It's still legal. In any case, I thought it was going up a year from now, but it's this October, so a bit late. But hopefully they have or will have a plaque mentioning women editors. Actually, it's probably best that Polish Wikipedia women editors approach whom so ever. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:21, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Yoo, ha. Found the Polish article on the statue and asked the question on the talk page, using my best Google Translate polish. :-) Better late than never noticed a Polish Gender studies group so left message there too. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:31, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Update: Message on my talk page says an earlier model shared by someone on Polish Wikipedia [8] shows a couple women, but they don't know if til they see the actual statue unveiled. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:53, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Queen Bodicca doing something men would typically be assigned to do, for the raw muscle power needed and managing not to distract from the art theme. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 17:27, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Not sure if that's what someone said about it or speculation. Anyway, maybe the women were too big bosomed for the Polish politicians so they demanded it more gender neutral. We shall wait expectantly for Oct. 22. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:46, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Final momument was unveiled and looks like it has at least one, may two women in it, according to a talk page update. Yeah! Article on Polish Wikipedia with photo. Images.google search of "Polish momument Wikipedia" gets some more good returns. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:35, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I was worried there would only be 16.1% women! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:23, 5 November 2014 (UTC).

University of Sydney gender diversity Wikibomb signup

The University of Sydney is hosting a gender diversity editathon on Friday October 31st about women currently or historically connected with the university. The project page is at Wikipedia:Meetup/Sydney/University of Sydney Wikibomb. Any Wikipedians who can attend on the day would be much appreciated (sign up now!) to help train newcomers. If you would like to contribute online (sign up now!), pick a subject and start your research. --99of9 (talk) 00:04, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Good, although already mentioned above. People here might like to comment on what advice should be offered to new female editors—for example, guidance on selection of a user name or on what should be posted on a user page. Johnuniq (talk) 00:23, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
Hmmm, would it be too aggressive to consider other forms of conceptual "Wikibombs"? Such as creating memes to facilitate positive change vis-à-vis the gender gap problem? NeoFeminism directly <redacted>, for example: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IshtarPoster.jpg
I completely understand that while highly effective, some may consider this approach <redacted>. This represents a tough philosophical quandary for #HeForShe #NeoFeminists such as myself. Do my colleagues and I use every tool at our disposal to affect positive change at Wikipedia, or do we hold back until <redacted>? GemSophos (talk) 04:42, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
Er ... Gem? Did you just post with the <redacted> already in?[9] I'm afraid I can't quite understand what you're getting at. Though your poster seems rather frightening. --GRuban (talk) 21:25, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
You are the prestidigitator? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:09, 25 October 2014 (UTC).

HELP!

Just a quick update on this (sorry for the double posting earlier)... it is going to be the biggest editathon I have ever attended. There are already 36 signups on the project page, and we are expecting somewhere nearer to 100 on the day!? We will have a decent number of experienced editors on site, but we will be stretched. Anyone who can provide online support 03:00-07:00 UTC tomorrow (Friday) would be much appreciated. Please add your name to the project page with a note so that I know who we can call on. Here's some ways you can help:

  1. Any sandbox started by a wikibomb participant should be added to Category:University of Sydney Wikibomb 2014 so that we can all find it.
  2. Monitor These Related Changes to look out for editors having trouble.
  3. Write (kind) sandbox_talk page comments if you see promotional language. It seems that some participants are intending to write articles about their friend/colleague/boss. The organizing team now all understand how much COI editing is discouraged, but I'm afraid academics are harder to herd than cats. We are at least trying to ensure that everyone declares their employer on their userpage, and declares any COI they have on the article talk.
  4. Assess articles' readiness to move into mainspace (also post a note on the talk page). Experienced Wikipedians will do these moves, but for COI and general stress relief, it would be good to have third party eyes over it.
  5. Categorize, prettify, wikidatify, wikiprojectify ({{WP Australia}}{{WP Biography}} etc) any articles that do make it into mainspace. We will not have time to concentrate on any of these things.
  6. Ping me or another Wikipedian if you spot any problems.
  7. Publicise on Twitter (#Wikibomb) with a link to the project page

Thanks for helping! --99of9 (talk) 10:37, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Anonymous editor: "I wish I could participate, but it is too dangerous."

[Note: It has been suggested that I cross-post this here. This was written by an editor who contacted me by email in the context of the current arbitration case on gender. The user writes:

"The problem is silence does not solve the problem for women. Remaining silent only works until we can't deal with it, and then we leave the project. Meeting fire with fire is the only workable solution, and the culture is so toxic that this generally leads to pretty bad things for female edits and bad things but less bad things for the other side. (I get my job threatened. What does Eric Corbett get? Not the same thing.)

"I had the first paragraph ready to hit save on that but couldn't do it. Can't risk the personal fall out. I wish I could participate, but the reality is it is too dangerous. I tell other women that too."

The user has given permission for me to post this, but wishes to remain anonymous. I have reposted the first paragraph to Jimbo's talk page, and the longer version to the case workshop page. Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 17:14, 30 October 2014 (UTC)]

To Neotarf's point about "hostile work environment", the Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to building an encyclopedia. They work with other organizations and commercial services in distributing their product,[10] an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. People who build the content are volunteers, and while they may leave at any time,[11] there have been a few court rulings in the USA, whom have legal jurisdiction over the Florida incorporated Wikimedia Foundation, that explicitly demonstrate that volunteers have the same "employment" rights to be free of a hostile work environment that their paid employees have a right to.[12][13] The right to be free of a hostile work environment extends beyond the person being subjected directly to the behavior. [14] As Wikimedia has become more professionalized with students completing coursework, semi-professional editors working on community and content development as part of their employment, grants from the Wikimedia Foundation supporting work that leads to content development and community growth aimed at new content development,[15] open tolerance of harassment of women (and other groups such as people with different sexual orientations, of different nationalities, people with disabilities, etc.) is just that with increasing potential to demonstrate real damages.[16]

Beyond that, the tolerance for such behavior sends a clear and overriding message to women that they are not wanted[17] and the current advice to women of ignore has proven largely ineffective. Openly encouraging such behavior as that status quo and providing zero resource to fix it other than escalating the situation through non-functional dispute resolution processes makes Wikipedia prime for its own version of GamerGate.[18][19][20] At some point, the Wikimedia Foundation may very well find itself having to do what Adobe did.[21][22] The only reason that has not happened to date is because many of the women who have dealt with sexually based harassment, have had their employment targeted because they are female, have had their academic work targeted because they are and dealt with gender specific crap have either lacked the media resources to put the story out there, cannot take the professional risk of exposing the systemic problem or at their hearts of hearts believe so much in the movement (where editors seek to actively destroy them because they are women) that they have not willingly thrown the Wikimedia Foundation under the bus. The last part is probably the most important reason. <names redacted> are prime examples.

The tactics being employed in general on English Wikipedia towards women as a form of harassment include: Sabotaging a person's contribution, Post complaint retaliation, name calling, threatening punishment, Interfering with employment, Boasting of own success and proficiency with the intention of using this success as a weapon. For all of these, the research has shown that males are much more likely to engaged in these forms of harassment.[23] The type of harassment given to males is markedly different, and the type of harassment women are more likely to engage in compared to males is markedly different. English Wikipedia provides a format where male specific harassment techniques are much easier to do, and do effectively. Given the already large male participation numbers in pure percentages, ... Go back to hostile work environment.

Notable women free speech activists

I just want to note something here:

  1. Thanks to Lquilter, I was able to look through Category:Free speech activists.
  2. Back when the late Adrianne Wadewitz was discussing the Gender bias on Wikipedia in the media, I was inspired and decided to try to improve in quality an article that was both related to women and one of my topics of interest, freedom of speech.
  3. So thanks to Lquilter, I looked through the articles at Category:Free speech activists for one on a woman that was deceased (and would therefore be less likely to have new information develop during the course of her life, and I could find a relatively full corpus of existing sources to improve the quality of the article).
  4. I chose the article Judith Krug.
  5. This was the state of that article before my quality improvement project began.
  6. I successfully improved the article to Good Article quality, see this version as promoted to GA.

Perhaps we could compile here, potential quality improvement projects that we could collaborate on, that are similar to above: related to both women and freedom of speech. Maybe we could start with other women from Category:Free speech activists. — Cirt (talk) 21:19, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Possible quality improvement projects -- related to both women and freedom of speech:

Looking for deceased women from Category:Free speech activists:
  1. Zoia Horn - note: recently deceased, dovetails with history relating to successful WP:GA quality improvement on Judith Krug, might be able to find similar research sources.
  2. Ida Craddock
  3. Lena Morrow Lewis
  4. Kitty Marion
  5. Harriet Pilpel
  6. Margaret Sanger - note: already WP:GA, maybe could take to WP:FA with others helping in collaborative project.
  7. Ayşe Nur Zarakolu

— Cirt (talk) 21:43, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps Djembayz or Carolmooredc would like to help collaborate on one of these Quality improvement projects to improve an article from Category:Free speech activists on a deceased woman who was a supporter of freedom of speech. — Cirt (talk) 21:48, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Of the above the one most directly related to freedom of speech is Zoia Horn. I think I'll begin some preliminary research and minor improvements to that article. If Djembayz or Carolmooredc or anyone else from WP:GGTF wishes to help out in a collaborative initiative, that'd be most appreciated. :) — Cirt (talk) 21:58, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Good to see your interest in this. As I said above, my interest is making it easier for women editors (especially those who let that factoid slip) to edit in traditionally male areas (politics, economics, sciences, etc.) unmolested by that 1 in 15 40 (or whatever) guy who can't stand seeing a woman disagreeing with him, reverting him, trying to get a third opinion when there's an unresolved difference of opinion (some people still think going to some innocuous noticeboards is a "personal attack"), requesting they go to dispute resolution, or when they start getting nasty, taking them to WP:ANI. At the latter I believe too many admins still take womens' complaints less seriously - or at least don't want to offend any guys even by just warning them to cool it. We can't increase the number of women editors if we keep trying to shunt them into women-related areas. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:27, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Participants here may want to look at this example of comments on today's featured article requests. Getting some different perspectives on whether or how this sort of thing feeds in to the Gender Gap and atmosphere for female editors could be constructive. -- Djembayz (talk) 12:58, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Per helpful recommendation from Djembayz, I've removed the image of the male author from the blurb text. I've replaced it with a free-use-licensed image of the book cover itself. Hopefully this is now satisfactory to Djembayz. Once again I'm thankful to Djembayz and happy we were able to obtain a free-use-license for the book cover. And as an aside I personally think this particular Gender gap task force does good work on Wikipedia, so thank you all. :) Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 16:58, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Considerably less objectionable (to me), and more on-topic, but still not convinced this sort of mainpage material does much to improve our standing among prospective female editors. Any opinions from other GGTF participants? -- Djembayz (talk) 18:31, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
(As an aside: If it turns out that GGTF readers are too intimidated or displeased to post any opposing opinion on that page, we would be well served to remind ourselves where we appeal when we need someone to stick up for women's honor, safety, and dignity on this site: the ANI noticeboard, which contains exchanges like this one). -- Djembayz (talk) 19:06, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
I think I had an attack of free speech! I wrote: Oppose: Just reinforces image of Wikipedia as a bunch of 15-25 year olds who've never gotten laid and may never get laid, and thus go in for juvenile jokes about sex, their hand, "tw*t", "c*nt", etc. Now that's the kind of freedom of speech on Wikipedia I'm talking about! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:57, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
@Djembayz:I must admit I'm a bit disappointed that after successfully addressing your complaint about the image of the man smiling (the author of the book), and after I went and contacted the publisher company, and got them to release the image by a free-use license, and removed the image of the man smiling, and replaced it with the book cover as you had recommended, that this did not change your views that much. Perhaps you could revisit and at the very least note that it is now "considerably less objectionable" to you? I'd appreciate that, especially after the work I did to remove that image and replace it with another one, because of your comment, Djembayz. Thank you. — Cirt (talk) 21:09, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
I think a better title for the book would be "FUCK: Human devolution to Idiocracy". Having said that, I use it all the time myself, but I know it makes me stupider every time I use it. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:19, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
I like that movie quite a bit, Carolmooredc, and think Idiocracy is quite an interesting commentary on our society. But as I noted, below, there have been many influential women who were (and still are) notable, famous, and quite strong proponents of freedom of speech and anti-censorship. As I noted, below, one was Judith Krug, and I took that article to Good Article quality after finding it at the category created by Lquilter, Category:Free speech activists. — Cirt (talk) 21:22, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Just offhand I would say the article needs to be moved from Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties => Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties (book). Compare Jesse Sheidlower's The F-Word (book). The current title fails both WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISION naming criteria for a title. ...and why would anyone want to feature a book from 2009 *now*? —Neotarf (talk) 02:15, 31 October 2014 (UTC).
We're about to feature an Australian Prime Minister from 1972. HiLo48 (talk) 06:59, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Um, no, Neotarf, there are zero other books on the planet by that exact same title. — Cirt (talk) 03:31, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
You're probably thinking of WP:DISAMBIG. There's always Friedman's The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, aka The World is Flat as a model. —Neotarf (talk) 03:55, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Your example should be moved to the full title if there are other books with the same shorter title. — Cirt (talk) 03:57, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
No, that's not how naming works at all, but I don't work on move requests anymore and I'm not particularly interested in yet another discussion about Recognizability and Conciseness. The place for that is the article's talk page, or maybe at WP:TITLE, where you will find many people knowledgeable about these conventions. If you want to list the article for discussion, the instructions are at WP:RM. —Neotarf (talk) 13:55, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
On the principle of "do as you would be done unto", I think we should avoid statements of the form
". . . reinforces the image of <group> as a bunch of <discriminatory phrase> who . . ."
whether the group be Wikipedians, feminists, or whatever, and
whether the discriminatory phrase be related to sex, ethnic or social origin, disability, age, sexual orientation, or whatever,
even (or especially) if we do not share such prejudices.
This is one of those silly discussions that seems to be based on an assumed premise, but without evidence. That an article has the word "fuck" in the title is somehow presented as proof that we hate women here. That's nonsense. That proposal is not an anti-woman one. It may be anti-prude, whether they be female or male, but that is surely an entirely different thing. Are the opponents here arguing that all women are prudes? HiLo48 (talk) 07:03, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Oh, great, the "prude" thing again. Ninety per cent of Wikipedia's current aggravations could be eliminated by adopting a new section to WP:What Wikipedia is not called "Wikipedia is not a place to try to figure out sex," although I suppose that is already covered by WP:NOTSOCIALNETWORK and WP:NOTTHERAPY. In my neck of the woods, some children get fixated on Bad Words in about the 6th grade, until they get bored with it and move on to some new social experiment. If their parents are attentive, they may move out of the awkward phase more quickly. Hmm, maybe a section called WP:NOTPARENTING...—Neotarf (talk) 14:28, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
I have no idea what that post is trying to say. It doesn't seem like a coherent response to what I wrote, nor does it seem to have any relevance to the article being discussed. HiLo48 (talk) 16:52, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
My pointy-point above (and this is one of few times I really see myself being pointy, mea culpa) is that an obsession with curse words about sex is a symptom of sexual frustration by a certain larger percentage of the male population than the female population. (To quote a song I wrote in my 20s "girls can get it easier than boys can".) Be aware of that and don't impose it on Wikipedia. We don't see women trying, for example, to keep getting articles about menopause, PMS, sanitary napkins, and other "eeeeuuuuwwww" type subjects as featured articles. Like certain proposed principles say, let's be frank here about the topic at hand. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:07, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
I think getting Menopause, Premenstrual syndrome and Sanitary napkins to featured article status is an excellent idea. I see the first two of those are already class B and high-importance. There must be some physicians and other relevant professionals on the task force. --Boson (talk) 18:52, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
I actually was thinking about terms females use that also could use a book, but this is a family centered media. :-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:10, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Like Boson, I too think articles on Menopause, Premenstrual syndrome and Sanitary napkins should be a high profile part of a quality encyclopaedia. They impact on everyone, at least indirectly. I would also like to see an encyclopaedic article on the terms (all?) females use, as distinct from terms (all?) males use. Calling this "family centered media" as an excuse to avoid explaining it is in direct contradiction to WP:NOTCENSORED. As for your somewhat Freudian explanation of the use of swear words, I'd like to see a reference for that. HiLo48 (talk) 20:58, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
You might try the Wikipediocracy discussion about it, but if you go in there calling them "prudes" and "Freudians" I doubt they will be very polite. —Neotarf (talk) 22:00, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
That's not a constructive response to all that was in my post. Is "prude" a rude word too? If so, what's a nicer one for people who insist on telling others how they must communicate? And I didn't call anyone Freudian. I described an explanation given as part of someone else's post as "somewhat Freudian". That's a very different thing. Editors who misrepresent my posts come across to me as either dishonestly manipulative, or incompetent. HiLo48 (talk) 22:11, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Fine. Then don't look at it. You're welcome. —Neotarf (talk) 22:51, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Another pointless post. Please try to have a discussion. That's what this page is for. HiLo48 (talk) 23:18, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

NPOV: pornography portal/ project, but no anti-pornography portal / project?

Should there be a Pornography portal / project and an Anti-pornography portal / project, or should the existing one be re-named "Pornography debates" or something similar, with more being added to the anti-pornography POV? Before anyone says, "Just because it is called the pornography portal / project doesn't mean that it is pro-porn." I would say look at the project's scope and the portal's list of categories. There isn't much for those looking for the anti-pornography POV. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 17:50, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

There is a need for the anti-side to be presented. I'm also intrigued by the misogynist troll dramafest that will undoubtably erupt if either method is tried, but given that there are only 24 hours in a day and some of us have to eat and sleep as well as work for a living, I'd recommend waiting until Gamergate and the ArbCom case die down so those of us who are useful in a street fight aren't pulled 16 ways by other dramas the way we are at the moment. There are more trolls, and they don't have to eat or sleep as much because I suspect that they all just live in their mommy's basement. In the meantime, I'd spend some time and energy finding more allies who will be useful so that when you do drop the hammer, you don't have to fly solo, but you also won't have flaky allies who will pull your efforts off into some sort of stupid thing that is mostly a personality conflict like this stupid ArbCom case. Montanabw(talk) 21:31, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
First, can we be civil with others' proposal and not insult both alleged pornography users and allegedly flakey "allies" or call the project stupid? It's really uncalled for and tacky.
In any case, it's only worth creating the "anti-pornography project" if a) you have enough articles to support a project and b) enough participants interested in keeping it going and and c) enough energy to put up with the brouhaha. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:20, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
WikiProjects shouldn't have a point of view. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 00:23, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
I should have said: and if you survive a challenge to the existence of the project based on whatever arguments editors might offer. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 00:28, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
I was thinking aloud more than anything. It just occured to me that there is a portal for Conservatism (selected article: the Bricker Amendment), and a portal for Socialism (selected biography: Karl Marx).
Selected articles / biographies on the pornography portal are generally about porn stars, porn films and - a newly added feature - erotic literature. When anything relating to anti-pornography is featured then there is an over-arching tone of "that bunch of censorship nutters" e.g. radical feminists (for 'radical' read 'lunatic'). The second paragraph of the article on pornography is typical of how the anti-pornography movement tend to be portrayed, 'various groups ... with varying degrees of success ... censorship and other legal restraints to publication' rather than 'a number of associations and organisations ... achiving success in reducing the amount of material that they regard as harmful'. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 08:01, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Since even voluntary censorship of viewpoints is such a big "no no" on Wikipedia - especially if it's censorship of things demeaning to women - a more successful approach might be to focus on pornography-related issues. For example, the addictive aspects of pornography, the psychological reasons males have poor relationships with women and thus are sexually frustrated, the "male surplus" issue leading to too few women available for males during the last 30 odd years[24], and any and all studies indicating a relationship of pornography to any sort of violence against others (women, children, men, animals). Articles about, and Project/portal mentions of, the dysfunctional aspects of pornography is something they can't complain is censorship. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:17, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Keep as is - I see Anti-Porn categories within the Porn portal, which seems the way reality is as well -- the anti is reaction to and part of porn generally, not a topic that would exist separate of the porn nor could porn ignore or not have anti happen. A title change to 'discussion' seems inappropriate as not expectable -- if the portal is only to discussions then is there to be another portal actually on porn itself is too conflusing, simpler to have the one portal on the simpler title and everything there. I think the current Portal title is the best fit and that there should not be a separation to two portals. Markbassett (talk) 20:46, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Spin off the GGTF into a new WikiProject?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

We've 54 members in the GGTF, and there is a proposal to create multiple, defined tasks for the GGTF. I think that this task force would work better as a new WikiProject, not under WikiProject Countering systemic bias. It used to be that the task force was about gender bias, but now it's been changed into a gender gap task force. This implies that the reason to get rid of the gender gap is to counter systemic bias, which may be a primary reason for getting rid of the gender gap, but I'm sure many people here have alternative reasons for trying to counter the gender gap. Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 13:41, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm here because this is part of CSB. What is your alternative reason? --GRuban (talk) 14:04, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
[Later insert: I've become more aware since posting the below that Grognard/User:chess has had a bit of interest in the Men's Right Movement, though whether it is just interest or support is not clear from the dozen odd diffs I saw in his/her contributions. I'm wondering if there is any relation to this proposed change? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:15, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
@Carolmooredc: Wikipedia:Comment on content, not on the contributor. Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 21:25, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
The issue of the relation has been addressed here before: SlimVirgin’s question on “If MRM people are causing a problem here, this page is ipso facto covered by the sanctions” plus continuing discussion and [https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force&diff=615215802&oldid=615177554 Bbb23 writes: “I am taking the view that this project and its talk page may be subject to MRM probationary sanctions, depending on the content of a contribution or a discussion.” So this is not a new concern. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:43, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Let's hope not. Putting this under the soul-sucking dominion of WP:AE would be the surest way to kill broad participation. —Neotarf (talk) 21:58, 27 September 2014 (UTC) No, wait, MRM is under community sanctions, not ArbCom. —Neotarf (talk) 22:05, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Way back in June-July Arbitration sounded like a good thing to a couple editors, but since then it has become clear it's just one more nail in the coffin of this project. That's what I fear this move would be. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:01, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
I can't see what connects arbitration, men's rights and calling the task force a wikiproject. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:12, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
This archived thread on a past Men's rights disruption, continuing disruptions and possible solutions discusses possible Arbitration as a solution (see last three posts especially). So if a men's rights person was proposing something, without technically invoking community sanctions by discussing men's rights, one might be a little concerned about the reasons. But if no one else thinks it's a possible problem, I'll relax. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:23, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
If User:Carolmooredc believes that I am somehow disrupting the project, I would suggest that she takes it up with me or creates a section on this talk page. In response to her saying that this move is the doings of an MRA trying to kill "this project" (italics mine), I would like to point to Wikipedia:Comment on the content, not the contributor again, as you have not provided any evidence that any perceived viewpoint of mine would somehow affect the content of this proposal or of any of my actions or comments related to the GGTF or any topic that may be covered under community sanctions. Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 22:25, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
It's easier to just ask for someone's point of view and get a positive reply that it's not an issue than to feel one must go through a bunch of diffs and their full context, which can clarify certain comments. But never mind if you don't want to discuss it. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 00:22, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind moving it to WikiProject Gender Gap. I started it under the systemic bias wikiproject only to give it a home (which is why it first had "bias" in the title, and is one of their "task forces"). But as it grows, a separate wikiproject might be more appropriate. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:35, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I have several concerns. Having one active project under Counter Systemic Violence [Bias] helps support the others. Having a lone project might make it harder to find if it goes dormant and might make it easier to target as "against Wikipedia policies" if it becomes its own project and people keep harping on non-issues like "2 men to revert a woman" proposal, "political activity", "rabble rousers", etc. Just like a Stand Alone Wikiproject, this one can easily create a few more tabs and pages. At this point there isn't even a proposed need for separate pages, except for a resources page will I'll come back to in a few weeks (i.e., one less "kitchen sinky" than my big one). Then there is dealing with practical bureaucratic concerns on redirects, changing various links already in place throughout, etc. etc. So I would not be so quick to jump upon the idea. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:02, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm with @SlimVirgin:. Split this off. Systemic bias (not "violence") is a content issue; gender gap is a participation issue. This page is just a dramafest and useless to helping solve either issue. Montanabw(talk) 18:50, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
This is probably the best reason I've seen expressed for splitting it off. Because it emphasizes the issues that are keeping women from participation: incivility, battleground alliance behavior, harassment/wikihounding, etc. I do feel some hope that by splitting it away from bias just the opposite will happen - it can be claimed this project only is about getting more articles about women. In truth, which ever the project is called, it's going to do pretty much the same thing. But what will happen to Countering Systemic Bias/gender gap task force? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:33, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
That's an interesting distinction I hadn't considered. I have felt that the gender gap issue did not neatly belong in the systematic bias wiki project but for other reasons. The gender gap issue seems to me to be a big enough issue that it could stand alone as a project. Obviously that project could have links to other relevant projects such as the systematic bias project to help ensure that it doesn't become orphaned but I see value in establishing it as its own project.
Whether it is moved to a new project or remains here it would also be useful to think about the interplay between this page and the gender gap page on Meta. It isn't clear to me how these two interrelate. Conceptually, one would think that the meta-page would be the main page covering the issue from the perspective of all of Wikimedia while this specific page would concentrate on those aspects especially relevant to the English Wikipedia. However that does not seem to be the way they are organized, which is almost certainly due to the non-hierarchical nature of this enterprise and the fact that some contribute to one or the other while a few try to make sure there is some overlap in material.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:56, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
I think there's support. User:Carolmooredc is the only one disagreeing. Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 00:08, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
And I assume that if anyone gets trollish and finds the "higher level" of Wikiproject some sort of Feminazi plot to take over and destroy Wikipedia, you'll be defending that choice to the hilt. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:39, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Meta-wiki already has its own gender gap project. This task force is already essentially its own WikiProject, and making a new one will just be a bureaucratic formality. Being under CSB is a vestige of when countering the gender gap was seen as primarily an objective to remove bias from Wikipedia because everything was written from a male centric viewpoint. Now, it is a moral goal unto itself. Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 14:32, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
OK. We got Chess/Grognard down for a "moral crusade" [later clarification: as critics doubtless will later paint it]. Only other definitive reason give below was regarding systemic bias as a content issue vs. gender gap as a participation issue. (I'm pretty sure it will do both in either place.) For future reference I think it's probable that most of those who signed on to this specific propsoal did so for practical not moral reasons. (Please feel free to explain reasons further.) So any future naysayers can argue with Chess/Grognard on the morality issue. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:41, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
@Carolmooredc: It's not a "morality" issue, but a practicality and categorization issue. Currently, as other people said, Meta-wiki has a gender gap project. A major focus of the 2014/2015 year for the WMF is to fix the gender gap, and this task force seems to have grown enough to become a WikiProject, as well as having a goal important enough to be a WikiProject. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 01:00, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
I was just quoting you. In any case, right now there's not a clear consensus to change it. Perhaps we should wait anyway until the conclusion of the ongoing Gender Gap Task Force arbitration Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:07, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Don't archive yet, bot. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying
I've been watching this page and thinking about this question. To me, there's more than one aspect to closing the gender gap: there's increasing the number of article about women and "women-friendly" topics, there's increasing the number of female editors, there's working to change processes to make the project more welcoming for all, and there's probably even more parts to this whole thing. IMHO, each of these aspects is a task in and of itself and could be its own task force under a broader, over-arching Gender Gap WikiProject. Therefore, I think this Task Force should be spun out into a WikiProject. Ca2james (talk) 19:29, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
But who's going to do it? Interest has pretty much evaporated since the Arbcom case started. There's Carol, and ....Carol. —Neotarf (talk) 05:44, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Straw poll

  • Perhaps we could have quick straw poll to see whether there's support.
I agree, although I would leave a redirect at a minimum, and possibly a placeholder page with a link.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:41, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Note: Hopefully, changing it will not encourage more disruption, even as such disruption does not happen at Wikiprojects LGBT, Latino, African Diaspora, Disability, etc. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:40, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Re: close

As I wrote in re-opening, let an editor who has not repeatedly publicly opposed the project and members close it. Especially at the end of the Arbitration. We'll know more tomorrow. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:40, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

There's no point in trying to keep this from archiving. The situation has changed completely since the questions were asked, what with the ArbCom case. The poll is stale...and meaningless. —Neotarf (talk) 05:43, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
Good point! After all Arbcom might rule that this project has a right to organize any thing it wants and that sincere members who support all projects (more articles/more women/more civility/etc.) have the right to kick off anyone suspected of being here to trash the project, including men's rights/anticivility/wikihounders/etc. In which case, individuals driven off the project by trolls and/or fear of becoming involved in an Arbitration might return with different opinions or different proposals. Now that seems like a good reason to close this as stale/irrelevant. Wait til things calm down, in say January, and revisit the issue. It's not necessarily a bad idea, just in current context looks suspicious. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:03, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
I'd say that this is an administrative move of a task force that currently doesn't fit into CSB. I'm not opposing this task force at all. I do not know where you got that statement. Also, the consensus above was that we should move. But there is a currently pending ArbCom case, so the move is postponed. Also, User:Carolmooredc, comment on content, not on the contributor. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 14:24, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
You can't deny that many editors who have a sincere interest in all aspects of this topic have been run off this group by hostile individuals (men's rights/anticivility/wikihounders/etc). Why else are we having this Arbitration which was requested by someone fed up with such individuals. In that context, a lot of things look suspicious and saying an alleged consensus holds is problematic. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:35, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
@Carolmooredc: And when have I publicly opposed this? Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 14:49, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
A) I wasn't talking about you; B) as the proposer it should be someone else; C) waiting til after Arbitration is good and over and some editors feel it is safe to come back might be a good idea. At this point I really just care about the am addressing process points, as I allude to above where I write I may have been over concerned because "disruption does not happen at Wikiprojects LGBT, Latino, African Diaspora, Disability, etc" so it shouldn't happen here. Also the discretionary sanctions should help stop any real disruption. And the worst has been done with the proposal to disband the project. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:05, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
Also, per comments above about what role would the Countering Systemic Bias gender bias task force play if gender gap project split off, left message about this discussion at: main project talk page. Better late than never. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:42, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
If no one objects I'd like to close this shortly. We ought to wait until the arbcom case has finished, then we can revisit it. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:07, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Done. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:32, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

You closed it after three hours' notice? Wow, that's not the first time something like that has happened here. I do not understand the rationale, despite the commentary above. The only difference that the arbcom case might make is that certain people will no longer be able to participate here but that does not invalidate what they may have said above. - Sitush (talk) 17:40, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/Archive_5&oldid=1091645759"