Is that addressed to me? Not sure. In any event, the first link doesn't seem to me either a "lack of civility" or a "gender gap issue," but rather another one of the tens of thousands of more or less unimportant conversations that happen backstage at Wikipedia by people killing time in between contributing to the encyclopedia.
That said... (1) Political organizing should happen off wiki, not on wiki. This is just as true for WikiProject Conservatism as it is for WikiProject Gender Gap Task Force. Wikipedia is not the place. Go for it, just not there. (2) GGTF misfired by obsessively identifying with civility patrolling as its primary function. At a minimum, that is putting the cart before the horse. Going further: I would argue that it is an an absolutely misplaced predilection, that a very low-importance contributing factor to WP editor gender disparity has been elevated into The Main Reason without statistical evidence. It's a hot-button topic at WP and it was a fight poorly chosen. (3) Here's what needs to happen: *A. Quantify and track the actual gender gap at WP over time.* Anecdotally, female participation at events like Wikimania is significantly greater than the 1F:7M ratio that would be anticipated from the estimated ratio of registered editors. Does this mean that the differential is exaggerated due to an undercount or under-self-reporting of female editors? Why are there not annual estimates made and tracked by WMF or by GGTF itself? *B. Survey to determine the actual reasons for participation or non-participation.* This is something GGTF can do. Analyze the editing patterns of randomly selected female and male Wikipedians, as well as those who decline gender identification. Then get in touch with each of these three sets to identify what they feel are the strengths and fundamental problems of the Wikipedia experience. Similarly, poll the M/F/Decline To Answer pools who fall inactive for six months as to the cause of their non-participation. *C. Coordinate pro-active recruitment.* Edit-a-thons, university outreach, etc. targeting new female participants. This is the main way that gender disparity will be overcome — one new editor at a time. *D. Targeted, organized mentoring.* Watch the new editor pool and target female newcomers. Help them through the learning curve. Too often newcomers of both genders are left isolated; bring them into the community. Count — Survey — Recruit — Teach. Tim Davenport "Carrite" on WP Corvallis, OR ===== >>>Not sure if this will produce a new thread or attach to the existing one (I've checked my spam folder, there's nothing there) but anyway.... >>>Tim: I just wondered whether you regard this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force#Moving_forward >>>...as a lack of civility or a gender gap issue? >>>In particular this comment: "...As has been indicated on the talk page of the proposed decision, repeatedly, there is some question as to exactly which women this group seems to be reaching out toward, specifically, whether it is more or less of a more or less radical feminist perspective...." >>>I thought it summed up in a nutshell what the GGTF was really up against. It's a kind of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism * Are you now or have you ever been a feminist who believes that sex work is the opposite of feminism? Anyone who answers yes that question is judged to be a "radical", a subversive who wants to push POV and therefore they are fair game. >>> On WP's list of feminists there were a very odd mish-mash of categories of feminist https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=544136790 and lots of names missing e.g. Gail Dines. I did a major rewrite to organize it chronologically and it meant that "anti-pornography feminists", "anti-prostitution feminists" and "socialist feminists" could go onto the list https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_feminists&oldid=545667727 >>> The list has recently been changed to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feminists and I'm working with a couple of editors to see how we can improve it further. >>> I've largely avoided trouble by sticking to admin based work such as this, and similar work: Cleaning up bibliographies, e.g. Joseph Schumpeter, from this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=633566034#Major_works to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Schumpeter&oldid=634343909#Major_works Creating an article for the International Association for Feminist Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Association_for_Feminist_Economics and improving the article for the Human Development and Capability Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_and_Capability_Association then creating biographies for past presidents of IAFFE and fellows of the HDCA. Adding DOBs to notable scholars and then adding them to Wiki's calendar (births). >>>These organisations / individuals argues against sex work on the grounds of the perception of women that is generated (i.e. as a thing / object). The problem with the MRA, pro-porn, pro-sex work POV is they have no problem with anti-porn etc. POV provided it is in a box labelled "mad" or "religious" with a sub-text that the only people that could possibly support that POV are from the moral right and are probably racist and homophobic as well. The other problem that the MRA have is that, human development and capability, which includes feminist economics / inequality / care work etc. collectively constitutes a 'single broad topic' (WP:SPATG), so they are unable to stop editors, who wish to edit in this area, from doing so. The natural place for this work is within the Gender Studies project. Which is why they write nonsense like this: http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/fighting-wikipedia-corruption-censorship/ (if there were really the kind of censorship that they are talking about on WP then there would be no Pornography Project). >>> Any attempt to show 3 distinct POVs (a) Pro-sex work (b) Right-wing anti-sex work (on moral / judgemental grounds), and (c) Left-wing anti-sex work (on negative perception grounds) - the POV that dare not speak its name ... is met with a steel fist hammered onto the table. >>> I made a video for use in the article "sex wars", an article which is all about the separation between (b) and (c) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feminist_sex_wars&oldid=546995190 It was deleted instantly on the grounds that the "Video makes little sense and does not add to informational value of article." I dispute that it "makes little sense" and why does it even need to add informational value? Why can't it just be to add aesthetics to the article as pictures and videos often are? >>> As soon as I step off the path of admin related tasks that the MRA-mob can't get me for, and stray into article content I am jumped on, obstensibly for technical reasons but they are almost exclusively by editors whose other edits are connected to porn and sex-positive feminism, who have pretty much hijacked the Feminism project and they are trying to do as much damage as possible to the Gender Studies project as they can as well. >>> It may be time for an article on "fourth-wave feminism" which is separate to the "history of feminism", but the article would have to say that the term is used by both (a) and (c), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism#Fourth_Wave . You're not supposed to mention (c), you're only supposed to mention (a) and (b) - and then arch your eyebrows at the moral and out-of-touch group that is (b). Anyone trying to create it would run into the MRA trying to lump (b) and (c) together. The talk page would be full of stuff like, "well the article should say that, 'group (b) have been called fourth-wave, but it is just a very, few number of places and the term is far more attributed to group (a) than any other group of feminists'. >>> This message is longer than I originally intended it to be but I do think that there are a lot of well meaning editors on WP who are either unaware or a bit naïve when it comes the antics of the people that we are talking about. It is also naïve to think that they are not co-ordinating their handiwork off-wiki. >>> Marie
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