Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[mcc99]

Sebastian,

While I bristle at the words "misguided", "dubious", and especially the 
implication (and indeed it's only that) that I'm in support of discrimination 
based on X (sex, etc.), which I hope by now others can see isn't so, at least 
I've gotten an actual counter-argument from someone that pulls together 
premises and leads to conclusions that at least follow from the premises.

Well of course I think my case is stronger ;), but I at least can acknowledge 
when someone else actually made a counter-argument.

Matt Original message 
From: wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org 
Date:01/08/2015  6:28 AM  (GMT-05:00) 
To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 
Cc:  
Subject: Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 130, Issue 25 


Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 11:19:46 +0100
From: Sebastian Moleski 
To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month
    gender gap project-related decision
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

Hi Matt,

as thorough as your characterization of the issue at hand is, as
misguided it is as well. The main point of the gender debate isn't the
physical differences between men and women and some purported
difference in authorship flowing from that. That would rightfully be
considered absurd and thus isn't really seriously promoted by anyone.

The gender gap debate is rather an acknowledgment that only a
surprisingly small subset of half the population contribute to
Wikipedia - and the systemic bias that stems from that. In fact, it
seems rather obvious that an encyclopedia that aspires to represent
all of human knowledge must necessarily be written by a representative
subset of humanity - or at least a representative subset of the
scientific community. We, so far, spectactularly fail at that with
respect to gender but also geography, language, and professional
backgrounds and expertise. As a result, it's more than sensible to try
to address that with the gender gap as the most prominent failure.

I also find your argument that focusing on increasing female
participation is devaluing the contribution of the prevalent majority
highly dubious. It's unfortunately a rather unoriginal argument as it
has been used many many times before in the political arean to combat
initiatives aimed at increasing diversity and decreasing
discrimination. The incessant fault of the argument is the premise
that the value of a particular contribution is dependent on the value
of all other contributions rather than viewing it in its own right. To
give an example: when someone writes an outstanding article on the
Great Wall of China and someone else writes an outstanding article on
Jacques Chirac, the value of each of these contributions is completely
separate from one another as well as from the fact whether one of the
authors was "recruited" through a drive to increase female
participation. They've both made excellent additions to Wikipedia and
should be lauded for that. Making moves to increase female
participation does not in any way devalue male participation.

While I have no knowledge whether this focused approach to
grant-making will indeed lead to increased female participation, I
find it sensible to at least try it out. We'll see in the end whether
it was succesful.

Best regards,

Sebastian Moleski
Schatzmeister / Treasurer
-
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
10963 Berlin

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[David Gerard]

On 8 January 2015 at 16:46, mcc99  wrote:

> If WMF still wants to pursue this kind of goal (which as you can tell I think 
> rests on false assumptions as well as ethically


bup-pow.


- d.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[mcc99]

Hi Anne,

Perfectly valid question.  First, it's that the focus is on indelible physical 
characteristics of which people have little control short of serious surgical 
intervention.  It'd be like saying it's been noted most contributors to 
Wikipedia are under 6' tall and the site and its purpose suffers without the 
input of 6'+ tall people.  It's a non-sequitur.

Second, the proposition is to stop consideration of grants to anything but this 
one topic for 1/4 of a year.  That is unprecedented for WMF (or so I think; 
someone correct me if that is wrong).  Once the precedent is established, 
there'll be no rest for the WMF.  It's not too different from moderating a 
public/semi-public discussion board.  If you let some people clobber (use 
personal insults vs. others, for example) other members of the board but not 
everyone else, soon as a mod you lose credibility and people bothering to post 
to the board.  At first the favortism pleases some, but in the long-term, the 
board loses viewership and commenters.

When favortism of any kind and money mix, it is caustic (like politics and 
religion at a family get-together).  Think of the resentment so many people and 
groups have when they hear about certain donors to political campaigns who also 
happen to own large intetests in certain business concerns magically have their 
company(ies) get exempted from certain taxes, or have regulations on their 
activities eased or eliminated.  The companies may not be specifically named, 
but the politicians' passed law or executive directive can be worded so that 
the donor gets the windfall.

But the gov't can afford the luxury of playing favorites or making pet projects 
for itself.  Shoestring budget groups that rely on volunteers can't.  Would the 
ASPCA turn me away as a volunteer at a pet rescue shelter because I wasn't like 
most of their volunteers in some rather arbitrary way (such as my gender)?  No, 
don't think so.  But if they did, that'd make a lot of bad word-of-mouth press 
for them, wouldn't it?

I think WMF needs to consider carefully the consequences of its decisions in 
this case.  If you want to build a dam fir example, and all you look at is the 
fact that it'll generate lots of electricity and make your company money but 
ignore the fact it'll dry up the downstream farms, leading to lawsuits, gov't 
intervention later, local residents' disaffection, etc., it may be that failing 
to consider all the consequences of the dam's building no matter how noble and 
ideal you think its construction is will be something you are likely to regret.

If WMF still wants to pursue this kind of goal (which as you can tell I think 
rests on false assumptions as well as ethically questionable presumptions at 
best), there are ways to do so without shutting down making grants to other 
projects and/or alienating current contributors/key constituencies while also 
making the kind of progress that is likely to be long-lasting rather than 
short-term.  It'd also be a lot less expensive and can be presented in an 
utterly gender-neutral way while still be appealing to women as well as men who 
may have good contributions to make but like women who don't, just either don't 
feel moved to or feel incompetent to do so.  You can get the baby washed here 
without losing him later when you go to throw out the bath water.

Matt





 Original message 
From: wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org 
Date:01/08/2015  7:42 AM  (GMT-05:00) 
To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 
Cc:  
Subject: Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 130, Issue 27 

Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 07:41:56 -0500
From: Risker 
To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month
gender gap project-related decision
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

I have one simple question:  if the Grants program was to focus on some
other  key area rather than the gender gap, would we be having this
discussion about how horrible it is to waste time this way?  Would we see
throwing up of hands in this way if the focus was, say, requests from the
Global South? A focus on getting great bots built and working across
wikis?  A focus on events and processes for media collection? (Incidentally
the latter more or less happens anyway with several groups applying for
funding for WLM within a narrow period...)


Frankly, there's not a single thing I've read, or a single objection I've
seen raised, that wasn't about how unnecessary it is to focus on women.  I
don't think we've ever heard that about the global south, or non-European
languages, or a lot of other areas where there are acknowledged biases.

Risker/Anne




On 8 January 2015 at 02:07, mcc99  wrote:

> Dear fellow Wikipedia devotees,
>
> While I'm new to this list, I've been an avid fan

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Siko Bouterse]

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 6:22 AM, Jens Best  wrote:

> Sorry to interrupted, just a short question.
>
> I'm looking for statistics of how many project ideas/requests were
> submitted in the past. How many volunteers and WMF-employees were and are
> involved in evaluating all these submissions and so on.
>
> Can anybody provide me with a link or any other kind of reliable
> informations on that?
>
> best regards
>
> Jens Best
>


Hi Jens,
Some quick stats:

*PEG handles about 20 proposals per month

*IEG handles about 30 submissions per round (of those requested, we
ultimately funded 7 projects in the latest round)
*2 program officers, 1 grants administrator, and several other staffers are
advising or otherwise touching some portion of these grants to a much
smaller degree. 16 members on each committee (give or take a couple
members) are involved in reviewing proposals.



>
> 2015-01-08 15:13 GMT+01:00 Leigh Thelmadatter :
>
> > I dont think the issue is the idea of encouraging projects that increase
> > the participation of women, but rather the message that everything else
> is
> > getting shoved aside.
> >
> > I dont see this as sexism and playing that card is counter-productive.
> >
> > What I suggest is that instead of saying that for three months everyone
> > else is  sidelined, focus on inclusion.  If there arent enough or good
> > enough projects for addressing the number of women participating in
> > Wikipedia, perhaps we should look into why. Perhaps also look into the
> > Foundation directly reaching out to women's groups for collaborative
> > purposes.
> >
> > But the OP does have a point. By telling certain groups "we are not
> > interested in you right now" you are playing an "us-against-them" game
> and
> > quite probably causing more harm than good.
> >
> >
> > Leigh
> >
> >
> > > Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 09:03:40 -0500
> > > From: nawr...@gmail.com
> > > To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender
> > gap project-related decision
> > >
> > > You certainly put a lot of time and effort into being wrong. Any first
> > year
> > > undergraduate writing course will tell you that to make an argument you
> > > need to address the counter-arguments, which you have failed even to
> > > mention. Diversity of contributors isn't a social justice goal, or
> even a
> > > cultural engineering goal. It is aimed squarely at increasing the
> > diversity
> > > and caliber of content. Not only does the small proportion of women
> mean
> > > that millions of them with huge amounts of expertise to contribute are
> > > unheard, it also means that their perspective and approach are
> > > underrepresented or missing entirely.
> > >
> > > And yes, the same is true for others - not only African-Americans, but
> > > Africans. Not only people of "Indo-Asian" descent, but the people of
> the
> > > Indian subcontinent itself. This is not an American movement, yet the
> > > "global south" is deeply under-represented, and the WMF has been
> working
> > > for years to address this issue. This is, again, because diversity of
> > > contributors matters for the breadth and depth of coverage in our
> > projects.
> > > The goal of the Wikimedia movement is the sum of all human knowledge,
> not
> > > the sum of knowledge held by white men between 15 and 35 living in
> Europe
> > > and North America.
> > > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
The only point for this experiment is that there is not enough bandwidth to
cope with all the  requests for funding as it is. The idea is that by
concentrating on one area it is possible to do more. The argument against
is that it is highly demotivating for everyone that finds its request for
funding on hold. In addition, there is no continuity for a subject once its
period of attention is over and another subjects gets the "treatment".

Thanks,
   GerardM

On 8 January 2015 at 18:03, Oliver Keyes  wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 11:59 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <
> srik.r...@wikimedia.in> wrote:
>
> > Where is anyone whining about this?
> > Nobody here is.
> > The point being made is about why other grants are not being accepted.
> >
>
> So, to summarise:
>
> "Please, let's stop complaining on the basis that this excludes men"
> "Where is anyone doing that? We're complaining on the basis that this
> excludes men".
>
>
>
> > On 08-Jan-2015 10:06 pm, "Keilana"  wrote:
> >
> > > Hearing people whine “what about the men” because, God forbid, men
> might
> > > not get *every single* grant this time (as they did in the pilot round
> of
> > > IEGs), is incredibly tiresome.
> > >
> > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:30 AM, Peter Southwood <
> > > peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > If you take it entirely at face value, I find it quite inoffensive.
> > As I
> > > > have no experience with reviewing grant proposals, I can't comment on
> > its
> > > > accuracy, but I am quite happy to take Fred's word for it.
> > > > Offence is often available if you search for it hard enough.
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Peter
> > > >
> > > > -----Original Message-
> > > > From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > > > wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fæ
> > > > Sent: 08 January 2015 06:17 PM
> > > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > > > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month
> gender
> > > > gap project-related decision
> > > >
> > > > On 8 Jan 2015 16:11, "FRED BAUDER"  wrote:
> > > > ...
> > > > >  I've noticed that women are often quite motivated and good at
> > writing
> > > > grant proposals.
> > > >
> > > > Extending good faith I would presume this is irony. It does not
> > transmit
> > > > well by email. Please keep in mind how offensive this sort of thing
> > > appears.
> > > >
> > > > Fae
> > > > ___
> > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Oliver Keyes]

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 11:59 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <
srik.r...@wikimedia.in> wrote:

> Where is anyone whining about this?
> Nobody here is.
> The point being made is about why other grants are not being accepted.
>

So, to summarise:

"Please, let's stop complaining on the basis that this excludes men"
"Where is anyone doing that? We're complaining on the basis that this
excludes men".



> On 08-Jan-2015 10:06 pm, "Keilana"  wrote:
>
> > Hearing people whine “what about the men” because, God forbid, men might
> > not get *every single* grant this time (as they did in the pilot round of
> > IEGs), is incredibly tiresome.
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:30 AM, Peter Southwood <
> > peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
> >
> > > If you take it entirely at face value, I find it quite inoffensive.
> As I
> > > have no experience with reviewing grant proposals, I can't comment on
> its
> > > accuracy, but I am quite happy to take Fred's word for it.
> > > Offence is often available if you search for it hard enough.
> > > Cheers,
> > > Peter
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > > wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fæ
> > > Sent: 08 January 2015 06:17 PM
> > > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender
> > > gap project-related decision
> > >
> > > On 8 Jan 2015 16:11, "FRED BAUDER"  wrote:
> > > ...
> > > >  I've noticed that women are often quite motivated and good at
> writing
> > > grant proposals.
> > >
> > > Extending good faith I would presume this is irony. It does not
> transmit
> > > well by email. Please keep in mind how offensive this sort of thing
> > appears.
> > >
> > > Fae
> > > ___
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> > >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Peter Southwood]

If this was intended as a response to my post I'm afraid I don’t get the 
relevance.
I was also not aware that the grants were awarded to men. I thought they were 
awarded to projects on merit.
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org 
[mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Keilana
Sent: 08 January 2015 06:36 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap 
project-related decision

Hearing people whine “what about the men” because, God forbid, men might not 
get *every single* grant this time (as they did in the pilot round of IEGs), is 
incredibly tiresome.

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:30 AM, Peter Southwood < 
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> If you take it entirely at face value, I find it quite inoffensive.  
> As I have no experience with reviewing grant proposals, I can't 
> comment on its accuracy, but I am quite happy to take Fred's word for it.
> Offence is often available if you search for it hard enough.
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fæ
> Sent: 08 January 2015 06:17 PM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month 
> gender gap project-related decision
>
> On 8 Jan 2015 16:11, "FRED BAUDER"  wrote:
> ...
> >  I've noticed that women are often quite motivated and good at 
> > writing
> grant proposals.
>
> Extending good faith I would presume this is irony. It does not 
> transmit well by email. Please keep in mind how offensive this sort of thing 
> appears.
>
> Fae
> ___
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> 01/08/15
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Isarra Yos]

On 08/01/15 20:04, Austin Hair wrote:

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 1:41 PM, Risker  wrote:

Frankly, there's not a single thing I've read, or a single objection I've
seen raised, that wasn't about how unnecessary it is to focus on women.  I
don't think we've ever heard that about the global south, or non-European
languages, or a lot of other areas where there are acknowledged biases.

Maybe you're only talking about this specific fork of the thread, but
I was happy to see that the previous discussion managed to stay
on-topic and largely avoid the specific social issue. I saw a lot of
people with specific criticism of the decision, completely separate
from the cause. (I appreciate that Leigh was still clinging to that
idea while the thread was being dragged into the abyss, only to be
insulted in the process.)

Having addressed that, I want to say to everybody that Wikimedia-l is
a lot of things, not all good, but the previous conversation was at
least on-topic. Does anyone seriously think that this one is? Please,
please don't make me start content filtering based on words like
"feminazi" or "misogynist."

Austin


As far as I can tell, this is the first time either of those words have 
shown up in the discussion. It's true that the bulk of this thread is 
only about the particular topic chosen for the 3-month focus, whereas 
the previous thread was about the nature of having 3-month focuses in 
the first place and particularly the chosen implementation, but so long 
as people remain civil, why can both not be valid topics of discussion?


It doesn't even matter what the topic is, really. It ought to be worth 
discussing if only to clarify what it means to different folks, but even 
and in doing so, how better to generate possible ideas for projects?


-I

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Austin Hair]

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 1:41 PM, Risker  wrote:
> Frankly, there's not a single thing I've read, or a single objection I've
> seen raised, that wasn't about how unnecessary it is to focus on women.  I
> don't think we've ever heard that about the global south, or non-European
> languages, or a lot of other areas where there are acknowledged biases.

Maybe you're only talking about this specific fork of the thread, but
I was happy to see that the previous discussion managed to stay
on-topic and largely avoid the specific social issue. I saw a lot of
people with specific criticism of the decision, completely separate
from the cause. (I appreciate that Leigh was still clinging to that
idea while the thread was being dragged into the abyss, only to be
insulted in the process.)

Having addressed that, I want to say to everybody that Wikimedia-l is
a lot of things, not all good, but the previous conversation was at
least on-topic. Does anyone seriously think that this one is? Please,
please don't make me start content filtering based on words like
"feminazi" or "misogynist."

Austin

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Isarra Yos]

I'm just going to preface this by pointing out that I didn't actually 
read all of the OP due to a philosophical opposition to giant walls of 
text, but I think you've kind of missed the point in a few places.


Also please don't call people names. That's not nice.


On 08/01/15 10:52, geni wrote:

On 8 January 2015 at 07:07, mcc99  wrote:


If you ask any RN the names of the greatest contributors to the nursing
profession, you'll get a stream of women's names.  To suggest that nursing
"needs" more men or else it won't be able to achieve its greatest potential
would be a crass and inaccurate insult to the many thousands of women who
have made modern nursing what it is.  Of course there have been and will be
male nurses who stand out as contributors, but only a very small
percentage, probably in keeping with the ratio of men to women in nursing.
And yet, despite the high salaries RNs command, are there any
gov't-sponsored initiatives to get men into nursing?


In fact nurses get paid less than the male national average wage. This is
clearly some definition of high salaries I wasn't previously familiar with


Are male nurses paid more than female ones? Otherwise that's not really 
relevant.



If so, it'd be news to me and many others.  But I ask, if men by and
large, for whatever reasons, aren't interested in becoming nurses, why make
a big deal about it?


Reducing the recruitment pool is less than ideal. However the number of men
training to be nurses has been increasing so it is probably felt the
problem will solve itself.



Are there gov't-sponsored campaigns to get more women into the relatively
lucrative job of refuse collection?


Ah you can tell the piece you are recycling from is dated. Post
privatisation refuse collection has ceased to be a particularly lucrative
job.


I think that was supposed to be a joke. Gender disparities exist across 
the field in both low-paying and high-paying fields, but generally the 
focus is only to get more women into higher-paying ones, especially ones 
involving technology.


In a way it does seem to be a bit of a tangent here, where contributors 
aren't necessarily paid in the first place, but research into how we as 
a movement fit into the overall pattern of field-based gender 
disparities might show a solid connection. It'd certainly be 
interesting, if nothing else, especially if folks were to compare both 
regionally and globally.



  (Think professional STEM fields.)

I'm a chemist you insensitive clod. Depending on what you are doing it can
be dirty or dangerous.


I get that you disagree, but that's not helping anything.

-I

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Ilario Valdelli]

I am in two grant committees, and I can assure that I comment the value of
the project and not the sex or the race of the candidate.

I think that a woman would appreciate more that a project is supported
because it's a good project than because it is a project submitted by a
woman.

Anyway the number of the projects focused to reduce the gender gap are not
so many, but there are no barriers for submission.

Personally I support to dedicate some months for a topic like the gender
gap not because the grants can be assigned to the women, but because the
expectation is to have a better communication and to widespread that the
women can apply for a grant and (last but not least) that some best
practices or examples can come up to be replicated in other linguistical
communities.

regards


On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 5:35 PM, Keilana  wrote:

> Hearing people whine “what about the men” because, God forbid, men might
> not get *every single* grant this time (as they did in the pilot round of
> IEGs), is incredibly tiresome.
>
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:30 AM, Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > If you take it entirely at face value, I find it quite inoffensive.  As I
> > have no experience with reviewing grant proposals, I can't comment on its
> > accuracy, but I am quite happy to take Fred's word for it.
> > Offence is often available if you search for it hard enough.
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fæ
> > Sent: 08 January 2015 06:17 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender
> > gap project-related decision
> >
> > On 8 Jan 2015 16:11, "FRED BAUDER"  wrote:
> > ...
> > >  I've noticed that women are often quite motivated and good at writing
> > grant proposals.
> >
> > Extending good faith I would presume this is irony. It does not transmit
> > well by email. Please keep in mind how offensive this sort of thing
> appears.
> >
> > Fae
> > ___
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-- 
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Wikipedia: Ilario <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ilario>
Skype: valdelli
Facebook: Ilario Valdelli <https://www.facebook.com/ivaldelli>
Twitter: Ilario Valdelli <https://twitter.com/ilariovaldelli>
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Tel: +41764821371
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[FRED BAUDER]

I am optimistic that some great proposals might surface.

Fred

On Thu, 8 Jan 2015 18:30:08 +0200
 "Peter Southwood"  wrote:
If you take it entirely at face value, I find it quite inoffensive. 
As I have no experience with reviewing grant proposals, I can't 
comment on its accuracy, but I am quite happy to take Fred's word for 
it.

Offence is often available if you search for it hard enough.
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org 
[mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fæ

Sent: 08 January 2015 06:17 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month 
gender gap project-related decision


On 8 Jan 2015 16:11, "FRED BAUDER"  wrote:
...
 I've noticed that women are often quite motivated and good at 
writing

grant proposals.

Extending good faith I would presume this is irony. It does not 
transmit well by email. Please keep in mind how offensive this sort 
of thing appears.


Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Srikanth Ramakrishnan]

Where is anyone whining about this?
Nobody here is.
The point being made is about why other grants are not being accepted.
On 08-Jan-2015 10:06 pm, "Keilana"  wrote:

> Hearing people whine “what about the men” because, God forbid, men might
> not get *every single* grant this time (as they did in the pilot round of
> IEGs), is incredibly tiresome.
>
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:30 AM, Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > If you take it entirely at face value, I find it quite inoffensive.  As I
> > have no experience with reviewing grant proposals, I can't comment on its
> > accuracy, but I am quite happy to take Fred's word for it.
> > Offence is often available if you search for it hard enough.
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fæ
> > Sent: 08 January 2015 06:17 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender
> > gap project-related decision
> >
> > On 8 Jan 2015 16:11, "FRED BAUDER"  wrote:
> > ...
> > >  I've noticed that women are often quite motivated and good at writing
> > grant proposals.
> >
> > Extending good faith I would presume this is irony. It does not transmit
> > well by email. Please keep in mind how offensive this sort of thing
> appears.
> >
> > Fae
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Katherine Casey]

+1 to Keilana. The fact that people still believe that valuing women
somehow devalues men never fails to amaze me. It's not a zero-sum game.

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 11:35 AM, Keilana  wrote:

> Hearing people whine “what about the men” because, God forbid, men might
> not get *every single* grant this time (as they did in the pilot round of
> IEGs), is incredibly tiresome.
>
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:30 AM, Peter Southwood <
> peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > If you take it entirely at face value, I find it quite inoffensive.  As I
> > have no experience with reviewing grant proposals, I can't comment on its
> > accuracy, but I am quite happy to take Fred's word for it.
> > Offence is often available if you search for it hard enough.
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> > wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fæ
> > Sent: 08 January 2015 06:17 PM
> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender
> > gap project-related decision
> >
> > On 8 Jan 2015 16:11, "FRED BAUDER"  wrote:
> > ...
> > >  I've noticed that women are often quite motivated and good at writing
> > grant proposals.
> >
> > Extending good faith I would presume this is irony. It does not transmit
> > well by email. Please keep in mind how offensive this sort of thing
> appears.
> >
> > Fae
> > ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Keilana]

Hearing people whine “what about the men” because, God forbid, men might
not get *every single* grant this time (as they did in the pilot round of
IEGs), is incredibly tiresome.

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:30 AM, Peter Southwood <
peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> If you take it entirely at face value, I find it quite inoffensive.  As I
> have no experience with reviewing grant proposals, I can't comment on its
> accuracy, but I am quite happy to take Fred's word for it.
> Offence is often available if you search for it hard enough.
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> -Original Message-
> From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fæ
> Sent: 08 January 2015 06:17 PM
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender
> gap project-related decision
>
> On 8 Jan 2015 16:11, "FRED BAUDER"  wrote:
> ...
> >  I've noticed that women are often quite motivated and good at writing
> grant proposals.
>
> Extending good faith I would presume this is irony. It does not transmit
> well by email. Please keep in mind how offensive this sort of thing appears.
>
> Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Peter Southwood]

If you take it entirely at face value, I find it quite inoffensive.  As I have 
no experience with reviewing grant proposals, I can't comment on its accuracy, 
but I am quite happy to take Fred's word for it.
Offence is often available if you search for it hard enough.
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org 
[mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fæ
Sent: 08 January 2015 06:17 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap 
project-related decision

On 8 Jan 2015 16:11, "FRED BAUDER"  wrote:
...
>  I've noticed that women are often quite motivated and good at writing
grant proposals.

Extending good faith I would presume this is irony. It does not transmit well 
by email. Please keep in mind how offensive this sort of thing appears.

Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Fæ]

On 8 Jan 2015 16:11, "FRED BAUDER"  wrote:
...
>  I've noticed that women are often quite motivated and good at writing
grant proposals.

Extending good faith I would presume this is irony. It does not transmit
well by email. Please keep in mind how offensive this sort of thing appears.

Fae
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[FRED BAUDER]

It's a rhetorical question, but, based on experience, I would probably 
chime in if a similar proposal was floated about native people such as 
African tribes or American Indians; most hardly ever edit, even in 
their own language, and throwing money at the problem is unlikely to 
be productive. It may be that a few clever effective proposals about 
gender participation might surface. I've noticed that women are often 
quite motivated and good at writing grant proposals.


Fred

On Thu, 8 Jan 2015 17:43:40 +0200
 "Peter Southwood"  wrote:

How is it possible to give a realistic answer to that question?
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org 
[mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Risker

Sent: 08 January 2015 02:42 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month 
gender gap project-related decision


I have one simple question:  if the Grants program was to focus on 
some other  key area rather than the gender gap, would we be having 
this discussion about how horrible it is to waste time this way? 
Would we see throwing up of hands in this way if the focus was, say, 
requests from the Global South? A focus on getting great bots built 
and working across wikis?  A focus on events and processes for media 
collection? (Incidentally the latter more or less happens anyway with 
several groups applying for funding for WLM within a narrow 
period...)



Frankly, there's not a single thing I've read, or a single objection 
I've seen raised, that wasn't about how unnecessary it is to focus on 
women.  I don't think we've ever heard that about the global south, 
or non-European languages, or a lot of other areas where there are 
acknowledged biases.


Risker/Anne




On 8 January 2015 at 02:07, mcc99  wrote:


Dear fellow Wikipedia devotees,

While I'm new to this list, I've been an avid fan and proponent of 
Wikipedia and all the great service it gives people since it 
launched.
People can learn not just all the basics of nearly any topic 
imaginable, but for a large number, readers can with diligence 
become 
expert on more than a few and save themselves the cost of 
tuition/training.  All this, in addition to satisfying their 
curiosity about millions of subjects.


That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so 
long as it's relevant and factual.  Unlike the published, 
single-authority edited encyclopediae of the past, Wikipedia allows 
anyone with relevant information to contribute to it.  Their 
additions 
or other edits are checked by volunteers to make sure the edit isn't 
a 
defacement, irrelevant, patently unfactual, or unverifiable.  They 
are 
typically left as written or maybe edited only for grammar/spelling. 

Wikipedia is a rare success story in democracy of knowledge.  If one 
feels moved to contribute, they do.  If not, they don't.  It's like 
voting in a sense, though it's true people in democracies should 
perhaps take the opportunity to do so more often.  But it's up to 
them.


Like voting or anything else, to single out a particular group of 
people based on their indelible characteristics as being desirable 
as 
contributors to any field implicitly devalues the contributions not 
just of those currently contributing who don't fall into that 
category, but also says to any other group of a particular identity 
that you care more about the group you're trying to get more 
involvement from than them.  "Identity politics"
is unfortunately a fact of our current political climate and I hope 
one day we can, as MLK Jr. hoped, judge one another not by skin 
color 
(and I'd add gender, sexuality, and a few others), but by content of 
character.  In the context of Wikipedia, this would translate to the 
veracity and applicability of contributions made to the vast 
Wikipedia 
knowledge-base -- not who in particular is doing the contributing, 
nor 
their indelible characteristics of person.


Because identity politics is today part of general electoral 
politics 
doesn't mean it need be for anything else, and especially given how 
such things as a person's ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc., say 
nothing about what they know about or can do, I don't see how it's 
relevant to the veracity and applicability of Wikipedia's knowledge 
base.  I don't care that, for example, a black person (Charles Drew, 
MD) came up with the process of creating blood plasma, an innovation 
that has saved millions of lives.  He was tragically and mortally 
injured in a car accident, however, and so his potential future 
achievements were lost to humanity.  (He was not refused treatment 
for 
his injuries at the hospital he was taken to because of his 
ethnicity, 
as is widely but falsely believed; he was just so badly injured that 
he 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Peter Southwood]

How is it possible to give a realistic answer to that question?
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org 
[mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Risker
Sent: 08 January 2015 02:42 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap 
project-related decision

I have one simple question:  if the Grants program was to focus on some other  
key area rather than the gender gap, would we be having this discussion about 
how horrible it is to waste time this way?  Would we see throwing up of hands 
in this way if the focus was, say, requests from the Global South? A focus on 
getting great bots built and working across wikis?  A focus on events and 
processes for media collection? (Incidentally the latter more or less happens 
anyway with several groups applying for funding for WLM within a narrow 
period...)


Frankly, there's not a single thing I've read, or a single objection I've seen 
raised, that wasn't about how unnecessary it is to focus on women.  I don't 
think we've ever heard that about the global south, or non-European languages, 
or a lot of other areas where there are acknowledged biases.

Risker/Anne




On 8 January 2015 at 02:07, mcc99  wrote:

> Dear fellow Wikipedia devotees,
>
> While I'm new to this list, I've been an avid fan and proponent of 
> Wikipedia and all the great service it gives people since it launched.
> People can learn not just all the basics of nearly any topic 
> imaginable, but for a large number, readers can with diligence become 
> expert on more than a few and save themselves the cost of 
> tuition/training.  All this, in addition to satisfying their curiosity about 
> millions of subjects.
>
> That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so 
> long as it's relevant and factual.  Unlike the published, 
> single-authority edited encyclopediae of the past, Wikipedia allows 
> anyone with relevant information to contribute to it.  Their additions 
> or other edits are checked by volunteers to make sure the edit isn't a 
> defacement, irrelevant, patently unfactual, or unverifiable.  They are 
> typically left as written or maybe edited only for grammar/spelling.  
> Wikipedia is a rare success story in democracy of knowledge.  If one 
> feels moved to contribute, they do.  If not, they don't.  It's like 
> voting in a sense, though it's true people in democracies should 
> perhaps take the opportunity to do so more often.  But it's up to them.
>
> Like voting or anything else, to single out a particular group of 
> people based on their indelible characteristics as being desirable as 
> contributors to any field implicitly devalues the contributions not 
> just of those currently contributing who don't fall into that 
> category, but also says to any other group of a particular identity 
> that you care more about the group you're trying to get more involvement from 
> than them.  "Identity politics"
> is unfortunately a fact of our current political climate and I hope 
> one day we can, as MLK Jr. hoped, judge one another not by skin color 
> (and I'd add gender, sexuality, and a few others), but by content of 
> character.  In the context of Wikipedia, this would translate to the 
> veracity and applicability of contributions made to the vast Wikipedia 
> knowledge-base -- not who in particular is doing the contributing, nor 
> their indelible characteristics of person.
>
> Because identity politics is today part of general electoral politics 
> doesn't mean it need be for anything else, and especially given how 
> such things as a person's ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc., say 
> nothing about what they know about or can do, I don't see how it's 
> relevant to the veracity and applicability of Wikipedia's knowledge 
> base.  I don't care that, for example, a black person (Charles Drew, 
> MD) came up with the process of creating blood plasma, an innovation 
> that has saved millions of lives.  He was tragically and mortally 
> injured in a car accident, however, and so his potential future 
> achievements were lost to humanity.  (He was not refused treatment for 
> his injuries at the hospital he was taken to because of his ethnicity, 
> as is widely but falsely believed; he was just so badly injured that 
> he died.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Drew#Death ).  I 
> also don't care that Adm Grace Hopper (USN) wad female, only that she 
> wrote the first computer language compiler so programmers of lesser 
> brain power than her (such as myself) could go on to program computers 
> without struggling with binary switches

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Nathan]

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:13 AM, Leigh Thelmadatter 
wrote:

> I dont think the issue is the idea of encouraging projects that increase
> the participation of women, but rather the message that everything else is
> getting shoved aside.
>
>
I don't see how you can come to this conclusion. His entire e-mail is
explaining why no effort should be expended on the gender gap. It seems as
if the grant initiative is simply the proximate motive for explaining why
the gender gap is not a problem and working to address it is harmful and
insulting. I did not describe that position as sexist, and I couldn't
confidently assert that it is. It is, however, ignorant.

Perhaps the grants teams could have gone about this initiative in a better
way - that is usually the case when it comes to WMF communication and
organization. They could have set aside a specific dollar amount, or some
proportion of grants over a period of time. But three months is a short
period, and I find the sense of entitlement to WMF funds reflected in some
comments to be troubling.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Peter Southwood]

Did someone suggest that men should reduce editing or participation? I missed 
that.
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org 
[mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of FRED BAUDER
Sent: 08 January 2015 02:10 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List; Liam Wyatt
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap 
project-related decision

On Thu, 8 Jan 2015 11:29:57 +0100
  Liam Wyatt  wrote:
> As this thread demonstrates, what discussions about the massive  
>gender imbalance in Wikimedia editorship need is more men discussing 
>why it  might or might not be important.
> 
> 

Radical feminist notions that men should reduce editing or participation are 
counter-productive. The solution is OR not NOT; anyone should be able to edit 
without struggle.

Fred


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Jens Best]

Sorry to interrupted, just a short question.

I'm looking for statistics of how many project ideas/requests were
submitted in the past. How many volunteers and WMF-employees were and are
involved in evaluating all these submissions and so on.

Can anybody provide me with a link or any other kind of reliable
informations on that?

best regards

Jens Best

2015-01-08 15:13 GMT+01:00 Leigh Thelmadatter :

> I dont think the issue is the idea of encouraging projects that increase
> the participation of women, but rather the message that everything else is
> getting shoved aside.
>
> I dont see this as sexism and playing that card is counter-productive.
>
> What I suggest is that instead of saying that for three months everyone
> else is  sidelined, focus on inclusion.  If there arent enough or good
> enough projects for addressing the number of women participating in
> Wikipedia, perhaps we should look into why. Perhaps also look into the
> Foundation directly reaching out to women's groups for collaborative
> purposes.
>
> But the OP does have a point. By telling certain groups "we are not
> interested in you right now" you are playing an "us-against-them" game and
> quite probably causing more harm than good.
>
>
> Leigh
>
>
> > Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 09:03:40 -0500
> > From: nawr...@gmail.com
> > To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender
> gap project-related decision
> >
> > You certainly put a lot of time and effort into being wrong. Any first
> year
> > undergraduate writing course will tell you that to make an argument you
> > need to address the counter-arguments, which you have failed even to
> > mention. Diversity of contributors isn't a social justice goal, or even a
> > cultural engineering goal. It is aimed squarely at increasing the
> diversity
> > and caliber of content. Not only does the small proportion of women mean
> > that millions of them with huge amounts of expertise to contribute are
> > unheard, it also means that their perspective and approach are
> > underrepresented or missing entirely.
> >
> > And yes, the same is true for others - not only African-Americans, but
> > Africans. Not only people of "Indo-Asian" descent, but the people of the
> > Indian subcontinent itself. This is not an American movement, yet the
> > "global south" is deeply under-represented, and the WMF has been working
> > for years to address this issue. This is, again, because diversity of
> > contributors matters for the breadth and depth of coverage in our
> projects.
> > The goal of the Wikimedia movement is the sum of all human knowledge, not
> > the sum of knowledge held by white men between 15 and 35 living in Europe
> > and North America.
> > ___
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Leigh Thelmadatter]

I dont think the issue is the idea of encouraging projects that increase the 
participation of women, but rather the message that everything else is getting 
shoved aside.  

I dont see this as sexism and playing that card is counter-productive.  

What I suggest is that instead of saying that for three months everyone else is 
 sidelined, focus on inclusion.  If there arent enough or good enough projects 
for addressing the number of women participating in Wikipedia, perhaps we 
should look into why. Perhaps also look into the Foundation directly reaching 
out to women's groups for collaborative purposes.

But the OP does have a point. By telling certain groups "we are not interested 
in you right now" you are playing an "us-against-them" game and quite probably 
causing more harm than good.


Leigh


> Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 09:03:40 -0500
> From: nawr...@gmail.com
> To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap 
> project-related decision
> 
> You certainly put a lot of time and effort into being wrong. Any first year
> undergraduate writing course will tell you that to make an argument you
> need to address the counter-arguments, which you have failed even to
> mention. Diversity of contributors isn't a social justice goal, or even a
> cultural engineering goal. It is aimed squarely at increasing the diversity
> and caliber of content. Not only does the small proportion of women mean
> that millions of them with huge amounts of expertise to contribute are
> unheard, it also means that their perspective and approach are
> underrepresented or missing entirely.
> 
> And yes, the same is true for others - not only African-Americans, but
> Africans. Not only people of "Indo-Asian" descent, but the people of the
> Indian subcontinent itself. This is not an American movement, yet the
> "global south" is deeply under-represented, and the WMF has been working
> for years to address this issue. This is, again, because diversity of
> contributors matters for the breadth and depth of coverage in our projects.
> The goal of the Wikimedia movement is the sum of all human knowledge, not
> the sum of knowledge held by white men between 15 and 35 living in Europe
> and North America.
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
  
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Nathan]

You certainly put a lot of time and effort into being wrong. Any first year
undergraduate writing course will tell you that to make an argument you
need to address the counter-arguments, which you have failed even to
mention. Diversity of contributors isn't a social justice goal, or even a
cultural engineering goal. It is aimed squarely at increasing the diversity
and caliber of content. Not only does the small proportion of women mean
that millions of them with huge amounts of expertise to contribute are
unheard, it also means that their perspective and approach are
underrepresented or missing entirely.

And yes, the same is true for others - not only African-Americans, but
Africans. Not only people of "Indo-Asian" descent, but the people of the
Indian subcontinent itself. This is not an American movement, yet the
"global south" is deeply under-represented, and the WMF has been working
for years to address this issue. This is, again, because diversity of
contributors matters for the breadth and depth of coverage in our projects.
The goal of the Wikimedia movement is the sum of all human knowledge, not
the sum of knowledge held by white men between 15 and 35 living in Europe
and North America.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Risker]

I have one simple question:  if the Grants program was to focus on some
other  key area rather than the gender gap, would we be having this
discussion about how horrible it is to waste time this way?  Would we see
throwing up of hands in this way if the focus was, say, requests from the
Global South? A focus on getting great bots built and working across
wikis?  A focus on events and processes for media collection? (Incidentally
the latter more or less happens anyway with several groups applying for
funding for WLM within a narrow period...)


Frankly, there's not a single thing I've read, or a single objection I've
seen raised, that wasn't about how unnecessary it is to focus on women.  I
don't think we've ever heard that about the global south, or non-European
languages, or a lot of other areas where there are acknowledged biases.

Risker/Anne




On 8 January 2015 at 02:07, mcc99  wrote:

> Dear fellow Wikipedia devotees,
>
> While I'm new to this list, I've been an avid fan and proponent of
> Wikipedia and all the great service it gives people since it launched.
> People can learn not just all the basics of nearly any topic imaginable,
> but for a large number, readers can with diligence become expert on more
> than a few and save themselves the cost of tuition/training.  All this, in
> addition to satisfying their curiosity about millions of subjects.
>
> That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so long
> as it's relevant and factual.  Unlike the published, single-authority
> edited encyclopediae of the past, Wikipedia allows anyone with relevant
> information to contribute to it.  Their additions or other edits are
> checked by volunteers to make sure the edit isn't a defacement, irrelevant,
> patently unfactual, or unverifiable.  They are typically left as written or
> maybe edited only for grammar/spelling.  Wikipedia is a rare success story
> in democracy of knowledge.  If one feels moved to contribute, they do.  If
> not, they don't.  It's like voting in a sense, though it's true people in
> democracies should perhaps take the opportunity to do so more often.  But
> it's up to them.
>
> Like voting or anything else, to single out a particular group of people
> based on their indelible characteristics as being desirable as contributors
> to any field implicitly devalues the contributions not just of those
> currently contributing who don't fall into that category, but also says to
> any other group of a particular identity that you care more about the group
> you're trying to get more involvement from than them.  "Identity politics"
> is unfortunately a fact of our current political climate and I hope one day
> we can, as MLK Jr. hoped, judge one another not by skin color (and I'd add
> gender, sexuality, and a few others), but by content of character.  In the
> context of Wikipedia, this would translate to the veracity and
> applicability of contributions made to the vast Wikipedia knowledge-base --
> not who in particular is doing the contributing, nor their indelible
> characteristics of person.
>
> Because identity politics is today part of general electoral politics
> doesn't mean it need be for anything else, and especially given how such
> things as a person's ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc., say nothing about
> what they know about or can do, I don't see how it's relevant to the
> veracity and applicability of Wikipedia's knowledge base.  I don't care
> that, for example, a black person (Charles Drew, MD) came up with the
> process of creating blood plasma, an innovation that has saved millions of
> lives.  He was tragically and mortally injured in a car accident, however,
> and so his potential future achievements were lost to humanity.  (He was
> not refused treatment for his injuries at the hospital he was taken to
> because of his ethnicity, as is widely but falsely believed; he was just so
> badly injured that he died.  See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Drew#Death ).  I also don't care
> that Adm Grace Hopper (USN) wad female, only that she wrote the first
> computer language compiler so programmers of lesser brain power than her
> (such as myself) could go on to program computers without struggling with
> binary switches and punch cards.  Her contributions were what was
> important, not her gender, skin color, or anything else as far as her
> professional achievements go.
>
> If you ask any RN the names of the greatest contributors to the nursing
> profession, you'll get a stream of women's names.  To suggest that nursing
> "needs" more men or else it won't be able to achieve its greatest potential
> would be a crass and inaccurate insult to the many thousands of women who
> have made modern nursing what it is.  Of course there have been and will be
> male nurses who stand out as contributors, but only a very small
> percentage, probably in keeping with the ratio of men to women in nursing.
> And yet, despite the high salaries RNs command, are t

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Chris Keating]

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 12:09 PM, FRED BAUDER  wrote:

> On Thu, 8 Jan 2015 11:29:57 +0100
>  Liam Wyatt  wrote:
>
>> As this thread demonstrates, what discussions about the massive
>> gender imbalance in Wikimedia editorship need is more men discussing why
>> it
>> might or might not be important.
>>
>> 
>>
>
> Radical feminist notions that men should reduce editing or participation
> are counter-productive. The solution is OR not NOT; anyone should be able
> to edit without struggle.


I'm not quite sure what you're aiming at here, but Liam's point was that it
was somewhere between unhelpful and downright harmful to have discussions
about the Wikimedia gender gap conducted entirely between men. (It's a bit
like having a discussion about Wikipedia conducted entirely by people
who've never used the internet.)

I would describe this as "common sense" rather than "radical feminism".

Chris
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[FRED BAUDER]

On Thu, 8 Jan 2015 11:29:57 +0100
 Liam Wyatt  wrote:

As this thread demonstrates, what discussions about the massive
gender imbalance in Wikimedia editorship need is more men discussing 
why it

might or might not be important.




Radical feminist notions that men should reduce editing or 
participation are counter-productive. The solution is OR not NOT; 
anyone should be able to edit without struggle.


Fred


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[FRED BAUDER]

On Thu, 8 Jan 2015 11:25:23 +0100
 Ilario Valdelli  wrote:

I partially disagree with this vision.

Without the North American and European men there would not be any
opportunity to say: "we would share the sum of the human knowledge".

Probably Wikimedia would not exist.


True, but our goal was to make knowledge and the opportunity to 
contribute to making knowledge available to everyone.


Fred


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Peter Southwood]

Hi Matt,
How much actual editing of Wikipedia have you done? I have looked for some 
indication in your rather lengthy message, but could not find any.  Perhaps I 
have simply missed it, but maybe you just didn’t mention, thinking that it is 
not relevant to the point.
Nevertheless, I would be interested to know, as it would be an indication of 
your exposure to the editing environment. For the same reason, I would like to 
know which Wikipedia(s) you have edited, they are not all the same.
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org 
[mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of mcc99
Sent: 08 January 2015 09:07 AM
To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap 
project-related decision

Dear fellow Wikipedia devotees,

While I'm new to this list, I've been an avid fan and proponent of Wikipedia 
and all the great service it gives people since it launched.  People can learn 
not just all the basics of nearly any topic imaginable, but for a large number, 
readers can with diligence become expert on more than a few and save themselves 
the cost of tuition/training.  All this, in addition to satisfying their 
curiosity about millions of subjects.

That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so long as 
it's relevant and factual.  Unlike the published, single-authority edited 
encyclopediae of the past, Wikipedia allows anyone with relevant information to 
contribute to it.  Their additions or other edits are checked by volunteers to 
make sure the edit isn't a defacement, irrelevant, patently unfactual, or 
unverifiable.  They are typically left as written or maybe edited only for 
grammar/spelling.  Wikipedia is a rare success story in democracy of knowledge. 
 If one feels moved to contribute, they do.  If not, they don't.  It's like 
voting in a sense, though it's true people in democracies should perhaps take 
the opportunity to do so more often.  But it's up to them.

Like voting or anything else, to single out a particular group of people based 
on their indelible characteristics as being desirable as contributors to any 
field implicitly devalues the contributions not just of those currently 
contributing who don't fall into that category, but also says to any other 
group of a particular identity that you care more about the group you're trying 
to get more involvement from than them.  "Identity politics" is unfortunately a 
fact of our current political climate and I hope one day we can, as MLK Jr. 
hoped, judge one another not by skin color (and I'd add gender, sexuality, and 
a few others), but by content of character.  In the context of Wikipedia, this 
would translate to the veracity and applicability of contributions made to the 
vast Wikipedia knowledge-base -- not who in particular is doing the 
contributing, nor their indelible characteristics of person.

Because identity politics is today part of general electoral politics doesn't 
mean it need be for anything else, and especially given how such things as a 
person's ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc., say nothing about what they know 
about or can do, I don't see how it's relevant to the veracity and 
applicability of Wikipedia's knowledge base.  I don't care that, for example, a 
black person (Charles Drew, MD) came up with the process of creating blood 
plasma, an innovation that has saved millions of lives.  He was tragically and 
mortally injured in a car accident, however, and so his potential future 
achievements were lost to humanity.  (He was not refused treatment for his 
injuries at the hospital he was taken to because of his ethnicity, as is widely 
but falsely believed; he was just so badly injured that he died.  See 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Drew#Death ).  I also don't care that 
Adm Grace Hopper (USN) wad female, only that she wrote the first computer 
language compiler so programmers of lesser brain power than her (such as 
myself) could go on to program computers without struggling with binary 
switches and punch cards.  Her contributions were what was important, not her 
gender, skin color, or anything else as far as her professional achievements go.

If you ask any RN the names of the greatest contributors to the nursing 
profession, you'll get a stream of women's names.  To suggest that nursing 
"needs" more men or else it won't be able to achieve its greatest potential 
would be a crass and inaccurate insult to the many thousands of women who have 
made modern nursing what it is.  Of course there have been and will be male 
nurses who stand out as contributors, but only a very small percentage, 
probably in keeping with the ratio of men to women in nursing.  And yet, 
despite the high salaries RNs command, are there any gov't-spo

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[FRED BAUDER]

Thank you for this thoughtful response. In the United States, at 
least, girls routinely test higher than boys on verbal skills and have 
recently surpassed young men in attaining higher education in nearly 
all fields. There is a lot of dead time in the lives of many women. 
They are all over Facebook. Routine child care and housework give 
ample opportunity to research and edit as do many jobs. Objective 
factors which might limit editing are minimal.


Fred

On Thu, 8 Jan 2015 10:47:22 +0100
 Ilario Valdelli  wrote:

I think that the realistic point of view should be another.

There is a potential number of people who can be contributors 
(contributors

and not readers) but this potential number must be *realistic*.

Anyway these persons should have something to contribute to 
wikimedia

projects an basically:

a) ability to write (so a sufficient capacity to be "active" users 
and not

"passive", it means a valid education and knowledge)
b) connection to the network (in order to have a continuous 
contribution to

the projects)
c) time to spent (volunteers must have time... a woman with children
probably will dedicate her free time to the family)

So there is a digital divide and a gender gap and so on but probably 
the

barriers cannot be solved within Wikimedia.

For this reason I don't think that "half the humans" could 
contribute.
There are barriers (education, digital divide, freetime, etc.) that 
can

only be "partially" solved by Wikimedia.

Please don't do the same simpler association "number of speakers" =
"potential number of contributors" because that strategy will be 
*surely*

wrong.

Regards


On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:56 AM, FRED BAUDER  
wrote:





That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so 
long

as it's relevant and factual.



That's the point; it would not matter if women contributed so long 
as it's

relevant and factual. Half the humans that could contribute are not.
Actually many more than half, as there are barriers other than 
gender.


Fred




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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[FRED BAUDER]

On Thu, 8 Jan 2015 14:53:47 +0530
 Srikanth Ramakrishnan  wrote:

On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
Need I say anything else?


I think you've hit the nail on the head. It should not be easier to 
dominate a player-killing MUD than to edit an article on Wikipedia. In 
other words, one should not need to adopt the persona of a snarling 
dog to successfully edit.


Fred


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Given that a frequent complaint is the male chauvinist piggery that is
alive and well and meets not much sanction, this behaviour it being given
as one of the main reasons why so many people leave. I do suggest that the
hand above the head holding attitude of culprits is why we do so poorly. As
this is not acknowledged enough, it is not on the radar of people who are
not as flawed as some.
Thanks,
 GerardM

On 8 January 2015 at 11:25, Ilario Valdelli  wrote:

> I partially disagree with this vision.
>
> Without the North American and European men there would not be any
> opportunity to say: "we would share the sum of the human knowledge".
>
> Probably Wikimedia would not exist.
>
> It is correct to say that Wikimedia must offer to *all people* any
> opportunity without any difference of culture or gender or religion and
> probably to "promote" some disadvantaged potential contributors, but
> without forgetting that what Wikimedia is now is due to these "neglected
> white men".
>
> I agree with your sentence: "In my view our consensus-based decision-making
> model can only work well when there is enough diversity of contributions"
> but we must be clear that the diversity of contribution and of opinions is
> not automatically connected with the race or with the gender. The neutral
> point of view has been assured until now, I would not read in your sentence
> that this is wrong.
>
> There may be men or women gathered in a key decision committee but having
> the same "not neutral point of view" because the gender doesn't assure
> automatically the neutrality of point of view.
>
> The risk I see in the association of diversity with the gender or with the
> race is that we can say that having people from different countries or
> different races or different sex it can assure the neutral point of view.
>
> But that is wrong.
>
> Regards
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:59 AM, Chris Keating  >
> wrote:
>
> > Hi there,
> >
> >
> > > That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so
> long
> > > as it's relevant and factual.
> >
> >
> > >
> > Who is to decide what is relevant and factual (or indeed, the other
> > editorial judgements we make in writing aricles)? If the only people
> doing
> > that are white North American and European men with (or working towards)
> > masters' degrees*, then their judgements will inevitably reflect their
> own
> > backgrounds and perspectives - and other backgrounds and perspectives
> will
> > be missing from those judgements.
> >
> > That does not and will not result in us fulfilling our mission to build
> and
> > share the sum of human knowledge.
> >
> > In my view our consensus-based decision-making model can only work well
> > when there is enough diversity of contributions in the first place. It is
> > easy for a small group of similar people to reach a consensus. However,
> > they are likely to miss important things in doing so.
> > Regards,
> >
> > Chris
> >
> > * This isn't (quite) a description of the status quo but is pretty close
> > ___
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>
>
>
> --
> Ilario Valdelli
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> Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
> Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[geni]

On 8 January 2015 at 07:07, mcc99  wrote:

> If you ask any RN the names of the greatest contributors to the nursing
> profession, you'll get a stream of women's names.  To suggest that nursing
> "needs" more men or else it won't be able to achieve its greatest potential
> would be a crass and inaccurate insult to the many thousands of women who
> have made modern nursing what it is.  Of course there have been and will be
> male nurses who stand out as contributors, but only a very small
> percentage, probably in keeping with the ratio of men to women in nursing.
> And yet, despite the high salaries RNs command, are there any
> gov't-sponsored initiatives to get men into nursing?


In fact nurses get paid less than the male national average wage. This is
clearly some definition of high salaries I wasn't previously familiar with



> If so, it'd be news to me and many others.  But I ask, if men by and
> large, for whatever reasons, aren't interested in becoming nurses, why make
> a big deal about it?


Reducing the recruitment pool is less than ideal. However the number of men
training to be nurses has been increasing so it is probably felt the
problem will solve itself.


> Are there gov't-sponsored campaigns to get more women into the relatively
> lucrative job of refuse collection?


Ah you can tell the piece you are recycling from is dated. Post
privatisation refuse collection has ceased to be a particularly lucrative
job.


Or, the likewise lucrative jobs of plumber,


http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/call-more-women-construction-3m-6942911

Although again due to eastern European labour plumbing isn't as lucrative
as it used to be.



> ordnance disposal engineer,



I understand there have been various attempts to recruit women into the
military



> nuclear materials technician, etc.?  No.  But other fields that are a lot
> less dirty and/or dangerous, yes.



Were you under the impression that nuclear materials technician was dirty
and/or dangerous? For very obvious reasons it isn't. However the nuclear
industry has been downsizing of late so I don't think there are significant
programs to recruit anyone.



>  (Think professional STEM fields.)


I'm a chemist you insensitive clod. Depending on what you are doing it can
be dirty or dangerous.



>
>


-- 
geni
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Srikanth Ramakrishnan]

I agree.
Women vs Men has never really stood out as a point of debate before and
ideally shouldn't.
On 08-Jan-2015 4:11 pm, "Ilario Valdelli"  wrote:

> Is there any barrier for women to participate?
>
> The discussion is open.
>
> It would be worth if someone attacks a woman for her opinion.
>
> There is more a big barrier in the participation to this thread connected
> with a strong level of English to be required to read and to answer to this
> thread.
>
> I see more a cultural and linguistic gap that a gender gap.
>
> Regards
>
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 11:29 AM, Liam Wyatt  wrote:
>
> > As this thread demonstrates, what discussions about the massive
> > gender imbalance in Wikimedia editorship need is more men discussing why
> it
> > might or might not be important.
> >
> > 
> >
> >
> > --
> > wittylama.com
> > Peace, love & metadata
> > ___
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> > 
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Ilario Valdelli
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> Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
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> Skype: valdelli
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> Tel: +41764821371
> http://www.wikimedia.ch
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Ilario Valdelli]

Is there any barrier for women to participate?

The discussion is open.

It would be worth if someone attacks a woman for her opinion.

There is more a big barrier in the participation to this thread connected
with a strong level of English to be required to read and to answer to this
thread.

I see more a cultural and linguistic gap that a gender gap.

Regards

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 11:29 AM, Liam Wyatt  wrote:

> As this thread demonstrates, what discussions about the massive
> gender imbalance in Wikimedia editorship need is more men discussing why it
> might or might not be important.
>
> 
>
>
> --
> wittylama.com
> Peace, love & metadata
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>



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Liam Wyatt]

As this thread demonstrates, what discussions about the massive
gender imbalance in Wikimedia editorship need is more men discussing why it
might or might not be important.




-- 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Ilario Valdelli]

I partially disagree with this vision.

Without the North American and European men there would not be any
opportunity to say: "we would share the sum of the human knowledge".

Probably Wikimedia would not exist.

It is correct to say that Wikimedia must offer to *all people* any
opportunity without any difference of culture or gender or religion and
probably to "promote" some disadvantaged potential contributors, but
without forgetting that what Wikimedia is now is due to these "neglected
white men".

I agree with your sentence: "In my view our consensus-based decision-making
model can only work well when there is enough diversity of contributions"
but we must be clear that the diversity of contribution and of opinions is
not automatically connected with the race or with the gender. The neutral
point of view has been assured until now, I would not read in your sentence
that this is wrong.

There may be men or women gathered in a key decision committee but having
the same "not neutral point of view" because the gender doesn't assure
automatically the neutrality of point of view.

The risk I see in the association of diversity with the gender or with the
race is that we can say that having people from different countries or
different races or different sex it can assure the neutral point of view.

But that is wrong.

Regards


On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 10:59 AM, Chris Keating 
wrote:

> Hi there,
>
>
> > That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so long
> > as it's relevant and factual.
>
>
> >
> Who is to decide what is relevant and factual (or indeed, the other
> editorial judgements we make in writing aricles)? If the only people doing
> that are white North American and European men with (or working towards)
> masters' degrees*, then their judgements will inevitably reflect their own
> backgrounds and perspectives - and other backgrounds and perspectives will
> be missing from those judgements.
>
> That does not and will not result in us fulfilling our mission to build and
> share the sum of human knowledge.
>
> In my view our consensus-based decision-making model can only work well
> when there is enough diversity of contributions in the first place. It is
> easy for a small group of similar people to reach a consensus. However,
> they are likely to miss important things in doing so.
> Regards,
>
> Chris
>
> * This isn't (quite) a description of the status quo but is pretty close
> ___
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>



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Sebastian Moleski]

Hi Matt,

as thorough as your characterization of the issue at hand is, as
misguided it is as well. The main point of the gender debate isn't the
physical differences between men and women and some purported
difference in authorship flowing from that. That would rightfully be
considered absurd and thus isn't really seriously promoted by anyone.

The gender gap debate is rather an acknowledgment that only a
surprisingly small subset of half the population contribute to
Wikipedia - and the systemic bias that stems from that. In fact, it
seems rather obvious that an encyclopedia that aspires to represent
all of human knowledge must necessarily be written by a representative
subset of humanity - or at least a representative subset of the
scientific community. We, so far, spectactularly fail at that with
respect to gender but also geography, language, and professional
backgrounds and expertise. As a result, it's more than sensible to try
to address that with the gender gap as the most prominent failure.

I also find your argument that focusing on increasing female
participation is devaluing the contribution of the prevalent majority
highly dubious. It's unfortunately a rather unoriginal argument as it
has been used many many times before in the political arean to combat
initiatives aimed at increasing diversity and decreasing
discrimination. The incessant fault of the argument is the premise
that the value of a particular contribution is dependent on the value
of all other contributions rather than viewing it in its own right. To
give an example: when someone writes an outstanding article on the
Great Wall of China and someone else writes an outstanding article on
Jacques Chirac, the value of each of these contributions is completely
separate from one another as well as from the fact whether one of the
authors was "recruited" through a drive to increase female
participation. They've both made excellent additions to Wikipedia and
should be lauded for that. Making moves to increase female
participation does not in any way devalue male participation.

While I have no knowledge whether this focused approach to
grant-making will indeed lead to increased female participation, I
find it sensible to at least try it out. We'll see in the end whether
it was succesful.

Best regards,

Sebastian Moleski
Schatzmeister / Treasurer
-
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24
10963 Berlin

Telefon 030 - 219 158 26-0
www.wikimedia.de

Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://spenden.wikimedia.de/

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Chris Keating]

Hi there,


> That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so long
> as it's relevant and factual.


>
Who is to decide what is relevant and factual (or indeed, the other
editorial judgements we make in writing aricles)? If the only people doing
that are white North American and European men with (or working towards)
masters' degrees*, then their judgements will inevitably reflect their own
backgrounds and perspectives - and other backgrounds and perspectives will
be missing from those judgements.

That does not and will not result in us fulfilling our mission to build and
share the sum of human knowledge.

In my view our consensus-based decision-making model can only work well
when there is enough diversity of contributions in the first place. It is
easy for a small group of similar people to reach a consensus. However,
they are likely to miss important things in doing so.
Regards,

Chris

* This isn't (quite) a description of the status quo but is pretty close
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Ilario Valdelli]

I think that the realistic point of view should be another.

There is a potential number of people who can be contributors (contributors
and not readers) but this potential number must be *realistic*.

Anyway these persons should have something to contribute to wikimedia
projects an basically:

a) ability to write (so a sufficient capacity to be "active" users and not
"passive", it means a valid education and knowledge)
b) connection to the network (in order to have a continuous contribution to
the projects)
c) time to spent (volunteers must have time... a woman with children
probably will dedicate her free time to the family)

So there is a digital divide and a gender gap and so on but probably the
barriers cannot be solved within Wikimedia.

For this reason I don't think that "half the humans" could contribute.
There are barriers (education, digital divide, freetime, etc.) that can
only be "partially" solved by Wikimedia.

Please don't do the same simpler association "number of speakers" =
"potential number of contributors" because that strategy will be *surely*
wrong.

Regards


On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 9:56 AM, FRED BAUDER  wrote:

>
>
>> That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so long
>> as it's relevant and factual.
>>
>
> That's the point; it would not matter if women contributed so long as it's
> relevant and factual. Half the humans that could contribute are not.
> Actually many more than half, as there are barriers other than gender.
>
> Fred
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Srikanth Ramakrishnan]

On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
Need I say anything else?
On 08-Jan-2015 2:45 pm, "FRED BAUDER"  wrote:

>
>
>> That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so long
>> as it's relevant and factual.
>>
>
> That's the point; it would not matter if women contributed so long as it's
> relevant and factual. Half the humans that could contribute are not.
> Actually many more than half, as there are barriers other than gender.
>
> Fred
>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[FRED BAUDER]

 
That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so 
long as it's relevant and factual.


That's the point; it would not matter if women contributed so long as 
it's relevant and factual. Half the humans that could contribute are 
not. Actually many more than half, as there are barriers other than 
gender.


Fred



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[Michel Vuijlsteke]

Yes. Finally, a voice of reason.

On 8 January 2015 at 08:07, mcc99  wrote:

> Dear fellow Wikipedia devotees,
>
> While I'm new to this list, I've been an avid fan and proponent of
> Wikipedia and all the great service it gives people since it launched.
> People can learn not just all the basics of nearly any topic imaginable,
> but for a large number, readers can with diligence become expert on more
> than a few and save themselves the cost of tuition/training.  All this, in
> addition to satisfying their curiosity about millions of subjects.
>
> That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so long
> as it's relevant and factual.  Unlike the published, single-authority
> edited encyclopediae of the past, Wikipedia allows anyone with relevant
> information to contribute to it.  Their additions or other edits are
> checked by volunteers to make sure the edit isn't a defacement, irrelevant,
> patently unfactual, or unverifiable.  They are typically left as written or
> maybe edited only for grammar/spelling.  Wikipedia is a rare success story
> in democracy of knowledge.  If one feels moved to contribute, they do.  If
> not, they don't.  It's like voting in a sense, though it's true people in
> democracies should perhaps take the opportunity to do so more often.  But
> it's up to them.
>
> Like voting or anything else, to single out a particular group of people
> based on their indelible characteristics as being desirable as contributors
> to any field implicitly devalues the contributions not just of those
> currently contributing who don't fall into that category, but also says to
> any other group of a particular identity that you care more about the group
> you're trying to get more involvement from than them.  "Identity politics"
> is unfortunately a fact of our current political climate and I hope one day
> we can, as MLK Jr. hoped, judge one another not by skin color (and I'd add
> gender, sexuality, and a few others), but by content of character.  In the
> context of Wikipedia, this would translate to the veracity and
> applicability of contributions made to the vast Wikipedia knowledge-base --
> not who in particular is doing the contributing, nor their indelible
> characteristics of person.
>
> Because identity politics is today part of general electoral politics
> doesn't mean it need be for anything else, and especially given how such
> things as a person's ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc., say nothing about
> what they know about or can do, I don't see how it's relevant to the
> veracity and applicability of Wikipedia's knowledge base.  I don't care
> that, for example, a black person (Charles Drew, MD) came up with the
> process of creating blood plasma, an innovation that has saved millions of
> lives.  He was tragically and mortally injured in a car accident, however,
> and so his potential future achievements were lost to humanity.  (He was
> not refused treatment for his injuries at the hospital he was taken to
> because of his ethnicity, as is widely but falsely believed; he was just so
> badly injured that he died.  See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Drew#Death ).  I also don't care
> that Adm Grace Hopper (USN) wad female, only that she wrote the first
> computer language compiler so programmers of lesser brain power than her
> (such as myself) could go on to program computers without struggling with
> binary switches and punch cards.  Her contributions were what was
> important, not her gender, skin color, or anything else as far as her
> professional achievements go.
>
> If you ask any RN the names of the greatest contributors to the nursing
> profession, you'll get a stream of women's names.  To suggest that nursing
> "needs" more men or else it won't be able to achieve its greatest potential
> would be a crass and inaccurate insult to the many thousands of women who
> have made modern nursing what it is.  Of course there have been and will be
> male nurses who stand out as contributors, but only a very small
> percentage, probably in keeping with the ratio of men to women in nursing.
> And yet, despite the high salaries RNs command, are there any
> gov't-sponsored initiatives to get men into nursing?  If so, it'd be news
> to me and many others.  But I ask, if men by and large, for whatever
> reasons, aren't interested in becoming nurses, why make a big deal about
> it?  Are there gov't-sponsored campaigns to get more women into the
> relatively lucrative job of refuse collection?  Or, the likewise lucrative
> jobs of plumber, ordnance disposal engineer, nuclear materials technician,
> etc.?  No.  But other fields that are a lot less dirty and/or dangerous,
> yes.  (Think professional STEM fields.)  This isn't by accident, nor is the
> fact that the nursing profession with its high salaries (for RNs, anyway)
> is in no hurry to recruit men simply because they're men.  But why should
> they?  That one receives care from a female vs. male nurse isn't r

[Wikimedia-l] Why WMF should reconsider the 3-month gender gap project-related decision

[mcc99]

Dear fellow Wikipedia devotees,

While I'm new to this list, I've been an avid fan and proponent of Wikipedia 
and all the great service it gives people since it launched.  People can learn 
not just all the basics of nearly any topic imaginable, but for a large number, 
readers can with diligence become expert on more than a few and save themselves 
the cost of tuition/training.  All this, in addition to satisfying their 
curiosity about millions of subjects.

That said, it doesn't matter who writes the content on Wikipedia so long as 
it's relevant and factual.  Unlike the published, single-authority edited 
encyclopediae of the past, Wikipedia allows anyone with relevant information to 
contribute to it.  Their additions or other edits are checked by volunteers to 
make sure the edit isn't a defacement, irrelevant, patently unfactual, or 
unverifiable.  They are typically left as written or maybe edited only for 
grammar/spelling.  Wikipedia is a rare success story in democracy of knowledge. 
 If one feels moved to contribute, they do.  If not, they don't.  It's like 
voting in a sense, though it's true people in democracies should perhaps take 
the opportunity to do so more often.  But it's up to them.

Like voting or anything else, to single out a particular group of people based 
on their indelible characteristics as being desirable as contributors to any 
field implicitly devalues the contributions not just of those currently 
contributing who don't fall into that category, but also says to any other 
group of a particular identity that you care more about the group you're trying 
to get more involvement from than them.  "Identity politics" is unfortunately a 
fact of our current political climate and I hope one day we can, as MLK Jr. 
hoped, judge one another not by skin color (and I'd add gender, sexuality, and 
a few others), but by content of character.  In the context of Wikipedia, this 
would translate to the veracity and applicability of contributions made to the 
vast Wikipedia knowledge-base -- not who in particular is doing the 
contributing, nor their indelible characteristics of person.

Because identity politics is today part of general electoral politics doesn't 
mean it need be for anything else, and especially given how such things as a 
person's ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc., say nothing about what they know 
about or can do, I don't see how it's relevant to the veracity and 
applicability of Wikipedia's knowledge base.  I don't care that, for example, a 
black person (Charles Drew, MD) came up with the process of creating blood 
plasma, an innovation that has saved millions of lives.  He was tragically and 
mortally injured in a car accident, however, and so his potential future 
achievements were lost to humanity.  (He was not refused treatment for his 
injuries at the hospital he was taken to because of his ethnicity, as is widely 
but falsely believed; he was just so badly injured that he died.  See 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Drew#Death ).  I also don't care that 
Adm Grace Hopper (USN) wad female, only that she wrote the first computer 
language compiler so programmers of lesser brain power than her (such as 
myself) could go on to program computers without struggling with binary 
switches and punch cards.  Her contributions were what was important, not her 
gender, skin color, or anything else as far as her professional achievements go.

If you ask any RN the names of the greatest contributors to the nursing 
profession, you'll get a stream of women's names.  To suggest that nursing 
"needs" more men or else it won't be able to achieve its greatest potential 
would be a crass and inaccurate insult to the many thousands of women who have 
made modern nursing what it is.  Of course there have been and will be male 
nurses who stand out as contributors, but only a very small percentage, 
probably in keeping with the ratio of men to women in nursing.  And yet, 
despite the high salaries RNs command, are there any gov't-sponsored 
initiatives to get men into nursing?  If so, it'd be news to me and many 
others.  But I ask, if men by and large, for whatever reasons, aren't 
interested in becoming nurses, why make a big deal about it?  Are there 
gov't-sponsored campaigns to get more women into the relatively lucrative job 
of refuse collection?  Or, the likewise lucrative jobs of plumber, ordnance 
disposal engineer, nuclear materials technician, etc.?  No.  But other fields 
that are a lot less dirty and/or dangerous, yes.  (Think professional STEM 
fields.)  This isn't by accident, nor is the fact that the nursing profession 
with its high salaries (for RNs, anyway) is in no hurry to recruit men simply 
because they're men.  But why should they?  That one receives care from a 
female vs. male nurse isn't relevant.  To trumpet a "need" for men in nursing 
minimizes the huge contributions of women nurses and is a patently false 
proposition.  Nursing needs compete