Re: [Gendergap] Fwd: [Adacamp Alumni] Applications open for AdaCamp Berlin and Bangalore
Frist AdaCamp in Berlin! :) On 23 July 2014 00:16, Sarah Stierch sarah.stie...@gmail.com wrote: First AdaCamp in India! -- Forwarded message -- From: Valerie Aurora vale...@adainitiative.org Date: Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 3:11 PM Subject: [Adacamp Alumni] Applications open for AdaCamp Berlin and Bangalore To: AdaCamp Alumni adacamp-alu...@lists.adainitiative.org Hi AdaCampers, We just opened applications for AdaCamp Berlin and Bangalore! http://adainitiative.org/2014/07/applications-open-for-adacamp-berlin-and-adacamp-bangalore/ A lot of AdaCamp Alumni have asked: Should I go to AdaCamp again? This isn't an easy question, because we are pretty sure all future AdaCamps are going to be sold out, and because we are trying hard to reach people who need AdaCamp the most (usually those who don't have a chance to attend many supportive conferences). At the same time, we need people who have been to previous AdaCamps to attend to help show new people the ropes, and we also need women who have a lot of confidence and experience and expertise to attend to serve as role models, give advice, and make relationships. If you want to attend AdaCamp but are feeling guilty about taking up a spot someone else might need more, here's what I recommend: Apply to AdaCamp and in the Anything else? field of the application, say that you are happy to give up your spot if someone else needs it more. :) In other words, apply! -VAL -- Valerie Aurora Executive Director You can help increase the participation of women in open technology and culture! Donate today at http://adainitiative.org/donate/ __ Policies for behavior on this list: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Statement_of_purpose/Women-only_communities http://sf.adacamp.org/attendee-information/policies/#ahp Contact adacamp-alumni-ow...@lists.adainitiative.org to report violations To unsubscribe, go to: http://lists.adainitiative.org/listinfo.cgi/adacamp-alumni-adainitiative.org -- Sarah Stierch - Diverse and engaging consulting for your organization. www.sarahstierch.com ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap -- Nicole Ebber Leiterin Internationales Head of International Affairs Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin Tel. +49 30 219158 26-0 http://wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985. ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Zoë Wicomb or Clive Cussler?
On 7/22/2014 8:00 PM, Kerry Raymond wrote: I think it's new-ness bias and a related content bias and a popularity bias rather than primarily a gender bias. There's loads of new work published all the time. Lots of it will not merit a Wikipedia article, just as many novels by the male contemporaries of Clive Cussler don't get Wikipedia articles either. Novels that have been around for years will have had lots of opportunity for 3^rd parties to talk about them to establish notability. New novels have a harder job to establish notability because they have been around for a shorter period of time for others to write about them. There's also the issue of whether you are an inclusionist or an exclusionist. (I'm the former.) Unfortunately, a lot of guy exclusionists see AfD as some sort of video game and feel like every deletion is a point in the game. A game which probably far more males than females want to play. CM ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Zoë Wicomb or Clive Cussler?
On 7/23/2014 11:56 AM, Carol Moore dc wrote: On 7/22/2014 8:00 PM, Kerry Raymond wrote: I think it's new-ness bias and a related content bias and a popularity bias rather than primarily a gender bias. There's loads of new work published all the time. Lots of it will not merit a Wikipedia article, just as many novels by the male contemporaries of Clive Cussler don't get Wikipedia articles either. Novels that have been around for years will have had lots of opportunity for 3^rd parties to talk about them to establish notability. New novels have a harder job to establish notability because they have been around for a shorter period of time for others to write about them. There's also the issue of whether you are an inclusionist or an exclusionist. (I'm the former.) Unfortunately, a lot of guy exclusionists see AfD as some sort of video game and feel like every deletion is a point in the game. A game which probably far more males than females want to play. CM Additionally, we all have topics we dislike and may have a bias for deleting. (I control my urges by tagging articles rather than AfDing them.) It would be interesting to see if there is a pattern of certain individuals AfDing (and/or coming by to support AfDing) articles because of bias against women. If it's found, a few of us could leave them some nice notes on their talk pages about our findings. :-) Another project for the Gender Gap task force? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force It needs a lot of work and I have a number of improvements to main page in mind which will surprise us with soon. Just have a couple personal tasks to finish that as usual take longer than one would expect... ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Sexualized environment on Commons
Ryan, thanks for bringing this up for discussion. I've put a lot of thought into the series of photos this comes from over the years, and it's well worth some discussion. I'd like to hear what others think about this. Here is a link to the category for the larger collection; warning, there's lots of nudity and sexual objectification here, so don't click if you don't want to see that: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nude_portrayals_of_computer_technology First, I agree with Ryan that in the (various) deletion discussions I've seen around this and similar topics, there is often a toxic level of childish and offensive comments. I think that's a significant problem, and I don't know what can be done to improve it. Scolding people in those discussions often a backfires, and serves only to amplify the offensive commentary. But silence can imply tacit consent. How should one participate in the discussion, promoting an outcome one believes in, without contributing to or enabling the toxic nature of the discourse? I think I've done a decent job of walking that line in similar discussions, but I'm sure there's a lot of room for better approaches. I would love to hear what has worked for others, here and/or privately. Also, my initial reaction to these images is that they are inherently offensive; my gut reaction is to keep them off Commons. But after thinking it through and reading through a number of deletion discussions, the conclusion I've come to (at least so far) is that the decision to keep them (in spite of the childish and offensive commentary along the way) is the right decision. These strike me as the important points: * We have a collection of more than 20 million images, intended to support a wide diversity of educational projects. Among those 20 million files are a great many that would be offensive to some audience. (For instance, if I understand correctly, *all images portraying people* are offensive to at least some devout Muslims.) * Were these images originally intended to promote objectification of women? To support insightful commentary on objectification of women? Something else? I can't see into the minds of their creators, but I *can* imagine them being put to all kinds of uses, some of which would be worthwhile. The intent of the photographer and models, I've come to believe, is not relevant to the decision. (apart from the basic issue of consent in the next bullet point:) * Unlike many images on Commons, I see no reason to doubt that these were produced by consenting adults, and intended for public distribution. If they are to be deleted, what is the principle under which we would delete them? To me, that's the key question. If it's simply the fact that we as individuals find them offensive, I don't think that's sufficient. If it's out of a belief that they inherently cause more harm than good, I think the reasons for that would need to be fleshed out before they could be persuasive. Art is often meant to be provocative, to challenge our assumptions and sensibilities, to prompt discussion. We host a lot of art on Commons. On what basis would we delete these, but keep other controversial works of art? Of course it would be terrible to use these in, for instance, a Wikipedia article about HTML syntax. But overall, does it cause harm to simply have them exist in an image repository? My own conclusion with regard to this photo series is that the net value of maintaining a large and diverse collection of media, without endorsing its contents per se., outweighs other considerations. (For anybody interested in the deletion process on Commons, the kinds of things that are deliberated, and the way the discussions go, you might be interested in my related blog post from a couple months ago: http://wikistrategies.net/wikimedia-commons-is-far-from-ethically-broken/ ) -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 1:03 PM, Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: If anyone ever needs a good example of the locker-room environment on Wikimedia Commons, I just came across this old deletion discussion: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Radio_button_and_female_nude.jpg The last two keep votes are especially interesting. One need look no farther than the current Main Page talk page for more of the same (search for premature ejaculation). Kaldari ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Sexualized environment on Commons
Personally, I don't think it's worth having a discussion here about the merits of deleting these images. There's no chance in hell they are going to be deleted from Commons. What I'm more interested in is the locker-room nature of the discussions and how/if this can be addressed, as I think that is actually more likely to dissuade female contributors than the images themselves. Ryan Kaldari On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 2:01 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: Ryan, thanks for bringing this up for discussion. I've put a lot of thought into the series of photos this comes from over the years, and it's well worth some discussion. I'd like to hear what others think about this. Here is a link to the category for the larger collection; warning, there's lots of nudity and sexual objectification here, so don't click if you don't want to see that: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nude_portrayals_of_computer_technology First, I agree with Ryan that in the (various) deletion discussions I've seen around this and similar topics, there is often a toxic level of childish and offensive comments. I think that's a significant problem, and I don't know what can be done to improve it. Scolding people in those discussions often a backfires, and serves only to amplify the offensive commentary. But silence can imply tacit consent. How should one participate in the discussion, promoting an outcome one believes in, without contributing to or enabling the toxic nature of the discourse? I think I've done a decent job of walking that line in similar discussions, but I'm sure there's a lot of room for better approaches. I would love to hear what has worked for others, here and/or privately. Also, my initial reaction to these images is that they are inherently offensive; my gut reaction is to keep them off Commons. But after thinking it through and reading through a number of deletion discussions, the conclusion I've come to (at least so far) is that the decision to keep them (in spite of the childish and offensive commentary along the way) is the right decision. These strike me as the important points: * We have a collection of more than 20 million images, intended to support a wide diversity of educational projects. Among those 20 million files are a great many that would be offensive to some audience. (For instance, if I understand correctly, *all images portraying people* are offensive to at least some devout Muslims.) * Were these images originally intended to promote objectification of women? To support insightful commentary on objectification of women? Something else? I can't see into the minds of their creators, but I *can* imagine them being put to all kinds of uses, some of which would be worthwhile. The intent of the photographer and models, I've come to believe, is not relevant to the decision. (apart from the basic issue of consent in the next bullet point:) * Unlike many images on Commons, I see no reason to doubt that these were produced by consenting adults, and intended for public distribution. If they are to be deleted, what is the principle under which we would delete them? To me, that's the key question. If it's simply the fact that we as individuals find them offensive, I don't think that's sufficient. If it's out of a belief that they inherently cause more harm than good, I think the reasons for that would need to be fleshed out before they could be persuasive. Art is often meant to be provocative, to challenge our assumptions and sensibilities, to prompt discussion. We host a lot of art on Commons. On what basis would we delete these, but keep other controversial works of art? Of course it would be terrible to use these in, for instance, a Wikipedia article about HTML syntax. But overall, does it cause harm to simply have them exist in an image repository? My own conclusion with regard to this photo series is that the net value of maintaining a large and diverse collection of media, without endorsing its contents per se., outweighs other considerations. (For anybody interested in the deletion process on Commons, the kinds of things that are deliberated, and the way the discussions go, you might be interested in my related blog post from a couple months ago: http://wikistrategies.net/wikimedia-commons-is-far-from-ethically-broken/ ) -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 1:03 PM, Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: If anyone ever needs a good example of the locker-room environment on Wikimedia Commons, I just came across this old deletion discussion: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Radio_button_and_female_nude.jpg The last two keep votes are especially interesting. One need look no farther than the current Main Page talk page for more of the same (search for premature ejaculation). Kaldari ___ Gendergap mailing
Re: [Gendergap] Sexualized environment on Commons
On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Ryan Kaldari rkald...@wikimedia.org wrote: Personally, I don't think it's worth having a discussion here about the merits of deleting these images. There's no chance in hell they are going to be deleted from Commons. What I'm more interested in is the locker-room nature of the discussions and how/if this can be addressed, as I think that is actually more likely to dissuade female contributors than the images themselves. Totally reasonable, and I agree that would be a useful discussion. Not that anybody needs my permission, but please feel free to disregard the parts of my message that don't relate to this -- and sorry if it was an unwanted distraction. For the discussion you're suggesting, it might be worthwhile to review the behavior-related policies and guidelines on Commons. It might be fruitful to develop, seek consensus around, and begin enforcing one or more new guidelines related to this stuff. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Commons_policies_and_guidelines In my experience, I think it tends to be a small number of users who engage in this sort of thing, and if the behavior can be clearly and dispassionately described, it might be possible to chip away at the culture that makes it seem acceptable. A big project, but a worthy one. Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Sexualized environment on Commons
On 7/23/2014 5:10 PM, Ryan Kaldari wrote: Personally, I don't think it's worth having a discussion here about the merits of deleting these images. There's no chance in hell they are going to be deleted from Commons. What I'm more interested in is the locker-room nature of the discussions and how/if this can be addressed, as I think that is actually more likely to dissuade female contributors than the images themselves. Ryan Kaldari As long as they aren't in articles (or at least those most women are likely to end up at), it's not likely most women will see them and be dissuaded by that aspect of editing. Constantly reminding women they exist through this list or the Gender Gap Task Force probably would be more of a turn off. On the other hand, having a separate list which will, among other things, post notices of all such AfDs for those likely to want to AfD them might help get rid of some of the worse ones. And it might raise the consciousness of at least a few guys as to just how tacky they are. (I might join it for a while, but there's only so much one can take!) Another idea is to start Stupid sexist Wikicommons upload of the week (or day) page or -more likely - off wiki blog and make sure Wikicommons people all know about it. At least it would be evidence some in the wiki community are fed up with it and make it generally easy to AfD the most gratuitous images. Make it a facebook page with text making it clear LIKE means you think it's stupid and should be the Stupid sexist upload of the Day/Week - or whatever it might be called... Who knows, it might make a lot more women interested in Wikimedia projects (or not?) Finally, let's try to post only things from the past year. Who knows, maybe all those guys' consciousnesses have been raised 3% since we all started talking about these issues and media have started covering it and we might actually have improved things a bit since that 2011 posting :-) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Radio_button_and_female_nude.jpg CM ___ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
Re: [Gendergap] Sexualized environment on Commons
I agree that offensiveness is in the eye of the beholder. And while there may be all manner of very niche groups who find strange things offensiveness, maybe some people object to seeing refrigerators or reading about cakes, nonetheless we know that there are a lot of widespread categories of offensiveness that generate the bulk of discussions about the inclusion of items on Wikipedia or Commons. What we could do is to have to some system of classification (like the movies) for articles, images, and/or categories indicating that they are potentially offensive for various reasons. Perhaps along similar lines to the content advisories in IMDB, e.g. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295297/parentalguide?ref_=tt_stry_pg People could then put in their profiles that all classifications are acceptable or them or that these are the classifications they don't want to see (e.g. Sex and Nudity, Gore and Violence, Profanity, etc - obviously our classifications might not be identical to IMDB as we are dealing with different kinds of content but you get the idea). When that person searches Wikipedia or Commons, then those articles, images and categories that they would find offensive are not returned. When a person reads an article containing an offensive-to-them categorised image, it is simply not displayed or some image saying Suppressed at your request (Sex and Nudity). We could possibly bundle such these finer classifications into common collections, e.g. Inappropriate for Children, Suitable for Muslims, or whatever, so for many people it's a simple tick-one-box. For anonymous users or users who have not explicitly set their preferences, rendering of an article or image could first ask This article/image has been tagged as potentially offensive for SuchAndSuch reason, click OK to confirm you want to view it. If they are a logged-in user, it could also offer a link to set their preferences for future use. I note that movies are often made with variants for different countries. Sometimes that's simply a matter of being dubbed into another language but it can also include the deletion (or replacement) of certain scenes or language that would be offensive in those countries. So it is not as if we are reinventing the wheel here, just customising it to Wikipedia. Kerry _ From: gendergap-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:gendergap-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Kaldari Sent: Thursday, 24 July 2014 7:11 AM To: Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase the participationof women within Wikimedia projects. Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Sexualized environment on Commons Personally, I don't think it's worth having a discussion here about the merits of deleting these images. There's no chance in hell they are going to be deleted from Commons. What I'm more interested in is the locker-room nature of the discussions and how/if this can be addressed, as I think that is actually more likely to dissuade female contributors than the images themselves. Ryan Kaldari On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 2:01 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: Ryan, thanks for bringing this up for discussion. I've put a lot of thought into the series of photos this comes from over the years, and it's well worth some discussion. I'd like to hear what others think about this. Here is a link to the category for the larger collection; warning, there's lots of nudity and sexual objectification here, so don't click if you don't want to see that: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nude_portrayals_of_computer_tech nology First, I agree with Ryan that in the (various) deletion discussions I've seen around this and similar topics, there is often a toxic level of childish and offensive comments. I think that's a significant problem, and I don't know what can be done to improve it. Scolding people in those discussions often a backfires, and serves only to amplify the offensive commentary. But silence can imply tacit consent. How should one participate in the discussion, promoting an outcome one believes in, without contributing to or enabling the toxic nature of the discourse? I think I've done a decent job of walking that line in similar discussions, but I'm sure there's a lot of room for better approaches. I would love to hear what has worked for others, here and/or privately. Also, my initial reaction to these images is that they are inherently offensive; my gut reaction is to keep them off Commons. But after thinking it through and reading through a number of deletion discussions, the conclusion I've come to (at least so far) is that the decision to keep them (in spite of the childish and offensive commentary along the way) is the right decision. These strike me as the important points: * We have a collection of more than 20 million images, intended to support a wide diversity of educational projects. Among those 20 million files are a great many that would be offensive to some
