Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Marie Earley]

I guess you mean Richard Scudamore at the Premier League in the UK 
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/20/fa-take-no-action-richard-scudamore-sexist-email-greg-dyke
 whose secretary outed his sexist e-mails 
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/exposed-richard-scudamore-sexist-emails-premier-league-chief-executive
 ...

... and Donald Sterling for his racist comments in the US 
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/usanow/2014/04/29/donald-sterling-fine-penalty-racism-audio-commissioner-adam-silver-los-angeles-suspension/8460575/

It does go to show how racism is viewed as bigotry and sexism is something that 
women are supposed to get a sense of humour about.

Marie

From: danc...@frontiernet.net
To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2014 11:29:07 -0400
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)








>The 
UK values freedom of speech but it is on a horizontal plane along with other 
rights and freedoms, NOT a vertical >one >with freedom of speech at the 
top. Hate speech not only gets you blocked in the UK, it gets you jailed, and 
quite >rightly in >my opinion. 
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/twitter-trolls-isabella-sorley-and-john-nimmo->jailed-for->abusing-feminist-campaigner-caroline-criadoperez-9083829.html


And 
this is how this works in practice, with relevance to Wikipedia and the issues 
under discussion here obvious:

 

US: 
Tape of sports team owner in major market talking with his mistress is released 
in which he makes racist statements, where said owner has some history of 
making 
similar statements in the context of his other business interests, and the 
group 
against which the racist statements are made constitutes a disproportionately 
large share of the league’s players and fan base. League commissioner bans him 
for life from league events, including his own team’s games; he is later forced 
to sell team (albeit at market rate).

 

UK: 
Chief executive of major sports league whose games and teams are followed by a 
worldwide audience as it is widely considered to have some of the world’s best 
teams in that sport has emails disclosed in which he talks about women, 
including some identifiable ones in the office, in a sexist, crude and juvenile 
way. He is not punished in any way as the emails were supposed to have been 
private and the woman he talked about (whose continued employment, 
coincidentally, depends on his goodwill) said she didn’t mind.

 
Daniel Case

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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Daniel and Elizabeth Case]

>The UK values freedom of speech but it is on a horizontal plane along with 
>other rights and freedoms, NOT a vertical >one >with freedom of speech at the 
>top. Hate speech not only gets you blocked in the UK, it gets you jailed, and 
>quite >rightly in >my opinion. 
>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/twitter-trolls-isabella-sorley-and-john-nimmo->jailed-for->abusing-feminist-campaigner-caroline-criadoperez-9083829.html

And this is how this works in practice, with relevance to Wikipedia and the 
issues under discussion here obvious:
US: Tape of sports team owner in major market talking with his mistress is 
released in which he makes racist statements, where said owner has some history 
of making similar statements in the context of his other business interests, 
and the group against which the racist statements are made constitutes a 
disproportionately large share of the league’s players and fan base. League 
commissioner bans him for life from league events, including his own team’s 
games; he is later forced to sell team (albeit at market rate).
UK: Chief executive of major sports league whose games and teams are followed 
by a worldwide audience as it is widely considered to have some of the world’s 
best teams in that sport has emails disclosed in which he talks about women, 
including some identifiable ones in the office, in a sexist, crude and juvenile 
way. He is not punished in any way as the emails were supposed to have been 
private and the woman he talked about (whose continued employment, 
coincidentally, depends on his goodwill) said she didn’t mind.

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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Marie Earley]

Just a couple of things to note:

* Reporting would not be anonymous (only adjudicating would be).
* A statement from both editor's would be included in a case.
* I'm not sure how the process could be 'gamed' if the downloaded case was 
assigned randomly by computer & to more than one adjudicator who decide 
independently of one another.
* Isn't this how murder trials are decided in the off-line world? What is wrong 
with a jury of your peers?

Separately,
> The idea to "not feed trolls" is well engrained into the culture and advise 
> given by mature and experienced people on the Internet.
This is a real bug bear of mine, the perceived wisdom that the solution is 
simply "not to respond". Without wishing to offend anyone I find the premise is 
based entirely on the First Amendment. 

The UK values freedom of speech but it is on a horizontal plane along with 
other rights and freedoms, NOT a vertical one with freedom of speech at the 
top. Hate speech not only gets you blocked in the UK, it gets you jailed, and 
quite rightly in my opinion. 
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/twitter-trolls-isabella-sorley-and-john-nimmo-jailed-for-abusing-feminist-campaigner-caroline-criadoperez-9083829.html

Marie

Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2014 13:25:58 -0400
From: risker...@gmail.com
To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)



On 7 July 2014 13:00, Daniel and Elizabeth Case  wrote:






>2) 
the reasons that people enforcing the rules on Wikipedia ignore incivility, 
harassment, and trolling is because that >approach is often the best way to 
stop attention seeking behavior. The idea to "not feed trolls" is well 
engrained 
into the >culture and advise given by mature and experienced people on the 
Internet.
Or you can just block them firmly when they deserve it, escalate if 
and when you need to block them again, revoke their talk page access if they 
continue to use it to troll or harass (they can still use OTRS to request 
unblock; however, it’s amazing to see how much humbler they get when denied an 
audience), semi-protect pages they continue to use IPs to make the same 
problematic edits to and generally make it clear to them they are being eased 
away from the community. I realize there *is* a small percentage of such users 
that this will not stop, but in seven years as an admin I *have* seen this 
approach work much more often than not, regardless of whether said trolls were 
harassing me or someone else.
 Interesting to hear your experience, Daniel.  It doesn't parallel mine at all, 
but then perhaps we're looking at different groups of problem users. I've never 
seen anyone "humbled" by a "behaviour" block, in my experience they're usually 
gone for good (those ones, I suppose, were humbled) or come back worse behaved 
but usually in a much sneakier way.
 Of course, on enwiki we do eventually manage to ban a significant percentage 
of really bad players over time; not all of them, but a fair number once 
they've pushed enough buttons and annoyed enough people and lost their 
supporters.  On some projects, it is essentially impossible to ban community 
members (as opposed to one-off vandal accounts).
   Risker/Anne 

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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Risker]

On 7 July 2014 13:00, Daniel and Elizabeth Case 
wrote:

>   >2) the reasons that people enforcing the rules on Wikipedia ignore
> incivility, harassment, and trolling is because that >approach is often the
> best way to stop attention seeking behavior. The idea to "not feed trolls"
> is well engrained into the >culture and advise given by mature and
> experienced people on the Internet.
>
> Or you can just block them firmly when they deserve it, escalate if and
> when you need to block them again, revoke their talk page access if they
> continue to use it to troll or harass (they can still use OTRS to request
> unblock; however, it’s amazing to see how much humbler they get when denied
> an audience), semi-protect pages they continue to use IPs to make the same
> problematic edits to and generally make it clear to them they are being
> eased away from the community. I realize there *is* a small percentage of
> such users that this will not stop, but in seven years as an admin I *have*
> seen this approach work much more often than not, regardless of whether
> said trolls were harassing me or someone else.
>

Interesting to hear your experience, Daniel.  It doesn't parallel mine at
all, but then perhaps we're looking at different groups of problem
users. I've never seen anyone "humbled" by a "behaviour" block, in my
experience they're usually gone for good (those ones, I suppose, were
humbled) or come back worse behaved but usually in a much sneakier way.

Of course, on enwiki we do eventually manage to ban a significant
percentage of really bad players over time; not all of them, but a fair
number once they've pushed enough buttons and annoyed enough people and
lost their supporters.  On some projects, it is essentially impossible to
ban community members (as opposed to one-off vandal accounts).


Risker/Anne
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Daniel and Elizabeth Case]

>2) the reasons that people enforcing the rules on Wikipedia ignore incivility, 
>harassment, and trolling is because that >approach is often the best way to 
>stop attention seeking behavior. The idea to "not feed trolls" is well 
>engrained into the >culture and advise given by mature and experienced people 
>on the Internet.
Or you can just block them firmly when they deserve it, escalate if and when 
you need to block them again, revoke their talk page access if they continue to 
use it to troll or harass (they can still use OTRS to request unblock; however, 
it’s amazing to see how much humbler they get when denied an audience), 
semi-protect pages they continue to use IPs to make the same problematic edits 
to and generally make it clear to them they are being eased away from the 
community. I realize there *is* a small percentage of such users that this will 
not stop, but in seven years as an admin I *have* seen this approach work much 
more often than not, regardless of whether said trolls were harassing me or 
someone else.

Daniel Case
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Sydney Poore]

To add to Anne's comment. We also know that requests for checkuser can be
used to harass and troll. It is too often the response of someone who is
perturbed about being reported to escalate the dispute. Sometimes by
requesting sockpuppet investigations on the person who reported them.

Requests for checks can be done to out people who want to edit privately.
It is pretty easy to troll someone to the point that they respond with poor
conduct and then take them to dispute resolution and ask for check user on
them for one reason or another.

Sydney




Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedian in Residence
at Cochrane Collaboration


On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 11:32 AM, Risker  wrote:

>
>
> On 7 July 2014 11:12, Janine Starykowicz  wrote:
>
>> Risker wrote:
>>
>>> I also have a real problem with the idea of anonymous reporting
>>>
>>
>> What issues do you have with anonymous reporting? On my forum I have
>> reporting wide open to the world, no login/membership needed. Aside from
>> spambots that can find any link, mostly what I've seen is more biased
>> reporting: Posters will report transgressions by someone they don't like.
>> In most cases, it is a real transgression and something that needs cleaning
>> up. There are a few who narrowly interpret the rules (or make up their
>> own), but those are usually pretty obvious.
>>
>> The only question on seeing obvious bias would be could it scale. You
>> might need a database of notes from prior decisions, or maybe a trial
>> period of watching other decisions for new adjudicators.
>
>
>
> My problem with it is that it is quite frequently agenda-driven.  It's
> also creepy to think that we'd permit anonymous reporting and assessment to
> hold identifiable users accountable on a broad scale.  There may be a few
> exceptions (paedophilia advocacy is the one pretty much at the top of my
> list), but often that is as much to prevent unsupportable potentially
> libelous accusations from being made publicly.
>
>
>
>>  Many of our most seriously problematic sockpuppeting accounts are people
>>> who've been blocked for behavioural reasons - and we waste a huge amount of
>>> time trying to keep them off the site.
>>>
>>
>> I definitely agree with this. Is there any way to track cellphone users?
>> Their variable IP addresses are as bad as the old AOL days.
>
>
> It would be a major violation of the Wikimedia privacy policy to "track"
> anyone without there being a legitimate and documentable belief that they
> have violated the terms of use.  Remember that any practice that can be
> used against 'bad' users can also be turned against 'good' users - because
> bad and good is in the eye of the  beholder.  I think this is an area where
> there is a massive split in the international community about its value and
> appropriateness - particularly in Europe the personal privacy of users
> takes precedence over just about everything else.  It's relatively easy to
> persuade an English Wikipedia checkuser to do a check provided there are
> reasonable grounds, and we can do so without a formal public request and
> discussion.  On some other projects, the rules are extremely strict,
> checking cannot be done absent a public request, and every check that is
> done is documented publicly (that is "Checkuser A checked Account B for
> sockpuppetry on DMY, result was "  - private info not publicly posted).
> This is very much a cultural thing.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> Janine
>>
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Risker]

On 7 July 2014 11:12, Janine Starykowicz  wrote:

> Risker wrote:
>
>> I also have a real problem with the idea of anonymous reporting
>>
>
> What issues do you have with anonymous reporting? On my forum I have
> reporting wide open to the world, no login/membership needed. Aside from
> spambots that can find any link, mostly what I've seen is more biased
> reporting: Posters will report transgressions by someone they don't like.
> In most cases, it is a real transgression and something that needs cleaning
> up. There are a few who narrowly interpret the rules (or make up their
> own), but those are usually pretty obvious.
>
> The only question on seeing obvious bias would be could it scale. You
> might need a database of notes from prior decisions, or maybe a trial
> period of watching other decisions for new adjudicators.



My problem with it is that it is quite frequently agenda-driven.  It's also
creepy to think that we'd permit anonymous reporting and assessment to hold
identifiable users accountable on a broad scale.  There may be a few
exceptions (paedophilia advocacy is the one pretty much at the top of my
list), but often that is as much to prevent unsupportable potentially
libelous accusations from being made publicly.



>  Many of our most seriously problematic sockpuppeting accounts are people
>> who've been blocked for behavioural reasons - and we waste a huge amount of
>> time trying to keep them off the site.
>>
>
> I definitely agree with this. Is there any way to track cellphone users?
> Their variable IP addresses are as bad as the old AOL days.


It would be a major violation of the Wikimedia privacy policy to "track"
anyone without there being a legitimate and documentable belief that they
have violated the terms of use.  Remember that any practice that can be
used against 'bad' users can also be turned against 'good' users - because
bad and good is in the eye of the  beholder.  I think this is an area where
there is a massive split in the international community about its value and
appropriateness - particularly in Europe the personal privacy of users
takes precedence over just about everything else.  It's relatively easy to
persuade an English Wikipedia checkuser to do a check provided there are
reasonable grounds, and we can do so without a formal public request and
discussion.  On some other projects, the rules are extremely strict,
checking cannot be done absent a public request, and every check that is
done is documented publicly (that is "Checkuser A checked Account B for
sockpuppetry on DMY, result was "  - private info not publicly posted).
This is very much a cultural thing.

Risker/Anne



>
>
> Janine
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Nathan]

On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 10:57 AM, Sydney Poore 
wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> I'm flagging the major issues that need to be considered.
>
> 1) we can not promise anonymity for the people acting as adjudicators. Any
> attempt to have anonymous people hearing a case will attract attention from
> a group if obsessive people who out anyone who is anonymous. Plus at times
> harass them.
>
> 2) the reasons that people enforcing the rules on Wikipedia ignore
> incivility, harassment, and trolling is because that approach is often the
> best way to stop attention seeking behavior. The idea to "not feed trolls"
> is well engrained into the culture and advise given by mature and
> experienced people on the Internet.
>
> 3) blocks on Wikipedia are not suppose to be punitive but intended to
> immediately stop disruptive user behavior. Attempts to use them to change
> conduct is generally not successful. Instead people who are blocked often
> become entrenched in proving that they are being treated poorly.
>
> 3) there is no way to stop people from editing Wikipedia. The wiki
> software as used by WMF allows easy access to join, and edit. Attempts to
> stop blocked or banned users from editing is part of what causes
> administrators to burn out and ignore problems or over react to them.
>
> 4) banning people very engaged in the community rarely causes them to go
> away.
>
> Sydney
>
>

So we can't bar people from using the site, and we don't have effective
moderation tools (or moderators). We also realize that even if we had
either, they would be used on only a teeny tiny sliver of all pages, and
only by those who know about them and how to take advantage of them.

This all suggests that the only "cures" to civility are to radically
restrict how freely users can interact, or change the culture of the
Internet. The first is antithetical to the nature of Wikimedia projects,
and the second is impossible, so...

Perhaps we decide that curing incivility is a bridge too far, and focus
efforts to narrow the gender gap on other more practical opportunities.
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Janine Starykowicz]

Risker wrote:

I also have a real problem with the idea of anonymous reporting


What issues do you have with anonymous reporting? On my forum I have reporting wide open to the world, no login/membership 
needed. Aside from spambots that can find any link, mostly what I've seen is more biased reporting: Posters will report 
transgressions by someone they don't like. In most cases, it is a real transgression and something that needs cleaning up. 
There are a few who narrowly interpret the rules (or make up their own), but those are usually pretty obvious.


The only question on seeing obvious bias would be could it scale. You might need a database of notes from prior decisions, or 
maybe a trial period of watching other decisions for new adjudicators.



Many of our most seriously problematic sockpuppeting accounts are people who've 
been blocked for behavioural reasons - and we waste a huge amount of time 
trying to keep them off the site.


I definitely agree with this. Is there any way to track cellphone users? Their variable IP addresses are as bad as the old 
AOL days.


Janine



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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Sydney Poore]

Hi there,

I'm flagging the major issues that need to be considered.

1) we can not promise anonymity for the people acting as adjudicators. Any
attempt to have anonymous people hearing a case will attract attention from
a group if obsessive people who out anyone who is anonymous. Plus at times
harass them.

2) the reasons that people enforcing the rules on Wikipedia ignore
incivility, harassment, and trolling is because that approach is often the
best way to stop attention seeking behavior. The idea to "not feed trolls"
is well engrained into the culture and advise given by mature and
experienced people on the Internet.

3) blocks on Wikipedia are not suppose to be punitive but intended to
immediately stop disruptive user behavior. Attempts to use them to change
conduct is generally not successful. Instead people who are blocked often
become entrenched in proving that they are being treated poorly.

3) there is no way to stop people from editing Wikipedia. The wiki software
as used by WMF allows easy access to join, and edit. Attempts to stop
blocked or banned users from editing is part of what causes administrators
to burn out and ignore problems or over react to them.

4) banning people very engaged in the community rarely causes them to go
away.

Sydney

n Jul 7, 2014 3:20 AM, "Marie Earley"  wrote:
>
> Hi Risker / Anne,
>
> In response to the points you raise:
>
> * A panel suggests a group of people who discuss and decide things, it
wouldn't be that, it would be a pool of adjudicators.
> * The home page shows 130,858 active editors, if 15% of those are female
then it means there must be 19,628 female editors to draw the 50% from.
> * I don't participate in "dispute management", but then I have never been
asked to.
> * More people might agree to take part in dispute management if they know
that their input will be kept anonymous.
> * Administrators would do what they have always done.
>
> Example of a possible way to approach potential adjudicators:
> Those eligible (maybe they've been editing for more than a year and they
have an edit history of 1,000+ edits) are sent a private e-mail, this would
be a circular to all eligible editors. It would say something like:
>
> > "According to our records you have been with us for more than [length
of time] and have contributed over [number of edits]. We would therefore
like to invite you join our pool of adjudicators which we are currently in
the process of establishing. The purpose of adjudication would to consider
editors requests to block other editors ('cases'). We envisage adjudication
to be the first stage in managing cases with the second stage being handled
by administrators.
>
> > Your anonymity as an adjudicator would be protected by us at all times,
in fact one of the conditions of being an adjudicator would be that you
have no direct contact  with those involved any of the cases which you are
asked to consider (although you may inform the Wikipedia community that you
are an adjudicator). If you wish to become an adjudicator please click on
the link and fill out the form. (The form would include equal opportunities
monitoring questions
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/private-and-public-sector-guidance/employing-people/recruitment/monitoring-forms
)."
>
> Example case:
> * Editor 'X' wants a block against editor 'Y'.
> * Editor X submits a case for adjudication.
> * Adjudicator 'A' requests a case, the case is randomly selected from
those pending by computer.
> * Adjudicator A reads the details and decides whether X has a point, or
whether Y appears to have behaved reasonably (even if X didn't like it).
> * Adjudicator A marks a one of two check boxes, "Pass to next stage? Yes
[box] No [box]" (perhaps other boxes like "I lack the technical knowledge
to adjudicate on this.") and a small comments form, maybe 1,000 characters.
> * The same case goes to a few more adjudicators, 50% of whom are female.
> * If enough rule that the case has merit then it goes forward and
administrators deal with it as they currently do (the idea is to weed out
groundless requests and save administrators and above time).
> * Their would be a maximum number of cases that any single adjudicator
could rule on in a 24 or 48 hour period.
> * From time to time there would be a general call, "we currently have a
backlog of cases".
>
> I must confess, I had to logout of Wikipedia and remind myself about what
questions are asked when joining. I'm so used to filling in Equal
Opportunities Monitoring Forms for statistical purposes that I didn't
really think about not being able to just run the query. Having said that,
most user pages of active users that I've seen do appear to volunteer which
gender they are. It is probably possible to 

Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Risker]

On 7 July 2014 09:51, Carol Moore dc  wrote:

> While I've barely had a chance to read through proposal and comments, I'd
> like to just ask re the below which applies generally right now:
>
>
> On 7/7/2014 9:35 AM, Risker wrote:
>
>>
>> I know what it's like to have my inbox flooded with requests for
>> assistance in relation to dispute resolution - just for oversight requests
>> I get an average of 8 emails a day, when I was on arbcom it was over
>> 100/day to various lists for various purposes.  (Yes, it's one of the
>> reasons that people burn out.)
>>
> *Is it possible to establish a group of editors called "arbcom assistants"
> who would be admins appointed by arbcom to help with the workflow??
>
>
Well.  It's hard enough to get qualified volunteers to work on Arbcom, and
their work is mainly on major cases with a lot of participants about
disputes that have been adversely affecting the project for an extended
period of months or in some cases years.  There are arbcom clerks, whose
job it is to keep the (few) cases moving relatively smoothly, and there's a
bit of dispute resolution there.  It looks like there are four of them -
probably an historic low, and looking at the list I'm pretty sure two of
them are actually inactive.

Arbcom moving out of their very narrow scope has been very loudly and
vigorously opposed by the community, and Arbcom itself is looking to try to
divest itself of several of its current responsibilities rather than
considering taking on anything new.  This is absolutely *not* a job for
arbcom. It's pretty much the kind of thing that arbitrators kept finding in
their mailboxes that someone expected them to solve, but took hours away
from the work they were supposed to be doing, and required the individual
arbitrators to act on their own because the matter was outside of
jurisdiction.



Risker/Anne
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Carol Moore dc]

While I've barely had a chance to read through proposal and comments, 
I'd like to just ask re the below which applies generally right now:


On 7/7/2014 9:35 AM, Risker wrote:


I know what it's like to have my inbox flooded with requests for 
assistance in relation to dispute resolution - just for oversight 
requests I get an average of 8 emails a day, when I was on arbcom it 
was over 100/day to various lists for various purposes.  (Yes, it's 
one of the reasons that people burn out.)
*Is it possible to establish a group of editors called "arbcom 
assistants" who would be admins appointed by arbcom to help with the 
workflow??


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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Risker]

27;X' wants a block against editor 'Y'.
> * Editor X submits a case for adjudication.
> * Adjudicator 'A' requests a case, the case is randomly selected from
> those pending by computer.
> * Adjudicator A reads the details and decides whether X has a point, or
> whether Y appears to have behaved reasonably (even if X didn't like it).
> * Adjudicator A marks a one of two check boxes, "Pass to next stage? Yes
> [box] No [box]" (perhaps other boxes like "I lack the technical knowledge
> to adjudicate on this.") and a small comments form, maybe 1,000 characters.
> * The same case goes to a few more adjudicators, 50% of whom are female.
> * If enough rule that the case has merit then it goes forward and
> administrators deal with it as they currently do (the idea is to weed out
> groundless requests and save administrators and above time).
> * Their would be a maximum number of cases that any single adjudicator
> could rule on in a 24 or 48 hour period.
> * From time to time there would be a general call, "we currently have a
> backlog of cases".
>
> I must confess, I had to logout of Wikipedia and remind myself about what
> questions are asked when joining. I'm so used to filling in Equal
> Opportunities Monitoring Forms for statistical purposes that I didn't
> really think about not being able to just run the query. Having said that,
> most user pages of active users that I've seen do appear to volunteer which
> gender they are. It is probably possible to go back.
>
> Marie
>
> --
> Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2014 13:45:34 -0400
> From: risker...@gmail.com
>
> To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)
>
> A few points here:
>
>
>- If less than 15% of editors identify as female, and the vast
>majority of those do not regularly participate in "dispute management", how
>are you going to establish a panel that is 50% women?  This isn't a small
>point - there are so few individuals generally speaking who regularly
>participate in dispute management at all (I'd put the number on enwiki at
>less than 150 total), and many of them are there because of the perceived
>power gradient, not because they have a genuine interest in managing
>disputes.
>- What disputes, exactly, would the panel be analysing?  I'm having a
>hard time visualizing this.  "User: made a sexist comment here (link)"?
>- What would you expect administrators to do, exactly?  They're
>directly accountable for the use of their tools and have to be able to
>personally justify any actions they take - and surprisingly, a huge
>percentage of administrators (almost) never use the block button. (There's
>a subset of admins who only use their tools to read deleted versions, and
>another subset that only shows up once a year, makes a couple of edits so
>they keep their tools, and disappears again.)
>- How would you develop any statistics based on gender of editor, when
>the overwhelming majority of editors do not identify their gender at all in
>any consistent fashion?  I've personally never added any gender categories
>to my userpage, for example, and I have no intention of doing so now.
>
>
>
> Some thoughts.
>
>
> Risker/Anne
>
>
>
> On 6 July 2014 04:51, Marie Earley  wrote:
>
> I previously described my experience of being a member of Kevin Spacey's
> Trigger Street Labs website
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004388.html
>
> I think part of my shock was based on being British, and how the
> sink-or-swim attitude prevailed by those running and moderating. At least
> at Wikipedia there is some notion of "We have a problem here, let's discuss
> how best to fix it." The name of one forum at TS was "Free for all - enter
> at your own risk" followed by a note that more members had been suspended
> from that message board than from any of the others, and this is all they
> have in the way of rules
> http://labs.triggerstreet.com/labs/Help?faqCat=Message%20Board
>
> Having said that, the one thing that I thought worked well was their Hall
> of Justice. Members earn credits for their reviews (which are randomly
> assigned by the 'assignment generator') they then spend them on the
> website. An obvious way of earning a lot of credits is to make up a load of
> generic comments like, "the characters in this screenplay are very
> interesting", request another assignment, copy and paste, earn credit, and
> repeat.
>
> The HOJ exists for m

Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Marie Earley]

Hi Risker / Anne,

In response to the points you raise:

* A panel suggests a group of people who discuss and decide things, it wouldn't 
be that, it would be a pool of adjudicators.
* The home page shows 130,858 active editors, if 15% of those are female then 
it means there must be 19,628 female editors to draw the 50% from.
* I don't participate in "dispute management", but then I have never been asked 
to.
* More people might agree to take part in dispute management if they know that 
their input will be kept anonymous.
* Administrators would do what they have always done.

Example of a possible way to approach potential adjudicators:
Those eligible (maybe they've been editing for more than a year and they have 
an edit history of 1,000+ edits) are sent a private e-mail, this would be a 
circular to all eligible editors. It would say something like: 

> "According to our records you have been with us for more than [length of 
> time] and have contributed over [number of edits]. We would therefore like to 
> invite you join our pool of adjudicators which we are currently in the 
> process of establishing. The purpose of adjudication would to consider 
> editors requests to block other editors ('cases'). We envisage adjudication 
> to be the first stage in managing cases with the second stage being handled 
> by administrators.

> Your anonymity as an adjudicator would be protected by us at all times, in 
> fact one of the conditions of being an adjudicator would be that you have no 
> direct contact  with those involved any of the cases which you are asked to 
> consider (although you may inform the Wikipedia community that you are an 
> adjudicator). If you wish to become an adjudicator please click on the link 
> and fill out the form. (The form would include equal opportunities monitoring 
> questions 
> http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/private-and-public-sector-guidance/employing-people/recruitment/monitoring-forms
>  )."

Example case:
* Editor 'X' wants a block against editor 'Y'. 
* Editor X submits a case for adjudication. 
* Adjudicator 'A' requests a case, the case is randomly selected from those 
pending by computer.
* Adjudicator A reads the details and decides whether X has a point, or whether 
Y appears to have behaved reasonably (even if X didn't like it).
* Adjudicator A marks a one of two check boxes, "Pass to next stage? Yes [box] 
No [box]" (perhaps other boxes like "I lack the technical knowledge to 
adjudicate on this.") and a small comments form, maybe 1,000 characters.
* The same case goes to a few more adjudicators, 50% of whom are female.
* If enough rule that the case has merit then it goes forward and 
administrators deal with it as they currently do (the idea is to weed out 
groundless requests and save administrators and above time).
* Their would be a maximum number of cases that any single adjudicator could 
rule on in a 24 or 48 hour period.
* From time to time there would be a general call, "we currently have a backlog 
of cases".

I must confess, I had to logout of Wikipedia and remind myself about what 
questions are asked when joining. I'm so used to filling in Equal Opportunities 
Monitoring Forms for statistical purposes that I didn't really think about not 
being able to just run the query. Having said that, most user pages of active 
users that I've seen do appear to volunteer which gender they are. It is 
probably possible to go back. 

Marie

Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2014 13:45:34 -0400
From: risker...@gmail.com
To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

A few points here:

If less than 15% of editors identify as female, and the vast majority of those 
do not regularly participate in "dispute management", how are you going to 
establish a panel that is 50% women?  This isn't a small point - there are so 
few individuals generally speaking who regularly participate in dispute 
management at all (I'd put the number on enwiki at less than 150 total), and 
many of them are there because of the perceived power gradient, not because 
they have a genuine interest in managing disputes.  
What disputes, exactly, would the panel be analysing?  I'm having a hard time 
visualizing this.  "User: made a sexist comment here (link)"?What would you 
expect administrators to do, exactly?  They're directly accountable for the use 
of their tools and have to be able to personally justify any actions they take 
- and surprisingly, a huge percentage of administrators (almost) never use the 
block button. (There's a subset of admins who only use their tools to read 
deleted versions, and another subset that only shows up once a year, makes a 
couple of edits so they keep their tools, and disappears again.) 

How

Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Kathleen McCook]

I have a class of many women who  have an optional editing
assignment,. Many try to edit but leave out of concern about bullying
by (probably) male editors. You are right that they are lost before
they get here. My attrition rate is 70%. I do not want women to go
where they do not feel safe.

I do not see any problem in identification. It would help a great deal
to diminish the  aggression.

Kathleen McCook

On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 7:12 PM, Kerry Raymond  wrote:
> Being relatively new to this list, I dip my toe into what seems to be a
> somewhat fraught mailing list with some trepidation. (Read: please don’t
> bite this newbie).
>
>
>
> I think we need to understand where the problems lie and therefore what
> problem(s) we are seeking to solve. If I understand it correctly, we are
> looking at the low proportion of female editors. Presumably we need to
> understand what is happening to women in different phases of the lifecycle,
> noting that not all of these phases may occur for any individual woman
>
>
>
> Initial recruitment – women clicking “edit” for the first time – what
> does/doesn’t motivate?
> Newbie phase as anonymous editor (may or may not occur)
> Newbie phase as registered user
> Active editor
> Active editor self-identifying as female (can take many forms)
> Editor taking wiki-stress break
> Blocked editor
> etc
>
>
>
> I note that a major difficulty in working at the earlier stages of the
> lifecycle is that we simply do not know whether the editor is male or female
> until there is some self-identification. Other than the choice of a
> obviously-gendered user name, we often have no way of guessing the sex of
> the user until they are experienced enough (e.g. know about User page, etc)
> *and* choose to self-identity in some form.
>
>
>
> A second and not-entirely-dependent but not-entirely-independent set of
> issues relates to “gender” of articles. There is data to suggest that
> certain topics are more of interest to women and therefore less
> well-developed on WP because of there being fewer women editors. Therefore,
> there is the possibility of slicing the problem on another axis in relation
> to:
>
>
>
> Ungendered article, by which I mean there is nothing ”gendered” about the
> subject matter nor any reason to think it is more likely to interest editors
> of either sex
> Gendered-topic article, by which I mean the subject matter has “gender” but
> this doesn’t necessarily alter relative editor interest
> Gender-attracting topics, which disproportionately attract editors of one
> sex
> Gender-controversial topics, which I draw out because this seems to be a
> particular battleground, by which I mean articles about feminism, women’s
> rights, abortion, etc and other issues which are real-world controversial
> topics that have definite gender issues and create major POV issues.
> etc
>
>
>
> I note that a machine-analysis of the edits of self-identified male/female
> editors we can identify those articles/categories which appear to be neutral
> or biased in terms of editor interest. Machine-analysis can also show us
> which articles/categories have high levels of activity (in particular high
> levels of reverts and low levels of text survival and probably high levels
> of Talk page activity and User Talk page of editors involved) that suggest
> they are “controversial” (although “breaking news” can manifest similar
> activity patterns without being controversial in the real world) and how
> self-identifying editors fare during these processes (simply, do female
> editors exhibit different patterns of behaviour to male editors?).
>
>
>
> And there are probably other criteria by which we can slice this issue up. I
> think we have to recognise this is not just “one problem” requiring “one
> solution”. But rather that there are potentially many scenarios where we may
> have a problem and, if we do have that problem, we need a solution
> appropriate to that lifecycle phase and that kind of article. Or to put it
> another way, there is a world of difference between the anonymous female
> editor who attempts her first edit on a living person biography, has it
> reverted because there is no citation, and can’t understand why her edit
> disappeared (noting she probably doesn’t even know that she can view the
> edit summary that may explain why, assuming she can figure out what the
> cryptic letters WP:BLP means if she did) and the experienced female editor
> harassed on a talk page in a “sexualised” picture-of-the-day dispute. Both
> situations could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and both women
> might never edit again, but clearly the problem is different and the
> solution has to be too.
>
>
>
> Solutions like the existing ArbCom (or Hall of Justice as proposed) are both
> mechanisms that depend on the editor involved being 1) sufficiently
> experienced to know they even exist 2) know how to engage with them and 3)
> are comfortable engaging with them. Despite editing WP on and off

Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Kerry Raymond]

Being relatively new to this list, I dip my toe into what seems to be a
somewhat fraught mailing list with some trepidation. (Read: please don't
bite this newbie).

 

I think we need to understand where the problems lie and therefore what
problem(s) we are seeking to solve. If I understand it correctly, we are
looking at the low proportion of female editors. Presumably we need to
understand what is happening to women in different phases of the lifecycle,
noting that not all of these phases may occur for any individual woman

 

*   Initial recruitment - women clicking "edit" for the first time -
what does/doesn't motivate?
*   Newbie phase as anonymous editor (may or may not occur)
*   Newbie phase as registered user
*   Active editor
*   Active editor self-identifying as female (can take many forms)
*   Editor taking wiki-stress break
*   Blocked editor
*   etc

 

I note that a major difficulty in working at the earlier stages of the
lifecycle is that we simply do not know whether the editor is male or female
until there is some self-identification. Other than the choice of a
obviously-gendered user name, we often have no way of guessing the sex of
the user until they are experienced enough (e.g. know about User page, etc)
*and* choose to self-identity in some form.

 

A second and not-entirely-dependent but not-entirely-independent set of
issues relates to "gender" of articles. There is data to suggest that
certain topics are more of interest to women and therefore less
well-developed on WP because of there being fewer women editors. Therefore,
there is the possibility of slicing the problem on another axis in relation
to:

 

*   Ungendered article, by which I mean there is nothing "gendered"
about the subject matter nor any reason to think it is more likely to
interest editors of either sex
*   Gendered-topic article, by which I mean the subject matter has
"gender" but this doesn't necessarily alter relative editor interest
*   Gender-attracting topics, which disproportionately attract editors
of one sex
*   Gender-controversial topics, which I draw out because this seems to
be a particular battleground, by which I mean articles about feminism,
women's rights, abortion, etc and other issues which are real-world
controversial topics that have definite gender issues and create major POV
issues.
*   etc

 

I note that a machine-analysis of the edits of self-identified male/female
editors we can identify those articles/categories which appear to be neutral
or biased in terms of editor interest. Machine-analysis can also show us
which articles/categories have high levels of activity (in particular high
levels of reverts and low levels of text survival and probably high levels
of Talk page activity and User Talk page of editors involved) that suggest
they are "controversial" (although "breaking news" can manifest similar
activity patterns without being controversial in the real world) and how
self-identifying editors fare during these processes (simply, do female
editors exhibit different patterns of behaviour to male editors?). 

 

And there are probably other criteria by which we can slice this issue up. I
think we have to recognise this is not just "one problem" requiring "one
solution". But rather that there are potentially many scenarios where we may
have a problem and, if we do have that problem, we need a solution
appropriate to that lifecycle phase and that kind of article. Or to put it
another way, there is a world of difference between the anonymous female
editor who attempts her first edit on a living person biography, has it
reverted because there is no citation, and can't understand why her edit
disappeared (noting she probably doesn't even know that she can view the
edit summary that may explain why, assuming she can figure out what the
cryptic letters WP:BLP means if she did) and the experienced female editor
harassed on a talk page in a "sexualised" picture-of-the-day dispute. Both
situations could be the straw that breaks the camel's back and both women
might never edit again, but clearly the problem is different and the
solution has to be too. 

 

Solutions like the existing ArbCom (or Hall of Justice as proposed) are both
mechanisms that depend on the editor involved being 1) sufficiently
experienced to know they even exist 2) know how to engage with them and 3)
are comfortable engaging with them. Despite editing WP on and off for
several years, 1) I did not know of ArbCom for many years  2) I still don't
actually know how to engage with it, and 3) I am not disposed to solve my
problems that way (don't like the conflict that I rightly-or-wrongly presume
is part and parcel of it). A Hall of Justice solution might work for
particular scenarios (although I concur with the practicalities of staffing
it with a 50% female representation) but is probably irrelevant for many
others. Or to put it another way, I suspect the membership of this

Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Risker]

ts before they are eligible to
> become an arbitrator
> * there would be a time-limit from the end of being blocked before being
> eligible for 'arbitration duty'
> * administrators / senior figures would be ineligible to be arbitrators
> * 'cases' for arbitrators to consider would be assigned randomly by
> computer
> * it would be prohibited for an arbitrator to tell those involved in the
> case that they have been allocated it
> * 50% of those asked to consider a case would have to be female (other
> quotas might be relevant for other demographics)
> * there would be a limit to how many cases an arbitrator could ask for in
> a certain time period (I actually envisage it being more like a cross
> between jury service and those user talk page notices that there is a
> discussion taking place somewhere
>
> These might be more technically difficult:
> * cases would only go to arbitrators whose edit history is generally in a
> different subject area - so someone complaining about a dispute about a
> particular scientific point would have their complaint go to an arbitrator
> whose edit history is in, say, historical BLPs
> * a limit to the number of times you could go through the arbitration
> process with the same case
>
> Cases would only go forward for administrators to get involved with if
> enough arbitrators agreed that it merited being put forward.
>
>
> > On a slightly different note:
> Everyone seems to be mentioning the different ways in which the rules are
> applied to male vs. female editors. Is it possible to run a query or get
> hold of statistics for the average length of time female editors get
> blocked for, versus how long male editors are blocked for? Perhaps a table
> that takes account of the editors' participation levels prior to the block?
>
> Marie
>
>
> > Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 21:23:18 -0400
> > From: carolmoor...@verizon.net
> > To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)
>
> >
> > When I was a little girl in the 1950s and 60s we were told to be passive
> > and pray for what we wanted. Thank heavens self-actualization and womens
> > liberation came along and we discovered "well-behaved women seldom make
> > history." (Nicely covered at
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Thatcher_Ulrich )
> >
> > If we want the guys to change we gotta keep busting their chops about
> > being civil, within the limits of civility of course. On a one on one
> > basis, day after day after day. And even though no matter how civil we
> > are, SOME of them still will think it is we who are being uncivil.
> >
> > It's a dirty job, but it's gotta be done.
> >
> > And the more guys who help promote civility and are willing to counter
> > the good-old-boy mentality, the better... :-)
> >
> > On 7/3/2014 3:18 PM, Sydney Poore wrote:
> > > There was an attempt to address the civility problem on Wikipedia
> > > English with a top down approach at the very start of Sue Gardner's
> > > time at WMF. Sue, Jimmy Wales, myself, and a group of half dozen other
> > > people talked about it in a closed group. It failed because a top down
> > > approach is not effective on Wikipedia because policies can not be
> > > enforced from the top. Policies need to be made that a large part of
> > > the community agrees at proper and enforceable.
> > >
> > > I would be willing to assist a group that wants to take another run at
> > > it. But there are significant challenges with enforcing a civility
> > > policy on a global community where cultural norms differ at great
> > > deal. So, we need to be careful that an attempt to assist one group of
> > > users does not make it harder for other groups of people who are also
> > > under represented on Wikipedia English.
> > >
> >
> >
> > ___
> > Gendergap mailing list
> > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>
> ___
> Gendergap mailing list
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>
>
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Marie Earley]

I previously described my experience of being a member of Kevin Spacey's 
Trigger Street Labs website 
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-June/004388.html 

I think part of my shock was based on being British, and how the sink-or-swim 
attitude prevailed by those running and moderating. At least at Wikipedia there 
is some notion of "We have a problem here, let's discuss how best to fix it." 
The name of one forum at TS was "Free for all - enter at your own risk" 
followed by a note that more members had been suspended from that message board 
than from any of the others, and this is all they have in the way of rules 
http://labs.triggerstreet.com/labs/Help?faqCat=Message%20Board

Having said that, the one thing that I thought worked well was their Hall of 
Justice. Members earn credits for their reviews (which are randomly assigned by 
the 'assignment generator') they then spend them on the website. An obvious way 
of earning a lot of credits is to make up a load of generic comments like, "the 
characters in this screenplay are very interesting", request another 
assignment, copy and paste, earn credit, and repeat.

The HOJ exists for members who think the review that they received was unfair. 
There is a criteria for the reviews including: not cutting and pasting from 
other reviews, (if you think it has happened then you include the ref. no. from 
the other review as evidence), reviews should be constructive and non-abusive, 
a decent word length (I think the minimum was 100 words), there should also be 
evidence in the review which shows that the reviewer definitely read / watched 
the submission. 

If a member thinks they have been unfairly treated then they send a review to 
the HOJ. Other members - let's call them arbitrators - with a high enough 
participation level (like having 'enough' edits in your edit history) can 
request a - randomly generated - docket, read the review, read the details of 
the complaint e.g. ("I think this review is a cut & past of ref. # 'x' "). 
The arbitrator who received the docket for review then has a choice of Y/N 
check-boxes relating to the review critieria and a comment form, for anything 
else that they might like to add. 

The same docket goes to a number of different arbitrators in the same way. 
(Note: there is a limit to how many dockets a member can request in 24 hrs.) If 
the majority think it should go further, it is passed on to the jury. 

Details about the jury from the website:
> "The jury is a group of your peers made up of seasoned members picked by site 
> staff. Although we cannot say what the criteria is used to pick the jury, 
> logic dictates that they are active, positive, and objective members of the 
> community. They are asked not to reveal themselves or discuss their status 
> with anyone so they can vote without retribution."

(FAQs about the HOJ: 
http://labs.triggerstreet.com/labs/Help?faqCat=Hall%20of%20Justice )

A Wikipedia variation on it might include: 
* editors would need a certain number of edits before they are eligible to 
become an arbitrator
* there would be a time-limit from the end of being blocked before being 
eligible for 'arbitration duty'
* administrators / senior figures would be ineligible to be arbitrators
* 'cases' for arbitrators to consider would be assigned randomly by computer
* it would be prohibited for an arbitrator to tell those involved in the case 
that they have been allocated it
* 50% of those asked to consider a case would have to be female (other quotas 
might be relevant for other demographics)
* there would be a limit to how many cases an arbitrator could ask for in a 
certain time period (I actually envisage it being more like a cross between 
jury service and those user talk page notices that there is a discussion taking 
place somewhere

These might be more technically difficult:
* cases would only go to arbitrators whose edit history is generally in a 
different subject area - so someone complaining about a dispute about a 
particular scientific point would have their complaint go to an arbitrator 
whose edit history is in, say, historical BLPs
* a limit to the number of times you could go through the arbitration process 
with the same case

Cases would only go forward for administrators to get involved with if enough 
arbitrators agreed that it merited being put forward.


> On a slightly different note:
Everyone seems to be mentioning the different ways in which the rules are 
applied to male vs. female editors. Is it possible to run a query or get hold 
of statistics for the average length of time female editors get blocked for, 
versus how long male editors are blocked for? Perhaps a table that takes 
account of the editors' participation levels prior to the block?

Marie


> Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 21:23:18 -0400
> From:

Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Jeremy Baron]

On Jul 5, 2014 2:18 AM, "Pharos"  wrote:
> I think the closest thing we have with these capabilities is the
Wikimedia OTRS system:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS
>
> Specific queues can be customized in many ways, I believe, though others
will know more about this.

Yes, there are plenty of per-queue settings. e.g. auto reply on receiving a
new ticket, behavior on receiving a followup to an existing ticket, ACL,
boilerplates, filters, etc.

Pete mentioned OTRS earlier.

There's even some queues set up with their own on wiki accounts so you can
mail the queue from special:emailuser.

Anyway, before deciding on a tool we need to know how the tool is intended
to work.

-Jeremy
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Pharos]

I think the closest thing we have with these capabilities is the Wikimedia
OTRS system:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS

Specific queues can be customized in many ways, I believe, though others
will know more about this.

Thanks,
Pharos


On Sat, Jul 5, 2014 at 2:02 AM, Moriel Schottlender 
wrote:

>
>>> ​Janine, ​
>> Ryan, Pete and Moriel, these are great ideas.
>> ​I love the idea of a button that anyone can press to send an alert to a
>> Wikiquette team. How can an idea like this be moved forward? There could be
>> different levels of urgency (low: general incivility; medium: sexism,
>> racism, homophobia; high: harassment, outing, threats).
>>
>
> In the forum, we made it so that while no one sees the report publicly,
> the moderators do see the name (or user name) of the reporter (we don't
> share that outside the moderation team, though)
>
> We found that this helps us mediate problems of harassment-by-reporting
> and to spot potential underlying issues with a repeat offender. So, for
> example, we can recognize when a user consistently over-reports another
> user for no reason (or petty reasons) which can also be harassment.
>
> I'm not sure if this is possible in Wikipedia itself, we might want to see
> if we need another tool just for that.
>
> Do you think that having to use an external tool is realistic for a
> Wikipedia group, though?
> We use external tools for development (like bugzilla) but I am not sure
> what the reaction would be for something like this when an on-wiki team is
> involved.
> (I might be missing an option of having this semi-closed/hidden space
> on-wiki)
>
>
> --
> No trees were harmed in the creation of this post.
> But billions of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic waves were
> terribly inconvenienced during its transmission!
>
> ___
> Gendergap mailing list
> Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>
>
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Moriel Schottlender]

>
>
>> ​Janine, ​
> Ryan, Pete and Moriel, these are great ideas.
> ​I love the idea of a button that anyone can press to send an alert to a
> Wikiquette team. How can an idea like this be moved forward? There could be
> different levels of urgency (low: general incivility; medium: sexism,
> racism, homophobia; high: harassment, outing, threats).
>

In the forum, we made it so that while no one sees the report publicly, the
moderators do see the name (or user name) of the reporter (we don't share
that outside the moderation team, though)

We found that this helps us mediate problems of harassment-by-reporting and
to spot potential underlying issues with a repeat offender. So, for
example, we can recognize when a user consistently over-reports another
user for no reason (or petty reasons) which can also be harassment.

I'm not sure if this is possible in Wikipedia itself, we might want to see
if we need another tool just for that.

Do you think that having to use an external tool is realistic for a
Wikipedia group, though?
We use external tools for development (like bugzilla) but I am not sure
what the reaction would be for something like this when an on-wiki team is
involved.
(I might be missing an option of having this semi-closed/hidden space
on-wiki)


-- 
No trees were harmed in the creation of this post.
But billions of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic waves were terribly
inconvenienced during its transmission!
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Sarah]

On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 11:25 AM, Moriel Schottlender 
wrote:

>
> Online communities can allow anyone to "report" problem posts or PMs. Only
>> the moderators see these reports, not the general membership or public. For
>> example, Simple Machines Forum has a report link on every post.
>>
>
> I've been part of the moderation team in scienceforums.net for the past
> 6-7 years, and I can account for this from the "other side" (of a
> moderation team member) --- it really depends on how well the moderation
> team handles these reports, but from my experience, the system has great
> advantages-
>
> 1. It allows users to complain about anything from bias to bad attitude to
> stalking *privately* and without repercussion (no one other than the
> moderators knows that something was reported) and when we take action, we
> take care not to imply that anyone reported the post.
> ​ ...​
>
> ​
>
>
​Janine, ​
Ryan, Pete and Moriel, these are great ideas.
​I love the idea of a button that anyone can press to send an alert to a
Wikiquette team. How can an idea like this be moved forward? There could be
different levels of urgency (low: general incivility; medium: sexism,
racism, homophobia; high: harassment, outing, threats).
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Alison Cassidy]

I'm European (from Ireland) and clearly identify this as a major issue.

-- Allie (User:Alison)

On Jul 4, 2014, at 11:53 AM, rupert THURNER  wrote:

> do you know women outside the north american culture, i.e. US and CA, 
> affected by this?
> 
> rupert
> Am 03.07.2014 21:13 schrieb "Leigh Honeywell" :
> Even if it is an en-wiki only issue, it's having a clear impact on
> editor retention and therefore the long-term sustainability of the
> project. I think trying to fix that is easy to dismiss as
> "micromanagement" but sometimes it turns out that fixing the big
> picture /does/ require organizational leadership to address specific
> things.
> 
> -Leigh
> 
> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 12:06 PM, Risker  wrote:
> > Well, here's the issue.  It's never been clear to me whether this is a
> > WMF-wide issue or it's an English Wikipedia specific issue.  The
> > overwhelming majority of people participating on this list work almost
> > exclusively on enwiki, and almost every single experience discussed here
> > involves enwiki.
> >
> > As important as we all know English Wikipedia to be (if nothing else, it's
> > the fundraising driver from which the bulk of donations derives), it's also
> > only one of hundreds of projects.  There are issues with the Board
> > micromanaging a single project directly, and pretty serious issues when the
> > Board tries to fix a problem on one project by creating a global policy or
> > rule that may actually be counterproductive in other areas.  (And as we can
> > see from the obtuseness that Commons shows about such issues as personality
> > rights - a major gendergap issue in my mind - even when the Board does try
> > to intervene, it's often ineffective.)
> >
> > Risker/Anne
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 3 July 2014 14:58, Leigh Honeywell  wrote:
> >>
> >> The more I hear about this, the more I think this is something that
> >> WMF needs to address at an institutional level (Board etc.) to resolve
> >> these process issues and loopholes. Has this ever been taken "up the
> >> chain"?
> >>
> >> -Leigh
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Ryan Kaldari 
> >> wrote:
> >> > On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Risker  wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> You know, I sat on Arbcom for five years, and there were several
> >> >> occasions
> >> >> when I practically begged those complaining about the behaviour of
> >> >> certain
> >> >> individuals to initiate a casebut nobody wanted to do that...
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Well, you know I did actually take one of the worst misogynists on
> >> > en.wiki
> >> > to ArbCom,[1] and it was such a horrible experience that I decided to
> >> > never
> >> > do it again. After giving up a month of my life to the case and enduring
> >> > constant harassment during the process, all of the evidence that I
> >> > painstakingly assembled, presented, and defended was completely ignored
> >> > by
> >> > ArbCom, and instead he was banned for a year for making a legal threat.
> >> > He
> >> > is now free to return on the condition that he simply agrees not to make
> >> > any
> >> > more legal threats. You were actually on that ArbCom panel, Risker, so I
> >> > don't really understand your argument that taking incivil editors to
> >> > ArbCom
> >> > is a good idea. To me it is worse than a waste of effort, it is actually
> >> > counterproductive and an invitation to be relentlessly harassed.
> >> >
> >> > 1.
> >> >
> >> > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Alastair_Haines_2&oldid=360884518
> >> >
> >> > Ryan Kaldari
> >> >
> >> > ___
> >> > Gendergap mailing list
> >> > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Leigh Honeywell
> >> http://hypatia.ca
> >> @hypatiadotca
> >>
> >> ___
> >> 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
> >
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Leigh Honeywell
> http://hypatia.ca
> @hypatiadotca
> 
> ___
> 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

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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Risker]

Rupert I have spoken to women from several other projects who have
identified it as an issue.  They tend not to post to english-language
mailing lists. The overwhelming majority of women who post to this list are
from English Wikipedia or other primarily English projects, so the comments
will naturally be weighted in that way.

Risker/Anne


On 4 July 2014 14:53, rupert THURNER  wrote:

> do you know women outside the north american culture, i.e. US and CA,
> affected by this?
>
> rupert
>  Am 03.07.2014 21:13 schrieb "Leigh Honeywell" :
>
> Even if it is an en-wiki only issue, it's having a clear impact on
>> editor retention and therefore the long-term sustainability of the
>> project. I think trying to fix that is easy to dismiss as
>> "micromanagement" but sometimes it turns out that fixing the big
>> picture /does/ require organizational leadership to address specific
>> things.
>>
>> -Leigh
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 12:06 PM, Risker  wrote:
>> > Well, here's the issue.  It's never been clear to me whether this is a
>> > WMF-wide issue or it's an English Wikipedia specific issue.  The
>> > overwhelming majority of people participating on this list work almost
>> > exclusively on enwiki, and almost every single experience discussed here
>> > involves enwiki.
>> >
>> > As important as we all know English Wikipedia to be (if nothing else,
>> it's
>> > the fundraising driver from which the bulk of donations derives), it's
>> also
>> > only one of hundreds of projects.  There are issues with the Board
>> > micromanaging a single project directly, and pretty serious issues when
>> the
>> > Board tries to fix a problem on one project by creating a global policy
>> or
>> > rule that may actually be counterproductive in other areas.  (And as we
>> can
>> > see from the obtuseness that Commons shows about such issues as
>> personality
>> > rights - a major gendergap issue in my mind - even when the Board does
>> try
>> > to intervene, it's often ineffective.)
>> >
>> > Risker/Anne
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 3 July 2014 14:58, Leigh Honeywell  wrote:
>> >>
>> >> The more I hear about this, the more I think this is something that
>> >> WMF needs to address at an institutional level (Board etc.) to resolve
>> >> these process issues and loopholes. Has this ever been taken "up the
>> >> chain"?
>> >>
>> >> -Leigh
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Ryan Kaldari 
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Risker  wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >> You know, I sat on Arbcom for five years, and there were several
>> >> >> occasions
>> >> >> when I practically begged those complaining about the behaviour of
>> >> >> certain
>> >> >> individuals to initiate a casebut nobody wanted to do that...
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > Well, you know I did actually take one of the worst misogynists on
>> >> > en.wiki
>> >> > to ArbCom,[1] and it was such a horrible experience that I decided to
>> >> > never
>> >> > do it again. After giving up a month of my life to the case and
>> enduring
>> >> > constant harassment during the process, all of the evidence that I
>> >> > painstakingly assembled, presented, and defended was completely
>> ignored
>> >> > by
>> >> > ArbCom, and instead he was banned for a year for making a legal
>> threat.
>> >> > He
>> >> > is now free to return on the condition that he simply agrees not to
>> make
>> >> > any
>> >> > more legal threats. You were actually on that ArbCom panel, Risker,
>> so I
>> >> > don't really understand your argument that taking incivil editors to
>> >> > ArbCom
>> >> > is a good idea. To me it is worse than a waste of effort, it is
>> actually
>> >> > counterproductive and an invitation to be relentlessly harassed.
>> >> >
>> >> > 1.
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Alastair_Haines_2&oldid=360884518
>> >> >
>> >> > Ryan Kaldari
>> >> >
>> >> > ___
>> >> > Gendergap mailing list
>> >> > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
>> >> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Leigh Honeywell
>> >> http://hypatia.ca
>> >> @hypatiadotca
>> >>
>> >> ___
>> >> 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
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Leigh Honeywell
>> http://hypatia.ca
>> @hypatiadotca
>>
>> ___
>> 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/gender

Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Leigh Honeywell]

As A Canadian I would dispute that there's a "North American" culture
that's the same for the US and Canada :)

But yes, I do know women outside of those two countries which are affected
by this.


On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 11:53 AM, rupert THURNER 
wrote:

> do you know women outside the north american culture, i.e. US and CA,
> affected by this?
>
> rupert
>  Am 03.07.2014 21:13 schrieb "Leigh Honeywell" :
>
> Even if it is an en-wiki only issue, it's having a clear impact on
>> editor retention and therefore the long-term sustainability of the
>> project. I think trying to fix that is easy to dismiss as
>> "micromanagement" but sometimes it turns out that fixing the big
>> picture /does/ require organizational leadership to address specific
>> things.
>>
>> -Leigh
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 12:06 PM, Risker  wrote:
>> > Well, here's the issue.  It's never been clear to me whether this is a
>> > WMF-wide issue or it's an English Wikipedia specific issue.  The
>> > overwhelming majority of people participating on this list work almost
>> > exclusively on enwiki, and almost every single experience discussed here
>> > involves enwiki.
>> >
>> > As important as we all know English Wikipedia to be (if nothing else,
>> it's
>> > the fundraising driver from which the bulk of donations derives), it's
>> also
>> > only one of hundreds of projects.  There are issues with the Board
>> > micromanaging a single project directly, and pretty serious issues when
>> the
>> > Board tries to fix a problem on one project by creating a global policy
>> or
>> > rule that may actually be counterproductive in other areas.  (And as we
>> can
>> > see from the obtuseness that Commons shows about such issues as
>> personality
>> > rights - a major gendergap issue in my mind - even when the Board does
>> try
>> > to intervene, it's often ineffective.)
>> >
>> > Risker/Anne
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 3 July 2014 14:58, Leigh Honeywell  wrote:
>> >>
>> >> The more I hear about this, the more I think this is something that
>> >> WMF needs to address at an institutional level (Board etc.) to resolve
>> >> these process issues and loopholes. Has this ever been taken "up the
>> >> chain"?
>> >>
>> >> -Leigh
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Ryan Kaldari 
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Risker  wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >> You know, I sat on Arbcom for five years, and there were several
>> >> >> occasions
>> >> >> when I practically begged those complaining about the behaviour of
>> >> >> certain
>> >> >> individuals to initiate a casebut nobody wanted to do that...
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > Well, you know I did actually take one of the worst misogynists on
>> >> > en.wiki
>> >> > to ArbCom,[1] and it was such a horrible experience that I decided to
>> >> > never
>> >> > do it again. After giving up a month of my life to the case and
>> enduring
>> >> > constant harassment during the process, all of the evidence that I
>> >> > painstakingly assembled, presented, and defended was completely
>> ignored
>> >> > by
>> >> > ArbCom, and instead he was banned for a year for making a legal
>> threat.
>> >> > He
>> >> > is now free to return on the condition that he simply agrees not to
>> make
>> >> > any
>> >> > more legal threats. You were actually on that ArbCom panel, Risker,
>> so I
>> >> > don't really understand your argument that taking incivil editors to
>> >> > ArbCom
>> >> > is a good idea. To me it is worse than a waste of effort, it is
>> actually
>> >> > counterproductive and an invitation to be relentlessly harassed.
>> >> >
>> >> > 1.
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Alastair_Haines_2&oldid=360884518
>> >> >
>> >> > Ryan Kaldari
>> >> >
>> >> > ___
>> >> > Gendergap mailing list
>> >> > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
>> >> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Leigh Honeywell
>> >> http://hypatia.ca
>> >> @hypatiadotca
>> >>
>> >> ___
>> >> 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
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Leigh Honeywell
>> http://hypatia.ca
>> @hypatiadotca
>>
>> ___
>> 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
>
>


-- 
Leigh Honeywell
http://hypatia.ca
@hypatiadotca
___
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Ge

Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[rupert THURNER]

do you know women outside the north american culture, i.e. US and CA,
affected by this?

rupert
 Am 03.07.2014 21:13 schrieb "Leigh Honeywell" :

> Even if it is an en-wiki only issue, it's having a clear impact on
> editor retention and therefore the long-term sustainability of the
> project. I think trying to fix that is easy to dismiss as
> "micromanagement" but sometimes it turns out that fixing the big
> picture /does/ require organizational leadership to address specific
> things.
>
> -Leigh
>
> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 12:06 PM, Risker  wrote:
> > Well, here's the issue.  It's never been clear to me whether this is a
> > WMF-wide issue or it's an English Wikipedia specific issue.  The
> > overwhelming majority of people participating on this list work almost
> > exclusively on enwiki, and almost every single experience discussed here
> > involves enwiki.
> >
> > As important as we all know English Wikipedia to be (if nothing else,
> it's
> > the fundraising driver from which the bulk of donations derives), it's
> also
> > only one of hundreds of projects.  There are issues with the Board
> > micromanaging a single project directly, and pretty serious issues when
> the
> > Board tries to fix a problem on one project by creating a global policy
> or
> > rule that may actually be counterproductive in other areas.  (And as we
> can
> > see from the obtuseness that Commons shows about such issues as
> personality
> > rights - a major gendergap issue in my mind - even when the Board does
> try
> > to intervene, it's often ineffective.)
> >
> > Risker/Anne
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 3 July 2014 14:58, Leigh Honeywell  wrote:
> >>
> >> The more I hear about this, the more I think this is something that
> >> WMF needs to address at an institutional level (Board etc.) to resolve
> >> these process issues and loopholes. Has this ever been taken "up the
> >> chain"?
> >>
> >> -Leigh
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Ryan Kaldari 
> >> wrote:
> >> > On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Risker  wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> You know, I sat on Arbcom for five years, and there were several
> >> >> occasions
> >> >> when I practically begged those complaining about the behaviour of
> >> >> certain
> >> >> individuals to initiate a casebut nobody wanted to do that...
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Well, you know I did actually take one of the worst misogynists on
> >> > en.wiki
> >> > to ArbCom,[1] and it was such a horrible experience that I decided to
> >> > never
> >> > do it again. After giving up a month of my life to the case and
> enduring
> >> > constant harassment during the process, all of the evidence that I
> >> > painstakingly assembled, presented, and defended was completely
> ignored
> >> > by
> >> > ArbCom, and instead he was banned for a year for making a legal
> threat.
> >> > He
> >> > is now free to return on the condition that he simply agrees not to
> make
> >> > any
> >> > more legal threats. You were actually on that ArbCom panel, Risker,
> so I
> >> > don't really understand your argument that taking incivil editors to
> >> > ArbCom
> >> > is a good idea. To me it is worse than a waste of effort, it is
> actually
> >> > counterproductive and an invitation to be relentlessly harassed.
> >> >
> >> > 1.
> >> >
> >> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Alastair_Haines_2&oldid=360884518
> >> >
> >> > Ryan Kaldari
> >> >
> >> > ___
> >> > Gendergap mailing list
> >> > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Leigh Honeywell
> >> http://hypatia.ca
> >> @hypatiadotca
> >>
> >> ___
> >> 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
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Leigh Honeywell
> http://hypatia.ca
> @hypatiadotca
>
> ___
> Gendergap mailing list
> Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Moriel Schottlender]

>
> Online communities can allow anyone to "report" problem posts or PMs. Only
> the moderators see these reports, not the general membership or public. For
> example, Simple Machines Forum has a report link on every post.
>

I've been part of the moderation team in scienceforums.net for the past 6-7
years, and I can account for this from the "other side" (of a moderation
team member) --- it really depends on how well the moderation team handles
these reports, but from my experience, the system has great advantages-

1. It allows users to complain about anything from bias to bad attitude to
stalking *privately* and without repercussion (no one other than the
moderators knows that something was reported) and when we take action, we
take care not to imply that anyone reported the post.

2. It also allows users the freedom to "check" their concerns before they
become disasters. We sometimes get reports about a thread that isn't a
problem *yet* but might very well get there without intervention, and we
keep that thread in sight and try to intervene when possible to steer
things back to normal.

However, these reports and moderation-action can also have some negative
side effects -

1. It can look like "Big Brother is Watching" when moderators respond to a
report but no one knows that there even was a report.

2. It requires that there *is* a sort of moderation team and that people
know who the moderators are. It also requires that people are able to
complain *about* the moderation team in the reports, so the team has to
have internal rules about how to inspect one of its own members.

3. Some (not all) of the forums and moderation-driven systems also have
some sort of "history" about troublesome users. This is extremely helpful
to spot a user that is "borderline" on trolling or harassment, those are
very easily "flying under the radar" and hurting others. So history in that
aspect is very helpful. However, that can easily devolve, especially
when/if these are public (in which case they can trigger worse behaviors)

The entire idea of reporting posts can be a tricky to make right and
effective. I don't know how this can be implemented in a project like
Wikipedia, where the idea of some "moderation authority" is generally
frowned upon (and justly so)

Maybe we can have a faux-moderation-team, a team that can get (private!)
reports and then go and intervene.
So even if they have no "teeth" or authority for actual action it can show
users that they have support and they're not alone -- which seems to be one
of the main issues with the gendergap and participation of minorities in
general.



> http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php
>
> Now in many cases the harasser can blame the victim, but that happens
> whether it is the truth or not.
>
> I have run into a problem of neutrals feeling as though reporting is
> "being a snitch." Haven't figured out a way around that yet.
>
> Janine
>
>
>
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-- 
No trees were harmed in the creation of this post.
But billions of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic waves were terribly
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Pete Forsyth]

This sounds similar to a proposal from a couple years ago to create a new
queue at OTRS for women concerned about images depicting themselves. there
was some discussion on the OTRS List; as  I recall, I managed to throw the
discussion into some disarray by presenting the idea in a way that led to
some misunderstanding. But overall, once we got that sorted, I don't think
there were any objections to the idea.

If I can help move things along, please let me know.

Pete
On Jul 4, 2014 11:08 AM, "Ryan Kaldari"  wrote:

> What if...
>
> Wikiquette assistance were resurrected as a list of volunteer admins that
> you could privately email about problems rather than a public noticeboard?
>
> Ryan Kaldari
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 4:05 AM, Jane Darnell  wrote:
>
>> I would assume that WMF has an ombudsman who would do just that, but I
>> see that there is only this:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 7:50 AM, Sarah  wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 9:55 PM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case <
>>> danc...@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>>>

   ​>A major problem with our dispute-resolution processes is that the
 person being harassed has >to endure more harassment to draw attention to
 the problem.

  This is, of course, hardly unique to Wikipedia or even online
 communities in general, I think.

>>>
>>> ​Hi Daniel, the very public nature of it on Wikipedia makes it unusual
>>> and very stressful.​
>>>
>>>
  ​

 >I have long thought the Foundation ought to employ a team of
 specialists who can take up >those cases when they see them, so that the
 pursuit of sanctions is not laid at the victim's >door. This is perhaps
 similar to Sumana's suggestion that communities need dedicated >helpers who
 will do the emotional labour in conflict situations.

 Would there be a good existing example of such a program we could take
 a look at?

  Daniel Case

>>>
>>> ​Sumana talked
>>> 
>>> about the situation at Hacker School: "​
>>> If you don’t understand why something you did broke the rules, you don't
>>> ask the person who corrected you. You ask a facilitator. You ask someone
>>> who’s paid to do that emotional labor, and you don't bring everyone else's
>>> work to a screeching halt. This might sound a little bit foreign to some of
>>> us right now. Being able to ask someone to stop doing the thing that’s
>>> harming everyone else’s work and knowing that it will actually stop and
>>> that there’s someone else who’s paid to do that emotional labor who will
>>> take care of any conversation that needs to happen.
>>> ​"
>>>
>>> The idea of having people paid to do this is very attractive for
>>> Wikipedia. I think they would have to be professionals with appropriate
>>> training, otherwise there's a big risk of making things worse. The
>>> Foundation probably has enough of an income to consider this, given the
>>> potential impact on the atmosphere and editor retention.
>>>
>>> Sarah​
>>>
>>> ___
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>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>>>
>>>
>>
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>>
>
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Ryan Kaldari]

What if...

Wikiquette assistance were resurrected as a list of volunteer admins that
you could privately email about problems rather than a public noticeboard?

Ryan Kaldari


On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 4:05 AM, Jane Darnell  wrote:

> I would assume that WMF has an ombudsman who would do just that, but I see
> that there is only this:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 7:50 AM, Sarah  wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 9:55 PM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case <
>> danc...@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>   ​>A major problem with our dispute-resolution processes is that the
>>> person being harassed has >to endure more harassment to draw attention to
>>> the problem.
>>>
>>>  This is, of course, hardly unique to Wikipedia or even online
>>> communities in general, I think.
>>>
>>
>> ​Hi Daniel, the very public nature of it on Wikipedia makes it unusual
>> and very stressful.​
>>
>>
>>>  ​
>>>
>>> >I have long thought the Foundation ought to employ a team of
>>> specialists who can take up >those cases when they see them, so that the
>>> pursuit of sanctions is not laid at the victim's >door. This is perhaps
>>> similar to Sumana's suggestion that communities need dedicated >helpers who
>>> will do the emotional labour in conflict situations.
>>>
>>> Would there be a good existing example of such a program we could take a
>>> look at?
>>>
>>>  Daniel Case
>>>
>>
>> ​Sumana talked
>> 
>> about the situation at Hacker School: "​
>> If you don’t understand why something you did broke the rules, you don't
>> ask the person who corrected you. You ask a facilitator. You ask someone
>> who’s paid to do that emotional labor, and you don't bring everyone else's
>> work to a screeching halt. This might sound a little bit foreign to some of
>> us right now. Being able to ask someone to stop doing the thing that’s
>> harming everyone else’s work and knowing that it will actually stop and
>> that there’s someone else who’s paid to do that emotional labor who will
>> take care of any conversation that needs to happen.
>> ​"
>>
>> The idea of having people paid to do this is very attractive for
>> Wikipedia. I think they would have to be professionals with appropriate
>> training, otherwise there's a big risk of making things worse. The
>> Foundation probably has enough of an income to consider this, given the
>> potential impact on the atmosphere and editor retention.
>>
>> Sarah​
>>
>> ___
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>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>>
>>
>
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Jane Darnell]

I would assume that WMF has an ombudsman who would do just that, but I see
that there is only this:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission


On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 7:50 AM, Sarah  wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 9:55 PM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case <
> danc...@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>   ​>A major problem with our dispute-resolution processes is that the
>> person being harassed has >to endure more harassment to draw attention to
>> the problem.
>>
>>  This is, of course, hardly unique to Wikipedia or even online
>> communities in general, I think.
>>
>
> ​Hi Daniel, the very public nature of it on Wikipedia makes it unusual and
> very stressful.​
>
>
>>  ​
>>
>> >I have long thought the Foundation ought to employ a team of specialists
>> who can take up >those cases when they see them, so that the pursuit of
>> sanctions is not laid at the victim's >door. This is perhaps similar to
>> Sumana's suggestion that communities need dedicated >helpers who will do
>> the emotional labour in conflict situations.
>>
>> Would there be a good existing example of such a program we could take a
>> look at?
>>
>>  Daniel Case
>>
>
> ​Sumana talked
> 
> about the situation at Hacker School: "​
> If you don’t understand why something you did broke the rules, you don't
> ask the person who corrected you. You ask a facilitator. You ask someone
> who’s paid to do that emotional labor, and you don't bring everyone else's
> work to a screeching halt. This might sound a little bit foreign to some of
> us right now. Being able to ask someone to stop doing the thing that’s
> harming everyone else’s work and knowing that it will actually stop and
> that there’s someone else who’s paid to do that emotional labor who will
> take care of any conversation that needs to happen.
> ​"
>
> The idea of having people paid to do this is very attractive for
> Wikipedia. I think they would have to be professionals with appropriate
> training, otherwise there's a big risk of making things worse. The
> Foundation probably has enough of an income to consider this, given the
> potential impact on the atmosphere and editor retention.
>
> Sarah​
>
> ___
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> Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>
>
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Sarah]

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 9:55 PM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case <
danc...@frontiernet.net> wrote:

>
>   ​>A major problem with our dispute-resolution processes is that the
> person being harassed has >to endure more harassment to draw attention to
> the problem.
>
>  This is, of course, hardly unique to Wikipedia or even online
> communities in general, I think.
>

​Hi Daniel, the very public nature of it on Wikipedia makes it unusual and
very stressful.​


> ​
>
> >I have long thought the Foundation ought to employ a team of specialists
> who can take up >those cases when they see them, so that the pursuit of
> sanctions is not laid at the victim's >door. This is perhaps similar to
> Sumana's suggestion that communities need dedicated >helpers who will do
> the emotional labour in conflict situations.
>
> Would there be a good existing example of such a program we could take a
> look at?
>
>  Daniel Case
>

​Sumana talked

about the situation at Hacker School: "​
If you don’t understand why something you did broke the rules, you don't
ask the person who corrected you. You ask a facilitator. You ask someone
who’s paid to do that emotional labor, and you don't bring everyone else's
work to a screeching halt. This might sound a little bit foreign to some of
us right now. Being able to ask someone to stop doing the thing that’s
harming everyone else’s work and knowing that it will actually stop and
that there’s someone else who’s paid to do that emotional labor who will
take care of any conversation that needs to happen.
​"

The idea of having people paid to do this is very attractive for Wikipedia.
I think they would have to be professionals with appropriate training,
otherwise there's a big risk of making things worse. The Foundation
probably has enough of an income to consider this, given the potential
impact on the atmosphere and editor retention.

Sarah​
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Janine Starykowicz]

Daniel and Elizabeth Case wrote:

​>A major problem with our dispute-resolution processes is that the person being 
harassed has >to endure more harassment to
draw attention to the problem.
This is, of course, hardly unique to Wikipedia or even online communities in 
general, I think.


 >I have long thought the Foundation ought to employ a team of specialists who can 
take up >those cases when they see them,
so that the pursuit of sanctions is not laid at the victim's >door. This is 
perhaps similar to Sumana's suggestion that
communities need dedicated >helpers who will do the emotional labour in 
conflict situations.

Would there be a good existing example of such a program we could take a look 
at?
Daniel Case


Online communities can allow anyone to "report" problem posts or PMs. Only the moderators see these reports, not the general 
membership or public. For example, Simple Machines Forum has a report link on every post.


http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php

Now in many cases the harasser can blame the victim, but that happens whether 
it is the truth or not.

I have run into a problem of neutrals feeling as though reporting is "being a 
snitch." Haven't figured out a way around that yet.

Janine


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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Daniel and Elizabeth Case]

​>A major problem with our dispute-resolution processes is that the person 
being harassed has >to endure more harassment to draw attention to the problem. 
This is, of course, hardly unique to Wikipedia or even online communities in 
general, I think.

 >I have long thought the Foundation ought to employ a team of specialists who 
 >can take up >those cases when they see them, so that the pursuit of sanctions 
 >is not laid at the victim's >door. This is perhaps similar to Sumana's 
 >suggestion that communities need dedicated >helpers who will do the emotional 
 >labour in conflict situations.

Would there be a good existing example of such a program we could take a look 
at?
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Risker]

On 4 July 2014 00:35, Sarah  wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:23 AM, Valerie Aurora  > wrote:
>
>> I agree, policies against harassment can be co-opted to further harass
>> marginalized people and there is a long history of this in other areas
>> (see SLAPP and anti-SLAPP in U.S. law for example).
>> ​ .​
>> .. [snip] ...
>>
>
> ​A major problem with our dispute-resolution processes is that the person
> being harassed has to endure more harassment to draw attention to the
> problem. All experts in harassment will tell you that this is the wrong
> thing to do. Almost always, the best thing for a victim of harassment is to
> do nothing further to attract the person's attention. But that leaves the
> problem editor free to choose the next victim.
>
> I have long thought the Foundation ought to employ a team of specialists
> who can take up those cases when they see them, so that the pursuit of
> sanctions is not laid at the victim's door. This is perhaps similar to
> Sumana's suggestion that communities need dedicated helpers who will do the
> emotional labour in conflict situations.
>
>
>

There was a point in time where there was an "editor advocacy" group that
proposed to take these sorts of cases to Arbcom.  The basic idea was fairly
good.  The problem was that the couple of individuals bringing it forward
were...ummm...highly combative in their own right, shall we say?  As in, it
might have been hard for Arbcom to tell whose behaviour was worse...

It takes the right kind of people do to this successfully.  And I fear that
the "right kind of people" are in short supply on Wikipedia, and most of
those are busy doing things they like to do instead. On the other hand, I
have a hard time imagining the WMF coughing up the cost of even a couple of
genuine "editor advocates" when the community advocacy department (covering
all 800+ projects) is so small.

Risker/Anne
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Sarah]

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:23 AM, Valerie Aurora 
wrote:

> I agree, policies against harassment can be co-opted to further harass
> marginalized people and there is a long history of this in other areas
> (see SLAPP and anti-SLAPP in U.S. law for example).
> ​ .​
> .. [snip] ...
>

​A major problem with our dispute-resolution processes is that the person
being harassed has to endure more harassment to draw attention to the
problem. All experts in harassment will tell you that this is the wrong
thing to do. Almost always, the best thing for a victim of harassment is to
do nothing further to attract the person's attention. But that leaves the
problem editor free to choose the next victim.

I have long thought the Foundation ought to employ a team of specialists
who can take up those cases when they see them, so that the pursuit of
sanctions is not laid at the victim's door. This is perhaps similar to
Sumana's suggestion that communities need dedicated helpers who will do the
emotional labour in conflict situations.

Sarah
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Carol Moore dc]

When I was a little girl in the 1950s and 60s we were told to be passive 
and pray for what we wanted. Thank heavens self-actualization and womens 
liberation came along and we discovered "well-behaved women seldom make 
history." (Nicely covered at 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Thatcher_Ulrich  )


If we want the guys to change we gotta keep busting their chops about 
being civil, within the limits of civility of course. On a one on one 
basis, day after day after day. And even though no matter how civil we 
are, SOME of them still will think it is we who are being uncivil.


It's a dirty job, but it's gotta be done.

And the more guys who help promote civility  and are willing to counter 
the good-old-boy mentality, the better... :-)


On 7/3/2014 3:18 PM, Sydney Poore wrote:
There was an attempt to address the civility problem on Wikipedia 
English with a top down approach at the very start of Sue Gardner's 
time at WMF. Sue, Jimmy Wales, myself, and a group of half dozen other 
people talked about it in a closed group. It failed because a top down 
approach is not effective on Wikipedia because policies can not be 
enforced from the top. Policies need to be made that a large part of 
the community agrees at proper and enforceable.


I would be willing to assist a group that wants to take another run at 
it. But there are significant challenges with enforcing a civility 
policy on a global community where cultural norms differ at great 
deal. So, we need to be careful that an attempt to assist one group of 
users does not make it harder for other groups of people who are also 
under represented on Wikipedia English.





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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Pete Forsyth]

Dear Val,

I've now read and reread your message (quoted below) several times, and
want to thank you for putting this important concept in such clear and
tangible terms.

I have just one thing to add:

It seems to me that this points to a broader issue that's deeply connected
with the social dynamics of collaborative communities that value public
communication, and is not restricted to gender-related topics. In the
Wikimedia world, we have lots of people who are willing, even eager, to
offer help and advise in a wide variety of areas, but that don't feel any
special *responsibility* to meet specific expectations for help and advice.
So frequently, we encounter frustrations when people seeking help
(analogous to your example of men with poor social skills -- but I'm trying
to look at it broadly, as "people lacking XYZ skills") encounter some kind
of resistance on our projects, and assume that the people around them will
take the time to educate them.

This dynamic can lead to all kinds of discord, but in many cases, it isn't
really any one person's fault.

I think this is something worthy of some careful thought, and probably
research. It would be great if we could think through how expectations of
assistance play out throughout our projects; I suspect that we would start
to see some ways to improve not only the gender gap, but perhaps some other
general negative dynamics in the movement.

-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]


On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 3:33 PM, Valerie Aurora 
wrote:

> Hi Phoebe,
>
> Thanks for your thoughtful and carefully explained comment! The
> perspective I am coming from here is over 13 years of experience with
> spaces for supporting women in open tech/culture, starting with
> LinuxChix in 2002.
>
> A pattern that groups like this have found over and over again is that
> a spaces designed to support women in these areas inevitably attract
> men with poor social skills, who then ask the group for (unpaid) help
> improving their social skills. In most open tech/culture groups, such
> requests would be unthinkable, but we are often socialized to expect
> women to provide emotional support and help to others (especially men
> and children) on request, without consideration for the value of their
> time and energy.
>
> The result is that, without a strong awareness and guarding of the
> original purpose of the group, the group dedicates an ever-larger
> portion of its time to teaching men social skills. Many of the people
> who are interested in the original purpose of the group tend to lose
> interest and depart. This is exactly what happened to LinuxChix - our
> IRC channel became primarily about counseling various men who had
> found a welcoming and supportive environment, and our mailing lists
> were more enjoyable and fulfilling for men looking for emotional
> boosts than for women looking for a supportive environment where they
> could talk about Linux.
>
> In short, I agree with you that there is some potential benefit to
> providing free social skills counseling to men who are interested in
> supporting women in open tech/culture. In my experience, the cost is
> much greater: the time and emotional energy of many women that could
> be used much more effectively on other projects.
>
> -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/
>
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Sydney Poore]

There was an attempt to address the civility problem on Wikipedia English
with a top down approach at the very start of Sue Gardner's time at WMF.
Sue, Jimmy Wales, myself, and a group of half dozen other people talked
about it in a closed group. It failed because a top down approach is not
effective on Wikipedia because policies can not be enforced from the top.
Policies need to be made that a large part of the community agrees at
proper and enforceable.

I would be willing to assist a group that wants to take another run at it.
But there are significant challenges with enforcing a civility policy on a
global community where cultural norms differ at great deal. So, we need to
be careful that an attempt to assist one group of users does not make it
harder for other groups of people who are also under represented on
Wikipedia English.

Sydney

Sydney

Sydney

Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedian in Residence
at Cochrane Collaboration


On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Leigh Honeywell  wrote:

> The more I hear about this, the more I think this is something that
> WMF needs to address at an institutional level (Board etc.) to resolve
> these process issues and loopholes. Has this ever been taken "up the
> chain"?
>
> -Leigh
>
> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Ryan Kaldari 
> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Risker  wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> You know, I sat on Arbcom for five years, and there were several
> occasions
> >> when I practically begged those complaining about the behaviour of
> certain
> >> individuals to initiate a casebut nobody wanted to do that...
> >
> >
> > Well, you know I did actually take one of the worst misogynists on
> en.wiki
> > to ArbCom,[1] and it was such a horrible experience that I decided to
> never
> > do it again. After giving up a month of my life to the case and enduring
> > constant harassment during the process, all of the evidence that I
> > painstakingly assembled, presented, and defended was completely ignored
> by
> > ArbCom, and instead he was banned for a year for making a legal threat.
> He
> > is now free to return on the condition that he simply agrees not to make
> any
> > more legal threats. You were actually on that ArbCom panel, Risker, so I
> > don't really understand your argument that taking incivil editors to
> ArbCom
> > is a good idea. To me it is worse than a waste of effort, it is actually
> > counterproductive and an invitation to be relentlessly harassed.
> >
> > 1.
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Alastair_Haines_2&oldid=360884518
> >
> > Ryan Kaldari
> >
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>
>
>
> --
> Leigh Honeywell
> http://hypatia.ca
> @hypatiadotca
>
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Leigh Honeywell]

Even if it is an en-wiki only issue, it's having a clear impact on
editor retention and therefore the long-term sustainability of the
project. I think trying to fix that is easy to dismiss as
"micromanagement" but sometimes it turns out that fixing the big
picture /does/ require organizational leadership to address specific
things.

-Leigh

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 12:06 PM, Risker  wrote:
> Well, here's the issue.  It's never been clear to me whether this is a
> WMF-wide issue or it's an English Wikipedia specific issue.  The
> overwhelming majority of people participating on this list work almost
> exclusively on enwiki, and almost every single experience discussed here
> involves enwiki.
>
> As important as we all know English Wikipedia to be (if nothing else, it's
> the fundraising driver from which the bulk of donations derives), it's also
> only one of hundreds of projects.  There are issues with the Board
> micromanaging a single project directly, and pretty serious issues when the
> Board tries to fix a problem on one project by creating a global policy or
> rule that may actually be counterproductive in other areas.  (And as we can
> see from the obtuseness that Commons shows about such issues as personality
> rights - a major gendergap issue in my mind - even when the Board does try
> to intervene, it's often ineffective.)
>
> Risker/Anne
>
>
>
>
> On 3 July 2014 14:58, Leigh Honeywell  wrote:
>>
>> The more I hear about this, the more I think this is something that
>> WMF needs to address at an institutional level (Board etc.) to resolve
>> these process issues and loopholes. Has this ever been taken "up the
>> chain"?
>>
>> -Leigh
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Ryan Kaldari 
>> wrote:
>> > On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Risker  wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> You know, I sat on Arbcom for five years, and there were several
>> >> occasions
>> >> when I practically begged those complaining about the behaviour of
>> >> certain
>> >> individuals to initiate a casebut nobody wanted to do that...
>> >
>> >
>> > Well, you know I did actually take one of the worst misogynists on
>> > en.wiki
>> > to ArbCom,[1] and it was such a horrible experience that I decided to
>> > never
>> > do it again. After giving up a month of my life to the case and enduring
>> > constant harassment during the process, all of the evidence that I
>> > painstakingly assembled, presented, and defended was completely ignored
>> > by
>> > ArbCom, and instead he was banned for a year for making a legal threat.
>> > He
>> > is now free to return on the condition that he simply agrees not to make
>> > any
>> > more legal threats. You were actually on that ArbCom panel, Risker, so I
>> > don't really understand your argument that taking incivil editors to
>> > ArbCom
>> > is a good idea. To me it is worse than a waste of effort, it is actually
>> > counterproductive and an invitation to be relentlessly harassed.
>> >
>> > 1.
>> >
>> > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Alastair_Haines_2&oldid=360884518
>> >
>> > Ryan Kaldari
>> >
>> > ___
>> > Gendergap mailing list
>> > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Leigh Honeywell
>> http://hypatia.ca
>> @hypatiadotca
>>
>> ___
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>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>
>
>
> ___
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-- 
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http://hypatia.ca
@hypatiadotca

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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Risker]

Well, here's the issue.  It's never been clear to me whether this is a
WMF-wide issue or it's an English Wikipedia specific issue.  The
overwhelming majority of people participating on this list work almost
exclusively on enwiki, and almost every single experience discussed here
involves enwiki.

As important as we all know English Wikipedia to be (if nothing else, it's
the fundraising driver from which the bulk of donations derives), it's also
only one of hundreds of projects.  There are issues with the Board
micromanaging a single project directly, and pretty serious issues when the
Board tries to fix a problem on one project by creating a global policy or
rule that may actually be counterproductive in other areas.  (And as we can
see from the obtuseness that Commons shows about such issues as personality
rights - a major gendergap issue in my mind - even when the Board does try
to intervene, it's often ineffective.)

Risker/Anne




On 3 July 2014 14:58, Leigh Honeywell  wrote:

> The more I hear about this, the more I think this is something that
> WMF needs to address at an institutional level (Board etc.) to resolve
> these process issues and loopholes. Has this ever been taken "up the
> chain"?
>
> -Leigh
>
> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Ryan Kaldari 
> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Risker  wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> You know, I sat on Arbcom for five years, and there were several
> occasions
> >> when I practically begged those complaining about the behaviour of
> certain
> >> individuals to initiate a casebut nobody wanted to do that...
> >
> >
> > Well, you know I did actually take one of the worst misogynists on
> en.wiki
> > to ArbCom,[1] and it was such a horrible experience that I decided to
> never
> > do it again. After giving up a month of my life to the case and enduring
> > constant harassment during the process, all of the evidence that I
> > painstakingly assembled, presented, and defended was completely ignored
> by
> > ArbCom, and instead he was banned for a year for making a legal threat.
> He
> > is now free to return on the condition that he simply agrees not to make
> any
> > more legal threats. You were actually on that ArbCom panel, Risker, so I
> > don't really understand your argument that taking incivil editors to
> ArbCom
> > is a good idea. To me it is worse than a waste of effort, it is actually
> > counterproductive and an invitation to be relentlessly harassed.
> >
> > 1.
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Alastair_Haines_2&oldid=360884518
> >
> > Ryan Kaldari
> >
> > ___
> > Gendergap mailing list
> > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Leigh Honeywell
> http://hypatia.ca
> @hypatiadotca
>
> ___
> Gendergap mailing list
> Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Leigh Honeywell]

The more I hear about this, the more I think this is something that
WMF needs to address at an institutional level (Board etc.) to resolve
these process issues and loopholes. Has this ever been taken "up the
chain"?

-Leigh

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Ryan Kaldari  wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Risker  wrote:
>>
>>
>> You know, I sat on Arbcom for five years, and there were several occasions
>> when I practically begged those complaining about the behaviour of certain
>> individuals to initiate a casebut nobody wanted to do that...
>
>
> Well, you know I did actually take one of the worst misogynists on en.wiki
> to ArbCom,[1] and it was such a horrible experience that I decided to never
> do it again. After giving up a month of my life to the case and enduring
> constant harassment during the process, all of the evidence that I
> painstakingly assembled, presented, and defended was completely ignored by
> ArbCom, and instead he was banned for a year for making a legal threat. He
> is now free to return on the condition that he simply agrees not to make any
> more legal threats. You were actually on that ArbCom panel, Risker, so I
> don't really understand your argument that taking incivil editors to ArbCom
> is a good idea. To me it is worse than a waste of effort, it is actually
> counterproductive and an invitation to be relentlessly harassed.
>
> 1.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Alastair_Haines_2&oldid=360884518
>
> Ryan Kaldari
>
> ___
> Gendergap mailing list
> Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>



-- 
Leigh Honeywell
http://hypatia.ca
@hypatiadotca

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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Ryan Kaldari]

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Risker  wrote:

>
> You know, I sat on Arbcom for five years, and there were several occasions
> when I practically begged those complaining about the behaviour of certain
> individuals to initiate a casebut nobody wanted to do that...
>

Well, you know I did actually take one of the worst misogynists on en.wiki
to ArbCom,[1] and it was such a horrible experience that I decided to never
do it again. After giving up a month of my life to the case and enduring
constant harassment during the process, all of the evidence that I
painstakingly assembled, presented, and defended was completely ignored by
ArbCom, and instead he was banned for a year for making a legal threat. He
is now free to return on the condition that he simply agrees not to make
any more legal threats. You were actually on that ArbCom panel, Risker, so
I don't really understand your argument that taking incivil editors to
ArbCom is a good idea. To me it is worse than a waste of effort, it is
actually counterproductive and an invitation to be relentlessly harassed.

1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Alastair_Haines_2&oldid=360884518

Ryan Kaldari
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Risker]

On 3 July 2014 13:40, Ryan Kaldari  wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 1:50 AM, Pine W  wrote:
>
>>   Hi Moriel and others,
>>
>> Do you have a list of "realistic changes" in mind for the community?
>>
>
>> I hear almost no one say that the typical state of (in)civility on wiki
>> or on Wikimedia-l is good enough or that people are being hypersensitive,
>> so I get the sense that there's a lot of agreement that we have a cultural
>> problem. Ideas for solutions seem to be in short supply, so any "realistic
>> changes" that you can suggest would be good to hear, either on this list or
>> in IdeaLab.
>>
>
> The problem on en.wiki at least is that a vocal minority effectively
> prevent any enforcement of the civility policy. This includes a significant
> group of admins that are willing to overturn blocks for all but the most
> blatant violations of the policy. And because of the wheel warring loophole
> (undoing a block is allowed, but reinstating a block is wheel warring,
> which is prohibited), there is nothing that anyone can do about it. ArbCom
> (or the community) could close this loophole, but so far have not shown
> interest in doing so. The single action that I think would be most useful
> on en.wiki would be for someone to shepherd an RfC to create a policy
> statement that "unilaterally overturning a block is wheel-warring". I know
> this sounds very far removed from the issue of making en.wiki more civil,
> but I actually think such a change is realistically possible and would go a
> long way towards shifting the balance of power away from the trolls and
> misogynists.
>
> Alternately, the board or ArbCom could step up and declare that civility
> is not to be treated as a second-class policy, but I doubt that would ever
> happen.
>
>
You know, I sat on Arbcom for five years, and there were several occasions
when I practically begged those complaining about the behaviour of certain
individuals to initiate a casebut nobody wanted to do that, and the
community quite correctly will not allow arbcom to initiate its own cases
absent something that is a clear and present danger, such as a sysop gone
wild (e.g., mass deletes, unblocking themselves) or someone repeatedly
violating another user's privacy, or paedophile activism.  (And on the last
point, arbcom still got plenty of grief for it.)

Arbcom isn't a core part of the community - partly because when it messes
up, it REALLY messes up (historical - banning an uncivil user without
bothering to even talk to him, sort of a star chamber trial; creating a
"subcommittee" to "advise Arbcom" on content aspects of cases it
accepted).  It only gets requests for 20 or so cases a year anymore, half
of which are clearly not in their scope, and accepts about 8-10 cases a
year.

Risker/Anne
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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Valerie Aurora]

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 10:56 AM, Carol Moore dc
 wrote:
> On 7/3/2014 1:40 PM, Ryan Kaldari wrote:
>>
>>
>> The problem on en.wiki at least is that a vocal minority effectively
>> prevent any enforcement of the civility policy.
>
>
> The other problem is double standard enforcement. A bunch of guys may
> complain about mild incivility by a female and she'll get warned by an admin
> at an ANI.  A guy can get away with a lot of  bullying, insults and
> harassment before complaints are taken seriously and there is even an admin
> comment on an ANI.

I agree, policies against harassment can be co-opted to further harass
marginalized people and there is a long history of this in other areas
(see SLAPP and anti-SLAPP in U.S. law for example).

People on this list might be interested in some experiments in other
open tech/culture communities where people are extending any policy
about harassment to take into account the surrounding power structure
of society. That is, they explicitly say that they will take into
account the power imbalance between parties before deciding whether
something is harassment.

"In order to protect volunteers from abuse and burnout, we reserve the
right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith.
The Geek Feminism Anti-Abuse Team is not here to explain power
differentials or other basic social justice concepts to you. Reports
intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without
response."

http://geekfeminism.org/about/code-of-conduct/

"A‭ ‬supplemental‭ ‬goal‭ ‬of‭ ‬this‭ ‬Code‭ ‬of‭ ‬Conduct‭ ‬is‭ ‬to‭
‬increase‭ ‬open‭ source ‬citizenship‭ ‬by‭ ‬encouraging‭
‬participants‭ ‬to‭ ‬recognize‭ ‬and‭ ‬strengthen‭ ‬the‭
‬relationships‭ ‬between‭ ‬our‭ ‬actions‭ ‬and‭ ‬their‭ ‬effects‭ ‬on‭
‬our‭ ‬community.
Communities mirror the societies in which they exist and positive
action is essential to counteract the many forms of inequality and
abuses of power that exist in society."

http://opensourcebridge.org/about/code-of-conduct/

-VAL

> That's why it's important to have the talk page of the gender gap task force
> page open to a listing of various ANIs and enforcement actions involving
> editors known to be women. A couple women going to each one and pointing out
> when these gender gap double standards obviously exist, over and over again
> would be a big help.  That way there's some hope editors and admins
> especially will understand that double standards exist and are "bad"!  Same
> with Harassment, incivility, etc.  The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
>
> Going to Admins talk pages directly after the rule "wrong" can be helpful.
> I've seen some obnoxious individuals get away with stuff because they'd
> chummy up to the Admin on their talk page and explain the righteousness of
> their behavior ad nauseam, as if to brainwash the admin. More squeaky wheel
> stuff.
>
> CM
>
>
>
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-- 
Valerie Aurora
Executive Director

You can help increase the participation of women in open technology and culture!
Donate today at http://adainitiative.org/donate/

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Re: [Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Carol Moore dc]

On 7/3/2014 1:40 PM, Ryan Kaldari wrote:


The problem on en.wiki at least is that a vocal minority effectively 
prevent any enforcement of the civility policy.


The other problem is double standard enforcement. A bunch of guys may 
complain about mild incivility by a female and she'll get warned by an 
admin at an ANI.  A guy can get away with a lot of  bullying, insults 
and harassment before complaints are taken seriously and there is even 
an admin comment on an ANI.


That's why it's important to have the talk page of the gender gap task 
force page open to a listing of various ANIs and enforcement actions 
involving editors known to be women. A couple women going to each one 
and pointing out when these gender gap double standards obviously exist, 
over and over again would be a big help.  That way there's some hope 
editors and admins especially will understand that double standards 
exist and are "bad"!  Same with Harassment, incivility, etc.  The 
squeaky wheel gets the grease.


Going to Admins talk pages directly after the rule "wrong" can be 
helpful. I've seen some obnoxious individuals get away with stuff 
because they'd chummy up to the Admin on their talk page and explain the 
righteousness of their behavior ad nauseam, as if to brainwash the 
admin. More squeaky wheel stuff.


CM



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[Gendergap] Addressing incivility (was: men on lists)

[Ryan Kaldari]

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 1:50 AM, Pine W  wrote:

> Hi Moriel and others,
>
> Do you have a list of "realistic changes" in mind for the community?
>

> I hear almost no one say that the typical state of (in)civility on wiki or
> on Wikimedia-l is good enough or that people are being hypersensitive, so I
> get the sense that there's a lot of agreement that we have a cultural
> problem. Ideas for solutions seem to be in short supply, so any "realistic
> changes" that you can suggest would be good to hear, either on this list or
> in IdeaLab.
>

The problem on en.wiki at least is that a vocal minority effectively
prevent any enforcement of the civility policy. This includes a significant
group of admins that are willing to overturn blocks for all but the most
blatant violations of the policy. And because of the wheel warring loophole
(undoing a block is allowed, but reinstating a block is wheel warring,
which is prohibited), there is nothing that anyone can do about it. ArbCom
(or the community) could close this loophole, but so far have not shown
interest in doing so. The single action that I think would be most useful
on en.wiki would be for someone to shepherd an RfC to create a policy
statement that "unilaterally overturning a block is wheel-warring". I know
this sounds very far removed from the issue of making en.wiki more civil,
but I actually think such a change is realistically possible and would go a
long way towards shifting the balance of power away from the trolls and
misogynists.

Alternately, the board or ArbCom could step up and declare that civility is
not to be treated as a second-class policy, but I doubt that would ever
happen.

Ryan Kaldari
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