Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems

[Jane Darnell]

Amir,
It's funny - after reading your mail I wondered if I had read Romaine's
mail correctly. Rereading both it seems that is exactly what you were
trying to say - we all carry our own little bundle of biases with us
whereever we go and whatever we read. When I read Romaine's mail I stopped
cold at "tokenism" - for me tokenism is when you count the paintings by
women in any museum and you find none of the women have more than one
painting in the collection, though they have lots and lots of male artists
with more than 20 works in the collection.

When it comes to Wiki meetups, everyone has their own reasons for wanting
to come or not. I have a feeling at edit-a-thons open to the general public
that it's a bit like being in a cage or aquarium where you yourself are the
attraction. Instead of meeting people who want to contribute I tend to get
questioned about my own motivations. I agree that as a member of this list
I am already a hard-core insider of this movement and can no longer think
about these things in a "normal" way (i.e. as a reader). What I do know
from talking to lots of family and friends is that most people have
absolutely no clue about our gaps in knowledge or have even heard of the
gendergap at all. When I say gendergap, they think gender pay gap and I
have to start explaining that no one is paid for their edits (which always
leads the conversation into a whole new tangent).

When it comes to the women, thankfully the word "nonbinary" is relatively
new and we can easily measure the binary gender with Wikidata queries to
see how we are doing. This is still sketchy and problematic, because lots
of historical women and men still do not have their gender assigned at all
on Wikidata - binary or not. We still can't measure gendergap per
occupation, language, or citizenship however, because those statements are
also still mostly lacking for most historical people. Citizenship is
actually quite comical when you start drilling into the data on Wikidata.
Some people want to be extremely specific about borders, which makes some
towns flip all around in terms of citizenship for people who don't have
precise birthdates - did I mention that women don't like to disclose their
birthdates? I would LOVE to be able to count brown and black women, but
this is of course completely off limits to us due to ethical concerns.

Here in the Netherlands we are going to hold a hackathon for women. I will
talk about Wikidata and hope to recruit a few women to help out with the
maintenance lists on women, such as this one:
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Women/Wiki_monitor/lawiki

My hopes based on previous events, are not high.
Best,
Jane

On Mon, May 7, 2018 at 8:03 AM, Amir E. Aharoni <
amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:

> This is a sensitive topic, and I'm a white man myself, so please slap me if
> I say something dumb.
>
> 2018-05-07 7:10 GMT+03:00 Romaine Wiki :
>
> >
> > What has happened?
> >
> > She was invited to participate in a Wikimedia activity, because:
> > 1. she is a woman
> > 2. she is from a minority
> > 3. she is from an area in the world with much less editors (compared to
> > Europe/US)
> >
> > and perhaps also because her colour of her skin is a bit different then
> > mine (Caucasian).
> >
> > At the same time she has the impression that the work she does on the
> > Wikimedia wiki('s) is not valued, nor taken into account.
> >
>
> By whom?
>
> By the people who invited her?
>
> By other participants in the event?
>
> By other editors in the same wiki site?
>
> By the readers?
>
>
>
> > She does not want to be invited because she is a woman, nor because she
> is
> > from a minority, nor ... etc. This is offensive.
> > She only wants to be invited because of the work she contributes on
> > Wikipedia/etc.
> >
>
> This makes a lot of sense to me, but that's just me and attitudes are
> different for each person.
>
>
> > Besides the many good initiatives and intentions, this kind of approaches
> > to our contributors is demotivating them, please be aware of this.
>
>
> Again, it's probably demotivating to some. Maybe to 98%, maybe to 30%,
> maybe to 5%. I honestly don't know.
>
> I believe demotivation/frustration is the largest problem we face as
> > movement.
> >
>
> I don't know if its the biggest problem. On this mailing list we are a
> small group of meta-active Wikimedians, and we are the minority among
> editors. We don't actually represent all the editors. And of course the
> editors are a tiny minority compared to the readers.
>
> I'd argue that the hard time that some editors are giving newcomers is a
> bigger problem. Gender is certainly a part of that, and there are many
> other parts.
>
> We meta-wikimedians can find a better way to invite people to events, and
> we can change ourselves. That doesn't sound too hard. Changing the wider
> editor culture is harder.
>
> I heard from people that the problem described is called tokenism
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems

[Peter Southwood]

I think you ask good questions, but some answers are not easy to find.
Cheers,
Peter

-Original Message-
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of 
Amir E. Aharoni
Sent: Monday, May 7, 2018 8:03 AM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems

This is a sensitive topic, and I'm a white man myself, so please slap me if
I say something dumb.

2018-05-07 7:10 GMT+03:00 Romaine Wiki :

>
> What has happened?
>
> She was invited to participate in a Wikimedia activity, because:
> 1. she is a woman
> 2. she is from a minority
> 3. she is from an area in the world with much less editors (compared to
> Europe/US)
>
> and perhaps also because her colour of her skin is a bit different then
> mine (Caucasian).
>
> At the same time she has the impression that the work she does on the
> Wikimedia wiki('s) is not valued, nor taken into account.
>

By whom?

By the people who invited her?

By other participants in the event?

By other editors in the same wiki site?

By the readers?



> She does not want to be invited because she is a woman, nor because she is
> from a minority, nor ... etc. This is offensive.
> She only wants to be invited because of the work she contributes on
> Wikipedia/etc.
>

This makes a lot of sense to me, but that's just me and attitudes are
different for each person.


> Besides the many good initiatives and intentions, this kind of approaches
> to our contributors is demotivating them, please be aware of this.


Again, it's probably demotivating to some. Maybe to 98%, maybe to 30%,
maybe to 5%. I honestly don't know.

I believe demotivation/frustration is the largest problem we face as
> movement.
>

I don't know if its the biggest problem. On this mailing list we are a
small group of meta-active Wikimedians, and we are the minority among
editors. We don't actually represent all the editors. And of course the
editors are a tiny minority compared to the readers.

I'd argue that the hard time that some editors are giving newcomers is a
bigger problem. Gender is certainly a part of that, and there are many
other parts.

We meta-wikimedians can find a better way to invite people to events, and
we can change ourselves. That doesn't sound too hard. Changing the wider
editor culture is harder.

I heard from people that the problem described is called tokenism
> .
>

Yes, that's when representation is given to a weakened group, but that
representation is too weak to be meaningful, and may do more harm than good.


> I believe the only way to close the gaps related to gender, minorities,
> etc, is to create an atmosphere in what everyone is appreciated for what
> she/he is doing, completely unrelated to the gender someone appears to
> have, the ethnicity, race, area of the world, etc etc etc etc.
>

So that's where it gets really complicated, because it's always related, in
ways that are sometimes visible and sometimes invisible.

Let's take school education as a hopefully easy example. People from
different areas of the world will have very different things to write about
it. In some areas of the world everybody gets school education—boys and
girls, rich and poor, rural and urban. In other areas it may be only boys;
or only people in cities; or only people who know a certain language; or
only people who belong to a certain religion; or only people who have a
certain amount of money; or only people who have a certain skin color. I
want articles about education to have contributions from as many people as
possible, from different genders, from different skin colors, and from
different areas, and so on.

An American white woman has different things to say about education from an
American black man. These differences are important and frequently
discussed in American media. But the American white woman and the American
black man *don't even imagine* what people from The Philippines have to say
about education. What people from the Philippines have to say about
education probably has little to do with the internal American debates on
this topic. And of course it breaks down further, because a person who
lives in the capital of Philippines and knows English has different things
to say about education from a person who lives in a village in Philippines
and doesn't know English.

On articles about education I want to hear from all of them. And about
every other topic. (And yes, I want contributions from people who don't
know English in the English Wikipedia. By definition they cannot contribute
directly, but we must do everything we can to make at least an indirect
contribution possible.)

How do we do it right?

How do we get more different people to even try to contribute to articles?
How do we get everybody's contributions to be accepted? (Guess whose
contributions are more likely to be challenged as "non-notable",
"unencyclopedic", or "unreferenced".)

I don't know. Am I ev

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems

[Amir E. Aharoni]

This is a sensitive topic, and I'm a white man myself, so please slap me if
I say something dumb.

2018-05-07 7:10 GMT+03:00 Romaine Wiki :

>
> What has happened?
>
> She was invited to participate in a Wikimedia activity, because:
> 1. she is a woman
> 2. she is from a minority
> 3. she is from an area in the world with much less editors (compared to
> Europe/US)
>
> and perhaps also because her colour of her skin is a bit different then
> mine (Caucasian).
>
> At the same time she has the impression that the work she does on the
> Wikimedia wiki('s) is not valued, nor taken into account.
>

By whom?

By the people who invited her?

By other participants in the event?

By other editors in the same wiki site?

By the readers?



> She does not want to be invited because she is a woman, nor because she is
> from a minority, nor ... etc. This is offensive.
> She only wants to be invited because of the work she contributes on
> Wikipedia/etc.
>

This makes a lot of sense to me, but that's just me and attitudes are
different for each person.


> Besides the many good initiatives and intentions, this kind of approaches
> to our contributors is demotivating them, please be aware of this.


Again, it's probably demotivating to some. Maybe to 98%, maybe to 30%,
maybe to 5%. I honestly don't know.

I believe demotivation/frustration is the largest problem we face as
> movement.
>

I don't know if its the biggest problem. On this mailing list we are a
small group of meta-active Wikimedians, and we are the minority among
editors. We don't actually represent all the editors. And of course the
editors are a tiny minority compared to the readers.

I'd argue that the hard time that some editors are giving newcomers is a
bigger problem. Gender is certainly a part of that, and there are many
other parts.

We meta-wikimedians can find a better way to invite people to events, and
we can change ourselves. That doesn't sound too hard. Changing the wider
editor culture is harder.

I heard from people that the problem described is called tokenism
> .
>

Yes, that's when representation is given to a weakened group, but that
representation is too weak to be meaningful, and may do more harm than good.


> I believe the only way to close the gaps related to gender, minorities,
> etc, is to create an atmosphere in what everyone is appreciated for what
> she/he is doing, completely unrelated to the gender someone appears to
> have, the ethnicity, race, area of the world, etc etc etc etc.
>

So that's where it gets really complicated, because it's always related, in
ways that are sometimes visible and sometimes invisible.

Let's take school education as a hopefully easy example. People from
different areas of the world will have very different things to write about
it. In some areas of the world everybody gets school education—boys and
girls, rich and poor, rural and urban. In other areas it may be only boys;
or only people in cities; or only people who know a certain language; or
only people who belong to a certain religion; or only people who have a
certain amount of money; or only people who have a certain skin color. I
want articles about education to have contributions from as many people as
possible, from different genders, from different skin colors, and from
different areas, and so on.

An American white woman has different things to say about education from an
American black man. These differences are important and frequently
discussed in American media. But the American white woman and the American
black man *don't even imagine* what people from The Philippines have to say
about education. What people from the Philippines have to say about
education probably has little to do with the internal American debates on
this topic. And of course it breaks down further, because a person who
lives in the capital of Philippines and knows English has different things
to say about education from a person who lives in a village in Philippines
and doesn't know English.

On articles about education I want to hear from all of them. And about
every other topic. (And yes, I want contributions from people who don't
know English in the English Wikipedia. By definition they cannot contribute
directly, but we must do everything we can to make at least an indirect
contribution possible.)

How do we do it right?

How do we get more different people to even try to contribute to articles?
How do we get everybody's contributions to be accepted? (Guess whose
contributions are more likely to be challenged as "non-notable",
"unencyclopedic", or "unreferenced".)

I don't know. Am I even asking the right questions?

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https

[Wikimedia-l] Gendergap approach causing problems

[Romaine Wiki]

Hi all,

On Wikipedia and in our movement we are aware of the gendergap that exists
and all kinds of activities are organised to make the gap smaller. I think
this is great as no single gap should exist in collecting all the knowledge
in the world, as well as our movement should be diverse as the world's
population is diverse.

The statistics are clear on this matter, this is something to take care of.
However, a part of the approach is causing problems, because general
statistics should not be applied on individuals as that reduces humans to
numbers only.

The reason why I bring this up is because I recently received an e-mail
from a user in the Wikimedia movement who has (temporarily?) stopped
contributing as she is not happy with a specific aspect of the atmosphere
in Wikimedia.

She does not speak out at loud, but I think we must be aware as movement of
the silent cry, therefore this e-mail to bring awareness (but with respect
for the privacy of this individual).


What has happened?

She was invited to participate in a Wikimedia activity, because:
1. she is a woman
2. she is from a minority
3. she is from an area in the world with much less editors (compared to
Europe/US)

and perhaps also because her colour of her skin is a bit different then
mine (Caucasian).

At the same time she has the impression that the work she does on the
Wikimedia wiki('s) is not valued, nor taken into account.

She does not want to be invited because she is a woman, nor because she is
from a minority, nor ... etc. This is offensive.
She only wants to be invited because of the work she contributes on
Wikipedia/etc.



Besides the many good initiatives and intentions, this kind of approaches
to our contributors is demotivating them, please be aware of this. I
believe demotivation/frustration is the largest problem we face as movement.


I heard from people that the problem described is called tokenism
.


I believe the only way to close the gaps related to gender, minorities,
etc, is to create an atmosphere in what everyone is appreciated for what
she/he is doing, completely unrelated to the gender someone appears to
have, the ethnicity, race, area of the world, etc etc etc etc.

Thank you!

Romaine
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Information on "Multiple failed attempts to log in" emails

[Nathan]

I get hundreds of these a year (my user name, Nathan, seems to be a popular
target). It would nice to be able to use some sort of multi-factor
authentication, which is actually supported by OAUTH. However, it seems
most projects (including en.wp) restrict use to accounts with elevated
rights. Can anyone explain why these tools can't be made more widely
accessible?

On Sun, May 6, 2018 at 1:24 AM Pine W  wrote:

> Thanks, John.
> Fae, I suggest that we let the WMF folks who are working on this issue
> extinguish the current fire before asking them to write a report about a
> previous one.
> I agree that the report about the previous incident is overdue. Perhaps as
> the current situation becomes calmer (updated metrics and news would be
> nice to have on the public Phab tickets) some staff can be moved off of the
> front line and back to the archives.
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> null
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 

[Wikimedia-l] Apa yang membuat anda gembira minggu ini? / What's making you happy this week? (Week of 6 May 2018)

[Pine W]

I was happy to read about the new features in the latest release of the 
Wikimedia Commons app for Android. My understanding is the app is developed and 
maintained by community members with funding from WMF and GSoC in addition to 
volunteer time.


Also, I was happy to see GSoC participants introducing themselves and their 
projects on Wikitech-l.


I am grateful to the WMF staff who are listening and responding civilly to the 
questions and comments on MediaWiki regarding the page previews feature. The 
project plan appears to have been designed thoughtfully.

Finally, I liked reading portions of English Wikipedia's article about CubeSats.


What's making you happy this week? You are welcome to comment in any language.


Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,