from:"Pax Ahimsa Gethen"

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Draft Code of Conduct for Technical Spaces

2017-02-26 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Thank you for sharing that Rachel Nabors post, David; bookmarked. I 
think some on this list are missing the point that codes of conduct are 
necessary to help provide a welcoming and safer environment for 
marginalized people, including the neuroatypical that Tim refers to 
(somewhat disparagingly). It isn't about virtual signaling or earning 
social justice cred; it's about addressing some of the legitimate 
concerns and fears that prevent people including women (of all races), 
people of color (of all genders), LGBT+ people, and others from 
participating fully in spaces and events.


- Pax aka Funcrunch


On 2/26/17 9:53 AM, David Gerard wrote:

On 26 February 2017 at 17:49, Tim Landscheidt  wrote:


Eh, they do and that is one of the reasons to oppose the
Code of Conduct.  Its draft implicitly alleges that the
technical spaces currently are a cesspit that is in urgent
need of someone with a rake while protecting actual offend-
ers by granting immunity to "neuroatypical" behaviour.



This is a pretty reasonable presumption regarding technical spaces: if
you *don't* have a code of conduct, it's a reasonable conclusion from
outside that there will be serious unacknowledged problems.

e.g. "You literally cannot pay me to speak without a Code of Conduct"
http://rachelnabors.com/2015/09/01/code-of-conduct/

This is literally all well-worn discourse territory, but I'm sure if
you both persist you can wear everyone down.


- d.


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's go gender neutral

2017-04-05 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

I definitely support using gender-neutral language wherever possible, 
especially since I'm agender and prefer being addressed with "singular 
they" pronouns. I'll support your proposal on Commons.


- Pax aka Funcrunch


On 4/5/17 5:54 AM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:

Writing should, indeed, be gender-neutral when the gender is not known. But
when the gender is known, it is possible in MediaWiki software to write
messaging according to the indicated gender.

Note that in the English grammar it is needed relatively rarely in the
first place. It is relevant for few things other than "he" and "she".
Latina/Latino has a gender, but it is the exception rather than the norm.
In many, many other languages, it is needed far more frequently: for "you"
("Are you sure?"), for imperative verbs ("Upload a media file"), for all
past tense verbs ("Jenny thanked you for your edit"), and in other cases.
MediaWiki and Facebook are the only pieces of software I know (there may be
others) that support adding masculine, feminine, and unknown-gender forms.
(In case you wondered, the default is "unknown".)

There are some cases when this software feature cannot be used, but very
frequently it can, and should be used.


--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬

2017-04-05 13:52 GMT+03:00 Fæ :


* https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#
Defaulting_to_gender_neutral_language_in_the_Commons_namespace

Hi,

One of the unplanned outcomes from the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin,
was that the various discussions over /feeling/ more welcoming in our
language presumptions for non-male contributors made me think about
taking some practical steps on my home project. Commons is lucky that
having a standard policy language of English makes it easier to use
neutral gender in policy statements. I'm taking that further by
proposing that we stick to a neutral gender for all our policies and
help pages. In practice this means that policies avoid using "he or
she" and stick to "they" or avoid using a pronoun at all. I'm hoping
that the outcome will feel like a much more natural space for people
like me that prefer to stay gender neutral, possibly give a slightly
safer feeling to the project by the very act of making the effort, as
well as avoiding an over-emphasis on binary gender when it's pretty
easy to simply avoid it.

Comments are welcome on the specific proposal above, or you may have
ideas for other local projects to do something similar. I'm aware that
this is much more difficult to make progress on in languages such as
German or Spanish that have a presumption of male/female gender within
their vocabulary, so any cases of on-project initiatives in
non-English would be especially interesting. Solving these challenges
is an opportunity to make our projects a leader on gender neutrality,
for example getting a Wikimedia based consensus to adopt terms like
"Latinx".[1]

Links:
1. "Latinx" is a reaction against using gendered forms Latino and
Latina, in a language that has no neutral gender. This is becoming an
accepted practice in related forums and academic publications.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-people-are-using-
the-term-latinx_us_57753328e4b0cc0fa136a159

Thanks,
Fae
Wikimedia LGBT+ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT/Portal
--
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae


--
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Let's go gender neutral

2017-04-06 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

I support rewriting sentences rather than using "singular they" if it's 
straightforward enough to do so, as in Gerard's example. But yes, there 
are people, including myself, who are neither men nor women, and using 
gendered language like "he or she" leaves us out.


And yes, in English "you" is used to address both an individual and a 
group, though in the latter case often a clarification such as "you all" 
is added. We no longer use "thee" and "thou", so language usage does adapt.


- Pax aka Funcrunch


On 4/6/17 9:51 AM, Marco Chiesa wrote:

I kinda second this, as a non native speaker the singular they sounds
awkward/confusing/wrong/whatever. Maybe something like "the person's"
(I hope everyone would self-recognize in this), "one's own", no
adjective at all. It's a bit hard for me to understand that some
person does not self recognize in either "he" or "she", but in the end
it's always good to learn something new, and if something can be done
to make everyone feel welcome, let's try it.
By the way, I guess a few centuries ago the "singular you" would have
sounded strange as well...

Marco

On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 6:04 PM, Gerard Meijssen
 wrote:

Hoi,
As a non native English speaker, I positively hate this. When you want to
say that a picture of a photographer whatever, you do not have to say "his
or her", it suffices to say "when a picture of a photographer is to be
used, prior permission has to be asked" or whatever.

Yes, it may please you but this practise is not taught in schools and given
the size of the non-native community ... don't do this
Thanks,
 GerardM



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [PRESS] Turkish authorities block Wikipedia

2017-04-29 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

d https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Wikimedia-l
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] What's making you happy this week? (Week of 25 June 2017)

2017-06-26 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

What's making me happy: I'm giving a talk about transgender issues at 
the Wikimedia Foundation offices in San Francisco tomorrow (June 27):


https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_QueERG/LGBTQ%2B_Speaker_Series 



The talk will be livestreamed (1:30 p.m. PDT) and archived for later 
viewing.


- Pax aka Funcrunch

(Apologies if this is a duplicate; I made a typo in the "From" address 
the first time)



On 6/26/17 8:18 PM, Pine W wrote:

I like a tool for Wikidata that Hay created which is called VizQuery. More
information about it is below.

What's making you happy this week?

Pine

-- Forwarded message --
From: Hay (Husky) 
Date: Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 4:10 PM
Subject: [Wikidata] A visual way to query Wikidata
To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." <
wikid...@lists.wikimedia.org>


Hey everyone,
i've made a tool that allows you to query Wikidata in a visual way
without using SPARQL. It's called VizQuery:

http://tools.wmflabs.org/hay/vizquery/

The possibilities of using Wikidata to do interesting queries are
endless, and the current query service allows for very powerful
queries indeed. However, i feel that for the general public,
especially those who are not that technical, it might be a bit
overwhelming and difficult for them to learn a complex language such
as SPARQL. To make people familiar with the concept of queries i
believe a somewhat less intimidating approach might be useful, hence
this tool.

VizQuery is only capable of doing a subset of possible queries. It's
basically simple triples, variables (prefixed with '?') and literals
(between "quotes"). You can do pretty powerful queries with only those
things though. For example, here's a query with vegetarians who are
married to a vegetarian:

http://bit.ly/2sydpmW

Under the hood VizQuery uses Ruben Verborgh's SPARQL.js library to
convert between JSON and SPARQL, so theoretically every SPARQL query
you could do in the regular query service can be done in VizQuery.
However, many queries won't work because the visual interface only
supports a subset of options: it's pretty hard to create user-friendly
GUI representations of many of the complex SPARQL features. :)

Anyway, i'd like to hear what you think. Bugs, feature request and
pull requests are also welcome on my Github page:
https://github.com/hay/wiki-tools

Kind regards,
-- Hay



--
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they/them/their


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[Wikimedia-l] Of Wikipedia, fonts, and Pakistan

2017-07-12 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Today's article in the Guardian [1] is one of many on "Fontgate", 
regarding the date Microsoft's "Calibri" font [2]  became available and 
its relevance to allegations of corruption in Pakistan. The author of 
the article doesn't seem aware that the "company" Wikipedia doesn't 
decide when pages are protected, nor under what circumstances protection 
is applied.


[1] 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/13/fontgate-microsoft-wikipedia-and-the-scandal-threatening-the-pakistani-pm


[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibri

- Pax aka Funcrunch

--
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they/them/their


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New style banner - A heads up

2017-08-23 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen


On 8/23/17 2:33 PM, Michael Peel wrote:

On 23 Aug 2017, at 13:36, Shlomi Fish  wrote:

Hi all,

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 11:51:02 -0400
"Brad Jorsch (Anomie)" mailto:bjor...@wikimedia.org>> 
wrote:


On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 11:01 AM, Joseph Seddon 
wrote:


New Native feel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1718_
0823_en6C_dsk_p1_lg_dsn_native&force=1&country=US&uselang=QA


Personally, I really dislike banners that try to pretend to be content.
This one makes it look like the page is an article titled "To all our
readers in the U.S." rather than a page with a banner on it.


to me the new banner looks more attractive, less intrusive and cleaner, but I
agree with Brad's sentiment that it looks too much like the main page's
content. Just my 20 agoroth.

+1. At the least it needs some sort of a border around it to separate it from 
the article text, so it doesn't look like an article section at first glance.

Thanks,
Mike
+1 here as well. Some sort of clear separating border or shading to 
distinguish the banner from the article content is needed.


- Pax aka Funcrunch

--
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they/them/their


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Women in red

2017-10-16 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

The people whose opinion should most matter in determining whether a 
comment is sexist are women. Not men, and not non-binary transmasculine 
people like myself.


I support and echo Emily and Molly's earlier comments on this thread:


Also, in case it's not clear from my forwarding of Emily's/Keilana's
message, I endorse it completely and am glad she made her points.

I agree fully with Keegan and Sydney. I don't think the concerns that this
will be overtaken by bots are well-founded; that was planned for in the
document outlining the competition, and editors involved in this project
will be subject to all expectations of normal editors (including not
mass-producing poor-quality content).

As for Keegan's original post, there is a major difference between
describing an email as sexist versus labeling the sender as a sexist. I
believe Keegan meant the former, and I'm not sure anything he's said can be
described as an attack on the sender so much as a valid criticism of poor
wording.

– Molly (GorillaWarfare)

On Sun, Oct 15, 2017 at 11:44 PM, GorillaWarfare  wrote:

Emily (User:Keilana) is having some trouble getting mails through to this
list, so I'm forwarding this on her behalf in case it's an issue with her
email address.

"This is some sexist bullshit. You really think we can't handle some
stubs? And do you really, really think that people won't try to AFD
everything that comes out of this contest as it is?

I'm sick and tired of this idea that we have to hold shit about women to a
higher standard than literally anything else. The encyclopedia isn't going
to break because, god forbid, some inexperienced newbies write a bunch of
stubs.

And so what if people think we're paying lip service to women? It's better
than being seen as being actively hostile to women, which, as I shouldn't
have to remind you, is our reputation as it currently stands."

– Molly (GorillaWarfare)


- Pax aka Funcrunch


On 10/16/17 10:11 AM, Todd Allen wrote:

Is that still going on?

I'm against sexism and all for improving coverage of women on Wikipedia.
I've helped to encourage events toward that end, and they've turned out
pretty well. We now have quite a few more articles, for example, on women
involved as pioneers in outdoor sports and activities because of them.

But I'm unsure how asking the question "Is it wise to offer money in
exchange for creating large numbers of articles without consideration of
quality?" or "Will this effort have the intended result?" is sexist. The
same question would apply if the proposed articles were about Russian
literature or asteroids. It is not sexist to ask the question just because
of what the subject happens to be.

I think that needs to be discussed, not sidetracked by calling people
sexists. If people really were making sexist statements, I'd be all for
shutting that crap down. But I've seen not one such statement in this
thread.

Todd

On Oct 16, 2017 10:28 AM, "Robert Fernandez"  wrote:


So those who call out sexism are the real sexists, amirite?

I am fed up with this double standard in the way we talk about these
issues.  Some people are allowed to make broad, unsupported, sweeping
generalizations about the motives and actions of others and that's
considered just fine, but if you call them out in even the gentlest tones
it's treated as some horrific personal attack, and censure and apologies
are demanded.  We've culturally internalized sexism so much that even the
way we talk about sexism is sexist.

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 11:28 AM, Vi to  wrote:


But just a note: using the same behavior of phenomena you're trying to
contast is, per se, a clear defeat.
To be more clear, blind -because you obviously don't know *nothing* about
their backgrounds- vilification of other's opinions is, incidentally, one
the of the main instruments of "cultural" sexism.


--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | p...@funcrunch.org | http://funcrunch.org | Pronouns: 
they/them/their


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[Wikimedia-l] Harassment and blaming the victim

2016-06-04 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Hi all, I'm Pax aka Funcrunch [1]. I've been a Wikipedian since 2008, 
but this is my first post to this mailing list. (I've been reading list 
messages on the archives page occasionally for the last several months.)


I'm writing because of a concern I have about the community's attitude 
toward harassment on Wikipedia. I got a Wikinotice about this month's 
Inspire Campaign, which specifically asks: "What ideas do you have that 
can help prevent and generally address cases of harassment?" [2] As a 
victim of several of the harassing behaviors mentioned as examples - " 
name calling, threats, discrimination, stalking, and impersonation" - I 
was encouraged to see that this problem was (hopefully) being taken 
seriously by the Foundation, and submitted a proposal.


Looking at the other proposals submitted, I soon noticed that the most 
popular "ideas" on the list included complaints of "political 
correctness" and suggesting we shouldn't be so sensitive [3], and that 
we should just get some sleep and exercise and reconsider why we're so 
offended. [4] (That first "idea" has since been recategorized by a WMF 
staffer to remove it from the current campaign.)


It really bothers me that a campaign specifically designed to combat 
harassment - which is a very serious and real problem for people of 
marginalized identities like myself [5]- is being co-opted by people 
saying things like " Harassment doesn't cause actual damage," " The 
existence of harassment is an opportunity to improve ourselves further 
through self-discipline," and " Harassment on Wikimedia has been 
exaggerated." I suggest that people who honestly believe this, but are 
willing to accept that they might be wrong, read a recent essay about 
online harassment by Anil Dash: "The Immortal Myths About Online Abuse." [6]


I'm not "looking to be offended," and I'm not trying to "censor" people 
who simply disagree with me. I'm trying to help build an encyclopedia, 
without being harassed by block-evading stalkers hurling hate speech my 
way. The existing tools and policies are *not* sufficient to deal with 
this. That's (what I thought was) the point of this Inspire campaign, 
not complaining about censorship and " crybullying."


I've posted a much shorter version of this concern on the Inspire 
Campaign talk page [7], so feel free to weigh in there instead of here 
on the list if that's more appropriate. Thank you for reading.


- Pax, aka Funcrunch


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Funcrunch
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire
[3] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Stop_%22Political_Correctness%22_as_gauge!

[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Don't_feed_the_trolls
[5] Queer, trans, and black, in my case.
[6] 
https://medium.com/humane-tech/the-immortal-myths-about-online-abuse-a156e3370aee
[7] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:IdeaLab/Inspire/Meta#Blaming_the_victim


--
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Harassment and blaming the victim

2016-06-05 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

I am defining harassment primarily as personal attacks, not merely 
disputes (even strongly-worded disagreement) over content.


Some examples of what I consider harassment:

- Vandalizing an editor's user or talk page (hence my Inspire proposal: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Protect_user_space_by_default)


- Making derogatory comments about an editor's gender, sex, race, 
ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, or (dis)ability


- Posting personal information about an editor that was gathered off-Wiki

- Evading bans with IP-hopping to do any of the above.

These actions not only cause "net harm to community health," they cause 
unnecessary, avoidable harm to specific individuals, and discourage 
marginalized people from participating in the project.


- Pax


On 6/5/16 5:09 AM, Pine W wrote:

Hi Pax,

I agree that blaming the victim is an unsatisfactory resolution.

On the other hand, defining what is meant by "incivility" and "harassment"
can be very tricky. Just because there is a strong disagreement doesn't
imply that people are being uncivil, and we cannot expect that no one will
ever lose his or her temper when provoked. Similarly, a pattern of
disagreement doesn't necessarily imply harassment, and the presumption of
good faith is rebuttable which means that questioning the motives of others
is occasionally OK.

So, as Sumana once said, we have a tricky situation with regards to
balancing free speech with hospitality.

I think there are situations in which behavior is egregious enough that it
is a net harm to community health and cannot be excused. For example,
comments that demean someone on the basis of race, gender, age,
nationality, or religious or political beliefs, are generally out of bounds.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about how we should define
harassment, and how we should seek to reduce the frequency of it on
Wikimedia sites.

Thank you for speaking up.

Pine
On Jun 4, 2016 19:15, "Pax Ahimsa Gethen" 
wrote:


Hi all, I'm Pax aka Funcrunch [1]. I've been a Wikipedian since 2008, but
this is my first post to this mailing list. (I've been reading list
messages on the archives page occasionally for the last several months.)

I'm writing because of a concern I have about the community's attitude
toward harassment on Wikipedia. I got a Wikinotice about this month's
Inspire Campaign, which specifically asks: "What ideas do you have that can
help prevent and generally address cases of harassment?" [2] As a victim of
several of the harassing behaviors mentioned as examples - " name calling,
threats, discrimination, stalking, and impersonation" - I was encouraged to
see that this problem was (hopefully) being taken seriously by the
Foundation, and submitted a proposal.

Looking at the other proposals submitted, I soon noticed that the most
popular "ideas" on the list included complaints of "political correctness"
and suggesting we shouldn't be so sensitive [3], and that we should just
get some sleep and exercise and reconsider why we're so offended. [4] (That
first "idea" has since been recategorized by a WMF staffer to remove it
from the current campaign.)

It really bothers me that a campaign specifically designed to combat
harassment - which is a very serious and real problem for people of
marginalized identities like myself [5]- is being co-opted by people saying
things like " Harassment doesn't cause actual damage," " The existence of
harassment is an opportunity to improve ourselves further through
self-discipline," and " Harassment on Wikimedia has been exaggerated." I
suggest that people who honestly believe this, but are willing to accept
that they might be wrong, read a recent essay about online harassment by
Anil Dash: "The Immortal Myths About Online Abuse." [6]

I'm not "looking to be offended," and I'm not trying to "censor" people
who simply disagree with me. I'm trying to help build an encyclopedia,
without being harassed by block-evading stalkers hurling hate speech my
way. The existing tools and policies are *not* sufficient to deal with
this. That's (what I thought was) the point of this Inspire campaign, not
complaining about censorship and " crybullying."

I've posted a much shorter version of this concern on the Inspire Campaign
talk page [7], so feel free to weigh in there instead of here on the list
if that's more appropriate. Thank you for reading.

- Pax, aka Funcrunch


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Funcrunch
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Stop_%22Political_Correctness%22_as_gauge
!
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Don't_feed_the_trolls
[5] Queer, trans,

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Harassment and blaming the victim

2016-06-06 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Thank you, Sydney/FloNight. More outspoken editors with attitudes like 
yours would help make Wikipedia in general and the Inspire Campaign in 
specific a safer and more welcoming space for editors from diverse 
backgrounds.


- Pax


On 6/6/16 3:10 PM, Sydney Poore wrote:

Thank you, Pax/Funcrunch, for bringing this topic to the broad wikimedia
community. I'm sorry that you've had a bad experience contributing to
Wikipedia. And I'm glad that you are staying around to add and improve
content, and also to offer your ideas about how to address harassment.

I appreciate that the WMF staff is working on keeping the Inspire Campaign
pages a safe and friendly place to contribute ideas. I hope that some
people with admin, oversight, and checkuser privileges on meta are helping
out, too, because it will be better if it is a shared job.

I too am disappointed that so many of the options getting broad support are
suggesting that the target of harassment needs to be fixed or that they
should leave or reduce their participation in the wikimedia movement in
order to reduce disruption on wiki.

I know that there are many oversighter, checkusers, and stewards all across
the movement who are working hard to fight disruption from trolls and
harassers. But right now we are stuck without outdated tools and processes
to combat harassment.

I know that if we put our minds to finding better solutions, we will! :-)

I look forward to reading more ideas!
Warm regards,
Sydney







Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wiki Project Med Foundation
WikiWomen's User Group
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sydney.e.poore


On Sat, Jun 4, 2016 at 9:56 PM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen <
list-wikime...@funcrunch.org> wrote:


Hi all, I'm Pax aka Funcrunch [1]. I've been a Wikipedian since 2008, but
this is my first post to this mailing list. (I've been reading list
messages on the archives page occasionally for the last several months.)

I'm writing because of a concern I have about the community's attitude
toward harassment on Wikipedia. I got a Wikinotice about this month's
Inspire Campaign, which specifically asks: "What ideas do you have that can
help prevent and generally address cases of harassment?" [2] As a victim of
several of the harassing behaviors mentioned as examples - " name calling,
threats, discrimination, stalking, and impersonation" - I was encouraged to
see that this problem was (hopefully) being taken seriously by the
Foundation, and submitted a proposal.

Looking at the other proposals submitted, I soon noticed that the most
popular "ideas" on the list included complaints of "political correctness"
and suggesting we shouldn't be so sensitive [3], and that we should just
get some sleep and exercise and reconsider why we're so offended. [4] (That
first "idea" has since been recategorized by a WMF staffer to remove it
from the current campaign.)

It really bothers me that a campaign specifically designed to combat
harassment - which is a very serious and real problem for people of
marginalized identities like myself [5]- is being co-opted by people saying
things like " Harassment doesn't cause actual damage," " The existence of
harassment is an opportunity to improve ourselves further through
self-discipline," and " Harassment on Wikimedia has been exaggerated." I
suggest that people who honestly believe this, but are willing to accept
that they might be wrong, read a recent essay about online harassment by
Anil Dash: "The Immortal Myths About Online Abuse." [6]

I'm not "looking to be offended," and I'm not trying to "censor" people
who simply disagree with me. I'm trying to help build an encyclopedia,
without being harassed by block-evading stalkers hurling hate speech my
way. The existing tools and policies are *not* sufficient to deal with
this. That's (what I thought was) the point of this Inspire campaign, not
complaining about censorship and " crybullying."

I've posted a much shorter version of this concern on the Inspire Campaign
talk page [7], so feel free to weigh in there instead of here on the list
if that's more appropriate. Thank you for reading.

- Pax, aka Funcrunch


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Funcrunch
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Stop_%22Political_Correctness%22_as_gauge
!
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Don't_feed_the_trolls
[5] Queer, trans, and black, in my case.
[6]
https://medium.com/humane-tech/the-immortal-myths-about-online-abuse-a156e3370aee
[7]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:IdeaLab/Inspire/Meta#Blaming_the_victim

--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | p...@funcrunch.org | http://funcrunch.org





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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

2016-06-27 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Without weighing in on the specific's of Mitar's case, I think this is a 
good suggestion. I created my first Wikipedia article in 2009, after I'd 
been registered on the site for a few months but only had a few edits to 
my name. My article was on a living musician/composer, and was, 
rightfully I think, tagged for notability. It wasn't deleted though (I 
did improve it with more sources), and that article is still up today.


Regardless, it would have been good for me to get more experience by 
improving other articles before creating one myself. Even now, seven 
years later, I don't create many new articles, preferring to work on 
existing ones. Whenever I do create a new article, I always work up a 
solid version, with good sources, in my userspace first.


- Pax, aka Funcrunch


On 6/27/16 12:40 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
Or may be just to emphasize again David's point. Every new editor 
starting an article about a living person or an existing organization 
with a not-so-obvious notability is always suspected of promotional 
(payed of fan-like) editing. Always. And promotional editing is always 
a red tape.


As a new editor, do not start with articles which can be thought of as 
promotional. Write about history, localities, natural history, improve 
existing articles. Establish your name on the project. Become an 
autopatrolled. Then it is much safer to go to the areas attractive for 
promotional editors.


This is not how it should be, but how it is. This is so far our only 
response to promotional editing.


Cheers
Yaroslav



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An example where search could be improved

2016-07-28 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

One risk of using Google to search Wikipedia is getting bad results. For 
several weeks, a Google search for "gender" returned a disruptive 
edit[1] that replaced the entire article with " There are only 2 
genders. Male and Female." That edit, from May of this year, was only 
live for a few minutes, but got cached in Google somehow, resulting in 
this (mis)information being prominently displayed near the top of the 
search results. Only recently has a search on that term begun returning 
the updated page (which is now semi-protected through June 2017 due to 
excessive vandalism.)


- Pax

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender&oldid=722247975

--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | http://funcrunch.org


On 7/28/16 5:37 AM, Andrew Lih wrote:

We recently had a thread in the Wikipedia Weekly Facebook group, where we
pretty much concluded the reason why we don’t have word in English for
“looked it up in Wikipedia” is because that word is “Googled it.” :)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/1050447111669786/

-Andrew



On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 8:09 AM, Jimmy Wales 
wrote:


First, some context:

I was in Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention earlier
this week, where I had been invited to speak (in a small side event)
about connectivity and global development.  I spoke about our work in
the languages of the developing world, and made a point to say that bad
laws in the developed world which might hurt our work can be damaging
for the development of the Internet in the rest of the world and urged
lawmakers to not just think of various Internet legal questions as being
"Silicon Valley versus Hollywood" but to understand that they impact how
our volunteer community and many other ordinary people online.

Second, the story:

The main conference was held in the [[Wells Fargo Center
(Philadelphia)]], an indoor arena where basketball and hockey teams play
normally.

A journalist friend said to me that he "finally found something that
Wikipedia doesn't have" and he was surprised.  What was that, I said?
"The history of Wells Fargo".  What?!!  Really?!! That seemed impossible
to me.  He said we have an article about Wells Fargo that seems to be
mostly about the contemporary bank, and when you search for Wells Fargo
history there's also an article about the Wells Fargo History Museum.

I popped on my phone and used my own personal preferred method of
finding things in Wikipedia: Google.  I typed in "Wells Fargo history"
and sure enough, the first two links are history pages from their
official websites and the third link is Wikipedia - a normal state of
affairs.  He started to apologize for raising a false alarm

I asked him for more details on exactly how he searched, and explained
that I regard it to be very sad if some volunteers spend hundreds of
hours working on an article, painstakingly going over tons of details in
an effort to get it right, and then someone couldn't find it.

Here's what he did - and I replicated the steps and all was clear.

Go to http://www.wikipedia.org/

Make sure the dropdown in the search box is set to 'EN' - which it would
have been for him.

Start typing 'Wells Fargo history' and watch as the dropdown selections
narrow.  You'll have the experience that he had - you'll see the bank
article prominently featured and then various buildings (they have a
habit of sponsoring sports arenas in various US cities) and finally as
you start typing history it focuses in on the History Museum.

If you don't choose any of those, then hit enter, you'll get to the
search results page.  This is the one with a huge box of options at the
top (which will be confusing and frightening to people who aren't
already wikipedians) and then by my count the desired article is 13th on
the page: [[History of Wells Fargo]].

Now, I strongly suspect this could be fixed by making a redirect from
[[Wells Fargo history]] to [[History of Wells Fargo]].

Or a more serious fix could be had if the search engine understood that
very very often in English [[X of Y]] can be written [[Y X]].  ([[List
of French monarchs]] becomes [[French monarchs list]], see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=french+monarchs+list
where the desired article is in 10th place.

But my point is not to argue for any specific fix.  My point is to
illustrate that there is a real problem with search, that it is
impacting users, and that we should invest in fixing it.

--Jimbo





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[Wikimedia-l] Google returning outdated text snippet

2016-08-07 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

In a recent thread about improving search, I posted a comment about a 
possible hazard of relying on Google to search Wikipedia.[1] I explained 
that Google had been displaying a text snippet from an outdated, 
disruptive revision of the Gender page.[2] Well, that error has now 
resurfaced, and at an editor's suggestion I posted to the Village Pump 
about it.[3] The initial response at VP was essentially "not our 
problem; go away" which was not exactly encouraging.


I'm sorry but if a major search engine is erroneously telling people 
that Wikipedia is stating " There are only 2 genders. Male and Female", 
that is a cause of concern for me, and I want to know if or how this 
problem can be fixed. As I explained on the talk page and in the Village 
Pump, Google's cache of the actual page is up to date; it's just the 
snippet that is wrong.


- Pax

[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-July/084890.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender&oldid=722247975

[3] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Google_returning_outdated_text_snippet_for_Gender_page


--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | http://funcrunch.org


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Google returning outdated text snippet

2016-08-07 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

I did already contact Google about this issue, but I will try again. As 
I mentioned though, their cache of the Gender page is up to date (August 
1); it's just the text snippet preview (from May 26) that is wrong. And 
this problem was previously corrected (after I first contacted Google) 
before resurfacing, so this strikes me as a strange issue.


- Pax


On 8/7/16 5:34 PM, Risker wrote:

Actually, the best way to get this addressed is to email Google. Best to
use the search result that you have concerns about, then go to the bottom
of the page, click "Send Feedback" and complete the form.

This is not, at its root, a Wikipedia problem.  Google has bots scanning
our articles on a near-constant basis, as well, but they don't scan
everything in real time.  I have seen very good results using this process,
often within the hour.

Risker

On 7 August 2016 at 20:24, Pine W  wrote:


Hi Pax,

I believe that WMF Discovery is the team that is best suited to address
matters like this, so I am forwarding your email to the Discovery mailing
list.

Pine

On Aug 7, 2016 16:46, "Pax Ahimsa Gethen" 
wrote:


In a recent thread about improving search, I posted a comment about a
possible hazard of relying on Google to search Wikipedia.[1] I explained
that Google had been displaying a text snippet from an outdated,

disruptive

revision of the Gender page.[2] Well, that error has now resurfaced, and

at

an editor's suggestion I posted to the Village Pump about it.[3] The
initial response at VP was essentially "not our problem; go away" which

was

not exactly encouraging.

I'm sorry but if a major search engine is erroneously telling people that
Wikipedia is stating " There are only 2 genders. Male and Female", that

is

a cause of concern for me, and I want to know if or how this problem can

be

fixed. As I explained on the talk page and in the Village Pump, Google's
cache of the actual page is up to date; it's just the snippet that is

wrong.

- Pax

[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-July/
084890.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender&oldid=722247975

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(techni
cal)#Google_returning_outdated_text_snippet_for_Gender_page



--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | http://funcrunch.org


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Google returning outdated text snippet

2016-08-13 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Any news from Google? As I mentioned in an earlier thread reply,
Google's cache for the Gender page was up to date, showing an August 1
revision; it was just the text snippet that was outdated. However, since
yesterday, the cache as well as the snippet is now returning the
vandalized May 26 revision of the page. Multiple editors (including
myself) have contacted Google to attempt to remove the incorrect
information; this issue is still being actively discussed at the Village
Pump:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Google_returning_outdated_text_snippet_for_Gender_page

- Pax

On 8/8/16 10:24 AM, Dan Garry wrote:

Hello!

Wes has reached out to Google so that we can talk to them about the general
issue of out-of-date search results and snippets.

In the mean time, Risker is correct. Google crawls our sites at its own
pace, so we don't control anything directly. Reaching out to them is the
easiest and quickest way to get these kinds of issues fixed; in my personal
experience doing this, they're pretty fast at fixing these kinds of issues.

Thanks,
Dan

On 7 August 2016 at 17:34, Risker wrote:

Actually, the best way to get this addressed is to email Google. Best to
use the search result that you have concerns about, then go to the bottom
of the page, click "Send Feedback" and complete the form.

This is not, at its root, a Wikipedia problem. Google has bots scanning
our articles on a near-constant basis, as well, but they don't scan
everything in real time. I have seen very good results using this process,
often within the hour.

Risker

On 7 August 2016 at 20:24, Pine W wrote:

Hi Pax,

I believe that WMF Discovery is the team that is best suited to address
matters like this, so I am forwarding your email to the Discovery mailing
list.

Pine

On Aug 7, 2016 16:46, "Pax Ahimsa Gethen"
wrote:

In a recent thread about improving search, I posted a comment about a
possible hazard of relying on Google to search Wikipedia.[1] I

explained

that Google had been displaying a text snippet from an outdated,

disruptive

revision of the Gender page.[2] Well, that error has now resurfaced,

and

an editor's suggestion I posted to the Village Pump about it.[3] The
initial response at VP was essentially "not our problem; go away" which

was

not exactly encouraging.

I'm sorry but if a major search engine is erroneously telling people

that

Wikipedia is stating " There are only 2 genders. Male and Female", that

a cause of concern for me, and I want to know if or how this problem

can

fixed. As I explained on the talk page and in the Village Pump,

Google's

cache of the actual page is up to date; it's just the snippet that is

wrong.

- Pax

[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-July/
084890.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender&oldid=722247975

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(techni
cal)#Google_returning_outdated_text_snippet_for_Gender_page

--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | http://funcrunch.org

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Google returning outdated text snippet

2016-08-13 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Update: The Google search results and cached page for Gender are now
correct. I'll be keeping an eye on this search, as this problem was
previously resolved and then reoccurred (as I mentioned at the start of
this thread).

- Pax

On 8/13/16 7:39 AM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen wrote:
Any news from Google? As I mentioned in an earlier thread reply,
Google's cache for the Gender page was up to date, showing an August 1
revision; it was just the text snippet that was outdated. However,
since yesterday, the cache as well as the snippet is now returning the
vandalized May 26 revision of the page. Multiple editors (including
myself) have contacted Google to attempt to remove the incorrect
information; this issue is still being actively discussed at the
Village Pump:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Google_returning_outdated_text_snippet_for_Gender_page

- Pax

On 8/8/16 10:24 AM, Dan Garry wrote:

Hello!

Wes has reached out to Google so that we can talk to them about the
general

issue of out-of-date search results and snippets.

In the mean time, Risker is correct. Google crawls our sites at its own
pace, so we don't control anything directly. Reaching out to them is the
easiest and quickest way to get these kinds of issues fixed; in my
personal
experience doing this, they're pretty fast at fixing these kinds of
issues.

Thanks,
Dan

On 7 August 2016 at 17:34, Risker wrote:

Actually, the best way to get this addressed is to email Google.
Best to
use the search result that you have concerns about, then go to the
bottom

of the page, click "Send Feedback" and complete the form.

This is not, at its root, a Wikipedia problem. Google has bots
scanning

our articles on a near-constant basis, as well, but they don't scan
everything in real time. I have seen very good results using this
process,

often within the hour.

Risker

On 7 August 2016 at 20:24, Pine W wrote:

Hi Pax,

I believe that WMF Discovery is the team that is best suited to
address
matters like this, so I am forwarding your email to the Discovery
mailing

list.

Pine

On Aug 7, 2016 16:46, "Pax Ahimsa Gethen"

wrote:

In a recent thread about improving search, I posted a comment about a
possible hazard of relying on Google to search Wikipedia.[1] I

explained

that Google had been displaying a text snippet from an outdated,

disruptive

revision of the Gender page.[2] Well, that error has now resurfaced,

and

an editor's suggestion I posted to the Village Pump about it.[3] The
initial response at VP was essentially "not our problem; go away"
which

was

not exactly encouraging.

I'm sorry but if a major search engine is erroneously telling people

that
Wikipedia is stating " There are only 2 genders. Male and Female",
that

a cause of concern for me, and I want to know if or how this problem

can

fixed. As I explained on the talk page and in the Village Pump,

Google's

cache of the actual page is up to date; it's just the snippet that is

wrong.

- Pax

[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-July/
084890.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender&oldid=722247975

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(techni
cal)#Google_returning_outdated_text_snippet_for_Gender_page

--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | p...@funcrunch.org | http://funcrunch.org

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Google returning outdated text snippet

2016-08-18 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

As I feared, the problem has returned. When searching Google for
"gender" this morning, the text snippet showed the vandalized revision
from May 26, which was revdeleted on August 12. Google's cache of the
page is from August 13, so that's up to date.

I am seriously wondering now if someone is manipulating the search
results somehow. I have posted an update to the thread on the Village
Pump:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Google_returning_outdated_text_snippet_for_Gender_page

- Pax

On 8/13/16 2:06 PM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen wrote:
Update: The Google search results and cached page for Gender are now
correct. I'll be keeping an eye on this search, as this problem was
previously resolved and then reoccurred (as I mentioned at the start
of this thread).

- Pax

On 8/13/16 7:39 AM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen wrote:
Any news from Google? As I mentioned in an earlier thread reply,
Google's cache for the Gender page was up to date, showing an August
1 revision; it was just the text snippet that was outdated. However,
since yesterday, the cache as well as the snippet is now returning
the vandalized May 26 revision of the page. Multiple editors
(including myself) have contacted Google to attempt to remove the
incorrect information; this issue is still being actively discussed
at the Village Pump:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Google_returning_outdated_text_snippet_for_Gender_page

- Pax

On 8/8/16 10:24 AM, Dan Garry wrote:

Hello!

Wes has reached out to Google so that we can talk to them about the
general

issue of out-of-date search results and snippets.

In the mean time, Risker is correct. Google crawls our sites at its own
pace, so we don't control anything directly. Reaching out to them is
the
easiest and quickest way to get these kinds of issues fixed; in my
personal
experience doing this, they're pretty fast at fixing these kinds of
issues.

Thanks,
Dan

On 7 August 2016 at 17:34, Risker wrote:

Actually, the best way to get this addressed is to email Google.
Best to
use the search result that you have concerns about, then go to the
bottom

of the page, click "Send Feedback" and complete the form.

This is not, at its root, a Wikipedia problem. Google has bots
scanning

our articles on a near-constant basis, as well, but they don't scan
everything in real time. I have seen very good results using this
process,

often within the hour.

Risker

On 7 August 2016 at 20:24, Pine W wrote:

Hi Pax,

I believe that WMF Discovery is the team that is best suited to
address
matters like this, so I am forwarding your email to the Discovery
mailing

list.

Pine

On Aug 7, 2016 16:46, "Pax Ahimsa Gethen"

wrote:

In a recent thread about improving search, I posted a comment
about a

possible hazard of relying on Google to search Wikipedia.[1] I

explained

that Google had been displaying a text snippet from an outdated,

disruptive

revision of the Gender page.[2] Well, that error has now resurfaced,

and

an editor's suggestion I posted to the Village Pump about it.[3] The
initial response at VP was essentially "not our problem; go away"
which

was

not exactly encouraging.

I'm sorry but if a major search engine is erroneously telling people

that
Wikipedia is stating " There are only 2 genders. Male and
Female", that

a cause of concern for me, and I want to know if or how this problem

can

fixed. As I explained on the talk page and in the Village Pump,

Google's
cache of the actual page is up to date; it's just the snippet
that is

wrong.

- Pax

[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-July/
084890.html

[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender&oldid=722247975

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(techni
cal)#Google_returning_outdated_text_snippet_for_Gender_page

--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | p...@funcrunch.org | http://funcrunch.org

[Wikimedia-l] LGBT+ safety considerations for conference venues

2016-10-16 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Hello all. I had a positive experience at WikiConference North America 
last weekend, where I gave a talk on transgender issues and 
Wikipedia.[1] I'm posting because there's an active discussion in 
Wikipedia Weekly on Facebook about choosing a host country for Wikimania 
2018.[2] I am concerned that some of the suggestions are not taking into 
account the safety of LGBT+ people; not just those attending the 
conference, but also those living in the host country.


As a queer trans atheist in a same-sex marriage, there are a number of 
places where I am considered a criminal for just existing or going about 
my daily routine. This applies to some parts of the U.S. as well, by the 
way; I won't be visiting North Carolina as long as it's illegal for me 
to use the men's restroom there. Please keep these considerations in 
mind when planning meetups and conferences. Thank you.


- Pax aka Funcrunch

[1] 
http://funcrunch.org/blog/2016/10/12/making-connections-at-wikiconference-north-america/


[2] 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/1114259788621851/


--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | http://funcrunch.org


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] LGBT+ safety considerations for conference venues

2016-10-16 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Thanks Anna. I forgot to include this relevant link (which I also posted 
in the Facebook discussion):


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory

- Pax


On 10/16/16 10:14 AM, Anna Stillwell wrote:

These are lovely suggestions / requests. Thank you for raising them. I'm
happy to hear of your positive experience at WikiConference.

+1
/a

On Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 8:10 AM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen <
list-wikime...@funcrunch.org> wrote:


Hello all. I had a positive experience at WikiConference North America
last weekend, where I gave a talk on transgender issues and Wikipedia.[1]
I'm posting because there's an active discussion in Wikipedia Weekly on
Facebook about choosing a host country for Wikimania 2018.[2] I am
concerned that some of the suggestions are not taking into account the
safety of LGBT+ people; not just those attending the conference, but also
those living in the host country.

As a queer trans atheist in a same-sex marriage, there are a number of
places where I am considered a criminal for just existing or going about my
daily routine. This applies to some parts of the U.S. as well, by the way;
I won't be visiting North Carolina as long as it's illegal for me to use
the men's restroom there. Please keep these considerations in mind when
planning meetups and conferences. Thank you.

- Pax aka Funcrunch

[1] http://funcrunch.org/blog/2016/10/12/making-connections-at-
wikiconference-north-america/

[2] https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/
1114259788621851/


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimania-l] LGBT+ safety considerations for conference venues

2016-10-16 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen


That's good to hear. And thanks for the video link. :-) - Pax


On 10/16/16 11:04 AM, Amir Ladsgroup wrote:

We talked about this in the LGBT meetup in Wikimania several times. As far
as I remember it is a huge concern for coordinators and Wikimania committee
when considering a bid for Wikimania. IIRC, there are several examples that
situation of LGBT laws was a reason to reject a bid.

So I assure you Wikimania committee is aware of these issues and keeps this
in their mind when deciding on bids. (I must note I'm not in these
committees. I talked about it with them before as a member of Wikimedia
LGBT)

I'm really saddened by the stupid laws made by ignorance of people. Let's
laugh at it and then educate them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIvCh3EQv1Q :)

Best

On Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 8:57 PM Pine W  wrote:


Hi Pax,

My understanding is that WMF is doing a strategic review of Wikimania. If
that is correct, considerations like the ones you raise about location
could be included in the scope of that review. I'm pinging Ellie with the
hope that she can provide information about the status of WMF's thinking
about Wikimania, perhaps in a new thread. Wikimania involves significant
amounts of time and money, and I am hoping that WMF will develop ways to
align Wikimania with WMF and community strategic goals.

Pine

On Oct 16, 2016 08:10, "Pax Ahimsa Gethen" 
wrote:

Hello all. I had a positive experience at WikiConference North America
last weekend, where I gave a talk on transgender issues and Wikipedia.[1]
I'm posting because there's an active discussion in Wikipedia Weekly on
Facebook about choosing a host country for Wikimania 2018.[2] I am
concerned that some of the suggestions are not taking into account the
safety of LGBT+ people; not just those attending the conference, but also
those living in the host country.

As a queer trans atheist in a same-sex marriage, there are a number of
places where I am considered a criminal for just existing or going about my
daily routine. This applies to some parts of the U.S. as well, by the way;
I won't be visiting North Carolina as long as it's illegal for me to use
the men's restroom there. Please keep these considerations in mind when
planning meetups and conferences. Thank you.

- Pax aka Funcrunch

[1]
http://funcrunch.org/blog/2016/10/12/making-connections-at-wikiconference-north-america/

[2]
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/1114259788621851/




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Re: [Wikimedia-l] LGBT+ safety considerations for conference venues

2016-10-16 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Agreed, that link is just a broad overview. There are many other pages 
that drill down to specific laws and policies of regions and cities that 
affect the safety of LGBT+ people. From Amir Ladsgroup's reply it does 
sound like the Wikimania committee is aware of these issues and taking 
them seriously. Hopefully all conference and meetup planners will do the 
same.


- Pax


On 10/16/16 11:45 AM, Ilario Valdelli wrote:

Hi,
I suppose that it should be a group of people to give relevant reasons 
and to be more proactive when selecting a bid mainly if connected with 
a poor respect of rights or with the safety of some specific diversities.


The link you give is more related to the rights than to the safety of 
people. In my opinion is incomplete. For instance North Carolina is 
not mentioned and looking at your link I would suppose that the whole 
USA is a safety place.


I would suggest to your group/you to list places where your life can 
be at risk, places where diversities like LGBT are not accepted, and 
safety countries or towns. Afterwards to push it as important 
aspect/policy to consider when selecting a town for a conference 
within Wikimania community.


This may help a lot and may give more useful and transparent material 
to the selection committee of Wiki conferences (because I have 
understood that your reasons would include the selection not only of 
Wikimania).


Kind regards

On 16.10.2016 19:20, Pax Ahimsa Gethen wrote:
Thanks Anna. I forgot to include this relevant link (which I also 
posted in the Facebook discussion):


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory

- Pax


On 10/16/16 10:14 AM, Anna Stillwell wrote:
These are lovely suggestions / requests. Thank you for raising them. 
I'm

happy to hear of your positive experience at WikiConference.

+1
/a

On Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 8:10 AM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen <
list-wikime...@funcrunch.org> wrote:


Hello all. I had a positive experience at WikiConference North America
last weekend, where I gave a talk on transgender issues and 
Wikipedia.[1]
I'm posting because there's an active discussion in Wikipedia 
Weekly on

Facebook about choosing a host country for Wikimania 2018.[2] I am
concerned that some of the suggestions are not taking into account the
safety of LGBT+ people; not just those attending the conference, 
but also

those living in the host country.

As a queer trans atheist in a same-sex marriage, there are a number of
places where I am considered a criminal for just existing or going 
about my
daily routine. This applies to some parts of the U.S. as well, by 
the way;
I won't be visiting North Carolina as long as it's illegal for me 
to use
the men's restroom there. Please keep these considerations in mind 
when

planning meetups and conferences. Thank you.

- Pax aka Funcrunch

[1] http://funcrunch.org/blog/2016/10/12/making-connections-at-
wikiconference-north-america/

[2] https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/
1114259788621851/



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] LGBT+ safety considerations for conference venues

2016-10-18 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Gerard, this isn't about "holiday destinations", it's about human rights 
and dignity. That's why I emphasized in my original post that I'm 
concerned not only about the safety of conference attendees, but also 
about those living in the host country. The choice of a venue in a 
location with a poor human rights record reflects poorly upon 
Wikipedia/Wikimedia and our mission to share knowledge. There's a reason 
a number of major companies pulled their events and funding out of North 
Carolina after the restrictive restroom laws were passed for example...


- Pax


On 10/18/16 6:26 AM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

Hoi,
For me safety is to a large extend secondary to what we aim to achieve. Our
primary goal is to improve on our primary goal and it is "sharing in the
sum of all knowledge". It is not for going to the perfect holiday
destination.
Thanks,
  GerardM

On 18 October 2016 at 13:56, Fæ  wrote:


Gerard, could you provide some tangible examples of how other safety
aspects of Wikimania would be compromised if there is any specific
attention paid to the safety of LGBT+ Wikimedians? I cannot imagine
how such a thing could be true.

Based on my reading, nobody in this thread has asked for the safety of
LGBT+ attendees to be "prioritized" over other safety aspects. Please
don't make it appear as if they have.

Thanks,
Fae

On 18 October 2016 at 11:42, Gerard Meijssen 
wrote:

Hoi,
I do care that everybody can come to places where they are safe. All the
specific LGBT attention to safety is however on many levels problematic
when we prioritise this over other safety aspects. The big picture for me
is that we need to go to places where bringing Wikipedia and what it

stands

for the most good. It is why I would go to Russia, to China to India to
South Africa.

--
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] LGBT+ safety considerations for conference venues

2016-11-09 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Gerard, as a queer black trans person who feels unsafe even in San 
Francisco (and has felt that way for years), I would really appreciate 
you not pushing last night's election results in my face to make a point.


- Pax


On 11/9/16 8:24 AM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

Hoi,
Do you blame me for not feeling safe going to the USA?
Thanks,
  GerardM

On 8 November 2016 at 11:08, Gerard Meijssen 
wrote:


Hoi,
Not going to North Corolina is absolutely fine with me. We do not gain
anything by going there arguably not to any state in the United States.
What Wikimania is, is a platform for propaganda for what we have, what we
do, who we are and how we do what we do. In many countries Wikipedia is not
the house hold name it is in the USA.

Wikimania is not aimed for the English Wikipedia, it is aimed to further
our movement. Not going to places is similar to saying that those other
people, speaking other languages, with an other culture do not matter. They
do.

We should go to Russia, India, South Africa, China. The people of those
countries should matter to us, the people we could share the sum of all
knowledge with.

THAT is what we do, sharing the sum of all knowledge.

When the choice of the venue is only about being safe, we should not go to
the USA (I do not feel safe there), we should go to Germany, to Switzerland
and move the office as well. It is not likely to happen, not what I want
either.

If there is one thing about LBGT, it is that that struggle is still being
fought. Hiding and keeping away does not work. It does not help the LBGT
community. More importantly in this context it does not help the Wikimedia
community. For the latter it is vital to make our message heard.We aim to
share the sum of all knowledge and many people have not even heard of us.
Thank,
   GerardM

On 18 October 2016 at 16:00, Pax Ahimsa Gethen <
list-wikime...@funcrunch.org> wrote:


Gerard, this isn't about "holiday destinations", it's about human rights
and dignity. That's why I emphasized in my original post that I'm concerned
not only about the safety of conference attendees, but also about those
living in the host country. The choice of a venue in a location with a poor
human rights record reflects poorly upon Wikipedia/Wikimedia and our
mission to share knowledge. There's a reason a number of major companies
pulled their events and funding out of North Carolina after the restrictive
restroom laws were passed for example...

- Pax



On 10/18/16 6:26 AM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:


Hoi,
For me safety is to a large extend secondary to what we aim to achieve.
Our
primary goal is to improve on our primary goal and it is "sharing in the
sum of all knowledge". It is not for going to the perfect holiday
destination.
Thanks,
   GerardM

On 18 October 2016 at 13:56, Fæ  wrote:

Gerard, could you provide some tangible examples of how other safety

aspects of Wikimania would be compromised if there is any specific
attention paid to the safety of LGBT+ Wikimedians? I cannot imagine
how such a thing could be true.

Based on my reading, nobody in this thread has asked for the safety of
LGBT+ attendees to be "prioritized" over other safety aspects. Please
don't make it appear as if they have.

Thanks,
Fae

On 18 October 2016 at 11:42, Gerard Meijssen 
Hoi,
I do care that everybody can come to places where they are safe. All
the
specific LGBT attention to safety is however on many levels problematic
when we prioritise this over other safety aspects. The big picture for
me
is that we need to go to places where bringing Wikipedia and what it


stands


for the most good. It is why I would go to Russia, to China to India to
South Africa.


--
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] LGBT+ safety considerations for conference venues

2016-11-10 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

his way you elevate your opinion and
put me down. Security is a concern but when fear is exchanged for

prudence,

we will remove the one reason why we have Wikimania in the first place

as a

worldwide conference. It is to go out and show the world who we are and
what we have to offer.

When this is the prevailing opinion of our movement it does hardly matter
that we have Wikipedias in over 280 languages because English and its
culture is the only Wikipedia that counts. Now that is effectively an
existing prejudice that is dominated in much of what I observe we do. It

is

another argument people feel offended. But hey most of you do not see it
this way because "things trickle down".. As an economic measure it failed
and it is how we ignore the major cultural differences that exist.

Wikimania is not relevant when we do not go out and mingle world wide.

When

we do not accept the differences that exist and make it our strength.
Thanks,
   GerardM


On 9 November 2016 at 18:28, Fæ  wrote:


Gerard,

You have posted several emails on the subject which read as
disrespectful, can cause offence and discourage LGBT+ contributors to
this list who may have otherwise openly expressed views. The line of
argument that LGBT+ Wikimedians must expect to be at personal risk
just to attend a Wikimania is repugnant to me, and is likely to be for
a majority of other readers. This point of view runs counter to the
values of the WMF or recognized affiliates.

If you wish to develop a better understanding of how the basic safety
of all attendees at future Wikimanias and other conferences should be
a priority, this may be better done on-wiki rather than repeating your
points on this list.

I warmly recommend a reality check with friends off-list as to what
might be read as offensive, should you wish to continue posting
further emails about this particular topic.

Thanks,
Fae

On 9 November 2016 at 16:43, Gerard Meijssen 
Hoi,
What is the point. When not even the USA is "safe", we have to be
realistic. Wikimania is about propaganda for what we do. We have to

travel

and selecting a place is not about you, it is about them. It is about

the

people we aim to serve.

I made my point before, it did not get any attention then and my

argument

now is that nothing changed. It is only the perception of the USA that

has

been dented by an unfortunate "democratic" choice by last night's

election.

Thanks,
   GerardM

On 9 November 2016 at 17:27, Pax Ahimsa Gethen <

list-wikime...@funcrunch.org

wrote:
Gerard, as a queer black trans person who feels unsafe even in San
Francisco (and has felt that way for years), I would really

appreciate

you

not pushing last night's election results in my face to make a point.

- Pax



On 11/9/16 8:24 AM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:


Hoi,
Do you blame me for not feeling safe going to the USA?
Thanks,
   GerardM

On 8 November 2016 at 11:08, Gerard Meijssen <

gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>

wrote:

Hoi,

Not going to North Corolina is absolutely fine with me. We do not

gain

anything by going there arguably not to any state in the United

States.

What Wikimania is, is a platform for propaganda for what we have,

what we

do, who we are and how we do what we do. In many countries

Wikipedia

is

not
the house hold name it is in the USA.

Wikimania is not aimed for the English Wikipedia, it is aimed to

further

our movement. Not going to places is similar to saying that those

other

people, speaking other languages, with an other culture do not

matter.

They
do.

We should go to Russia, India, South Africa, China. The people of

those

countries should matter to us, the people we could share the sum of

all

knowledge with.

THAT is what we do, sharing the sum of all knowledge.

When the choice of the venue is only about being safe, we should

not

go

to
the USA (I do not feel safe there), we should go to Germany, to
Switzerland
and move the office as well. It is not likely to happen, not what I

want

either.

If there is one thing about LBGT, it is that that struggle is still

being

fought. Hiding and keeping away does not work. It does not help the

LBGT

community. More importantly in this context it does not help the
Wikimedia
community. For the latter it is vital to make our message heard.We

aim to

share the sum of all knowledge and many people have not even heard

of

us.

Thank,
GerardM

On 18 October 2016 at 16:00, Pax Ahimsa Gethen <
list-wikime...@funcrunch.org> wrote:

Gerard, this isn't about "holiday destinations", it's about human

rights

and dignity. That's why I emphasized in my original post that I'm
concerned
not only about the safety of conference attendees, but also about

those

living in the host country. The choice of a venue in a location

with

a

poor
human rights record reflects poorly upon Wikipedia/Wikimedia and

our

mission to share knowledge. There's a re

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Implementing Katherine's Vision: "Discussing Discussions"

2016-11-18 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

t who administers that list of users?

Perhaps we can build a system which avoids grappling with user groups
entirely. It was suggested that we might use an ORES-like system to
automatically suggest collaborators on an editing project based on some
criteria (like editing history), rather than force you or the WikiProject
to maintain an explicit list. Perhaps you can implement block lists to
combat harassment based entirely on keywords, not users. Do we trust the
machine to be more fair and less abusive than us mere mortals? Additional
ideas welcome! (I don't have a dedicated phab task for this, but
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149665 might be appropriate if you want
to contribute off-list.)

Hopefully this has been enough to prime the pump.

Let's discuss discussions.

Let's live up to the hope placed in us by the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/25/somethings-terribly-wrong-with-the-internet-and-wikipedia-might-be-able-to-fix-it/

Let's retake the lead on building and renewing a healthy collaborative
community. We can't afford to be complacent or content with the status
quo. Let's come up with new ideas, build them, find the problems, and try
again. It starts with deciding that we can do better.
--scott

--
(http://cscott.net)

--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen | http://funcrunch.org

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Passing of User:Danveg, and reminder about people in distress

2017-01-03 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Thank you for sharing the sad news and for your thoughts on helping
others in distress. I've shared the information about the memorial
project to WikiProject LGBT Studies (and I've now joined the Gendergap
mailing list).

A helpful resource in North America for trans people in distress is
Trans Lifeline (http://www.translifeline.org/). US: (877) 565-8860 /
Canada: (877) 330-6366

- Pax aka Funcrunch

On 1/3/17 8:35 PM, Pine W wrote:

Hello colleagues,

Michal Lester from Wikimedia Israel and Tsipi Erann from Wikiwomen recently
sent an email to the Gendergap mailing list regarding the passing of
User:Danveg.
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2017-January/006453.html.
Condolences to her family and friends. A memorial project has been
established on Hebrew Wikipedia at
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%93%D7%99%D7%94:%D7%9E%D7%A4%D7%92%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%A4%D7%92%D7%A9%D7%99_%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%99_%D7%A0%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%9D/DanVeg_Memorial_Trans_Project
.

I would like to remind all of us that there may be people in our community
who are experiencing personal difficulties or distress, and that
professional resources may be available to assist. As with many situations,
I think that getting help before a situation becomes a crisis is
preferable, and I would encourage people to take the courageous step to do
so. Emotional support from friends and family, professional counseling, and
medicines may all be helpful in helping someone. The Mayo Clinic provides a
resource called "Depression: Supporting a family member or friend":
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/depression/ART-20045943.
Quoting the Mayo Clinic page: "People with depression may not recognize or
acknowledge that they're depressed. They may not be aware of signs and
symptoms of depression, so they may think their feelings are normal. All
too often, people feel ashamed about their depression and mistakenly
believe they should be able to overcome it with willpower alone. But
depression seldom gets better without treatment and may get worse. With the
right treatment approach, the person you care about can get better." If you
or someone you know is in distress, or is frequently sad, then I would
encourage reaching out for professional support.

In the circumstance that an on-wiki situation does become an emergency,
includes a threat of harm, *or* if someone discusses harm and you aren't
sure how serious the threat is, English Wikipedia has the following
resource, which includes information about how to Wikipedians are
encouraged to respond if someone on-wiki appears to be suicidal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Responding_to_threats_of_harm.
Alternatively, if an off-wiki situation appears to be an emergency,
includes a threat of harm, *or* includes a threat that you don't know how
to evaluate, then please contact the local emergency services.

Sometimes life is stressful and sad for almost everyone. If you or someone
you know is overwhelmed, frequently feels sad or discouraged, or is
distressed, then please reach out for professional support. Rather than
attempting to go through the dark night alone, or if you see someone else
who is struggling with their challenges, please ask for help.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brosen_sunrise.jpg

Regards,

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Politics

2017-02-03 Thread Pax Ahimsa Gethen

at I say, Sandberg has not even uttered a

tweet!

Neutrality should not mean surrending to the powerful by remaining

silent.

Nattes à chat / Natacha





Le 3 févr. 2017 à 00:05, Leigh Thelmadatter  a

écrit :

I voiced my opposition to the statement on Facebook but Yair states the

case far more eloquently. Many acts by many countries could be a possible
threat to Wikimedia, where do we draw the line?

Why was there no community discussion prior to the statement?
Sent from my iPhone


On 02/02/2017, at 3:37 p.m., Yair Rand  wrote:

The Wikimedia movement is both global and very ideologically diverse,

and

has many contributors who have strong opinions in one direction or

another

on certain political issues facing their area of the world. Many of

these

contributors find it difficult to avoid using Wikimedia forums and
institutions to discuss or advocate for issues they feel very strongly
about. Recently, political advocacy on Wikimedia forums has risen
substantially, especially on this mailing list.

While I sympathize with the difficulties these contributors face in
remaining silent, it is important to consider the substantial damage

such

actions can cause to the movement. We will be much worse off if half

of

any

given country's political spectrum can no longer cooperate in our

mission

due to compunctions against supporting a community which hosts those

who

use the community to advocate for positions that some may find
unacceptable. The issue of inadvertently alienating participants

because of

politics has a self-reinforcing element: As we lose contributors
representing ideological areas, we have fewer willing to advocate for

an

environment which allows them to participate without being bombarded

by

hostile political advocacy. We are precariously close to the point of

no

return on this, but I am optimistic that the situation is recoverable.

As an initial measure, I propose adding the names of a certain

country's

top political leaders to this list's spam filter. More generally, I

think a

stricter stance on avoiding political advocacy on Wikimedia projects

is

warranted.

We face a somewhat more difficult situation with the Wikimedia

Foundation

itself. Partly as a result of being relatively localized within a
geographic area and further limited to several professions, I suspect

the

Foundation tends to be more politically/ideologically homogeneous.

With

the

WMF, we risk much more than just alienating much of the world, we risk

our

Neutrality.

How far we must go to maintain neutrality has been a contentious issue

over

the years. Existential threats have twice been responded to with major
community action, each with large prior discussion. (SOPA included an
extensive discussion and a poll with more than 500 respondents.) A

previous

ED committed to firing everyone but part of the Ops team rather than

accept

advertising, should lack of funds require it. (Whether to let the WMF

die

outright rather than accept ads is as of yet unresolved.) More

recently,

the WMF has taken limited actions and stances on public policy that
directly relate to the mission. A careful balance has been established
between maintaining essential neutrality and dealing with direct

threats to

the projects.

Three days ago, the WMF put out a statement on the Wikimedia blog
explicitly urging a specific country to modify its refugee policy, an

area

that does not relate to our goals. There was no movement-wide prior
discussion, or any discussion at all as far as I can tell.

It is the responsibility of the Board at this point to set a policy to
place firm restrictions on which areas the WMF can take positions.

While we

value the important contributions of the staff, they should not be

able

to

override our commitment to neutrality. Our donors, editors, and other
volunteers do not contribute so that resources and influence can be

spent

towards whatever political causes are popular within the WMF.

It is the responsibility of the community to ensure that our projects
remain apolitical. A neutral point of view is impossible if

participating

requires a certain political position.

It is the responsibility of the mailing list administration and

moderators

to act against this list's rapid slide into unreadability.

Thank you.

-- Yair Rand




--
Pax Ahimsa Gethen  | http://funcrunch.org


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