Hello All, My name is Max Klein and I recently listened to Mary Gardiner speak at Wikimania which was a profound and transformative moment for me. I am a man, Mary elucidated for me that a lot of current verbiage can be alienating women. In fact I noticed (and tweeted) that in Jimmy Wales speech, directly after Mary's Keynote, when he announced that he was giving $5,000 as a prize to Wikipedia User:Demmy, which he'd never met before, he assumed that this user was male. "I haven't met Demmy, but I'm sure he's a great guy" said Wales which was the precise second that I understood how large of problem this gender gap really is.
Here is my latest predicament. I belong to a 'hackerspace' called Sudo Room in Oakland California, that was in part founded to be an alternative to the more "Boys Club" existing 'hackerspace'. For instance we are doing things to be less 'Star Trek' and 'Mountain Dew', like opening our 'hackerspace' on a citywide Art-Gallery night and making and displaying LED art. Today I brought up the issue that I think the term 'hacker' is loaded with a gender-connotations, and we should move to a more neutral lexicon. There was some pushback, but in the end the group asked me to present choices to which we could move. They liked neither "makerspace" or "creativespace." Thinking about that now, I agree, we should coin a new moniker to that hasn't got past baggage. So if it's not a hacker- maker- or creative-space, what is the best language that Ada can suggest for us to use? Best, Max Klein
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