Hi everyone,
As you might already know, Wikimania is happening in Mexico city from
July 15-19, 2015. There would be a Wikiwomen's lunch on Saturday, July 18,
from 12:30-13:45. Anyone who identify themselves as women and participating
in Wikimania 2015 are invited to attend the lunch. The venue would be Don
Genaro.
If you are coming, please sign up on the event page here :
https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiwomen%27s_Lunch
Hope to meet you all while at Wikimania!
Regards
Netha
--
Netha Hussain
Student of Medicine and Surgery
Govt. Medical College, Kozhikode
Blogs :
*nethahussain.blogspot.com
<http://nethahussain.blogspot.com>swethaambari.wordpress.com
<http://swethaambari.wordpress.com>*
Andreas Kolbe said:
> Don't you think it's bizarre that ArbCom is punishing Lightbreather for discussing
the identity of the guy who posted porn images, claiming they depicted
Lightbreather? He posted those images off-wiki, and she discussed it
off-wiki.
In my opinion, she had every moral right to.
I completely agree with Andreas about this. It is ridiculous that
Lightbreather was punished for someone else's seedy, immoral behavior. I
would have had a fit if this had happened to me. I completely sympathize
with Lightbreather.
Wikipedia has a truly misogynistic attitude toward women. At first, I
thought that the bad behavior was an expression of other issues, i.e.
sometimes what seems to be misogyny is in fact driven by political ideology
or societal morals. Even though that is unacceptable, at least a stable
compromise can be reached. I have found numerous examples of that on
Wikipedia and elsewhere in online communities. Once people realize that you
are not crusading against their beliefs or political stances, the
female-targeted hostility stops too. Specifics for me on Wikipedia
pertained to 2nd Amendment rights (USA), labor unions and the Joe Lonsdale
rape allegations. Once I wrote some updates to firearms articles that were
NPOV, added myself to one of the Wikiprojects for labor union history, and
wrote a section on the Lonsdale BLP, the (three different) people who had
been... difficult were never difficult again. One was actually supportive
of me when I needed help later on! It was not necessary for me to
compromise my beliefs, as in fact, I like rifle marksmanship, labor unions,
and think Lonsdale behaved improperly to the young woman based on evidence
at hand. I had never been subject to anything as extreme as Lightbreather,
but rather, had felt some of the truculent opposition that wears one down
as a female Wikipedian.
If only everything were so easily resolved! There lies the problem: It is
not. That is the reason that I believe Wikipedia has an entrenched culture
of misogyny. It can be much worse on Wikipedia than some super
conservative, right-wing online venues that I frequent. Those people are
not hostile in the way that some Wikipedians can be, once they realize that
I am not there to troll them, and am similarly-minded. This is true even
though many are male, latent anti-Semitic, anti-feminist etc. None of that
becomes relevant because the subject matter does not pertain to those
attitudes, and such men have no problem interacting or working with me as a
Jewish woman.
So then, WHY is Wikipedia more anti-female than some of the seemingly most
female-unfriendly parts of the Internet? I don't know, and it frightens
me. I don't want to be subject to what Lightbreather experienced. It just
isn't worth the headache and potentially, worse than that.
~Ellie (FeralOink)
Hi long-suffering Gender Gap list members,
I have good news! Thanks to the hard work of many of the people on
this list, the WMF funded a grant to run a pilot Ally Skills Workshop
at Wikimania in July:
https://adainitiative.org/2015/06/apply-now-for-the-ally-skills-workshop-at…
The Ally Skills Workshop teaches men simple, everyday ways to support
women in their communities. This workshop will be laser-focused on
techniques that work specifically in Wikipedia and related projects,
including how to use existing policies and suggestions for advocating
for new policies. It will also teach people about the mindset of
trolls and what strategies work best for foiling them.
If it goes well, we'll apply for another WMF grant to run a
train-the-trainers, with the end goal of teaching the workshop to many
of the Wikipedia admins around the world. The goal is to get them
educated and wised up to the sexist tactics often used against women
editors, women's bios, and women's causes on Wikipedia.
If you are going, or if you know someone who would be a good person to
attend this workshop, please sign up or encourage them to sign up! You
can also retweet the announcement here:
https://twitter.com/adainitiative/status/613803456692793344
Thanks,
-VAL
--
Valerie Aurora
Interim Executive Director
You can help increase the participation of women in open technology and culture!
Donate today at http://adainitiative.org/donate/
The Inspire Campaign brought out a huge amount of interest in resolving the
problem of sexual harassment. There were some 14 proposals made by 26
users. Someone brought all these proposals together on one page for
discussion, but as far as I know, none of them was ever funded. The reason
for this is uncertain; perhaps anti-harassment measures are better placed
in the general budget than funded as one-time projects. I have pinged
Siko (WMF) and Luis Villa (WMF) on the discussion page, and asked for more
feedback about how to move forward with implementation on these issues.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Community_discussion_on_hara…
I semi-retired back in May, planning to retire after the arbcom case
against me was closed. However, it's been over two months since Karanacs
requested the case on April 29, the proposed decision phase has been going
nowhere since June 7, and I've got no energy left for the thing, so I've
retired today. I will be taking my name off the gender gap mailing list
next.
Thanks again to those of you who were friendly to me.
Lightbreather