Wikipedia Sucks!

Good news people. Someone must have alerted them to the fact they were just days away from having only one thread on their "Sexism" sub-forum that had seen a post to it in a whole year. And that thread, on the "gender gap gap", had rather gone off the rails from its initial powerful message. I'll let some dude named Sashi describe what happened.......

It never hurts to go back and read the first posts. If you do, you'll be able to safely reject KI's weird claim that the title of the thread is a typo. The author of that original post, since banned, has been sharply critical of both WP and WPO (which he considers to be a back room of WP) in part because he thinks there is a "gap" in most people's understanding of what the gender gap might be. (i.e. more than just a quantitative question).

But we are clearly in different times now. Introducing the man every one of you surely thought of first as the best person to be discussing gender issues on a Wikipedia critic forum. None other than Eric Corbett!

http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtop ... =42&t=9775
http://archive.is/xpxjD

So, what's he written? Well, it's hard to say. It confused Carrite, but that isn't saying a lot. Jake answered as if he knew what it meant, or perhaps what he had hoped would be the message (*), but again, that isn't news.

I mean, it looks like he's trying to say the Wikimedia Foundation is deliberately hiring women for their top job, sorry "girls" to use his terminology, and this is a bad thing. As in, if you believe in "gender diversity" as a corporate goal/value, that means it has to go "girl", DUDE, "girl", DUDE. Presumably old white angry dudes with a solid background in punch card programming, like Eric. REPRESENT!

But that would be stupid, right? That would mean Eric doesn't understand the problem, and has no clue what the solutions should be. And if we know anything about Eric "I am not a woman hater" Corbett, that's not who he is.

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Get the fuck out of here with this shit man. These people aren't interested in the gender gap at all. They've banned or otherwise forced out literally anyone who has shown any interest in or ability to write about the issue.

So I mean, literally, INTO THE SEA WITH YOU.

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(*) - probably best not to use "compensatory" in that context, because it could sound to people like you think these women the job because they're fine with being paid less than a man. Could be seen as, well, y'know......oh no, wait, yeah, you probably don't. It could sound like you're calling them cheap ass ho's, bro. Sing it with me now people.......

......different area codes.......

It's comical watching them struggle to discuss this issue. Apparently now the high cost of living in San Francisco has something to do with it. Christ knows how. And apparently there is no broad explanation to be found to any of this, because it all depends on the individual cases. Literally each hire. Bonkers. Where does he pull this shit from?

First things first guys, don't speculate when hard data is a simple Google search away........

Gender of US based employees (2007) (men:women)

Executives - 22:78
Management - 48:52
Non-tech - 31:69
Tech - 71:29
Overall - 55:45

New hires 2017/18.....35:65 (overall), 59:41 (technical)

The WMF deny there are any hiring targets being set, they claim these figures are the result of active measures to change the culture and values of the organisation. Their approach is based on the cutting edge research that showed that if you respect, value and empower women, they will come work for you. They will even lead your organisation. Who knew women were so easily controlled, manipulated into being PR pawns, as Jake would have us believe.

The fact they are already 11 posts in and nobody thought to go look for the data only goes to show these idiots have never had any real interest in discussing this issue at all, not properly. Eric's entire history in this area has been characterised by an endless stream of fact free butthurt nonsense.

True to form, he has already moved on to the conclude stage.......

Perhaps the only success the WMF has actually had in addressing the gender gap is in its own management?

To be honest, I don't think it is a surprise to anyone who knows about this issue, that the only area the WMF were going to be remotely effective in addressing gender diversity, were those where they could exercise direct control.

The only people currently empowered to exercise control over women haters and gender gap deniers in the volunteer ranks like Eric, are the volunteer Administrators. So you're looking to men like Drmies to stick up for women over Eric, and you're looking for women like Ealdgyth to stick up for women over Eric. We know how that goes, because we've seen it already. Drmies is all talk, and Ealdgyth is all about the 'toughen up bitches' school of thought.

To Eric, this is a victory. Seeing the WMF abjectly fail to make a significant impact on the gender diversity of the volunteer community, is vindication of his stubborn insistence that there was no way in hell be was going to change, or allow others to change him, certainly not at the behest of an organisation led by women.

Eric really is thick as a plank. People give him way too much credit when they attribute this sort of garbage as deliberate trolling. It's inflammatory, sure, but that's not because Eric thinks he's being intentionally provocative. The moron genuine thinks this is an actual, legitimate question.......

Why would anyone be concerned about the gender disparity of editors reflecting (or not) the population at large, but not that of WMF CEOs?

His tiny mind simply can't grasp that in this day and age, with the world full of dinosaurs like him, it is a good thing that an organisation aiming for genuine diversity in the workforce, has women in the top position.

Every time they hire a woman for the role, it will only reinforce the idea they are serious about effecting change. It has been proven time and again, backed by serious research (the existence of which Eric has always studiously avoided or deliberately misrepresented), that women are more effective at changing the culture of the workplace and increasing diversity. As well as merely for the message it sends to potential and existing employees, perhaps it is because they understand better than men, what the problem is, and how to fix it. As such, people not looking to troll, would simply not be asking Eric's question.

The sad thing about Wikipedia is that this isn't a case of Eric coming out as a thick bastard. He's been saying shit like this about gender on Wikipedia, and stuff that is way more ignorant, for as long as it has been an issue. There biggest problem the Wikipedia movement faces in this issue, is that out of the relatively small portion of it that is female, there are quite a lot of women who agree with Eric. Gender traitors in other words. They will put potential women editors off getting involved way more than pigs like Eric.

I don't think Eric is getting it into his head that a women could get the top job by being a better qualified candidate than a man, so prepare for extended dense discussion about sample size and gender warfare.

Andy The Gimp is on top form.....

The thing is, there could be multiple possible reasons why the three CEOs were all female. Just off the top of my head:

(a) Per Eric, it was intentional, as part of some supposed (and misnamed) 'gender diversity' program. They only ever intended to recruit women.

Even if they are deliberately only recruiting women (which, I assume is as illegal in the US as it would be in the UK), it would not be misnamed as a "gender diversity" effort. And as someone has already pointed out, and as reflected in the figures I have above, diversity is measured in the current make-up of the organisation. As such, the gender of the person holding a role only available to one person, is meaningless.

(b) The job was advertised in such a way that women were more likely to apply. This need not necessarily have been intentional, though it could have been.

As above, if they explicitly said 'only for women', this is likely to be illegal. If they weren't being explicit, one wonders what on Earth Andy thinks they said to make it more likely women would apply. The mind boggles.

(c) The WMF had no specific preference, but in each case, the best-qualified candidate that actually applied for the the job was female, and they were chosen on merit. In other words, coincidence.

No serious critic would agree with the proposition that the WMF is choosing their Executive Directors based simply on merit. And there's no reason to believe the best person in the waiting room was always a women, indeed the probability it was not is rather the whole point of gender diversity efforts. The WMF have consistently hired based on the skills needed at the time. They needed a cheerleader when they hired Gardner (already a consultant). They needed a tech person and corporate fixed when they hired Lila. They needed a PR person when they hired (internally promoted) Maher. It seems unlikely that in each of those cases, the best candidate was female, and indeed it seems quite obvious given the fact only one of the three came from outside the organisation, that they are not picking the best qualified candidates from those who applied.

(d) The candidates weren't chosen on merit, but because Jimbo likes working with attractive women. Personally, I think this unlikely, but can't rule it out entirely.

Pathetic. Firstly, how desperate do you have to be to even make such a suggestion? Second, how dumb do you need to be to not even know Jimmy Wales stepped down as Chair in 2006, a year before Gardner was even appointed. The reason it can be ruled out entirely, is that at no point has Jimmy ever been in sole control of who the WMF appoints as their ED.

I'm sure there are other possible explanations, but given lack of supporting evidence, it seems to me that (c) is the nearest thing to a null hypothesis here, and thus is the one that needs to be disproven.

There is ample supporting evidence for the non-iliegal interpretation of a), certainly for the second and third hires, since Wikipedia's gender problem only really became a controversy under Gardner. Given those adverts must have mentioned 'increasing gender diversity' as a corporate property, we can even surmise this is supporting evidence for b). Scenario c) can hardly be "disproven", because nobody will ever know who applied for the job. Scenario d) doesn't even warrant disproving.

Of course, this being a Wikipedia criticism forum, it is the least satisfactory for WMF-bashing, but personally I think that there are quite enough things they can be criticised for based on actual verifiable evidence, and that assuming the worst automatically is a poor methodology if you want to be taken seriously.

A rare good point. Andy, who has dismissed my critical capabilities frequently, might like to reflect on the fact I've always said Wikipediocracy have disproportionately focused on the WMF and Jimmy, often resorting to quite ridiculous statements in their desire to bash a perceived enemy. And offering up point d) at all, was a perfect example of people saying dumb shit that easily discredits them and the forum.

These morons don't even seem to accept that if there was no concern for gender diversity at all, then most of the time the WMF would have hired a man as ED, both because most of the applications would be from men, and the people doing the hiring would be men, who would be biased towards hiring other men.

Fun fact.....when Jimmy stepped down as Chair in 2006, he recommended a woman as his replacement. She, in turn, was the person who hired a woman as Executive Director in 2007. If we're going to get all sciency about it, I believe they call these the initial conditions.

CrowsNest wrote: Apparently now the high cost of living in San Francisco has something to do with it.

No, I was just randomly mouthing off and grumbling under my breath about rich kids from small towns like Wilton, CT, which were built on (formerly too-AIG-to-fail) financial instruments.

sashi wrote:

CrowsNest wrote: Apparently now the high cost of living in San Francisco has something to do with it.

No, I was just randomly mouthing off and grumbling under my breath about rich kids from small towns like Wilton, CT, which were built on (formerly too-AIG-to-fail) financial instruments.

I was referring to this from Jake...

Remember, San Francisco is one of the most expensive places to live in the world, so that's probably somehow a factor too.