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Pipe down wimmin! (2018 edition)

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2018 1:04 pm
by CrowsNest
So, the Wikipedia Foundation has been busy trying to fix their gender issues. Not news really.

What is news, is what they have produced in their latest effort.

Rosiestep has scoured the globe talking to Wikimedians. She has produced a report summarising her findings.......

Advancing Gender Equity - Conversations with movement leaders
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_ ... eport_2018

The Wikimedia Foundation has of course blogged about it......

Wikimedia Foundation releases gender equity report
https://wikimediafoundation.org/2018/09 ... t-leaders/

Taken together, these make for a depressing reading. They paint a picture, after all this time, of women and minorities still having to hide away, self-motivating and doing their work away from the male dominated projects, seeking partnerships with outsiders and trying to recruit new editors, and focusing on changing the content, not cultural or policy change.

Even though, unsurprisingly (were they really surprised?) they found the three main barriers to people trying to fix this problem (by changing the content), were systemic bias in the policies, an ignorant or uncaring community, and trolling.

If there is any indication here that they want the cultural or policy change to happen, the advice seems to be to just wait and hope it does as a result of changing the content and doing the best practice, which is all focused on precisely that, or as a second and obviously less pleasurable alternative, be inspired by this supposed good news of some good work being done by small groups kept out of the way, to try to do it yourself as a volunteer, or even a highly motivated group of volunteers. The report's findings making it clear this is a pretty pointless and thoroughly depressing experience, having been tried numerous times before.

But don't worry, the Foundation is working in making slides the volunteers can use to show the men, because apparently that will help. :roll:

Oh, and Inspiration. Apparently that helps. I don't know about you, but a report which merely confirms they know the barriers and have no intention of proactively removing them, is not very inspiring.

All told, I wonder why there are so many women still willing to put up with this shit? Updated statistics and fresh evidence aside, this is very much same shit, different day. The media will lap it up as proof something is being done, not caring to look too closely at what. But they must see it.

Haven't there been enough examples already out in the real world and in other internet companies about what is the actual best practice? You don't sit down and shut up, you don't stay out to the way and just hope and pray. You don't quietly concentrate on changing the product, in the hopes that changes the culture or policy. You have to take control, you have to kick ass and take names.

This seems like a good opportunity to remind the Wikimedia Foundation that there is nothing in Section 230 that prevents you from actively banning or muting the voices of people who are getting in the way of change, nor does it bar you from directly changing policies that are similarly getting in the way of change. Neither exposes you to legal liability for the actual content, you would still be a mere conduit. Think of it as AT&T keeping rats out of the internet pipes. :ugeek:

The reason they don't do that? There would be a riot. Complete societal collapse. Probable not an extinction event, but a massive blow nonetheless.

This is just more evidence that for all their claims, Wikipedia is not an enlightened place. In the same way their overall governance has the air of the Middle Ages about it, their approach to gender reform is more Saudi Arabia than Scandinavia.

My advice to anyone looking to be inspired? By not getting involved, by exposing their truth from outside the cult, change will happen faster by virtue of the thing collapsing and being replaced by something comply different, than you will ever achieve by getting involved. There is nothing in this report to inspire anyone. There is only the grim reality of what Wikipedia is, and where it (isn't) going, no matter how much they insist it is their destination.

Re: Pipe down wimmin! (2018 edition)

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2018 1:55 am
by CrowsNest
:lol:
Milestone
Christine Blasey Ford is now ten days old. Since User:Casprings created it, 90 editors have contributed and it has attracted 1,439,453 pageviews. Yesterday alone accounted for 633,641 pageviews! This remarkably collegial effort was helped immeasurably by User:SarekOfVulcan's Sept. 18 page protection requiring extended confirmed access until Oct. 18. It's been a privilege to collaborate without (for the most part) having to fend off the vandals, edit warriors, POV pushers, and assorted nutcases who would normally have made this page a battlefield littered with carnage. I heartily thank everyone involved. KalHolmann (talk) 21:06, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
Is this the sort of thing you write (and on the article talk page no less) if you were even remotely aware of the possibility an article like this might attract new women editors to Wikipedia?

Granted, due to the inaccessible language used (none of the Wikipedia specific terms were even wikilinked!) they may not appreciate the inference being made here, namely that everyone who hasn't yet made 500 edits to Wikipedia in 30 days cannot touch this article because they don't yet know how to write neutrally and are most likely a vandal, edit warrior, or nutcase.

I wonder how many of those 90 editors are even women? I checked all the editors who have made double digit edits to the page (all nine of them!) and not one is prepared to declare they are a woman. Unsurprisingly, KalHofman is by a country mile the top editor of the page, and is a man. Did you expect anything else?

They've written a third of the article and made 40% of its edits. Is that really a collaboration? Or is that more of an Editor-In-Chief with a handful of assitants? It is oddly monopolized, given the level of interest. A distant second is Sagecandor, who is an obvious sockpuppet of Cirt (women having cited mistrust of exactly who it is they are supposedly collaborating with as a big reason they do not edit Wikipedia).

Re: Pipe down wimmin! (2018 edition)

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 8:27 pm
by CrowsNest
Too funny for words. And yet strangely tragic.
Delete - Absolute strikeout trying to turn up this name, either as Isophene Goodin Bailhache, Isophene G. Bailhache, or Isophene Bailhache on Newspapers.com. Carrite (talk) 13:46, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Carrite Perhaps you should have tried "Mrs John Bailhache". —David Eppstein (talk) 16:24, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Re: Pipe down wimmin! (2018 edition)

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 2:02 am
by CrowsNest
A user with nearly 65,000 edits just retired from Wikipedia, which I would not normally bother noting, except for the fact she posted this as the explanation......
Thanks for the blatant misogyny, Wikipedia. It’s been real fun.
Their last edit gives some explanation for why they said that....

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =862511603

There are reasons to suspect there is more going on that just that one remark (hence why I'm not openly mentioning their current or past username), but as the straw which broke the camel's back, particularly given that user's history of boorish behaviour being tolerated by the Wikipedia community, it really does fit.

Re: Pipe down wimmin! (2018 edition)

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 8:13 pm
by Dysklyver
CrowsNest wrote:There are reasons to suspect there is more going on that just that one remark (hence why I'm not openly mentioning their current or past username)


I did in passing try to speak to her, perhaps to warn her of the route she was going down, all I got was "fuck off" (literally I said hi, she said fuck off, not a chance). I have every reason not to like her at all, considering the supreme effort she made to basically slander me at every opportunity (which seemed to be a lot) even though I have never done anything which could even vaguely be described as against her or annoying, or even noticabley had past interactions.

In the end though, she was way more hostile than a real name editor (with open facebook) should be, and eventually hit a troll who was actually a real piece of work, instead of another clueless foreigner or a well-meaning idealist that can be safely steamrollered. Interaction with a real troll instead of some victim seemed to take the enjoyment out of whatever it was she thought she was doing (some kind of unofficial SPI witchhunter / COI editor buster combi.) and that seems to have been a problem.

Renaming and retirement from wiki and IRC followed, her facebook is still a little insecure though, but I expect that's the default setting, I don't use facebook for this reason.

I suppose the moral is that if you are a troll hunter, don't advertise your name, address, husbands name, address, phone number, birthday, school, friendship group, clear photos of all those things, etc. On the web. Where the trolls will read it.

Re: Pipe down wimmin! (2018 edition)

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2018 3:51 am
by ericbarbour
CrowsNest wrote:Too funny for words. And yet strangely tragic.
Delete - Absolute strikeout trying to turn up this name, either as Isophene Goodin Bailhache, Isophene G. Bailhache, or Isophene Bailhache on Newspapers.com. Carrite (talk) 13:46, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Carrite Perhaps you should have tried "Mrs John Bailhache". —David Eppstein (talk) 16:24, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Tim is not a fool, but he has some rather peculiar thoughts in his head. No wonder he's a "Good Wikipedian".

Re: Pipe down wimmin! (2018 edition)

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2018 6:01 pm
by CrowsNest
Dysklyver wrote:
CrowsNest wrote:There are reasons to suspect there is more going on that just that one remark (hence why I'm not openly mentioning their current or past username)


Interaction with a real troll instead of some victim seemed to take the enjoyment out of whatever it was she thought she was doing (some kind of unofficial SPI witchhunter / COI editor buster combi.) and that seems to have been a problem.
Who is the troll? Or rather, for the purposes of this thread, what apparent efforts did the WMF or her fellow Wikipedians do to prevent them ruining her enjoyment of Wikipedia?

This edit is more than a little suspicious......

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =862607890

Re: Pipe down wimmin! (2018 edition)

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2018 11:31 am
by CrowsNest

Re: Pipe down wimmin! (2018 edition)

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2018 1:51 pm
by Graaf Statler
Dysklyver wrote:I did in passing try to speak to her, perhaps to warn her of the route she was going down, all I got was "fuck off" (literally I said hi, she said fuck off, not a chance). I have every reason not to like her at all, considering the supreme effort she made to basically slander me at every opportunity (which seemed to be a lot) even though I have never done anything which could even vaguely be described as against her or annoying, or even noticabley had past interactions.

logical. A man is baaaaddd! Every man is a woman hater, wants only to fuck every woman from behind, hates woman in general and see them as second rate citizens. But a woman is integer, a professional and knows always where she is talking about, in short is a wiki angel. What is in your slip makes you to a good or a bad wikipedian, that is complete clear to me.

Or the colour of your skin, see example Ymnes. It is a huge insult for every black person what has happend!
Black people are not a underclass in Holland! There is not acceptabele discrimination of black people, yes. Also of gay people, I think about the same. But there are many, many coloured intelligent and highly respected persons in Holland. Why did WMF wanted this clearly metal backward guy as there figure head?
Because that is what I am really wonder.
Ymnes has the brains of a six years old child, so what do we have to believe? Every black person in Holland has a huge mental problem? O yeh? What to think of these two guys, one of them a American guy born in Harlem and who was raised in the Bronx?

Huberto Tan (Dutch)

Don Jones (English)