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Audio .mp3 on impact of public shaming

According to Jon Ronson, the author of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed,

“In all shamings, women have it way worse than men. It’s no coincidence that my book is filled with women."

There is much material for reflection in Mr. Ronson's interview, which describes how sad, vicious episodes of public shaming are facilitated by the use of the Internet.

Far too many people, men and women, old and young, people about whom we know nothing but an IP address, have experienced trauma, shame, and in some cases, negative real life consequences as a result of their voluntary or involuntary participation on the Internet, or as a direct result of their attempts to contribute to the Wikipedia encyclopedia projects.

I would urge those who are having a hard time on this website, anyone who is or who wants to become an administrator here, and all of us who get frustrated with the other editors on this site, to consider listening to this .mp3, and to reflect on what it would take to help us remember that there is a real, living person reading the words we type on our computer, someone who may actually be a good-faith volunteer attempting to make a positive contribution, and some real person, who no matter how difficult or obnoxious they may be, deserves a kinder fate than an avalanche of public social rejection and verbal abuse. --Djembayz (talk) 02:19, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I've read some of his earlier articles about this, and they're very good, as he always is. Thanks for posting it. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 19:04, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I've used a quote from this as my latest talk-page "Quote of the day" All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:53, 23 May 2015 (UTC).

Discussion notice

There is a discussion at meta, Grants:IdeaLab/Community discussion on harassment reporting, that may be of interest to members of the group. Lightbreather (talk) 14:15, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Main page metrics

In the study " It's a Man's Wikipedia? Assessing Gender Inequality in an Online Encyclopedia", the researchers made an effort to assess gender bias in Wikipedia. Their model for determining "visibility bias" compared the proportions of men and women on the main page. I think it would benefit this task force to have access to up-to-date data for gender representation on the main page.

As Today's featured article, Did you know, In the news, On this day, and featured pictures all are products of different workflows, I think it would make sense to consider each separately. Trends like the bump in DYKs during Women's History Month could be visualized through a graphical representation of the data. What would be the easiest way to retrieve and present this data? Are there other metrics from the main page that would be useful to this task force? gobonobo ^{+ c} 02:28, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

• @Gobonobo: thanks for bringing up this subject as I am also interested in it. I've mentioned it in passing previously, but only regarding the DYK section. I agree that the data needs to be stovepiped by section as well as time (month/year). I'm very curious as to how the data will look across the years, but I don't know how to gather it, analyze it, or graphically present it. (It's been a long time since I was in graduate school.) Maybe the Wikidata folks would have some ideas? --Rosiestep (talk) 06:08, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

• I would suggest simply culling the wiki-links in each section and determining the gender of each that is about a specific human being. "On this day" should be controlled for year. Other sections should be controlled for the biography gender balance. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:53, 23 May 2015 (UTC).
  

The recent inspire grantee Wikipedia Gender Index is devoted to providing similar metrics so I've asked Maximilianklein if there's any overlap. gobonobo ^{+ c} 23:35, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

"Girl bands"

I was touching up Eurovision Song Contest 2015 and found completely unmotivated references to The Peppermints as a "girl group",[1] as well as in article about the band.[2] I made a similar fix to the lead of 5, 6, 7, 8s a while ago.[3] The gender of the band members clearly had no contextual relevance in these cases.

Might be worth keeping tabs on Category:All-female bands in this regard. In some instances, like AC/DShe, specifying gender in the lead seems more relevant.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:29, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

And you've been swiftly reverted, with a link to girl group added. I hope you are keeping an eye on boy bands also. Johnbod (talk) 12:22, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Rather trying to make this about the fairly well-defined "boy band" genre, I suggest taking a long, hard look at girl group and tell us what the definition is. It's not all that clear beyond the 1960s once you start looking up the sources cited.

In Category:American rock girl groups you've got The Bangles, The Go-Go's and Vixen (band) which seem equivalent to regular mixed or all-male rock and pop bands. It strikes me as a bit arbitrary, except that they happen to be all-female. Other examples that appear to be fairly haphazardly categorized as girl groups are Australian rock band Lash (band), Canadian Lillix, German Milk & Honey (group), Bananarama and temporary Swedish trio Afro-dite.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:25, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I have some sympathy with this, though I will certainly not be taking any sort of look at it. But anyone who thinks that being a girl group/band is not defining for Bananarama has gone bananas. Johnbod (talk) 14:29, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

No, taking a look at stuff would be droll. Clever puns, though, that's the way to make a difference.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:49, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

The Peppermints? You mean the ones whose official page, http://www.thepeppermints.eu/, has a site description of "Sito ufficiale della girl band The Peppermints"? --GRuban (talk) 14:59, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

And the Spice Girls made their point (and money) out of being a girl group. It didn't stop in the 1960s, that's for sure. - Sitush (talk) 23:48, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

It's a strange feeling not being allowed to call absolute bollocks what it is, absolute bollocks. Eric Corbett 00:50, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Women are not bollocks.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 04:21, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Just ignore it, no need to feed into it. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, you're right of course. There is a difference between girl group and All-female band, and not every discussion started on this board should be cause for derision.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 04:31, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Participants in this discussion might be interested in the LTA case Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Boy band vandal, where a person in Alberta (mostly edits from Grande Prairie) has been adding inappropriate boy band and girl band categories. This vandal was active as recently as last week. -- Diannaa (talk) 13:13, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Thorg

The new Statesman has an article on "The Wikipedia wars: does it matter if our biggest source of knowledge is written by men?" which might be worth a read. My feeling though is that it's time to do rather than to read. One thing that might be worthwhile is to organize a "thematic organization" aka a thorg - which is an organized group similar to a Wikimedia chapter, which can get funding from the WMF through the Funds Dissemination Committee in fairly large amount via an annual grant (i.e. not one little project at a time). Please do consider this. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:33, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

@Smallbones: I'm interested in such a thorg. I'm not sure where to look for more information about next steps. Ideas? --Rosiestep (talk) 14:26, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

@Rosiestep: Here are a few places to start, all on Meta:

• Wikimedia thematic organizations
• Requirements for future thematic organizations
• Step-by-step thematic organization creation guide

Basically it's a chapter, except it is not organized by geography or nationality. The only existing thorg is Amical Wikimedia, which organizes and represents Catalan speakers. This is perhaps a bit different from what the original thorg idea was, but I think it shows that the thorg idea is very flexible. Go for it! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:45, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Smallbones, thanks for posting this and the links. It's a great idea. Concerns are: volunteer time, how to make sure members are committed to the goals (rather than the situation we've seen on this talk page), and how to ensure that everything we did stood a good chance of making a difference. But the first step is to gather the people. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 18:47, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:Porn

I've asked in the past how WikiProject Pornography can be considered neutral if there is no anti-porn project but all I get told is "WP:NOTCENSORED". Wanting the flip-side to be included in Wikipedia is not censorious, in fact it is censorious to fail to actively pursue equal prominence for anti-pornography sentiments. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 02:46, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

You don't need an "anti" project. There is nothing to stop you creating and/or tagging articles with the existing project's banner if they fall under the scope, which includes "Other pornography-related topics, such as pornography genres" and "The larger topic of pornography itself, and social and cultural issues surrounding it."

We've had this discussion before here, I'm pretty sure. Not everything needs to be aligned like armies on a battlefield and NOTCENSORED applies as much to anti-porn articles as anything else. The problem is, too many people here do in fact see things as a battleground. Has someone actually told you not to tag some anti-porn organisation's article (or whatever, you get my drift)? If so, I'd like to see a diff and take it up with them. - Sitush (talk) 07:45, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, I've just randomly looked at Anti-pornography, Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance and Anti-pornography movement in the United Kingdom (three that appeared in the search box list when I began typing antiporn - I'm not very imaginative). They are all tagged as being within the scope of the pornography project. - Sitush (talk) 02:11, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I would think criticism of pornography would fall under WP:Porn also. It's not the "pro-porn wikiproject" it's a wikiproject on the topic of porn, which should include criticism in accordance with WP:NPOV, but in practice, I suspect that could be difficult if the project is heavily populated with pornography fans. If there's too much fighting among pornography fans on that project and those trying to expand articles and topics critical of porn, a seperate wikiproject might seem reasonable. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 17:43, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

How does this relate to the gender gap? Grognard Extraordinaire Chess (talk) Ping when replying 23:42, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:20, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

• There is an antiporn project anyway. It may be an informal one, but its there, and fairly robust. They are at AfD all the time trying to delete articles on minor porn actors, tweaking the notability policy, policing BLPs, etc. As for article coverage of anti-pornography topics, its up to those interested in those topics to recruit and work on those topics. Perhaps you'll recruit by posting about it here. But it is not "censorious" if editors choose to work on other areas, and frankly its sounds ridiculous that you even stated it that way, so I assume it was intended to get a rise out of people. Its a shame there is so much drama on this board, it clearly has dampened real discussion. Perhaps someone would like to help improve one of my recent creations, Emma Padilla, mexico's first popular actress, there is dearth of online sourcing about her.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 13:27, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

• Antifeminism is part of the Feminism WikiProject. So anti-porn stuff is also logically part of the porn project. I know of no "anti" projects in this sense, just anti vandalism. Frankly the idea seems nonsensical to me. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:20, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

BBC Radio Woman's Hour interview on Wiki's Gender Gap

An .mp3 BBC Radio Woman's Hour interview on Wiki's Gender Gap, with Jenny Kleeman, author of the New Statesman article mentioned above, and Daria Cybulska of Wikimedia UK. Begins at 16:45. --Djembayz (talk) 11:58, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this, Djembayz. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 18:21, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Hm, again with the 10%...

For anyone interested in addressing the Sex and the City issue:

Note: Box (with alterations) courtesy of Sex and the City Wikia.

Some of the above are redirects, for example They Shoot Single People Don't They (was this stub, which was deemed not notable. Some point to dab pages or articles on different topics. And one (To Market, to Market (SATC episode) has existed for eight years, presumable being the only one sufficiently well referenced to survive redirection.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:16, 1 June 2015 (UTC).

WikiProject Women's health

A new project is being set up in case anyone would like to join. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 18:23, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Linking to SaidOnWP twitter

The top of this page contains a link to a twitter account that has retweeted highly dubious claims of a wikipedia editor "threatening violence against women," while naming and shaming him. This seems like an inappropriate page to link to. Would people be fine with the link being removed/would whoever runs that twitter account be willing to delete that retweet? Bosstopher (talk) 23:45, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

@Bosstopher: It appears that the twitter account has previously made attacks on specific editors before. I strongly support a removal of this account. Grognard Extraordinaire Chess (talk) Ping when replying 00:40, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I've removed it. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 00:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

[4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. I am not comfortable with a twitter account that insults Wikipedia editors to be prominently featured on a page dedicated to addressing the gender gap. I am going to be bold and remove this link. Grognard Extraordinaire Chess (talk) Ping when replying 00:53, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Edit conflict with SlimVirgin, I wrote this before that post. Grognard Extraordinaire Chess (talk) Ping when replying 00:53, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Tahera Ahmad

I started a stub on Tahera Ahmad. I'm not the strongest writer but she appears to be quite a notable feature if her teaching profile is to be believed she has been on several national level news figure. Thought maybe a few of the stronger writers may want to look this up and improve the article. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 02:45, 2 June 2015 (UTC)