Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force/Archive 2

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Gendered sports teams RFC

There's a Request For Comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports#RfC: How should articles on national sports teams handle gendered teams? which participants here may be interested in. Sionk (talk) 01:13, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Deletion discussion in progress

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic gender bias XOttawahitech (talk) 18:08, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

"Merging" (aka Deleting) categories

There is a discussion on merging Category:American women philosophers, Category:Asian American philosophers and Category:African-American philosophers into Category:American philosophers which would, in fact, lead to their deletion. If you would like to weigh in on the conversation (pro or con), go to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 April 17#Category:American (x) philosophers. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:11, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Categories again

Obi, I would like to try to revive this project a little, with others, if possible, which is why I'm tidying the main page. The categories issue is a very particular interest, and in addition there are concerns that it may not be the best approach. That's why I removed some of the detail. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:47, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

By particular interest, do you mean there was a massive media sh*tstorm the last time we did categorization incorrectly? I hardly think it's minor, and would love this project to continue to be involved in that. What "concerns" are there?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 07:24, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Slim, for taking this on. I agree with your truncated version. jps (talk) 17:23, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Which 'truncated version' are we talking about? The complete removal of the de-ghettoization information? That's not truncated, but complete removal! Surely it's a perfectly reasonable activity for this Project, to de-ghettoize categories? What has changed that makes de-ghettoization incorrect? Considering neither of the removers are members of the Project, what right do they have to dictate the Project's goals? Mind you, I took my name off the project too earlier this year, for completely different reasons, though I spent many weeks on the de-ghettoization task. Sionk (talk) 17:47, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

yes, these two are people Bobo and jps are involved in a vicious content battle with me about the Category:Violence against men category which jps wants to delete. The deghettoization instructions being summarily deleted here without discussion or explanation are just collateral damage from that. Id suggest to those removing this information that the ghettoization of categories was the subject of weeks of media coverage about wikipedia's systemic gender bias, indeed if you were to write an article on that bias, the categories story would be story #1. As such removing the instructions used to deghettoize categories and summarily deciding that categories are no longer part of this project is ignoring the wider reality in which we sit and the reason this very project exists.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:15, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not involved in any content dispute with you at Category:Violence against men (or anywhere else), so I'd appreciate it if you would retract that. My concern is just that it takes up a lot of the page, it seems to be contentious, and it's unlikely that women coming here will want to focus on it. Perhaps we could link on the page to where it's described elsewhere, though I'm still concerned in case it's not a standard approach. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:23, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

fixed, I didn't mean you of course. Slim, how exactly does it take up a lot of the page? The instructions are actually collapsed, so they take up no room at all. Also, this page is not just for women editors, I hope you can adjust your thinking on that point... And which part, exactly and specifically, do you find to be contentious?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:20, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Obiwankenobi, I'd describe what is happening more as serious concern regarding one editor making so many unilateral changes to gender related content/categories, absent consensus. To stay on topic here, what's the problem with these categories:

Category: American women activists (and various subcategories)

Category: American women comedians

Category: American women by occupation

Category: Male feminists

Category: American women painters (and various subcategories)

Category: Women mayors

They appear to be valid useful categories. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 18:32, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I personally went through much the contents of Category: American women painters and the articles in this category is largely okay. However, I've just dipped into Category: American women comedians and picked a couple of articles in the category at random (Eliza Coupe, Rachel Crow, Chelsea Handler) and none of them are de-ghettoized. In fact they are also in 'Jewish' and 'African-American' categories! So I see no problem in updating the Project's to-do list, but deleting it all in its entirely seems to be simply non-Project members taking out a grievance with Obiwankenobi in the wrong place. Sionk (talk) 18:56, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how "de-ghettoizing" these categories serves the task force goals. Could someone please explain. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 19:01, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Bobo, if you don't see how it serves the task force goals, then I'd suggest you do some more reading on the Amanda Filipacchi case, all of the articles and accusations of sexism and gender bias at wikipedia as a result of that. And then, you can come back and ask what deghettoization has to do with gender bias here. I have a feeling you don't even know what you were reverting, nor why.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:17, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

This is a task force related to the under-representation of female editors on Wikipedia, and the bias that results from that. Seems "deghettoizing" those categories is not the way to start, and in fact, may even be contrary to task force goals. What exactly do you think needs done to those above mentioned categories to reduce the bias resulting from women being under-represented as wiki editors? --BoboMeowCat (talk) 19:28, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

No, Bobo, "The aim of the task force is to identify gender bias on Wikipedia – whether in articles, discussions, policies or implementation of policies – and to take steps to counter it". The lack of female editors is perhaps a cause, and a symptom, it's all intertwined, but this project is most certainly about content and not just getting more women editors. Again, if you haven't done any reading (see Filipacchi story) on the history of the deghettoization mess and all of the negative press wikipedia received around that, I'd suggest you stop commenting until you have. Suggesting that deghettoizing the categories is contrary to task force goals means either you don't know what the goals are or you don't know what deghettoization MEANS. I wouldn't be giving you a hard time if (a) you hadn't gotten involved in an edit war that you clearly didn't even understand and (b) you weren't making declarative opinions about the value of this or that while demonstrating that you don't even know what deghettoization means, nor whether or not it is a good thing. If you undo your revert, it would make me much more willing to engage with you, frankly. When I first added this info a year ago, another editor said: "Thanks for posting that, and this is a good place for it. I'm not sure I follow what's needed, mind you. Whenever I've tried to work with categories, I've mostly been beaten back. :" That editor's name? I'll let y'all guess.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk). 19:40, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Interesting, are you suggesting systemic bias on wikipedia, as it relates to gender, refers to bias against male editors? More than 90% of edits on WP are made by male editors, so that's a hard argument to follow. Also, I'm familiar with the Amanda Filipacchi case [[1]] and it seems the issue there would be whether or not adding an article to the category "American woman authors" should necessitate removing author from category "American authors". It seems it should not. PS-the off topic discussion is getting distracting, but to be precise, that's not my quote, and as far as I can see, the only edit warrior was you. I only made one revert, while you made three.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 20:05, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

No Bobo, Im suggesting this project is about systemic bias IN the wiki. Women being ghettoized in categories is an excellent example of that bias, and that's not just me talking, that's dozens of outside reliable sources who made the same claim. You joined into the middle of an edit war and removed material that you don't even understand. For example, if I told you a category was full of biographies that were ghettoized, should that be fixed? If so, how? You just deleted the instructions. Do you understand what deghettoization means, and how it relates to the Filipacchi case?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:09, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

If by fixing you mean putting relevant authors into the category "American authors" and in category "American women authors" then yes. However, it is not clear you mean that, and my past experiences with your edits suggests you do not mean that. Also, could you review WP:CIVIL. There's no need to make this personal. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 20:32, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Did you read the instructions that you so callously deleted? Do you have any idea what those instructions had to say about american authors and American women authors? I frankly don't care about your experiences with my past edits, I'm not judging you based on your obvious inexperience here, I'm asking you to read before you start reverting things. Can you try that? Read the instructions, and then come back and start making claims about what I "mean" when I say deghettoization - otherwise you're just casting vicious aspersions with veiled innuendo.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:10, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

We could just refer people to the guideline: "For anyone interested in categorization, see Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality and specifically WP:Cat gender." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:07, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I disagree Slim. This is a project, and the place for a list of things to fix, and instructions for how to fix them, is here. I've also in other conversations pointed people to these deghettoization guidelines, so deleting them without any consensus on talk is overly aggressive and a violation of WP:BRD.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:17, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Obi, I set this project up for women to track and discuss whatever bias they saw on Wikipedia, whether in articles, policies, behaviour, etc. It didn't become active, so I decided recently to try to revive or restart it. That's why I edited the page. It's not good to see it overtaken by category talk, which few would want to get deeply involved in, given how aggressive it can become. It's especially not good if a non-mainstream or non-consensus approach is being recommended (and I don't know whether it is).

I was hoping this could become a safe space for quiet, positive collaboration. It would help a lot if the talk about categories could be taken elsewhere. Lots of people watching this are likely to feel discouraged from jumping in. I know I feel discouraged by it (and I am very used to feeling discouraged on WP!). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:59, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Slim, I'm all for this being a place of collaboration. When new participants who haven't helped here barge in, start making reverts they clearly don't even understand, and refuse to follow WP:BRD instead of calmly discussing, yes, I agree that makes things difficult. Why don't you set the bar, restore the material, and then we can have a measured conversation without disruption. You keep on suggesting that the deghettoization of categories is not mainstream or consensus - I wish you'd indicate why you believe that, or what the problems with that are? Most of the conversations that have taken place on this page have been about categorization, so even if it's not something you care deeply about, others here do. Again, I see no reason for you to unilaterally declare a topic off-topic here, in a real collaborative space we would all have the capacity to put forth things which we think are important.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:07, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, but look, if most of the discussion on this page has been about categories (and still is), and the task force never took off, perhaps there's a connection?

I don't want to rehash discussions taking place elsewhere, but it seems that your approach to categories is contentious. Whether that's fair, I have no idea. I don't understand the anti-ghettoization principle, because sometimes it's fine to have cats about women artists, etc. I don't understand when it's not fine and who is making those decisions. The women novelists category was never the problem; it was not allowing women novelists in the parent category too that was the problem.

But anyway, you seem to be saying that once you add something about it to this page, it has to stay there ... forever? It has been there for over a year, and the only reason I didn't remove it earlier was in case this happened. I was hoping that, after a year, it would be okay to start revamping the page a bit (though I don't yet know how or in which direction), so I hope you'll let that go ahead.

I can't see any reason not to refer people to Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, and just leave it there, because whatever it suggests there is what people should be doing. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:33, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I see, so two of the editors than are repeatedly removing information and instructions about de-ghettoization don't actually understand de-ghettoization. This definitely sounds like you've had an argument with Obiwankenobi elsewhere and are taking out your frustration on this project. I might have to re-join to defend it! Sionk (talk) 20:43, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, but look, if most of the discussion on this page has been about categories (and still is), and the task force never took off, perhaps there's a connection? Damn, that's a zinger. FWIW, for those playing along, the person who complimented me on putting the categorization instructions here a year ago was none other than SlimVirgin. Oh how times change... In any case, sheesh, suggesting that an area that has attracted the most talk page attention is the CAUSE for the project not taking off is, um, well, interesting. Anyway, Slim, if you want to promote an inclusive atmosphere, let's start by not deleting other editor's contributions to the common good, like the ghettoization algorithm I took a long time to develop - it would be a great sign of your good faith if you reverted your changes pending our discussion here, per WP:BRD. It's amazingly ironic that both you and Bobo deleted that, and then it turns out you don't even understand de-ghettoization! Perhaps it needs even more explanation here, rather than less!--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:06, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that's pretty obvious. I'm surprised that even Slim doesn't understand what de-ghettoization means, so let me make it explicit. Deghettoization is the process of ensuring that a biography is in all relevant non-gendered categories in addition to gendered ones (or ethnic, or sexuality, etc). Thus, the process of deghettoization almost always includes ADDING new categories to an article. Bobo disagrees with me on a few minor categorizations in a rather different domain, and thus they ascribe bad faith to me for my work on deghettoization.

A shorter way of putting it is, when the massive shitstorm started by Filipacchi about categorization on wikipedia started, the solution AGREED upon by a vast majority of the editors who participated there was...wait for it... deghettoization. And Slim, no, I'm not saying once something is there it has to stay forever. I am saying, you are not the executive chair of this board, and if you want it to be an inclusive space the first step would be (1) Don't delete another editor's proposals without discussing and (2) Don't violate BRD on a project page - of all places. I'm also a member of this project Slim, so I hope you accept that my voice is just as important as yours.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:51, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I set up the task force with women in mind. I hoped that women could use it to discuss the gender gap. When I saw that other issues were being discussed, I stopped watching the page. Recently there was a discussion about needing a place for women to discuss these issues, so I was thinking of trying to revive this, which includes adding something more inviting to women to the main page, or trying to develop it in that direction (I'm not sure yet). Pinging others who might be interested: SarahStierch, Kaldari, Carolmooredc, The Vintage Feminist, Gobonobo, Kevin Gorman. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:14, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Slim, your continued referencing of "women" is unhelpful. You can have off-wiki women-only mailing lists if you like, but especially in a place where many editors don't even declare their gender, attempting to suggest that a space or project or collaboration is primarily for women goes against the aims of the project, and suggests that men can't be part of the solution, it's exclusionary, and I'd suggest you check your language on that point. As to whether "women" are interested in categorization, during the category mess we had women novelists tweeting about it (including famous ones), deep conversations with women academics, librarians, the woman who started the whole thing was, well, a woman, so the suggestion that women wouldn't be interested in fixing the mess of ghettoization is dismissive in the worst way possible, and more importantly, doesn't have any evidence associated with it; I know a number of women who have been active in categorization here. Again, you want to create an inclusive space, but why don't you start by an act of good faith, and restore the content, so we can discuss it, per WP:BRD. You are still not responding on that point, which confuses me. Or do you think we don't need to seek consensus on this page, and it's your way or the highway? As I noted earlier, I've pointed other people in other conversations to those instructions, so by summarily deleting them, you are breaking links elsewhere in the wiki.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:53, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Obiwankenobi, “women in mind” doesn't mean women only. The gender gap is a serious issue on Wikipedia, which leads to systematic bias. I suspect it would be of particular interest to female editors, but not exclusive interest. Male editors may also be interested in the gender gap on wiki, how the gender gap effects female editors, and what can be done to address it. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 23:04, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

the way her wording was phrased sounded exclusionary. Not acceptable. If that wasn't her intent, then great. Gender bias can be caused by more than just not enough female editors, btw. The task force has clear statement of purpose and that's what I signed up for, aggressively deleting my contributions and making me feel unwelcome is a really terrible idea. You notice that Slim Virgin has refused this far to revert and has ignored the inputs of another member here who found the categorization guidelines useful. What kind of welcoming place is this? If you want to remodel, you don't start by demolition, you stRt with agreed plans and scope, which we don't have here. If you want to create a tea house for women then why not create a special woman's room in the tea house - this is a task force focused on work to address gender bias of any stripe.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:55, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I restored the algorithm as you requested. I think it should be moved to a subpage, or perhaps the whole section (after the introductory blurb) can be collapsed as a compromise. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:50, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I suck at all things categories. I just...do... trust me. SarahStierch (talk) 22:02, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sarah, me too. I didn't ping you re: categories, but because I was thinking of trying to revive this space for some of the things discussed on the gender gap. A safe space for collaboration, a kind of gender-gap teahouse, somewhere warm and positive (fat chance, but worth a try!). Some nice design for the page would be good. Not sure what to write on it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:13, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Categorization needs own subpage??

It looks like there's been several threaded discussions of categories on this topic, a topic which can get very confusing even for those of us who are into it to some extent. To avoid the kind of misunderstandings, conflicts, etc. above, perhaps it needs it's own subpage as part of the countering systematic bias project. And then that can be linked from the main page of this task force with a short note on its purpose and how to help out.

Also, a quick wiki search of the phrase de-ghettoization/de-ghettozie suggests it only has been used a few times, several related to the increasing the number of women. So it might be nice to ask the gender gap task force (including its women) if they even want that phrase to be used. Women are spread throughout society and not stuck in ghettos like racial and ethnic groups so often have been. The issue is making women important enough that individuals are willing to think about categories for them, willing to look for and recognize women who belong in existing categories, willing to put them there. It's about creating and/or populating categories. A more accurate and less loaded phrase needed. Update: see Ghettoization about removing women categories?? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 00:51, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

It's a good idea to give categories its own countering systemic bias subpage. That would allow people to specialize. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:00, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

It's also possible to have a dedicated, clearly identified archive page just for all these women categorization threads for those who really want to delve into it. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:12, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it might have been Filipacchi who first used the word "ghettoize" to refer to women being locked in their own subcategory, but I'm not sure, it may have come from us and one of our policies, but it was widely used in the media. If you have a better set of words to describe "biographies that are in ethnic/gendered versions, but not in their engendered equivalents", and a word to describe the process of fixing it (e.g. de-ghettoize), I'm all ears. I don't have any special attachment to the word itself.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:31, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not crazy about the phrase "de-ghettoization/de-ghettozie". Something more along the lines of "appropriately populating the category" seems preferable. Also, in order to address the category issues, in relation to the gender gap issue, I think any instructions regarding appropriately populating categories should very clearly stress not removing articles from the parent category, and also should stress not de-populating the sub-category (ie - don’t take women out of “American authors” when they are added to “American women authors” and don’t take women out of “American women authors” when they are added “American authors”). Having that separate subcategory definitely seems to serve purpose of a gender gap task force, with respect to ease of locating articles pertaining to women. Such articles may require extra attn, due to the systematic bias inherent to having so relatively few female editors.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 01:36, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

If you read through the instructions that have now kindly been restored, you will see I cover this in great detail. If you have specific feedback about how to improve those instructions, I would welcome your feedback. The problem is, it's not just about putting the children in the parent. That's the complexity that people sometimes miss. You'll notice, for example, there are no women in Category:American novelists, actually there's no-one at all. The reason is that to deghettoize, you usually put the bio in a diffusing sibling category - not necessarily the parent.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:01, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

• Wordwise:

De-ghettoization is a hyped up neologism that isn't used in any gender studies, feminist writings, etc. Some media outlets mentioning wiki editors used it at some point doesn't change that.

And categorization is not math, so "Algorithm" is not an appropriate word, though it sure would turn off a lot of women who have had math avoidance drummed into their heads most of their lives. Wikipedia:Categorization and Help:Category both use simpler language like "function", "feature", "system" and "process".

The use of non-standard language makes one wonder about the validity of what is being promoted, though most of us don't have energy or interest to figure it out. If what you are doing is important to countering bias, it occurs to me you should be proposing your "algorithm" in Wikipedia:Categorization where editors experienced in the topic can comment.

I think the DO list should read something like "Populate categories under Category:Women with more articles about women. (See "Wikiproject counter systematic bias/Women in Categories" for details.) And that page would suggest or organize categories most needing populating, how to find articles about women to do it and also link to your new new section under Wikipedia:Categorization and explain its relevance to your suggestions.

• Spacewise: Maybe someone else thinks the most important "Do" is a rule that administrators must be 51% female, even though only 75% of female editors might agree and 15% want to work on it. And another that the most import "Do" be that all male editors accused at ANI of harassment and incivility by more than one female editor have to undergo a mandatory sensitivity training, even thought only 45% of female editors might agree and 8% want to work on it. But do we overwhelm the "Do" section with details with provacative wording and long outlines of our agenda hidden under green lines? Or, if there is sufficient support, do we create a subpage to work on them so they do not overwhelm the Do List. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 05:19, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Carol. Any word suggestions besides de-ghettoize? As for "Populate categories under women" - this is interesting - during the whole debate, you had a great number of women writers outside wikipedia who were saying, don't call me a woman novelist at all, I'm just a bloody novelist. Wikipedia eventually rejected that view and opted to both call them women novelists and novelists. The problem isn't necessarily that we need to tag more people as women X (this can be done in bulk by people with AWB), the bias problem identified is many of those already tagged as woman-X are in a ghetto. Thus, the instructions were framed less around adding more women to women categories, and rather around fixing women who were in women categories (or african americans, or LGBT people, or ...) and were not in the neutral siblings. I used algorithm in the sense of "series of steps", but I will think of a different word.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 07:11, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Although "ghettoization" may not be a word that is frequently used when discussing gender bias, it is a term used by Wikipedia category experts to describe subdividing of article categories to the point where some articles are not represented in the main categories on a topic and so may never be found in a category search, as explained in WP:GHETTO. Wikipedia editors use many words in a project-specific way ("notability" comes to mind) and I see nothing wrong with using this term as long as there is a link to the explanation. Also, while the word "algorithm" really does mean a series of steps, it is used mainly by mathematicians and computer programmers, so perhaps a more commonly used term such as process or procedure would be more inclusive. —Anne Delong (talk) 11:18, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Note: Reading Anne's comment above now, I see it did explain the issue a bit better than above. But obviously some of us have been confused, leading to a lot of unnecessary back and forth which could have been cleared up much earlier. As I said way back when, just put the woman's article in both the larger category and the smaller one; same for others. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:03, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Ghettoization about removing women categories??

Ok, first I think I'm finally figuring out what Ghettoization means: "women shouldn't be in their own category ghetto of being women" NOT "women aren't put in an appropriate category at all and left in a lonely ghetto ignored." DUH!! Just now remembering some of the original discussions last year... Using ambiguous catch phrases certainly can confuse the conversation. Maybe we have to start all over again!

Also, FYI, low and behold Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality exists and has a gender subsection. And there is a requested move to Wikipedia:Categorization of people/Sensitive categories. which I've already signed on to support.

I see that "ghettoization" is only a recent entry on that page and doesn't seem to have been adequately discussed on the talk page. Maybe some people are confused about the meaning there, too??

A wiki search does show the term used a few times way back and a lot more recently, both to discuss actual policies of putting or keeping real live people in ghettos and in the categories section. Our using it that way does seem to trivialize the real life episodes and, again, women don't tend to get stuck by themselves in actual ghettos anyway. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:50, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

ghettoization in this context means (usually) a biography is in a gendered/ethnic/sexuality category, but not in a neutral equivalent. Deghettoization means putting the biography in appropriate neutral equivalents. Because of the structure of the tree doing this correctly can be difficult - feel free to ping my talk if you're interested in learning more. In some cases, these categories due to their structure in the tree are more likely than not to ghettoize, in which case they violate WP:EGRS and the category can be deleted. So the main fix for ghettoization is simply adding new categories to existing bios. Another fix is to change the structure - eg a bunch if work I did to make princesses categories siblings of prince categories vs subcats. Another fix sometimes used is to delete the category - but deleting the category is not considered 'deghettoization' --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, you still don't answer the question of whether women categories should be removed and how many you think should be removed. Again, a) we need to archive all this stuff immediately into a "categorization" archive page and b) discuss it at either the WP:Categorization/Ethnicity,_gender,_religion_and_sexuality or Categories for discussion pages, with a link to such discussions here for those who care to get involved (with occasional discussions if it is something major like "eliminate all categories with word women.") I don't have strong feelings about it one way or the other; others do. In any case, let them discuss it in a more appropriate forum. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

That's fine with me Carol, as I proposed to you recently, we could create a special sub-talk page here that is focused on category issues re: gender bias. We have around 6,000 "women" categories, and I think about 99% should remain, if you're wondering where I personally stand.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:21, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree it should not be on page in current format and maybe not at all. Maybe it should just be linked elsewhere. In terms of categories relation to the task force goals, I'm concerned with this instruction currently on our page regarding biographies of women: "in order to be correctly categorized, they do not necessarily need to be in the parent of the gendered subcategory". While this may be factually true, it does not appear to address the gender concerns brought up by the Filpacchi case [[2]] where women were being removed from "American novelists" and stuck in "American women novelists". In terms of the task force goals, I believe we'd want to get women into the parent category as much as possible, and also fill the child category (ie "American women novelists") as much as is reasonable. The current instruction do not stress this and as written appear to counter this so I think this shouldn't be on our page in current format. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 14:41, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is a common misconception - the whole notion that bios must be in the PARENT is extremely problematic, and actually dead wrong. If you look at Category:American novelists, you will notice there are zero biographies there. Same with Category:American politicians. And yet, no-one (or very few) in those trees are ghettoized? Why? It's because they are in gender-neutral siblings/cousins/etc. If you want to discuss this more feel free to ping me on my talk page so I can detail the reasoning further.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:44, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I was involved quite a while ago organising and setting up lists and categories for Women architects. It seemed reasonable to highlight them because they are in a distinct minority in the construction industry, there are initiatives and campaigns to increase the ratio and discover why women drop-out/aren't recognised. However, with other areas, such as writers/novelists, I get the feeling women are in the majority so I see less reason to have a Women authors category. I'm still a bit confused about the rule-of-thumb that decides if we need to categorize by gender (or race/sexuality). Generally I get the feeling whatever we do we're fighting against the overwhelming consensus of young male editors who think that women are a curiosity, rather than a legitimate majority of the world's population! Sionk (talk) 14:56, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Sionk, that is probably an issue best worked out elsewhere. It seems beyond the scope of this page. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 15:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The question of whether a given category for "Women X" should exist can sometimes be contentious. What I think ISN'T contentious is, provided the category exists, that it should not ghettoize those women. There are very few who disagree with that second point. Some people, esp outside the wiki, think the very existence of such categories is a form of sexism, whereas others think that not having them is a form of erasure of women. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. :)--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:00, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Specialists in areas can forget that even those who may have been semi-familiar with the top say 8 months ago, may have forgotten and/or not understand a) the jargon; b) the issues; c) why they should spend time figuring it out. Back then my response was - put them in both categories. That's still my response. Both have their uses. And there's lots of space on the servers. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:24, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Carol, that is close to correct, but the consensus arrived at was slightly different - I gave already the example of Category:American women novelists, where the solution agreed upon was actually NOT to put everyone in Category:American novelists. I don't want to take up more space here to discuss, but I have a longer exposition in draft I wrote here a while back that may explain a bit better.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:45, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Expanding use of the project

While there's always potential for warm and positive, in the interim this task force can and should be used for problem solving the problem of not enough female participation in en.Wikipedia. It's not just a place to link to techno-solutions.

So per the scope statement on the main page, in order to identify gender bias on Wikipedia – whether in articles, discussions, policies or implementation of policies – and to take steps to counter it, as well as to raise awareness of how it can affect editorial and other decisions we should consider:

• linking to various relevant articles/essays/projects within en.wikipedia and wikimedia regarding the topic.
• writing an essay prominently advertised here on the problems women face and solutions to those problems through wiki dispute resolution processes, existing "support" type pages, etc.; writing another essay on how men and women can work together more successfully in community, etc., considering some concepts in this geekfeminism article.
• thinking up policy tweaks and changes, like regarding WP:Civility and WP:Harassment, to make Wikipedia more comfortable for women.
• posting at the very least links to a variety of topical behavior/policy/etc. issues - including relevant ANIs and Arbitrations and noticeboard postings - that directly affect the gender gap and at least discussing them here and/o getting involved on an individual basis if it seems relevant.
• learning what other projects are doing right. (I heard on gender gap email list the Serb women are the most active. I know the ones I've met are very smart and forthright.)
• promoting the various women-related projects to women editors. I was a member of this task force for a year or so, unwatched it in a moment of general frustration, and completely forgot it existed! So it pays to advertise!
• Other ideas?

So there's lots that can be done here without it becoming a touchy feeling consciousness raising group, as much fun as that would be Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:10, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

That's brilliant stuff, Carol, thanks for writing it up. I have to go offline shortly, so I can't respond more now, but I will tomorrow. The essay is a really good idea. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:19, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Here's another idea I came up with on Gender gap email list but thought I'd pass by here first, regarding statistically interesting facts we might find on who does/supports AfD's of articles about or related to women: It would be interesting to see if there is a pattern of certain individuals AfDing (and/or coming by to support AfDing) articles because of bias against women. If it's found, a few of us could leave them some nice notes on their talk pages about our findings. :-) (I'm such a nudge!) Thoughts? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:04, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Carol, this is an interesting idea. I doubt whether such users would be found, but you never know. I just "lost" Patricia Ainsworth, but there was no hope of keeping it (her?) without more substantive references. How would you identify bias? How would you rule out, for example, someone who was interested in new articles about women, and as a result only AfD'd articles about women? Indeed once the article is gone it's hard to identify if it is about women or a woman. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 03:11, 2 August 2014 (UTC).

The more important thing is to note bios of women, works by women or women's organizations (a frequent target) being AfD'd at a higher rate than males. Actually, all you have to do is look at mens bios, works, organizations and in general you'll find a whole bunch with fewer refs than the article being AfD'd, but they don't even have a needs ref tag on them. That's evidence enough for me and a comparison chart would certainly be of interest. If I was a deletionist I could spend every day AfDing such stuff, but I'm not (unless it's really an absurd topic). If in researching this some individuals name kept coming up and a study of the AfDs through AfD history research showed a clear pattern, then it might be something to discuss with the editor. Maybe ask him to work on AfDing mostly male articles for next six months or whatever :-) Anyway, it's a thought that would have to be worked up into a research scheme and this is just throwing out ideas. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:56, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

"...that's evidence enough for me..." Please explain, evidence of what and why? Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 18:03, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Scope

"gender bias" doesn't mean "under participation of women" and, obviously, the project scope doesn't explicitly mention under-participation of women editors anywhere. It will definitely need to be re-worded. I for one completely misunderstood the purpose of the project. Sionk (talk) 11:07, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

The project scope does mention specifically that only 8.5% of WP editors are female. But you bring up a good point about clarity. I think maybe this task force should be renamed to something along the lines of "the gender gap task force". --BoboMeowCat (talk) 12:52, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

the initial version is pretty clear:[3] - identify gender bias in articles and policies. Given that dozens of reliable sources considered our ghettoization of female biographies to be an indication of exactly such gender bias and indeed that the categorization issue has gotten more sustained press out of any other gender bias issue that I've seen, I think this task force should not be repurposed away from that initial goal - it could have ancillary goals added such as making WP more welcoming for women editors; but I dont think as a task force of countering systemic bias, with an existing editor base, we should throw away that first goal - meaning identify gender bias in articles and policies, and correct it. Categorization into gendered categories is one manifestation of that and I think it should remain as a task covered by this group.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:58, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

note early conversation and proposal about this:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Archive_14#Gender_bias_task_force, which imagined creating a place where everyone was welcome and where problematic articles could be identified. I have no problems with expanding the goals of this task force to also address the gender gap, but would oppose renaming it or removing the original goal of identifying and addressing gender bias.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:23, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Do you believe there is any systematic gender bias against men in Wikipedia? jps (talk) 13:46, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

The Meta/Gender Gap/Research section cites several studies on "gender differences" in editing on Wikipedia. (Needs updating and a compare and contrast article; another project we could do here.) Obviously if males predominate number-wise, there will be topic biases and behavior biases towards preferred modes of operating. And if males put up a fight towards those biases being changed in order to make editing more comfortable for women, you have an entrenched and institutionalized bias issue. Therefore the gender gap is a bias issue that this wikiproject should address. It never occurred to me that that it wouldn't be clear that bias leads to the gap. It did occur to me that bias may make some males dig in their heels to resist any challenge from women to change the modus operandi. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:19, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

well, given that you are stridently trying to erase 'violence against men' as a concept of study here,Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_June_24#Category:Violence_against_men and have personally declared study of sexual and gender-based violence against men to be a fringe point of view, in spite of dozens of reliable sources discussing this (see list of sources, if these categories end up being deleted that would be a good indication of bias against men that is not supported by reliable sources but rather by personal dislike of the topic area or a feeling that such a topic area somehow weakens the study of violence against women. I think it's an over correction - Wikipedia is acknowledged to have a gender bias against women, but sometimes we over correct too far in the other direction. Completely Erasing any concept of gender-based violence against men as a cogent and serious area of academic study would be an excellent illustration that the pendulum has swung too far to one side, and I hope corrective action could be taken to address that. More importantly, when a good faith contributor is slurred and demeaned by the likes of you for daring to expand coverage of Wikipedia in this domain which is attested to by significant literature, it creates an unwelcome space for editors of any gender who feel attacked for supporting a view which goes against the view of people like yourself but is nonetheless a part of mainstream academic discourse - I've yet to find any academic papers anywhere that dispute that gender based violence against men exists and you've been unable to produce any literature which supports your views, but a small subset of Wikipedia editors seems to nonetheless believe it's all a fantasy. I don't know if I'd call that systemic but it's there.-Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:24, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

[Insert] Obiwankenobi wrote "well, given that you are stridently trying to erase 'violence against men'..." Please identify who "you" is since it's not me. I'm not familiar enough with what the related-Wiki issues are to opine. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:24, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

The objection to that category does not appear related to systemic bias. If I remember correctly, that category was nominated for deletion by a male editor, on the ground that the category was being misused to promote men's rights propaganda. However, whether or not that is a fair assessment of the category is currently being debated at length elsewhere and honestly seems off-topic here. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 15:05, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Carol I was talking about jps, not you. a number of academy and scholarly studies have noted the systemic undercoverage of gender-based violence against men both as a topic of advocacy and as a topic of investment/funding/programming, etc. So, people outside of wikiland believe that there is systemic bias that mitigates against taking gender-based violence against men seriously - happily people have been studying this so there are plenty of reliable sources. unfortunately some here at wikipedia think it's not worthy of our consideration.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:40, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree the task force should make clear that everyone is welcome to participate and discuss issues related to systemic bias on Wikipedia, as it relates to gender. However, unfortunately, it seems some misunderstand what systemic bias is, causing them to misunderstand the task force. That's why the name change of "gender gap task force" was suggested, because apparently, the "Countering systemic bias" part is not making this clear enough. If you read the section on systemic bias linked above, you'll see systemic bias is related to the demographics of the contributors, so while it's completely true that there can be bias against male editors/male issues, systemic bias on Wikipedia is about the gender gap. Currently, only approximately 10% of edits are being made by female editors, leading to systemic bias against female editors/women's issues on Wikipedia. Please note that I said systemic bias, not bias in general. Also please note that systemic bias could very well be a male gender issue in other venues (such as male students in predominately female nursing program), but on Wikipedia the under-represented demographic is female editors. To avoid having to continually go through such a lengthy explanation, I think a name change would be very helpful. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 14:51, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Bobo, I think the original goals of the group were clearly laid out in the initial edits and announcements by SlimVirgin. that some want to now change those goals doesn't mean we "misunderstand the task force" - I've been here since the beginning, and you just showed up, so please don't tell me what it's for.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:40, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Obiwankenobi, "systemic bias" was always part of the title. All I'm asking is you familiarize yourself with meaning of systemic bias and please not turn this into a huge off topic debate regarding some other sort of bias, which may or may not be affecting the vote for the "violence against men" category. That is currently being debated at great length elsewhere on Wikipedia, and while I agree it may be related to a bias issue of some sort, it's not a systemic bias issue (ie bias specifically related to the gender demographics of the participants). Also, if you check the list for this task force, I actually joined this task force prior to your joining, but that's not even really relevant. Please stop making this personal and criticizing my participation. I've already requested this above when it was getting out of hand and I linked to WP:Civil.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 16:11, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

At least we need to make this point perfectly clear in the lead and scope sections of the project; scope mentions gender gap but doesn't make the connection or state that part of the purpose is to close the gap.

FYI, I do think articles about violence against men are relevant. I'd like to see extensive content on the statistic that more males are raped by other males in the US military than females are raped; or that older males through history have supported war as a way to get rid of a certain percentage of young males who might revolt against their rule (or in polygamous societies, try to get some of their wives). On the other hand, evidently there are concerns by males about POV pushing on the topic, but others seem to have it all well in hand and I don't have the energy to investigate it. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:33, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Carol. To everyone here, your input at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_June_24#Category:Violence_against_men would be most welcome, as it seems to be an issue of gender bias, just pointing the other way this time.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:40, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Responding to Obi's response to my insert. There still is a big difference between the biases that lead wikipedia to become 90% male and keep it that way as compared to bias against a narrow topic area, like violence against males. The point is if there is a real problem I'm not going to lobby against it. But it feels like the latter issue is being promoted by those who don't want the project to deal with the larger bias against women editing problem. Dealing with such arguments certainly has used up energy that I might otherwise have had to look at the category for discussion thread. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:58, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

systemic bias on Wikipedia is about the gender gap. Really? So the reason that Brittanica has more biographies of men than women is due to... fewer female wikipedia editors? Wikipedia as a tertiary source reflects the biases of the broader society, there are lots of write-ups about this. Certainly undercoverage and unwelcoming environment might exacerbate systemic bias against women's topics here and there's a symbiotic relationship, but asserting that gender bias = gender gap is a terrible oversimplification and misses out on the real point - since we are driven by reliable sources, we simply have fewer reliable sources about female X, and since we have notability standards, there are fewer female X who pass those notability standards. That doesn't have to do anything with editor population and much more with systemic bias against women's achievements in the broader society at large. Like other forms of systemic bias - e.g. western centrism, northern-centrism, white-european centrism, etc, the corrective action is not simply getting greater diversity of the editor population - there are also policy changes needed, notability and reliable source standards that could be updated, other sorts of outreach efforts, etc. Simplifying it down to "fix the gender gap" is missing a very big part of the story.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:48, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Is this the "Countering systemic bias" project or the "Countering all this business about systematic bias" project? Is it really necessary for us to have to debate ad nauseum everyone who doubts that bias has any impact on wikipedia editing?

I do see it would help to have an essay describing the effects of not having enough women, with talking points in the scope article, for those who aren't already convinced bias is minimal and the efforts to bring in more women are useless, at best, and who knows what at worst. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:04, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Carol, you may have misunderstood my points. I don't think efforts to bring in more women are useless, and I do think such efforts fit within the scope of this task force. I just think there are OTHER important things as well, that this group has focused on previously and should continue to study.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:35, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

This project was set up to address the gender gap on Wikipedia, i.e. systemic gender bias, which is clearly about women. It's disturbing that that is being questioned! Also, this discussion is turning the page into the opposite of a safe space, so Obi please reconsider what you're doing. A lot of people watching this will not want to become involved when they see it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:20, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

My point is simple. Systemic gender bias exists, and this task force was set up to "The aim of the task force is to identify gender bias on Wikipedia – whether in articles, discussions, policies or implementation of policies – and to take steps to counter it, as well as to raise awareness of how it can affect editorial and other decisions." Part of the scope of that project includes bridging the gender gap, but assertions that that is the sole goal of this task force are misrepresenting the stated goals. i think we should have a real open discussion about how to address this gender bias. I have focused on categorization, and ways to make it easier to deghettoize categories. One thing we could do, for example, is ensure in the GA and FA criteria that articles aren't ghettoized. Those rules would apply to male and female editors, and the result would be we wouldn't have Maya Angelou being pasted all over the front page when her categories are ghettoized (true story - it was even covered in the media). That's one example of things this project could do beyond increasing the # of female editors, which I have no problem with and welcome, by the way.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:33, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

The gender gap isn't part of the scope. It is the scope: systemic gender bias. The word systemic is the key word. Also, you're turning another thread into one about categories. That's a minority interest, so it really needs its own subpage/subsection of the project, but we should at least keep the recent category posts on this page together. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:41, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Allow me, then, to respectfully disagree Slim. If you are suggesting that gender gap in female editors is equivalent to systemic gender bias in wikipedia's coverage of, say, biographies of women, and that the two are one and the same - and that therefore fixing one would fix the other - can you point to anything suggesting this to be the case? I'm not saying it won't make a difference - it will - but addressing systemic gender bias, against either gender, will require more than just changing the # of editors of the female persuasion. This essay Wikipedia:Systemic_bias#The_nature_of_Wikipedia.27s_bias covers some of the other causes of systemic bias - all of which can lead to an undercoverage of issues related to women, or women's biographies, etc. Coverage in sources is one of the biggies. Since categories are used for navigation amongst articles, they have also taken on an incredibly political dimension, a dimension you can see in arguments to delete the "Violence against men" category which is seen as a threat to "Violence against women". The political dimension of categorization was also clear during the Category-Gate mess, where the fact that wikipedians had neglected to properly categorize certain biographies was seen as a sign of unbridled sexism (even if the reality was more complex). When I first joined this project (sorry to rain on your parade Bobo, but even if I signed my name recently, I've been a participant since the beginning), I added the category instructions and list of categories I'd identified as problematic, and I worked with other editors here on those categories. SlimVirgin at the time said "Thanks for posting that, and this is a good place for it". My reasoning was, since the category problem was so strongly identified in the media, this project was the logical place to work on the solution. Unfortunately, in spite of all of the energy (and outrage) during category-gate, not very many editors have stepped up to actually do the hard work of deghettoization, etc, but I still think until we get category intersection that it's important as a content area under the auspices of this project - since the issues that lead to ghettoization of biographies through categories are not driven by individual sexism, or even actually by reliable sources, but by the very structure of our category system, a misunderstanding of how non-diffusing categories work, and confusion by editors over how to fix this. Thus it is systemic in that it (a) generally tends to bias against women/minorities - not on purpose, but just because they actually are the ones who have the "special" categories in the first place! and (b) is embedded in the structure of how categories work here, and how they're interpreted by the outside world. What I propose is that we could create a separate talk page hierarchy to deal with categorization issues, but keep the instructions and a link to that discussion board on the main page and retain categories as part of the scope of this project under "content" or "articles" + "policies", etc..--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:00, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

So let me get this straight. The WikiProject here was created in response to the gender gap on Wikipedia. That is to say, the fact that the vast majority of editors were male (more than 90%), something that led to a gender bias against women in editing. Now we have a male editor trying to re-purpose the group because editors of both genders tried to delete a category about "Violence against men", a topic that is actually very under-researched (I guarantee, if you tried to find articles on "Violence against women", you would find many hundreds in the place of a dozen or so listed, as well as a few books). Furthermore, this is the editor who largely inspired the category deletion in the first place by misusing it to push an agenda, including repeatedly adding it to the article for a Feminist text [4] [5][6], and WikiHounding anybody who dares to remove an article from the category (you can probably find that in the edit history of any article within it or in its history). The recent stewardship of PUA articles [7] [8], the Sarah Brown naming dispute [9] and your claims that the Isla Vista shootings were misandrist [10] really don't help matters. From this, it looks like you are pushing a personal agenda on a single issue, not trying to change website wide issues of gender bias. You have to realise how bad this looks Obi, especially after numerous editors have displayed concerns with your actions, this WikiProject was created to identify gender bias based on the gender gap [11]. If people are disagreeing with you on this subject, it is statistically very likely that they are largely themselves male, and indeed, reading the thread this seems to be the case. This is due to your viewpoint being unpopular, not misandry. I'm going to go back on my previous stance as good faith and try to convince myself that you are wildly naive rather than actively sexist and have no idea exactly how things like this come across but you should probably take some time to really think about how your actions appear to others. You can't use Wikipedia to change the way that gender issues are treated in critical theory --80.193.191.143 (talk) 17:34, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Not trying to use wikipedia to change the world 80. Just defending that categorization of biographies is valid under this project. I've been working on the deghettoization issue for a while now, and it's important to me, and it has nothing to do with VAM. Note Slim's quote: "Thanks for posting that, and this is a good place for it". I've only brought up the VAM category dispute since someone asked me whether systemic bias against males might exist, and I pointed to that as a potential example of same. We don't have to discuss it further here. I do find it incredibly ironic that on a message board about systemic gender bias, that you suggest that we should eliminate entirely from wikipedia a topic category about one gender because it's actually very under-researched compared to a similar topic for another gender. Nice reversal! Why don't we try that here, i.e. "We should not have articles about women chemists, because the contributions of male chemists have at least 100x the sourcing." It has become kafkaesque...--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:47, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I was linked here and thought I'd share my opinion. In the context of your other edits I still find this quite sketchy --80.193.191.143 (talk) 17:57, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's actually a pretty good sign. If you think I'm actively pushing a POV on one side, and then you see me actively pushing to retain deghettoization of female biographies on the other side as a topic of value and interest, it confuses the hell out of people. Bobo was confused and began to think that maybe deghettoization might be a bad idea after all - since Obi was supporting it!! Whose side is Obi on?? click here for an answer.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:05, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

What bald-faced hooey. Obi has made the "this category is under-researched" argument countless times, especially when the category is related to women. He did not find it a Kafkaesque argument when he repeatedly made it. I can not see how this project would benefit from him continuing to disrupting it. From my experience, I've only seen Obi use categorization rules where it would increase the effects of systemic bias. This seems like a scorched earth policy with regard to minimizing bias. Basically "if we eliminate material about women, then we can't be accused of saying anything discriminatory in that material". I think User:Liz might have an opinion on whether Obi is an effective champion against systemic bias.__ E L A Q U E A T E 18:26, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Wrong. I have never made that argument in comparison to a male-centered category - e.g. "Male chemists has tons of research, but not women chemists, therefore we should keep male chemists but delete women chemists" - you're misrepresenting and making a false equivalency. At the same time, I've also populated/deghettoized lots of categories full of women. So, again, which side am I on? If I wanted to diminish women's contributions, why would I spend hours deghettoizing their categories (and thus highlighting their contributions, and ensuring they aren't ghettoized?). When I have nominated categories for deletion, it is because their structure was likely to lead to systemic ghettoization. But maybe EQ you'd rather turn this discussion into an RFC on me?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:51, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Never? You make it often to eliminate women-related categories, regardless of whether there's a specific male-related category. You keep pointing to all the "work" you've done, when most of that work has been to further eliminate the word "Women" from the project. Your approach seems to be to burn down a house when people complain it's unpainted, then crow about how much work you did to reduce unpainted houses. Mass elimination of navigation to women's history is not anti-systemic-bias work. Maybe there's something fatally wrong with your approach to categorization, as I can't see someone who has nominated the following for deletion/merging into non-existence, as being somehow dedicated to overcoming systemic bias. Category:Women in space, Category:Woman bishops, Category:Women in literature, Category:Women textile artists, Category:Women textile artists by nationality, Category:Indigenous women, Category:Wikipedia categories named after women, Category:First Nations women, Category:Women from Ontario, Category:Women from Brampton, Category:Women from British Columbia, Category:Women by province or territory in Canada, Category:Women from Quebec, Category:Women from Karachi, Category:Canadian women by province or territory in Canada, Category:Women who committed suicide, Category:Microsoft women, Category:Yahoo! women, Category:Women by organization, Category:Internet woman personalities, Category:Women designers, Category:Woman innovators, Category:Women collectors, Category:Women with nautical occupations, sports or hobbies, Category:Woman librarians, Category:Woman animal breeders, Category:Women in food and agriculture occupations, Category:Women in international development, Category:Women in health professions, Category:Woman medical examiners, Category:Indigenous women, Category:Maritime woman writers, Category:Women in the games industry, Category:Woman entertainers, Category:Women in the food industry, Category:Woman bartenders, Category:Women researchers, Category:Women bioethicists, Category:Canadian women newspaper editors, Category:Woman natural philosophers, etc. and so on, and others. I understand that you want to be a part of influencing the advice given by this project, but it seems unlikely you would use that advice for anything more than erasing more women's categories. __ E L A Q U E A T E 19:21, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

This seems rather off-topic EQ. I actually posted here a long list of discussions of categories I had nominated for deletion, over a year ago, and there was no uproar or controversy, and there has been little controversy about most of those nominated above. I've also nominated and !voted to delete a number of "men" categories, as well as other subsets (e.g. LGBT X or Catholic Y, etc). You can disagree with some of those, that's fine, it's an editing dispute, my goal has been to reduce ghettoization, which is sometimes through fixing the category structure and recategorizing things (I spent a number of hours making sure "Princesses" and "duchesses" were not subsets but rather siblings of "Princes" and "Dukes", as one example; sometimes it's through deghettoizing (per the algorithm provided above), and sometimes it's through deleting such categories that structurally are just more likely to ghettoize going forward and are in violation of our guidance on same. If you give me a male-category that violates those same rules I will be the first one to put it on the chopping block, and have in the past done exactly that. Anyway, I feel like you're putting me on trial, which isn't needed here and is rather off topic, so why don't you take your grievances against me elsewhere. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:47, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Pointing out that you delete LGBT categories as evidence that you're not just deleting women's categories? There are no words... __ E L A Q U E A T E 20:22, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I sympathize with you. It might be confusing, since I don't fit into the box you'd love to put me in. I've probably proposed a few LGBT categories for deletion, I admit it (ask Bearcat, he's nominated tons for the chopping block!). I've also created some! And populated several!! And defended others at CFD! And deghettoized a number of them! I've even created from scratch a few bios of LGBT people... And restructured several categories so they were less likely to ghettoize! I even recently spent a great number of hours, quite recently, arguing with someone who wanted to change the categorization guidelines to a version which would have, in my opinion, resulted in thousands of LGBT people potentially being removed from the LGBT tree, and was actually blocked for 36 hours for my troubles. I argued fervently (along with LGBT people) that Jodie Foster should not be tagged as a lesbian, but finally agreed that it was ok to tag her as LGBT, and argued to enforce this consensus. Who's ****** side am I on after all? Do I love LGBT categories or hate them? ARGGGH it's so hard to tell. Oh, right. I'm not at all comparing myself to this man, but I love this quote: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." (Walt, of course).--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:08, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

It's not really off-topic, Obi. My concern about hosting the category advice on this page is that it doesn't seem to have consensus, and it does seem to lead to categories about women disappearing. So I think we shouldn't display it as though the Gender bias task force recommends it until there's consensus. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:16, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

[insert] Hear. Hear! As have become more informed on the topic, I withdraw any suggestion it should be hosted here. The larger project is the place to discuss and approve it and only if passed by a group of non-involved experts on the topic. Update: see Ghettoization about removing women categories?? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Slim, let's start a new section just to talk about the category stuff, this is getting too confusing. re: deletion of categories about women, that is completely orthogonal to the advice about how to deghettoize categories, fwiw, and none of the instructions I provided suggest taking that course of action, do they?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:19, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Obi, please don't keep quoting me from over a year ago when I thanked you for an edit. That was before I was familiar with the categorization controversy. (Even ignoring that, something being helpful on a page in 2013 doesn't mean we're never allowed to remove it.)

Again, there is no systemic gender bias against men on Wikipedia, not in terms of editorial practices, number of editors, coverage, policies, nothing. Efforts to hijack this page along those lines would be disturbing. The task force didn't take off, but I'd like to see whether we can change that. To do that, we need a fresh start along the lines Carol suggested above, so I hope we can try to focus on her excellent suggestions. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:04, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

no systemic gender bias against men on Wikipedia, not in terms of editorial practices, number of editors, coverage, policies, nothing. . I'm not suggesting hijacking the page, and I agree with the overall priority on addressing the gender bias against women. I'm just suggesting we all remain open to the fact that gender does not mean "women". I'm sorry for quoting you Slim, but until you started deleting things, I had no idea you had problems with it... Anyway, it's water under the bridge.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:25, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

We're open to it, it's just very unlikely. I haven't really seen any evidence that it does exist, the one example that you made is quantifiably not gender bias against men, and if true it would suggest that a large percentage of male editors are misandrist, something that, of course, is possible, but not especially likely considering just how stacked the gender percentages are towards men --80.193.191.143 (talk) 18:40, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Obiwankenobi, please review WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. This has been explained to you multiple times already, systemic gender bias on Wikipedia is bias against women. This is because of the definition of systemic bias (which is based on the demographics of the contributors) and because currently about 90% of wiki editors are male. Again, this isn't about bias in general, but rather systemic bias --BoboMeowCat (talk) 18:55, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Fine, I heard you. I don't have to agree, but I heard you, and I will drop this. My final thought is this: this world is never going to move forward so long as we perpetuate binary thinking - e.g. gender bias can only go one way, etc.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:54, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Sigh. Obiwankenobi, you're still responding as if you haven't heard. No one is saying "gender bias can only go one way". No one. We're saying the way systemic bias goes on Wikipedia, is against female editors. Again, this is because systemic bias refers to a specific form of bias. A bias that results when one group is over-represented as contributors (here that's male editors) while another group is under-represented (here that's female editors). --BoboMeowCat (talk) 20:26, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and I am stating, which maybe you haven't heard, that the scope of this project, and the descriptions OF systemic bias on wikipedia w.r.t. gender have not ONLY to do with our editor base but ALSO with our content - ultimately content is the only thing that matters, it's what we're here for. I don't think there is systemic bias against male editors, but the recent example is to me an example of bias against male issues that has caused an incredibly violent response from a certain subset of editors here and created an unwelcoming environment. Such a bias can come about from the way issues are framed in the literature, and as has been pointed out, that same literature has pointed out this bias. As a very simple example, search on wikipedia for killed including women. How often do we write here "Today in Kenya, a village was attacked, and 100 people were killed, including 20 children and 6 men." That would be shocking if we saw it. Now, is this sort of framing wikipedia's fault? No, that is how such events are covered, and we are just cribbing. But, is it an example of systemic bias translated from sources INTO our coverage of such murderous actions here? Absolutely. A neutral encyclopedia would say "Today, 100 people were killed including 30 men, 35 women, and 35 children." It's just a small example, and again I'm not proposing that this project shift directions. I'm just again pointing out that gender != women.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:37, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Sigh, so much for your assurance only a few comments up where you wrote, "I heard you, and I will drop this". For the last time (hopefully), please refer to the title of this wiki project. This is a wiki project for Countering systemic bias on Wikipedia. With respect to gender, the systemic bias on Wikipedia is against female editors, because they make up only about 10% of the editors here. If you are interested in something else, and you appear to be, perhaps you could channel your energy into starting a separate wiki project that suits your interest area.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 21:59, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

A complaint I have voiced a number of times is that there is this arbitration - Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology - that allows discretionary sanctions for problematic editing in transgender editing problems, but none for women-related ones. I really am fed up with wasting time on Wikipedia with people who don't hear it. (This is first time on a Wikiproject; usually it's BLPs.) So I do hope that Obi has heard it and will let people get on with it without being disruptive. Fruitful collaboration can be so much fun. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:01, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

You could ask for an Amendment to the sexology case (or another case, e.g. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute) asking for discretionary sanctions be applied to a broader category of topics. It's not necessary to start a whole new case, I'd imagine. There's probably some sympathetic arbitrators to that as well. jps (talk) 22:18, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Per my proposal below, a good airing of a number of examples on WP:ANI with a request for community sanctions would be a great way for ANI-watching editors to start getting used to the idea we're serious. Nothing to rush into, but something to keep in the back of our minds. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:32, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Sure. However, I think WP:AN would be a more appropriate venue since it isn't likely to be a single "incident" but more of a pattern. jps (talk) 22:38, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Looking at instructions on WP:AN you must mean "request for bans" be it from pages, topics, etc. Learn something every day. It would be nice to never have to contemplate going there at all on any topic anywhere... sigh... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:06, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Though the front text of WP:AN reads rather officiously, in practice the commentators on that noticeboard are often a bit less histrionic than the commentators on WP:ANI, in my experience. jps (talk) 15:40, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Another place where somewhat more explicit language would help. ie "to request article, topic or site ban of an editor" instead of just "ban". Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Great suggestions Carolmooredc and jps and seems increasingly needed in light of continued WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT behavior of one editor, Obiwankenobi. Notice he opened a vote to "keep categories in scope of project" when no one has suggested removing categories from the scope, but rather many have objected to his specific approach to categorization. This "I didn't hear that" conduct is getting exhausting. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 20:37, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

It's not at all clear anymore Bobo, which is why I opened that section so we could really get a sense of where people lie. Some have seemingly suggested that categorization should be removed entirely from the scope; if you recall, those were the original set of deletes that you and Slim and jps edit-warred out of existence, and now they've been edit-warred out of existence again. I've tried to compromise but it now seems some believe it should just be entirely out of scope, so I started that section as a good-faith effort to really capture where people are.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions for strategies to address the gender gap

We had some great suggestions above from Carolmooredc such as:

• linking to various relevant articles/essays/projects within en.wikipedia and wikimedia regarding the topic.
• writing an essay prominently advertised here on the problems women face and solutions to those problems through wiki dispute resolution processes, existing "support" type pages, etc.; writing another essay on how men and women can work together more successfully in community, etc., considering some concepts in this geekfeminism article.
• thinking up policy tweaks and changes, like regarding WP:Civility and WP:Harassment, to make Wikipedia more comfortable for women.
• posting at the very least links to a variety of topical behavior/policy/etc. issues - including relevant ANIs and Arbitrations and noticeboard postings - that directly affect the gender gap and at least discussing them here and/o getting involved on an individual basis if it seems relevant.
• learning what other projects are doing right. (I heard on gender gap email list the Serb women are the most active. I know the ones I've met are very smart and forthright.)
• promoting the various women-related projects to women editors. I was a member of this task force for a year or so, unwatched it in a moment of general frustration, and completely forgot it existed! So it pays to advertise!

Since we are thinking about sub-pages, I'd like to add the suggestion of:

• creating a sub-page for discussion of specific issues and/or specific concerns that seem related to the gender gap. Sort of discussion forum for specific instances which seem related to the gap. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 18:02, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd add, gathering evidence of systemic actions vs. women editors that might lead to a) Community sanctions; and if not effective b) arbitration with discretionary sanctions. (Collection done in a wiki-proper way, off wiki if necessary.) Perhaps just the knowledge this project (or members thereof) was gathering such info might be helpful. If issues continued and various evidences from talk page/noticeboard/other sources reached a critical mass, then some women with immediate concerns could be complainant(s) with their specific issues, and project members could add diffs of the various collected evidences and their requestions for Community Sanctions for such behaviors. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:12, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Women and Wikipedia Study - Request for interviews, focus groups, etc.

Hi. I've been working on an interview-based research project about women and Wikipedia since January (initial project proposal) and recently received a WMF Individual Engagement Grant to continue the work (IEG proposal). If you're willing to participate in an interview or will be at Wikimania and would like to chat and/or take part in a focus group, please let me know. Also, if you'd just like to share your thoughts and opinions via email, I'd love to hear them.--Mssemantics (talk) 05:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Priorities

There's a lot of energy being put into this talk page at the moment. Why aren't we directing that energy towards campaigning for category intersections? I know that won't solve existing problematic categories, but trying to fix those will never, ever be anything more than a sticking plaster on the real problem. — Scott • talk 13:18, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Why doesn't that happen in WP:categories for discussion or Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality with a link here for those who are interested? I just realized that the goal was elimination of women categories, not populating them, so am particularly annoyed by the whole thing right now. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

If interested you can join the discussions I started a while back Wikipedia_talk:Category_intersection. If you want to test a prototype developed by Magnus Manske (with minor assistance from yours truly), check User:Obiwankenobi#Category_intersection_prototype_version_2. Any and all feedback welcome. There is also wikidata which could be promising, but it could also be a ways off - I'm not sure. But yes, I do agree Scott that category intersection will make this problem go away, as we will no longer have the need to have Category:Women novelists, it will just be Category:Women + Category:Novelists. It's a non-trivial amount of work, however. I had proposed embedding Manske's javascript into the regular javascript that everyone has, so you don't need to do anything special, and then you can have such category intersections. I also piloted a simpler version at Category:Singaporean poets, but it calls out to an external tool and the interface isn't amazing, but it could be done today with no additional programming needed.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:20, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to archive categorization threads now

I propose threads or subthreads predominantly about categorization should be archived manually now. If editors start discussions on the appropriate forum (especially WP:Categories for discussion), they can leave a message here. If there is some compelling need to respond here, people will. The project cannot be overwhemled with discussions about Wikipedia techical topics which need informed and interested participation, even if one or two people are strongly interested in them and feel they are relevant to every other discussion. Feel free to write support or oppose.

• Support as OP. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:34, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
• just move to a sub-talk-page rather than archive, then people can watch that subpage and participate if interested. Categorization of biographies and correcting bias in said categorization has been on-topic here since the beginning, but if people don't want this talk board filled with such cat discussions moving it to a separate sub-talk page on categories seems reasonable. Archiving active threads (some of which you've started) just seems like a way to shut down discussion; instead why not move them to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_bias_task_force/Categories or something similar, and let anyone interested continue there?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:37, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

per IAR, I just moved everything to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_bias_task_force/Categorization. Any interested in continuing this conversation re: the algorithm and its applicability to this project are welcome to join there. Thanks! --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:35, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Obiwankenobi, I hope you are not carrying this out immediately so others can't as easily find the talk page consensus to remove the disputed content regarding categories, that you appear to be currently edit warring in again. I agree that they should be archived at some point though, but probably not while talk page consensus to remove content is not being respected.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 15:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Bobo, can you be clear about which content is disputed? The algorithm? That's now on a separate page, at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_bias_task_force/Categorization, which was one of the earlier suggestions above by Slim and several others. Or do you mean the list of categories to de-ghettoize? As I mentioned on my talk, if you think that should be moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_bias_task_force/Categorization instead of the main page as a to-do, that is fine with me too, I just figured in it's collapsed state it doesn't take up too much space. I've started a discussion to see if the algorithm itself can be hosted at WP:EGRS within that guideline, but pending that I think Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_bias_task_force/Categorization is as reasonable a place as any, especially given that no-one has stated specifically what is wrong with that algorithm besides the word "deghettoize", and it's been here for over a year already... Or is it perhaps this particular language you object to: "Note: in order to be correctly categorized, they do not necessarily need to be in the parent of the gendered/ethnic/sexuality-based subcategory - they just need to be in the non-gendered/ethnic/sexuality-based equivalent." - if so, can you suggest how to reword that to make it more in line with something you agree with? thanks! --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

(ec) Just saw your edit - the threads aren't archived, they are simply on a different board now, so we should probably just continue the discussion there.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

oppose the info moved relates to current content dispute, so should be available on talk page until that content dispute is resolved. Afterward, I'm happy for it to be moved though --BoboMeowCat (talk) 16:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

restored for now (see above). --BoboMeowCat (talk) 16:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Bobo, there is a large section above where it was proposed to move categorization questions to a sub-discussion board, which I did. The discussions are not archived, they can continue there, without further spamming this board.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:29, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I was a bit annoyed this a.m. and thus the "NOW" without further options. However, obviously there are three options and we should have consensus on which:

1. just part of ongoing archives, and largely ancient history
2. own archive page (new archive box with categorization archive, assuming that that's all ancient history)
3. Obiwankenobi's categorization subpage where these policy decisions are made while most of us blissfully ignore them, at which point it can be claimed that the "task force" Ok'd them. (And this on one also should include posts critical of his position on categorization and critical of links on the main page.)
   

Obviously three is problematic. Two only seems necessary if it is important that this taskforce be the "decider".
In either case: What is the point? We should all agree to one system, yours?
What positions does WP:Categories for discussion usually take? Keep women in both categories? Keep them only in top one? Move them to bottom one? It depends on the category? Why is it necessary to have detailed discussions on every one here, as opposed to putting a WP:Categories for discussion notice on this page and discussing if it seems particularly critical? All this still is not clear and thus it feels like being steamrolled and one can become annoyed.
So I'll stay with my just archive to the archives "now" or "ASAP" after all... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:45, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Carol, as I said I'm happy to move the instructions to WP:EGRS, and I've proposed that, so we just need to wait since that's a guideline. That said, the guideline is clear, women (or anyone, really) should always be in a neutral equivalent, as well as a gender/ethnicity - specific version. I'm not proposing that we have detailed discussions on specific categories here, I am proposing that on this wikiproject we could consider and discuss structural changes that will help reduce bias in the categorization of biographies - thus for example, if we embed "deghettoization" as a step in FA/GA process. We could also list categories that are in need of attention to be de-ghettoized, and find better ways to describe the process of properly categorizing people to other editors (I'm not wedded to that algorithm for example, and I welcome suggestions on how to improve it)--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Tag-team editing and aggressive behavior

Categorization of biographies has always been under the scope of this project, and a number of categorization issues have been brought here in the past. There now seems to be a move to downplay categorization as a key goal, which is fine, but this latest revert war by the tag team of Bobo and Jps has frankly gone too far. A large thread above proposed moving categorization information to a subpage, which I did, and also proposed archiving categorization threads to a subpage, which I did. Now, however, Jps has just erased the last vestiges of categorization (and deghettoization/categorizing w/o bias) from the homepage - without any discussion; also breaking the link to the new subpage in the process. This aggressive use of reverting to erase contributions from good faith members of this project has got to stop. Instead, we should have a reasoned discussion and come to consensus and compromise - not "my way or the highway".--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:44, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

You explicitly said you did it under IAR, when Carolmooredc more reasonably opened a discussion; perhaps that's where the aggressive behavior lies. I really don't think you should attempt unilateral behavior on a page where there are so many questions about your own participation. Take your own advice and respect consensus-building, please. __ E L A Q U E A T E 16:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any consensus to remove categorization from being considered within the scope of this project. It has been in scope since day 1. It is also one of the main examples that comes up every time someone talks about systemic bias at wikipedia, they give the examples of categorization. Thus, I think it would be rather silly for this project to remove categorization from its scope, and it also demeans the work of editors like myself and others who have participated here and contributed to the goals of this project by helping deghettoize categories of women.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:58, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

That's your take on the content and you've repeated it many times already, but please keep an eye on your overall behavior. Looking at your general patterns, I will say that this is starting to look like the pounding of shoes on desks regarding categorization that got you blocked by User:Bbb23 and warned at ANI. Please play nicer; an editor can still be disruptive, even if when think their campaign is a noble one. __ E L A Q U E A T E 17:03, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

And stop lashing out as you did at my talk page. Play nice means play nice. __ E L A Q U E A T E 18:42, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

EQ, people here, including yourself, are NOT playing nice. This is supposed to be space for collaboration, and now it's turning into an exclusive club that is trying it's best to kick out a member who has contributed a great deal to the goals and aims of this project w.r.t. deghettoizing women's biographies. If people show themselves willing to compromise as I have, that would go a long way. It was suggested the category stuff be moved to a sub-page, so I did it. But no, that wasn't enough, instead it has become "my way or the highway" - I can't believe we've moved in 1 year from Slim Virgin complimenting me for adding information about categories, and other editors engaging collaboratively here and elsewhere re: how to deghettoize, to just deleting all references to such work entirely and by fiat declaring categories off-limit for this project. It's mind boggling and saddening.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:50, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Considering the sudden influx of members here and their predelictions, I guess the 'de-ghettoizing' of categories has become, oh, so last year's issue. Wikipedia works on concensus so, when outnumbered, we need to back away slowly with a resigned look of disbelief. It will be Wikipedia's shame (not yours or mine) if the issue raises its ugly head in the national media again. We can't take the whole world on our shoulders! Sionk (talk) 19:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Reading the talk page above, it appears multiple editors have expressed concern regarding how “de-ghettoizing” has taken place. There have been concern raised by multiple editors that the past approach has resulted in deleting women’s categories, instead of appropriately populating them. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 20:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The instructions here and the list of categories needing work have nothing to do with categories proposed for deletion at WP:CFD, and none of the instructions here had anything to do with advocacy for deletion of more women's categories. Deghettoization means basically only one thing - adding new (neutral) categories to biographies. More broadly, the instructions I provided would ensure that a biography of an African-American woman would be properly placed in (American X), (American women x), (African-American X), and (African-American women X). It can get complex, which is why I proposed that series of steps y'all have been so eager to delete.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:23, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The above explanation at least finally makes a bit more sense for those of us who do not focus on the topic. Besides the off putting and confusing language (ghetto and algorithm) editors with more experience of the issue have expressed concerns about your whole regime which others of us don't want to have to study to figure out. And the fact that your extreme interest has led to blocks certainly raises eyebrows. If this is a great procedure/regime/etc. finalize elsewhere and then bring it here. Otherwise it's just disruptive and needs archiving soon.

As for the media, if they don't understand how or disagree with the way things are done, that should not panic us into changing them. Why not say to them: Category writers/gender/women is not a ghetto - see Category writers/ethnicity/Jewish. If that was a ghetto, I'm sure Wikiproject Judaism would be having a fit! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:07, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Carol, I've started that discussion, and hopefully the editors at WP:EGRS will accept adding those instructions to the guideline, at which point we can just point to it. But the broader question remains, as to whether actually DEALING with categorization issues (that overwhelmingly impact women on biographies) is in scope here which I asked below, and your input on same would be welcome.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Also, the content that Obiwankenobi has previously added to the project page does not appear to address the concerns of the Filpacchi incident well. The objection there was removing women from the parent category. [[12]] Specifically, removing them from "American novelists" when adding them to "American women novelists". However, Obi's instructions for this project page included this quote: In order to fix this, articles do not necessarily need to be placed in the parent of the gendered/ethnic/sexuality-based subcategory - they just need to be in the non-gendered/ethnic/sexuality-based equivalent, which is often a sibling category. While the exact rules of categorization seem best worked out elsewhere, it seems to address the Filipacchi incident, and to address the goals of this task force, instructions should stress keeping women in the parent category whenever possible, and also should stress populating the women subcategories as much as is reasonable. That is not what was being suggested. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 21:39, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for clarification. I've suggested Obi make all this perfectly clear on one of his own sub talk pages with non-jargoned and simple language - maybe even a chart or two. Then people could study and figure it out separately and all concerns could be addressed there before he goes around propagating it to all the other wikiprojects he thinks need it. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

thanks carol and I apologize to everyone if my language was obscure, and I will try to do better. If anyone wants to discuss with me why we don't always populate the parent category - actually it's somewhat rare, it depends on the structure - I invite you to my talk page where we can discuss without spamming this board further. Of course I agree with Bobo that women's categories should be filled to the brim, and indeed one of the reasons I was blocked was because an editor was attempting to add language to a categorization guideline that could have potentially been interpreted as allowing the depopulation of some gendered/ethnic/sexuality based subcategories, so I've actually served time in defense of filling women's cats, and the series of steps I proposed, if followed, will do exactly that- fill up women's cats (and ethnic, and LGBT, etc) but that's not sufficient, because if you just fill the women cat you've ghettoized everyone within, you also need to populate neutral equivalents. Sometimes those are the parent but often they're not. See Category:American novelists for an example, or Category:American politicians for another one where the 'parent' is empty, by consensus.-Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:08, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Keep categorization in scope for this project

Categorization has been in scope for this project since the very beginning, as a way to correct systemic bias in content around how biographies are classified. It is women who are most likely to be placed into these "Women X" categories, since we don't have that many "Male X" categories, but evidence shows that women continue to be "ghettoized" (e.g. placed only in non-neutral categories) at a huge rate. For example, several of our FA articles posted to the main page have been improperly categorized, Maya Angelou being a notable example -- an important fix 25 days after FA on mainpage. Her absence from American poets category was noted by several reliable sources.

When Amanda Filipacchi noticed this happening in the Novelists tree, it led to a media storm which hasn't yet been repeated re: gender bias at Wikipedia. Indeed, "Categorygate" was potentially one of the biggest stories of the 2013 w.r.t. gender and wikipedia.

Some sample articles are [13],[14],[15],[16],[17],[18]. This more recent article points out how the idea of "subcategorizing" women and women's writing especially is a sign of broader sexism in the book industry [19].

Thus, at least the outside world seems to think that the categorization problems, especially of female biographies, are a symptom of the gender bias, both at wikipedia and in the society as a whole. While I personally don't agree that it's caused by gender bias (since, for example, "Male"-oriented categories are just as likely in my research to be "ghettoized"), the result appears to be a gender bias. The good faith creation of Category:American women novelists by someone who wanted to highlight the contributions of women ends up pushing them to a sub-category, due to Wikipedia editors not following our standard guidance at WP:EGRS. Thus, gender-specific categories when properly filled out can highlight the work of women. When improperly filled out, they serve to hide that same work. It's a double edged sword.

Luckily, Wikipedia is not Amazon.com, nor the Library of Congress, and we can categorize things in multiple ways. But doing so is not necessarily easy. The reason is, people are categorized in multiple ways - Maya Angelou is in 30 categories, some of them based on her gender or ethnicity, and some "neutral". In order to fix her categories, it took me several minutes to understand the category tree and how to avoid "ghettoizing" her through the category system.

The potential complexity in properly categorizing biographies is the reason I developed a set of instructions and put them here a year ago, and those instructions were used by myself and other editors to "de-ghettoize" hundreds and possibly thousands of biographies over the past year. However, much work remains to be done.

I realize that people here would like to discuss other things, which is perfectly reasonable. It was proposed above to move the categorization discussions and rules to a sub-page, which was done. However, recent reverts have disconnected that page with the main project, and now there's no mention of "properly categorize biographies" as one of the goals of this project. The main people involved in making these reverts are two editors who only joined the project as of a day ago.

Thus, I'm starting this section to get a clear statement from everyone involved in this project, and the broader "Countering systemic bias" project, w.r.t categorization. The question is as follows:

Is categorization of biographies in the scope of this project? Should instructions on how to categorize such bios correctly be included here, or in a linked sub-page? Should we have a separate sub-page of talk devoted to category discussions in this domain for those who are interested? Should we build and place a list of categories that are in need of work to correctly categorize the contents within?

• support As nominator. Categorization should remain in scope, because whatever the causes of mis-categorization, the result is a systemic under-representation of mostly-female biographies in neutral categories. It could remain as a brief instruction and pointer to the sub-page, where a list of categories needing work can be provided along with a set of steps to follow (the steps could be hosted elsewhere, pending conversation at WP:EGRS as well). A separate talk page can be set up to manage the category discussions to not distract here. Removing categorization from the scope of this project is removing an important and (unfortunately) highly visible and political area of content. It is not for everyone, so a sub-page serves this purpose accordingly.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:18, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• Support I've mainly just been watching this whole dispute, and it's been intriguing me since initially, there have been multiple 'scandals' and 'Wikipedia controversies' regarding categorization. The Amanda_Filipacchi thing especially caught me as one instance of a convoluted and almost sexist process being used against women. Though I really can't blame it all on that, since it's so complicated a process that it takes some careful scalpel-related maneuvering in order to get those cats corrected and 'deghettoized'. Obi is a person with that scalpel and is doing all of the dirty work in that regard. Categories are a convoluted thing on Wikipedia and I think one of the thing that needs a intense discussion on how to change and fix it. We need to be apart of the solution, Rome wasn't built in a day, and this needs to be apart of the scope of the gender task force. Tutelary (talk) 21:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Comments:

• The issue is not whether categorization is in scope but a) whether one individual's problematic procedures should be accepted and applied and b) how much time we want to spend discussing that or any other new regime/procedure/etc. on this page as opposed to on pages where it's relevant. In general there seems to be opposition to spending a whole lot of time on either or making it one of the top priorities of the project. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:00, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I understand your concerns carol and I'm in the midst of addressing them. I'd still like your input in the questions above - for example you might say 'proposing categories that need to be fixed is in scope but discussing the details of proper categorization algorithms should happen elsewhere and the result linked here once confirmed' or something. Then we need to decide if there will be a separate sub-page for category discussions as you proposed or not.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:16, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• Asking for one answer to four completely different questions at the same time is not going to get a clear statement from everyone involved in this project. It does seem like a great way to try to attempt to control discussion on a talk page, though. __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:09, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Why are we taking a vote regarding something which never occurred?

This is confusing. No one has suggested completely removing category discussion/issues from the task force. However, many have argued against Obiwankenobi's specific approach to categories here (see above talk page sections), and many have also objected to the domination of the talk page by this issue. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 22:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Bobo, I've been chatting here since you and others have been deleting useful content which has been there for a year with zero disputes. I'm thus using the talk page to understand how to improve that content so it again becomes acceptable. I even moved all the category talk to a subpage since people had proposed keeping discussions off the main page, but you reverted that, effectively forcing the discussion back here. And yes, your deletion for example of the list of cats to be fixed is a great example of you demonstrating that you want to remove such work from the scope of this project. It's clear people think some bits of categoryosity are off topic here so I'm trying to ascertain what exactly so we can move forward productively.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:14, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Honestly, it seems more like you are engaging in WP:BLUDGEON on this talk page. Objections from multiple editors have been very specific in the above talk page sections. Ongoing WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT conduct is disruptive. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 22:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLUDGEON is an essay, and is not policy. WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT is generally a context related case. Obi is using talk page discussions, attempting to get more input from different editors, and trying all sorts of thing to understand, resolve, and to compromise in the dispute. Before we could possibly even get to WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, the dispute needs to be older among other related things. Note that this is also the editor who was crucial in the Bradley/Chelsea Manning dispute, they edit in sensitive areas constantly with often nimble approaches and this is no exception. Why not discuss the content? I feel that categories are within the scope of the gender task force. Tutelary (talk) 22:37, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of disruptive (per BoboMeowCat above), looking at Obiwankenobi's contributions I noticed these two ANI threads now closed: Disruptive editing by Obiwankenobi with June 27 close saying it's a content issue and Topic ban for Obiwankenobi on articles relating to gender discrimination, misogyny and misandry which closed on June 27 with "A proposal for a measure this stern needs overwhelming consensus...But, as many editors have noted, Obi is put on notice." I feel like all this will be going to ANI sooner rather than later.

Obviously Obi is doing something wrong or SlimVirgin and others' original concerns with Obi's categorization regime being imposed on the project would not have lead to this massive overwhelming of the talk page with that topic.  ;-( Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:41, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

This is not about Obi's conduct on other pages. Anybody can show up on WP:ANI because anybody can file anything on that page. I've personally been put on WP:AN because I tagged a vandalism page for speedy deletion and the editor just wanted to make things difficult for me so they filed, and was obviously rejected their claims that I was 'destroying the encyclopedia'. I beseech that you stop making it about individual editors and start making it about individual claims and weighing in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Tutelary (talk) 22:50, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• Carol has made a good suggestion above, namely that Obi gain consensus for his algorithm at the relevant guideline, Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, and we can then point to it. That guideline is the place to discuss and promote it, not here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

That's fine Slim, that's what I've done. I do wish you'd acknowledge though that a year ago, you said "This is a good place for it", y'all are making me feel bad for ever putting it here as if it was some sort of scheme to push some POV, when in fact it was done in good faith to help the goals of this project and no-one complained for a year, instead I got thanks and compliments. I'd still request the rest of you who've been so opinionated above to weigh in on exactly how the categories stuff should be structured here even pending "approval" of the algorithm - can we have a list of cats to fix? Do we need a separate message board? etc.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:24, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 01 July 2014

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 11:21, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender bias task force → Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force – I'm wondering whether we should change the name of the project to Gender gap task force. That's what I had in mind when I set it up; I believe I included the word bias in the title only to maintain the bias theme from the parent project, but that was probably a mistake. Changing the name would avoid confusion in future about scope. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:38, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Added RM tag --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:04, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support - This is part of WP:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. Systemic bias is a specific form of bias, which arises as a result on the demographics of the participants. On Wikipedia, only approximately 10% of editors are female, so systemic bias on WP affects female editors/women's issues, and is a direct result of the gender gap; however, there has been some confusion on this issue, and a desire to bring in bias issues affecting male editors, due to task force name not being clear enough, so hopefully changing name to "gender gap task force" will alleviate confusion. While male bias issues are also important, they are not a systemic bias issues on WP so really should be addressed elsewhere. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 22:41, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Support - [updated version] there's no need for a subpage on gender bias to discuss that there is a problem both with a content gap and a participation by women gap; there is a need for a subpage to work on doing something about closing the gender bias gaps in wikipedia. And it will be clearer to the media the Wikipedia is serious, since some people have expressed concern about how wikipedia appears to the media in this area. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:43, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Defer discussion to new requested move., that way it will be discussed for the period of time and consensus weighed on by an admin. These discussions also don't show up at WP:RM if they're not tagged, so it would be exclusively people who watch this specific page, not the project page. Tutelary (talk) 22:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I see it at Wikipedia:Requested_moves right now. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:17, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• Support as nominator. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:03, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Comment Bias is a much more specific word with a clear meaning in this context, although the incidence and significance of any biases merits further specific description. "Gap" on the other hand seems like a metaphor or figure of speech and is apt to be understood differently by different editors. SPECIFICO talk 23:45, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• The meaning of bias in this context unfortunately isn't clear, because it has been taken to include bias against men on Wikipedia. I didn't foresee that someone would try to use it that way, so creating it with the word bias in the title was clearly an error. It was always intended as a gender gap project. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:56, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• oppose This is a reduction in the potential scope of this project without a very good reason. Wadewitz put it rather well in her essay, where she says "Wikipedia’s systemic sexism lessens its legitimacy as a producer and organizer of knowledge, therefore it is the responsibility of every Wikipedian to combat that sexism." (my emph) - she cautions that simply closing the gender gap won't necessarily address gender bias.

Collapsing for space
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Gender bias in our content (which is ultimately what we care about, since we're here for our readers) can manifest itself in many different ways, and has many different causes. Wikipedia:Systemic_bias covers many of the causes of such systemic bias, and while the gender of editors is crucial (and certainly closing the gender gap is germane to this project, and could even be a key role), there are other topics relevant to gender bias that would no longer fit under the auspices of simply closing the gender gap, such as sources and systemic bias in coverage of issues relevant to gender. A core goal of this project should be CONTENT, not just recruitment - and content can be written by all editors, not just female ones. The parent project says: "This project aims to control and (possibly) eliminate the cultural perspective gaps made by the systemic bias, consciously focusing upon subjects and points of view neglected by the encyclopedia as a whole." - so as a task force of said project focused on gender issues, we should continue to focus on undercoverage of issues RELATED to gender, and not just on issues related to the gender of our editors, nor just on issues related to the FEMALE gender. Slim points out that a bold editor (myself) had the audacity to suggest that it was possible there was bias against men here - although I didn't say this, I did suggest there may be systemic bias against MALE issues, as well as issues affecting other genders - not mainly due to the editor population (which is mostly male) - but even moreso due to the content we rely on, which sometimes may mitigate against balanced coverage of certain issues of interest to men (even if, simultaneously, we have an abundance of content that is also of interest to some men, like articles on video games or models). I may not have believed this a week ago until the vicious attack on Violence against men as a topic category started where any editors who dared support the category were called MRA shills or misogynists, even though many reliable sources discusses this as an issue, although in less abundance than the way Violence against women is covered. Other evidence of systemic bias that manifests itself in content can be seen very simply in coverage of "Men + country" articles. Do we have Men in Kenya to complement Women in Kenya or Men in Africa (informed by RS such as [20]) to complement Women in Africa? In fact, no "Men" in "place" articles exist as far as I know - in spite of scholarship over the past 30 years that studies "men" in "place". There is a whole category tree of Category:Women by continent that is full of articles that take a gender perspective on ONE gender that is unmatched by articles about the male gender, to say nothing of other genders and gender expressions such as trans*, two-spirit, etc. and those genders' intersections with a particular time or place. Another example comes from categories, where Category:Men_by_occupation has 23 subcategories, while Category:Women by occupation has 104. The reasons for this are varied, and equality would not be expected due to our rules around such categories, but it is nonetheless a strong difference in coverage that probably does not reflect the current state of scholarship that looks at the intersection of men, women, and work. As another example of the way such bias manifests, this search [21] of wikipedia content shows a number of instances of "X people killed including X women and X children" - here "men" are never named, just assumed to be the default dead, while if women die it is called out specially - this represents a systemic problem (albeit minor) in the way our sources cover things like mass murder, and that bias is a form of systemic gender bias. I'm giving these examples, and not the much more numerous examples of systemic bias against women's issues, because those have been well covered elsewhere. I'm just suggesting, the true story is always more complex than we think - there are no binary truths in this grey grey world of ours. Thus, our majority male population has not shown an interest in covering these topics, for whatever reason. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that "male" oriented topics should become a core focus of this project, the gender bias against female is still strongest IMHO and most in need of addressing, but I am suggesting that "gender bias" refers to much more than just "bias against the female gender" - bias can go both ways, one is not exclusive of the other, and we have ample evidence that wikipedians, for whatever reason, can exhibit biases against coverage of "male" issues as well as of transgender issues and agender issues and many other manifestations of gender, and that bias is systemic, in that it isn't the result of individual editor's opinions but rather may be their societal milieu, education, and how certain issues are covered - or undercovered -more broadly by reliable sources. Additionally, due to the particular population of editors, even if it's 90% male, they as a group nonetheless represent a specific set of views on gender, gender roles, etc that influences how they think about both women and men - we know we have a majority of editors from the Global North, and gender roles and attitudes differ widely across the world, so even with 90% "Northern" males, issues around gender are not homogenous and there could be systemic bias as a result of that editor population that mitigates against fair coverage of gender issues in other places on the globe. Therefore, if we change the scope of this project to just look at gender gap i.e. more female editors, we're missing out on a LOT of other sources of potential systemic gender bias, from both our contributors and our content. Wadewitz proposes that we need not recruit only more women, but more feminists - which could be male! - but I would take her one further, and say we need to recruit more people with differing views than those held by people here, no matter what their gender. Thus, I think we should keep as Gender bias, I think Slim should trust her initial instincts, and I of course welcome the addition of more work around closing the gender gap which is an important part - but not the only part - of addressing systemic gender bias more generally here.

I was mistaken about the scope of this project, and I'm sorry.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:17, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Wiki means being able to fix mistakes. jps (talk) 00:22, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per Obiwankenobi. Correcting "bias" is a core principle of Wikipedia, neutral point of view. "Gap" is a subjective evaluation and might reflect either the world itself or our description of it. For that reason it's not a useful measure for a standard or goal. SPECIFICO talk 01:30, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
• Support. The "gap" is a plain fact—Wikipedia has a low ratio of women compared to the general population—but "bias" is accusatory. We are not here to accuse but to do whatever is needed to fill the gap. Binksternet (talk) 05:35, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
• Support The concern of this wikiproject is that there is a gap—possible causes of that gap are not relevant in the title. Johnuniq (talk) 06:58, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Having the word 'bias' in the task force is redundant, since it is already in the WikiProject's name. I believe the intention of this task force was originally meant to address the gender gap and the effects that the gap has on the project. gobonobo ^{+ c} 11:29, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
• Support, per nominator. --GRuban (talk) 14:00, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
• Weak Support, although it would seem to reduce the scope of bias targeted, this makes sense from practical not theoretic standpoint. Maximilianklein (talk) 19:45, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

A note

I want to apologize to the editors here for being overly aggressive in my engagement on this talk page, I pushed my points too hard and should have listened more and spoken less. I have placed a more complete statement here, so as to not spam this page further.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:56, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Archiving done

It's pretty self-explanatory through the edit summaries: create archive box like main project talk page with topic archive and move categorization link; more complete header per main CSB talk page; draft language can be tweaked; moving all relevant threads to Categorization archive; describe topic better. The one person (beside Obiwankenobi) who expressed an earlier objection changed their mind here since the (extremely) long discussions of the topic are done for now.

There may have been a few comments or discussions relevant to the greater project within what I archived but it's probably better that the people who made them should decide if they should be moved over, incorporated into a new thread with similar comments or whatever. Similarly, even though there's a lot of "categorization" discussion under the "Scope" subsection above, it seemed more relevant to leave it here. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:43, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that, Carol. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:03, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Couple CBS-related done tasks

Finally getting time/energy to start doing a few things regarding project:

• Added Gender gap task force to main page of WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias. We might want further description on main page after this project is more together.
• Updated intro and article listings at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/open_tasks#Women_and_women.27s_studies. Feel free see if all these bios still need to be listed there.
  

Will add more below as go. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:32, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Draft members user box template/Want task force members category??

Here's a draft one that can be made a page attached to this task force so members easily can insert into their user pages:

This user is a member of the
Gender Gap task force.

Note that more complicated templates like Template:User wikipedia/WikiProject Anti-war also can put the person in a category of members of a Wikiproject or task force. Do we want a task force members category to be created? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:46, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Hearing no complaints, put up the User box which has far too long a name. Anyone know how to make it shorter? It's address is: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/gendergaptaskforce Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:31, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Draft invitation template

We invite you to join Gender Gap task force. There you can coordinate with users who are trying to identify gender bias on Wikipedia (including gender bias in articles, in editor interactions, policies and implementation of policies) and take steps to counter it. If you would like to get involved, just visit the Gender Gap task force. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or other members of the task force.Happy editing, ~~~~

Final html also puts the invite template in Category:WikiProject invitation templates. This also will have its own template page so it's easily useable as a template. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:02, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Carole, thanks for creating this and the one above. They look great. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:29, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

My 07/23 changes

I mentioned updating the task force on the gender gap mailing list and decided to stop procrastinating and do it! Yeah!! I don't think anything was too controversial, but do tell. Leaving a couple more debatable ideas to either add or propose for another day, including adding more to "To Do" list as mentioned in couple threads above. Per the revision history page:

• Tightened up formatting of lead because you gotta catch their eye from the top
• Into Participants section added user box and invite others template - so let’s get busy templating our user pages and talk pages of interested users (and reminding others already on the list the Task force exists)
• Changed section title to: “Possible affirmative action program” which hopefully is accurate. (I have some ideas on this do item will save for future thread).
• Started resources section and add Wikimedia.org and Wikipedia links
• Added two Related WikiProjects
• Added to “To do” section on: Improve "Resource", "Policy" and "Help" pages
• Categorization: just noted the existence of thousands of categories with either women or female in them to indicate scope of the issue; don't know if need that, but is of interest and possibly a category issue of greater import than others previously discussed? Hopefully, most debatable thing I did. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:36, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Some biographies of women

Hello, gender gappers! Here's your chance to close the gap slightly. These are draft articles that have been declined and then abandoned by their creators. As you can see, I have been improving some of them, but there are too many of these drafts to be saved from deletion, and I have to move on. Would anyone like to pick one out and get it ready for mainspace? —Anne Delong (talk) 11:44, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Karen TenEyck - postponed - added references

*Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Sara Zyskind - postponed - reported at Wikiproject Judaism Moved to mainspace

• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Tammy Gillis - postponed - added references
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Cathleen Miller - postponed - added references
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Christiane Lemieux - postponed - added references
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Alisse Waterston - postponed - added references
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Kathleen Gilje - postponed - added references
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Mary Millben Draft - postponed - added references
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Emma Jane Unsworth - postponed - added references
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Debbie Heald - postponed - added references
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Joy Rose- postponed - removed promotional material
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Reel Women - postponed - added references - submitted - declined
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Brittany Smooch (2) - postponed
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Beverly Bond - postponed - added references

*Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Julia Hoban - postponed - added references Moved to article space

• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Karen D. Thompson - postponed
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Margaret Williams - postponed - added references

*Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Marianne Hettinger - postponed moved to article space

• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Tanja Börzel - postponed

These all can be added to WikiProject_Countering_Systemic_Bias_Open_Tasks: Women and women studies list using whatever formatting they use. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:44, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Please do, I see several that look interesting. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 17:27, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't know there was a giant list already. Never mind; I'll get around to them some year. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:39, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Moved some into mainspace, maybe not great, but it's adequate. Montanabw^(talk) 04:54, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Great! OK, realized didn't need reformatting so just moved the rest into the open tasks list. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:21, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to you both. That's three off my list... —Anne Delong (talk) 18:10, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

New member

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hi Folks, I just added my name to the participants list. There are many User names on it that I recognize and have respect for. I am looking forward to working with everyone here. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 17:37, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

FWIW: I do NOT think this man is here for the reasons he says he is. And it's not because he's a man... it's because he's the man who just posted this stuff on another editor's talk page:[22]. Also, he's a member of the porn project and a regular contributor to porn pages. That's not an attack... one only needs to look at his edit history to see it's just a simple fact. Lightbreather (talk) 18:10, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

And what does his editing of porn pages have to do with whether he should be here? Porn editors are editors too. Porn actresses are women too. If he says that he wants to be here, then maybe he can work with us, or maybe he can learn from us, or maybe we can learn from him. Let's not start out biting an existing editor who is new to this project. Welcome. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:11, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Taken out of context of discussions re: to civility in the past few days, and of his conduct toward me in the past six days? Nothing. Put into context of those things, being a woman, it's a very uncomfortable position to be in. However, he has apparently pledged not to interact with me, so maybe he'll volunteer to remove his name from the membership list. That won't preclude him from working on his "The Thalians" article, and I will feel much safer. Lightbreather (talk) 22:19, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

There is absolutely no net benefit for him/her removing his/her name from the membership list, and making another editor 'feel safer' is not a good reason for him/her to do so. We need more people in this task force, and driving them away is not a good idea. Tutelary (talk) 22:22, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Please see: WP:ASPERSIONS - WP:WIKIHOUNDING - WP:HARASSMENT - WP:CIVILITY. Our goal is to work against those sorts of thing, not suffer it. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:33, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Carol, you're one of the Editors that I was referring to in my opening statement. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 22:48, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Is there some background things which I missed? I've read AN's talk page but with the strong, swift retort here must be something I'm missing here. Tutelary (talk) 22:41, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Yep, I won't deny it, I have made edits on articles for female, male, and transgender performers in the adult industry. I have also made (what I consider constructive edits) in articles for politicians, writers, celebrities, and scientists who are male and female. I'm also a member, like you, of the Firearms Project and some others. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 18:33, 28 July 2el014 (UTC)

A modest suggestion: let's assume good faith. It works remarkably well at times to actually create good faith where there was little there before. What would really work well would be to name a specific article that needs to be created or improved, and have several of us work on it together, as a team. Lightbreather, Scalhotrod, does either one of you have a specific or proposed article that could use some help, that we could build some good faith by working on together? --GRuban (talk) 18:48, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Maybe, GRuban. Scalhotrod has said nothing about the link I provided. If he will retract and apologize for that, plus for policing my talk page and "reporting" me to other editors,[23] and if he will stop gossiping about me and policing me in this way (I don't do this to him), then I will try your suggestion. Lightbreather (talk) 18:59, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi GRuban, thank you for your suggestion. I have to admit that I am a bit "reactive" in that I'm often prompted to edit articles suggested to me by the SuggestBot or when my editing of related article intersects with articles that are within the scope of this project. I looked at the Task Force's ToDo list and did not see anything specific. There is an organization, The Thalians, that I'd like to write an article about. It is a California based charitable organization dedicated to making the public aware of mental health issues founded by actresses Debbie Fisher and Ruta Lee. What do you think? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 19:05, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Awesome awesomeness. A quick glance makes me think you probably mean Debbie Reynolds, rather than Debbie Fisher. Sounds like a fine target to work on. --GRuban (talk) 19:26, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes! Whoops... updating my notes now... :) --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 19:38, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

The Thalians - stubbed out. Come, let us go hack! (I admit to being from the old school, believing that adding stuff even if imperfect, is better that having a perfect absence.) --GRuban (talk) 19:46, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks GR! I don't mean to rain on your parade, but it looks like there might be an interaction ban imposed on me and LB. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:02, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Oh, @$#%^&*. Where? Maybe I can persuade the powers that be to let you two work together on this one article, to prove you can be good do-bees. --GRuban (talk) 20:13, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

My Talk page is probably the biggest of the "bomb craters".... :) Please, please, please do not say that I did not warn you, cause... It's a doozy! --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:48, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, I don't see any interaction ban actually imposed. If one is, I would argue hard to give you two a chance to improve this one article together - possibly two if Lightbreather proposes one as well. I will help as well, and possibly other project members who see fit, but it would be nice it it would include the two of you working together. --GRuban (talk) 22:59, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Women and Wikipedia Study - Request for interviews, focus groups, etc.

Hi. I've been working on an interview-based research project about women and Wikipedia since January (initial project proposal) and recently received a WMF Individual Engagement Grant to continue the work (IEG proposal). If you're willing to participate in an interview or will be at Wikimania and would like to chat and/or take part in a focus group, please let me know. Also, if you'd just like to share your thoughts and opinions via email, I'd love to hear them.--Mssemantics (talk) 05:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

To do list item: discretionary sanctions

Previously, carolmooredc and jps mentioned looking into the possibility of getting this project and related pages covered by discretionary sanctions. I think we should try to move forward with that. I think it might have been jps who said we could maybe get an amendment to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology or an amendment to another related case. I’m not very knowledgeable regarding arbitration, what exactly do we need to do to pursue this? --BoboMeowCat (talk) 15:01, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The appropriate page is Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment. However, I would ask User:Bbb23 or another administrator who is covering Talk:Men's rights movement/Article probation what their opinion about such an option would be, especially in light of this conversation. The support or at least the benign indifference of the enforcement class will be a major factor as to whether the arbitrators would be willing to accept a broadening of discretionary sanctions to all MRM+Feminism+Sexism related pages. jps (talk) 17:02, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I am taking the view that this project and its talk page may be subject to MRM probationary sanctions, depending on the content of a contribution or a discussion. Essentially, in the discussion pointed to on Drmies's talk page, I agree with TParis. Just so it's clear, those are community sanctions, not ArbCom sanctions.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:25, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks, Bbb23, that's good to know. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Bbb23, do MRM sanctions also apply to other articles not strictly part of the men's rights movement, if the article includes content (or editors are attempting to include content) which appears to be exclusively or predominately supported by the men's rights movement? Specific examples have included past disruption on YesAllWomen and current debate on 2014 Isla Vista Killings regarding placing article in the "violence against men" category. I havn't seen any mainstream reliable sources come to the conclusion the Isla Vista killings were a gender based attack on men, or a hate crime against men, but I have seen this view in men's rights publications, blogs, etc. The issue is currently being discussed, and things seem pretty calm on article currently, but there has been repeated edit warring in past as well as comments such as these [[24]],[[25]] so I was wondering if MRM sanctions apply?--BoboMeowCat (talk) 20:19, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I take the same view on all pages that I do on this one (see above). That said, depending on the circumstances, I might be less inclined to sanction someone if it's not obvious without warning them first. It's hard to give you an absolute answer without a real-life problem.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to delete categories involving literature by women.

There is a proposal to delete categories involving literature by women, including deleting Literature by African-American women, Literature by Asian-American women, Literature by Native American women, Literature by Hispanic and Latino American women. See discussion here: [link to discussion]. __ E L A Q U E A T E 23:34, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Women's corner

Someone has suggested creating a "women's corner," in case anyone here wants to comment. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention#Recruiting and retaining women-- WikiProject:Women's Corner. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:07, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions for strategies to address the gender gap

We had some great suggestions above from Carolmooredc such as:

• linking to various relevant articles/essays/projects within en.wikipedia and wikimedia regarding the topic.
• writing an essay prominently advertised here on the problems women face and solutions to those problems through wiki dispute resolution processes, existing "support" type pages, etc.; writing another essay on how men and women can work together more successfully in community, etc., considering some concepts in this geekfeminism article.
• thinking up policy tweaks and changes, like regarding WP:Civility and WP:Harassment, to make Wikipedia more comfortable for women.
• posting at the very least links to a variety of topical behavior/policy/etc. issues - including relevant ANIs and Arbitrations and noticeboard postings - that directly affect the gender gap and at least discussing them here and/o getting involved on an individual basis if it seems relevant.
• learning what other projects are doing right. (I heard on gender gap email list the Serb women are the most active. I know the ones I've met are very smart and forthright.)
• promoting the various women-related projects to women editors. I was a member of this task force for a year or so, unwatched it in a moment of general frustration, and completely forgot it existed! So it pays to advertise!

Since we are thinking about sub-pages, I'd like to add the suggestion of:

• creating a sub-page for discussion of specific issues and/or specific concerns that seem related to the gender gap. Sort of discussion forum for specific instances which seem related to the gap. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 18:02, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

• I'd add to my list, gathering evidence of systemic actions vs. women editors that might lead to a) Community sanctions; and if not effective b) arbitration with discretionary sanctions. (Collection done in a wiki-proper way, off wiki if necessary.) Perhaps just the knowledge this project (or members thereof) was gathering such info might be helpful. If issues continued and various evidences from talk page/noticeboard/other sources reached a critical mass, then some women with immediate concerns could be complainant(s) with their specific issues, and project members could add diffs of the various collected evidences and their requestions for Community Sanctions for such behaviors. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:12, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
• Today I recommended women read Wikipedia:Dispute resolution to learn how to deal with conflict issues. Then just reread it and saw that it definitely needs work explaining processes better for new editors and women, who may be less willing to use them if they are not very clear. Also there needs to be some reference to the existance of Community and Arbitration sanctions and how to bring up the fact they exist and, if necessary, tag someone's talk page about it to get their attention. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 00:43, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I think the gap could be better improved if we actually tackled some of wikipedia's policies. Their standards for what constitutes neutrality, notability and reliability tend to systematically disenfranchise women and people of colour's knowledge and experience on this site. Also I find it incredibly frustrating that when contributing to gender-related issues, I have to fend my contributions off from overzealous, rule-obsessed editors who delete them even though I have more expertise and better evidence than they do. Is the goal supposed to be to enhance the availability and access to public knowledge about an issue or not? I am pretty sure a lot of editors on this site aren't thinking about that. Maybe having more "affirmative action" type things will help, but given how dismally those policies tend to benefit minorities offline, I'm convinced there needs to be a more systemic approach.--femmebot 20:49, 28 July 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Magsmacaulay (talk • contribs)

Deletion discussion for Category:Women historians

I hope this won't be considered as canvassing, but Category:Women historians is being discussed for deletion here. This is one of many, many gender-specific categories for women in an occupation where gender would seem to be an irrelevant qualifier in present day. As with almost all of these categories, there is no Category:Male historians. This would appear to be a useful discussion to gauge the community's current feeling on this issue, which I understand is the subject of a longstanding concern. Nigel Pap (talk) 04:12, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

When there are as many or more women historians with important positions in academia as male, then it may become irrelevant. Right now it remains a factoid of interest; but not something that should get them removed from the category:historians. I think we need a more rational, less agenda-driven (perhaps moderated) discussion of this some point so the task force itself can come up with a policy as a group. Another "To do" item, no doubt. (Note that it would help for us all to study Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality so we'd understand better what is happening now, though I get the impression it is in a disorganized and/or inconsistent fashion.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:42, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't think I understand what you are saying. What generally happens is that women get removed from the main category ("Category:X") and placed in a subcategory ("Category:Women X"). Deleting the "Category Women X" means that those entries will be moved back to the main category. It is the existence of these categories that removes women, not the deletion of them. Nigel Pap (talk) 19:47, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Nigel Pap, it seems a better solution to the problem you mention would involve explicit instructions/guidelines indicating that women should not be removed from parent category, when placed in the sub-category, rather than outright deletion of valuable women categories.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 20:03, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

How are they valuable? Nigel Pap (talk) 20:14, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

They are valuable to this wikiproject because one of our goals is to improve articles affected by the systemic bias of so few female editors, and articles relating to women/women's topics seem to be disproportionally affected by this bias. Having such categories helps target articles for review. Such categories are also valuable to readers interested in finding women historians, because considering the general biases in our society, women historians tend to have unique struggles compared to male historians, and in many cases differing perspectives and differing focus of academic study to be more inclusive of women's issues.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 20:29, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I do not disagree with your assumption that female historians tend to be aware of and focused on women's issues, but that is a generalization that I am not comfortable applying to all female historians. When the discussion is about female engineers or mathematicians, the basis of these categories becomes even more tenuous. If this Wikiproject is using the categories for maintenance, a wikiproject template incorporating a rating would be much more useful. Nigel Pap (talk) 20:53, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

This is a bit of a distraction. There is also no deep difference in how an American or Polish person would be a mathematician, but we set up separate categories because it helps users find instances of roughly common experiences based on the characteristic. In the case of most women's categories, this is done in areas where there is scholarly interest in how women's experiences in certain fields are roughly but still somehow significantly different than the experiences of most men in the field, regardless of the specific work done. And this situation is also not an all-or-nothing, "all the subjects must have the same characteristics otherwise". To compare, we categorize American historians knowing that the individual entries included are often wildly different beyond sharing a line in their passports.__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:19, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Good point. Nigel Pap (talk) 02:11, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Obviously a project under categorization is to make sure if women have been removed from a parent and put only in the subcategory, they be put in the main category. On the other hand, I see that Category:Jewish_writers does not have a lot of individuals also in Category:Writer, and I'm sure if that was such a "ghettoization issue", some editors would be having a fit about it.

Clearer principles would help, as mentioned elsewhere. Sometimes a parent category seems to be a catch all for bios no one knew how to or cared to put into subcategories. Other times it seems like a badge of honor and removal to be "ghettoization". The whole thing seems pretty arbitrary, leading to conflict. If there is some principle, let's make it clear. If not, just say that people can be put in both - because some people ARE put in both - and leave it that way if you find it. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:49, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

This is a frequent bone of contention and could indeed benefit from wider discussion. To begin with, it really grates on me to use this bizarre grammatical construction. I feel like "women historians", like "women drivers", is a sort of slur; like it was devised to imply they don't belong there. "Women in historical research" or "female historians" would be fair grammar; but it is still bad policy. It should be clear that we don't want a bunch of categories like Category:Black gay Hispanic soccer players, unless there's a way to make the computer generate them in response to a user query. What may distinguish certain individuals is that they were pioneers against sexual discrimination or stereotype, in which case we ought to say that somehow. I can't think of a nice phrase that rolls off the tongue - "pioneering women against academic discrimination in history research" just doesn't cut it. But someone ought to come up with something. The phrase should effectively make it clear that most modern day historians, for whom the struggle against sexual bias was not a defining characteristic, should not be considered for the category. Wnt (talk) 00:41, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay then, goodbye.

Well, if he won't leave, and if we're supposed to be observing some interaction ban. (I didn't agree to it, but he says we have one.) I guess I'll say goodbye then. Sorry to have caused the project trouble. Have fun, Scal. Lightbreather (talk) 22:54, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

I will not endorse you leaving but given it's of your own volition, I cannot personally stop you I bid you good. Tutelary (talk) 22:56, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

I am working to address obvious disruption of this project, even if it takes WP:General Sanctions. So please be patient. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 23:22, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

I implore you to file this with the arbitration committee and include any diffs or evidence of disruption. However, I don't see any current sanctions which directly deal with this page. (other than MRM but Bbb23 seems adamant about only edits and discussions related to MRM, not anything else) Tutelary (talk) 23:27, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Carolmooredc I agree that sanctions directly related to this page and to the gender gap in general on Wikipedia seem needed. Bbb23 has been very helpful, but the problem unfortunately seems to go beyond what MRM sanctions can always cover. How do we proceed with this? --BoboMeowCat (talk) 23:45, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

If MRM people are causing a problem here, this page is ipso facto covered by the sanctions, I believe, and If a woman (Lightbreather) has left because of it, that's kind of the opposite of a safe space! Pinging Bbb23. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:47, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Why do I always get involved in these things when I've had no sleep? Help me out, SlimVirgin. First, what are "MRM people"? Second, what in particlar is going on here that relates to MRM? Please be specific. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:56, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

• I haven't followed everything that has happened here, but this is just to appeal to people who may have arrived for reasons other than the stated purpose of the page. It's hard enough starting a project like this, but when there's hostility on the talk page, the very people we want to attract are discouraged by it, and won't join. That makes it immediately self-defeating. Please give it a chance to develop. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:54, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Agreed.

FYI. I went to Bbb23's talk page today and he's got two threads going on this topic. He doesn't think Men's rights may apply to everyone. (I guess we'd have to research each non-constructive posting editor.) (Later note: looks like there was an edit conflict between me and Bbb23 so didn't see his message when wrote this.)

Also, today I put postings on the talk page of the main project and on Editor Retention asking for help in dealing with the issue.

Meanwhile, I haven't seen many constructive comments on the threads that are about such topics. That certainly would be evidence an individual was sincerely interested. Or reports of constructive activity to help advance the project. Let us not be discouraged. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 23:58, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we should just try to let the heat out of the situation. I hope people will pay attention to the appeal. Bbb23, thanks for arriving. I don't know the details either, except that the same names keep cropping up. But for now, perhaps it's best just to stop posting about it, and maybe things will die down. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:07, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

My understanding is the MRM sanctions would probably only cover this page when the content of the disruption relates to men's rights (which it did during the disruption surrounding the name change request because an editor was citing men's rights arguments/scholars to oppose the name change). Call me pessimistic, but I suspect disruptions are likely to recur, and they won't always be related to MRM, which is why I think we should considering going through whatever formal process is needed to get this page/project covered by its own discretionary sanctions. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 00:36, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

It would require a trip to ArbCom, but could perhaps be done as an amendment to an existing provision. Admins do have the right to block for general disruption, so you don't need ArbCom for sanctions, but it's true that admins feel more able to act when there are discretionary sanctions in place. A topic ban can also be imposed by the community, but that would require more drama at AN or AN/I. It might be a good idea to see if people are willing to respond to the request I made above. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:00, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully things will just calm down and we can continue with our work. Right now I'm trying to go through all three years of Gender Gap mailing list for best links to articles, other projects, etc. Also finding some interesting past proposals. Just a matter of encouraging people from that list to come over here. I haven't started inviting people yet but have started a data base to keep track of who I or others invite (i.e., they report getting an invite here already or when I get there I find there was one). Yes, it's all that secretarial type work one must do in any project. :-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:27, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Let's archive off topic comments now

I really have a problem with Neotarf hatting my proposal on how to deal with the disruptive threads. He also left part of one conversation and replied to it while hatting the rest. I intend to put everything back as was but into archives unless there is some rational reason not to. The record needs to stand as it was, especially for evidentiary purposes should disruption continue. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:21, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Respect - if this is not a value here, is it time to fork a "Women welcome and respected Wikipedia"?

The comments of Powers and John raise the possibility that it is time to fork a "Women welcome and respected Wikipedia". Any suggestions on the practical aspects of making this happen much appreciated.

"Real men treat women with dignity and give them the respect they deserve." -- Prince Harry -- Djembayz (talk) 12:54, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I was a little confused as to exactly what you are proposing so would love to hear more details. Later: OK, I see from a comment elsewhere it is a rhetorical question, and differences in how one might punctuate it threw me off... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:47, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Eh? It seems that despite all your contributions on Wikipedia, you still do not have a clue how to use talk pages. What's with the "later"? It makes no sense - you should have added that as a subsequent message. This is not a reflection on your gender but rather your complete inability to follow norms, as has been demonstrated on umpteen other noticeboards. - Sitush (talk) 23:58, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

And how is your comment any better? It's even more off topic and less civil to boot. You should probably just retract it as it has nothing to do with anything being discussed here and just comes across as a content-free shot at a fellow editor.__ E L A Q U E A T E 00:13, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

It is an aside - hence the small font. I never said her message was off-topic and I didn't comment about civility. Hm, is there anything else that you've misunderstood? This person continually abuses process and it needs to stop. Since she seems to be at the heart of this misguided project, she needs to get her act in order. But, yes, I'll consider starting a RfC/U or something if she doesn't. If you'll excuse the wordplay, a standard-bearer with poor standards is no good to anyone. - Sitush (talk) 06:35, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Unpleasant. This seems to have nothing to do with this WikiProject and everything to do with whatever grudge you're carrying. I don't know why you felt the need to drop in some ad hominem attacks here, but it's disruptive. Whatever your problem, settle it somewhere else.__ E L A Q U E A T E 07:10, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

"I didn't comment about civility" - No, you were just uncivil. If you feel a tapping on the back of your skull it will be your manners trying to get back in. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 14:04, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with Sitush having taken a moment to inform you about a site-wide problem of which you were not previously aware. His brief message was direct and constructive, and it spoke to the needs and norms of this Project. The behavior to which he referred (which you can see documented in great detail at Arbcom and Noticeboards over the past 6 years) disrupts orderly and collaborative process. Sitush has been around the block. Please don't be quick to dismiss his considered judgment. SPECIFICO talk 14:10, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Sitush and SPECIFICO. The purpose of this talk page is to discuss issues related to the gender gap on Wikipedia. However, it appears the two of you are here to insult Carolomooredc and drag some grudge from elsewhere over here which seems disruptive. Please consider that if this "site-wide problem" with Carolmooredc needs pointing out by you in order for others to notice, then possibly it's not Carolmooredc who has the problem. Seriously, if she's not collaborative, that will be apparent to others without you guys following her around and telling them. SPECIFICO, please also consider that you've previously been warned by Bbb23 that MRM sanctions may apply to this talk page [[26]]. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 16:02, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Whatever problem you believe applies to my post or Sitush's applies at least equally as much to yours. Take your concerns to user talk pages. SPECIFICO talk 16:16, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Let me note that I was involved in a year long content dispute with SPECIFICO, and Sitush repeatedly jumped in to tell me his view of my proper behavior and got angry that I didn’t follow to a tee his every directive. Both have been banned from my talk page for harassment. And SPECIFICO was blocked for (only) 48 hours for forwarding an off wiki death wish against me and my family at WP:ANI. (See 1) Separate ANI complaint and 2) block.) Just a couple of many reasons I want to see women having more support against incivility and harassment on Wikipedia. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:26, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Sitush and Specifico, you're not adding anything constructive to this page. Please go away. Thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 16:38, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Lightbreather, I've reverted your close of this due to there not being a clear reason for it. Additionally, telling editors to simply 'go away' I think is bordering on WP:BATTLEGROUND wording and behavior. This is a collaborative encyclopedia, isn't it? Tutelary (talk) 22:13, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

What extraordinary nonsense. Please do not post messages without at least glancing at the context. Johnuniq (talk) 22:35, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

I never adhered to or implied that what was said was not out of line, but the close message 'Basta!' offered no reason why the discussion should be closed. Tutelary (talk) 22:39, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Reclosing. Whatever prior grudge the editors in question have with Carolmooredc can be better addressed elsewhere. This talk page is to discuss the gender gap. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 22:46, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Where is the LtPowers comment that is being objected to? I see the one by User:John (diff here), "Anyone who feels this site is too rude or too male-dominated has the freedom to leave, or the freedom to fork." (Also, might want to check out the EEOC definition of harassment.) —Neotarf (talk) 04:13, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

As a side note, the editor who made the "freedom to leave" comment, also made this block against a female editor because he objected to her linking to the term "circle jerk". She had been editing for three years and had a clean block log in spite of editing in the contentious area of women's soccer, but immediately left the project. Some diffs at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention/Archive 15#Vanished user llkdfkj4isw4. This could be an interesting sideline for your project group, to track the female editors who leave, and their reasons. —Neotarf (talk) 13:48, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I see that Neotarf removed some comments here and left his own. Some was off topic and some was not. (Perhaps in hatting you got confused. I think something even might have been deleted, but a bit too confusing to figure out at the moment.) I made a proposal below we just archive all the unnecessary material, as it was. Please observe Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Others.27_comments. Thanks.

Also, making a listing of questionable sanctions like the above has been discussed on another page and needs to be added to the do list. Thanks for that great example. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:25, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Relevant discussion on talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias

I made a Proposal to remove non-demographic ideological/etc. listings from Open Tasks you might want to comment on. I did notice that several of the irrelevant categories nevertheless had a large number of women's articles to be created or beefed up (plus a whole nuther women's section I entirely missed!) Moving them to the women's section will make it the biggest, for sure!! But there's a lot of other stuff, much outdated, that just doesn't belong there and no one bothered to remove it that just detracts from the CSB central mission. (In fact the CSB central mission seems to have been lost a bit on the main page as well.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:13, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Separate “Proposals” page

While thinking about archiving and looking at the various proposals that have been made inside many of these threads, it was clear there are a number that are generally agreed upon but need more fleshing out and/or an editor willing to take them on as projects. Why not have a “proposals” subpage that has not overly long (say 2500 word max) sections that:

• detail proposals that are generally approved of at talk, but need further work and/or are too complicated to list under to do and need someone to take them on. (Includes a link to the relevant discussion.)
• flesh out current “to do” list items where necessary.
• Editors cumulatively could add brief suggestions to it in a constructive manner. However, there’d be a note advising editors to post possibly controversial and critical comments on the main talk page (or possibly other editors might move it there?).
• The proposal page itself will have a “Message box” on the top of the main Gender Gap page and also be linked right under the “To do” list caption.

Reading through the above, I put together a list of various proposals, merging thoughts and quotes where relevant:

• Essays on problems women face and solutions to those problems; how women can use all wiki dispute resolution processes; how men and women can work together more successfully in community, etc., considering some concepts in this geekfeminism article; etc.
• Specific new affirmative action proposals (several below probably are in that category).
• Specific policy proposals under Wikipedia:Civility (Civility Board?), Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Harassment, Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, etc. (Also editors can just propose smaller tweaks at the policy pages and announce them at this talk page if necessary.)
• Research on how policies on neutrality, notability and reliability may systematically disenfranchise women and people of colour's knowledge and experience on this site; offer specific policy proposals. Especially to make Wikipedia policies more inclusionist so overzealous, rule-obsessed editors don’t have an excuse to delete everything they don’t like on gender issues.
• "Plain English" proposal.
• Noticeboard research project: data base of women taking men to or being taken to WP:ANI and Arbitrations and outcomes; compare with males in similar situations; do analysis to see if there is systemic bias vs. women editors that might lead to stricter sanctions than against males in similar situations. And are there things females much more readily are blocked for than males? (Say, swearing.) (big project)
• Research other gender gap projects’ success: what are they doing right? (For example the Indian WikiprojectI read on gender gap email list the Serb women are the most active editors).
• AfD analysis project: to see if there is a pattern of articles about women; are there certain editors chronically involved we might discuss the issue with on their talk page?
• Should efforts to disrupt the project continue, look into the possibility of Community or Arbitration sanctions on women-related articles and behavior issues. (If someone can be blocked for repeatedly calling a transgender a “he” who prefers “she” (see Chelsea Manning arbitration), certainly we might consider blocking someone for throwing around vulgar words and phrases about women that allegedly aren’t direct personal attacks.)
• User:BoboMeowCat wrote: "Creating a sub-page for discussion of specific issues and/or specific concerns that seem related to the gender gap. Sort of discussion forum for specific instances which seem related to the gap." Perhaps she could detail this more fully in a separate post; I'm not sure how different from this talk page, when it is correctly used.

I was actually thinking of something along the lines of a “gender gap noticeboard”. Someplace where editors could raise concerns and get guidance from more experienced editors on issues that impede participation of women on Wikipedia and also a place to raise concerns regarding systemic bias due to the gender gap affecting the content of specific articles.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 15:25, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I got it. Would be delightful, but given that the Wikiquette Assistance board was given the death blow and the Civility Board would be fought tooth and nail, I don't think it's likely. Sometimes good old fashioned nagging and criticism by groups of women goes further than official "boards". And ANI is good for getting the whole community involved when editors really are being WP:Dontbeadick. Double standards still are too frequent there, but the more we complain, the more they gotta listen. It can be fun to be a squeaky wheel! In any case, we have to figure out how to deal with issues that aren't quite ANI here, without invoking the wrath of specific editors. Not naming names or providing diffs might help, just quoting in general terms what is going on. We may have to play it by ear. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:58, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Thoughts? Did I miss anything? Going to archive completed items and off topic threads today; after people have chance to look through the productive discussions will archive them in date order. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:05, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Abuse of edit summaries

I started to post this on Neotarf's talk page, but cancelled that and came here. Although I am no longer a member of the project, I am following it right now because I have an open discussion here. A previous discussion I was in, along with one or two others (plus part? of one?), were hatted as "offtopic." It caught my attention at the time, but I had since let it go. Then the whole question of what is off topic came up again, so I was stepping through the page's edit history when these caught my eye: [27][28][29][30][31].

I didn't know what WP:DENY is, so I went to look at it. It is an essay about how to treat (ignore) trolls/vandals. Some of Neotarf's edits above seem to be directed toward my posts, some toward CM's. I don't know either editor well enough to have strong feelings about either, but those edits of NT's seem to me good examples of edit summary abuse. I am very surprised and disappointed to see them on this page of all places. Not that this is a civility board, per se, but certainly... Oh, I think y'all should get this.

I would love read some feedback on this, and not just from Neotarf. Here's a direct question, if that helps. Is it a consensus on this project that CM and I are trolls and/or vandals? Lightbreather (talk) 16:26, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I think we are still working our way through what to post and not post here and how to deal with off topic/or worse posts. We have had problems with personal attacks brought here which we weren't quite ready to deal with and which two of us felt we had to deal with. And we've had some stuff hatted in a rather sloppy way, including material that probably should not have been. I've already proposed just putting all such discussions back in their place and archiving them and heard no dissent. At this point I think it's more productive to discuss general guidelines so we more easily deal with these problems in the future. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:38, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Don't know if my vote counts, since I'm an outsider looking in, but unhatting what was hatted as WP:DENY seems perfectly reasonable. Those discussions weren't about baking or football. They were very much related to this project. Lightbreather (talk) 16:44, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I think Neotarf was just trying to help keep the page moving along. Perhaps in future it would be better to close discussions without collapsing them. That would allow them to be read, and would allow the search function to work. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:22, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree that, when an environment or situation is as contentious as this is, hatting an off-topic discussion is a less-than-right answer to a less-than-right post. It appears to be a cover-up. (Hatting of disruptive posts can be disruptive itself.) Archiving an off-topic discussion, which leaves it in plain view so that no one thinks it is being covered up, and so that it is obvious what any after-flaming is about, is a better idea. Please don't hat off-topic posts. Archive them. If they are really completely off-the-point and new, they can be deleted. If they are RD2 or RD3, they can be redacted. These off-topic posts are not candidates for deletion or redaction, and can be archived. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:45, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Agree, especially when hatting actually moves comments out of their original context. But what is the feeling about just archiving them more quickly too? And an extended behavior guidelines box on the top of the page like I suggested to at least discourage some people from off topic/attack postings and remind them about the guidelines if they err.

So should we at the very least close the discussions that have gone most off track: New member; Respect - if this is not a value here, is it time to fork a "Women welcome and respected Wikipedia"?; and if Lightbreather feels the discussion is done, Departed member explains, in her own words, with DIFFS; Abuse of edit summaries. ?? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:29, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Departed member explains, in her own words, with DIFFS

I was invited to join this project,[32] took up the invitation,[33] and left the project [34] within a span of less than 48 hours. Another member went to my talk page to "explain" the problem.[35] He apparently misunderstood why I left - which I have corrected, at least in part, there[36] - so I am posting this here just in case anyone else misunderstands.

Yes, I left the project because another editor joined it. The other editor happens to be a man, and I happen to be a woman. But I did not leave the project because the other editor is a man, or because he happens to be a man who edits WP porn pages. Here is what I originally said:

FWIW: I do NOT think this man is here for the reasons he says he is. And it's not because he's a man... it's because he's the man who just posted this stuff on another editor's talk page:[37]. Also, he's a member of the porn project and a regular contributor to porn pages. That's not an attack... one only needs to look at his edit history to see it's just a simple fact.

When a male member of the project asked what this other male editor's editing of porn pages has to do with whether or not he should be a member of the Gender Gap project, I answered:

Taken out of context of discussions re: to civility in the past few days, and of his conduct toward me in the past six days? Nothing. Put into context of those things, being a woman, it's a very uncomfortable position to be in. However, he has apparently pledged not to interact with me, so maybe he'll volunteer to remove his name from the membership list.

To which two other members of the project replied in defense of keeping the new male member. So I decided to leave.

As I said above, I was invited to and joined the project (on 26 July). Two days after joining (28 July), I invited three other women editors who I am acquainted with and respect.[38][39][40] This other, male editor whose intentions I questioned? He joined within 48 hours of my joining,[41] without an invitation that I can see (though it's not an invitation-only project) and within one hour of my invitation to the others.

In addition, he joined this project within two hours of my reporting him to an admin for stalking (IMO).[42]

(About 10 hours later, having received no feedback on my complaint, I decided to simply take it to ANI.[43] That was closed within 15 minutes,[44] so I appealed to another admin, Drmies, on his talk page.[45] Soon after this, the editor in question told Drmies that he had taken me off his watchlist and announced a self-imposed interaction ban on his talk page.[46])

Anyway, soon after, discussion about this was hatted as "Off-topic." (Here is a relevant, related discussion, including the question, "Who decides what is "off-topic"?[47]) I'll just stay away for now because his being there makes me nervous, and the way I was treated there (here) did not make me feel safe or even particularly welcome. And that is what happened, in my words. --Lightbreather (talk) 20:25, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I forgot to add, three days before he came here, he gave an attaboy to a fellow editor who made an uncivil reply to a question I asked at wt:an.[48] I could add more, but I'll just leave it to the stuff from the past week. Lightbreather (talk) 00:44, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of wikihounding, this is a quote by Lightbreather from a discussion on Drmies Talk page in reference to the Interaction Ban I proposed, "I cannot promise to stay off his, because I check it once a week or so to see if he's talking about me." [49] --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 15:48, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

When was the last time I went to your talk page and, observing that you deleted something from it - part of a conversation you were not a part of - restored it, complete with judgmental edit summaries? When was the last time that I joined a project within 48 hours of your joining it? I normally avoid interacting with you (a self-imposed interaction ban, if you will) unless you revert my edits for no good reason, or if I discover (as I do from time to time) that you're talking about me. Stop trying to throw this back on me. The only thing I've done wrong is to be harassed, and having the ovaries to complain about it. How much gender-gap editing have you done in the last four days? I've done a fair bit, even though I am no longer a formal member of the group. Lightbreather (talk) 18:00, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I too believe I have been wikihounded here (I can produce copious evidence if necessary). But I think as a group we can rely on support from admins to stop this kind of behavior. If this project is shut down by overt hounding by specific male editors, and people complain enough around Wikipedia, something tells me those details will get around to the media and might make the New York Times given the media's obsession with Wikipedia. (After all, they rely on it for so much of their research.) Definitely take a break til you feel we've got a handle on things, but don't quit forever. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:35, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

That is weird. And creepy. Montanabw^(talk) 06:46, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Yup, a lot of weird creepy things can happen to women on Wikipedia. I got a 1000 death threats via wiki email from one well known sockpuppet/nut in CA before the Foundation finally figured out how to shut him down. (Knock wood.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 11:35, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence that these events were gender-related. SPECIFICO talk 13:47, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Specifico, was that reply to me or CM? Lightbreather (talk) 14:13, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi -- to the narrative in this thread, so all of the above. SPECIFICO talk 15:04, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

OK. Well I started this discussion to present evidence of what I saw, and still see, as harassment - hounding/stalking, to be exact. The details are given. I was delighted to be invited to join this project. I enjoyed the thought of participating so much that I invited other editors whom I trust to join. Then Scal - who was topic-banned for edit warring with me (we both were), who trolled my talk page and accused me of managing it with bad intent, who crowed for another editor who dropped the "c" word into a reply to me in a discussion about civility - joins this project within 48 hours of my joining.

The wikihounding policy says: Wikihounding is the singling out of one or more editors, and joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. Wikihounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Wikipedia.... The important component of wikihounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or to the project generally, for no overriding reason.

So, let's drop gender for the moment (though I think in this instance, at this venue, it may very well be a component) - even dropping gender: What is your analysis of the situation? Lightbreather (talk) 15:45, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, with all the evidence presented, I think further demands for explanations just becomes disruptive. SPECIFICO already has seen all my complaints against him at talk pages, ANIs, to Admins, at Arbitration, so I need not detail them here. If he and other males reject my or our interpretations, so be it.

Let's focus on getting more women involved and finding ways to deal with specific instances that both address women's needs without allowing guys to come here and disruptive with all their questions and denials and explanations.Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:54, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, Tutelary, GRuban, since I have presented more detailed evidence here (that at least two of you called for in the now hatted "New member" discussion), I would especially appreciate your feedback. Thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 15:53, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay. First, there was a mention of an interaction ban. There has been no interaction ban logged against either Lightbreather or Scalhotrod. There may have been a suggestion that an interaction ban was appropriate. There is no interaction ban. (If two editors were both topic-banned for edit-warring, that is not an interaction ban. Was Scalhotrod topic-banned from gun control?) Second, Lightbreather's statement that she was leaving this project because Scalhotrod was entering seemed either arbitrary or a case of casting aspersions without evidence, which annoyed some of us. If she can present documented evidence that Scalhotrod has been stalking or hounding her, she should do that at WP:AN or WP:ANI, rather than just running from him. Either present the evidence, or leave alone, or depart quietly, without saying that are you leaving because of Scalhotrod. (The timing of his entry to this project is weird, unless he was hounding.) If you are willing to go to WP:ANI or WP:AN with evidence of stalking or hounding, I will support you. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:08, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Is no-one following the diffs - any of them? Scal said he was self-imposing an interaction ban.[50] I didn't agree to it on my end, because he provided no evidence that I was hounding him. There are also diffs above for evidence of his hounding me, which I took to ANI, which was quickly closed by admin Drmies. So I appealed at his talk page. It was during that conversation, when Drmies gave Scal a warning, that Scal proposed an interaction ban. The diffs are all given above. Lightbreather (talk) 16:37, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I did see that Scalhotrod proposed an interaction ban that Lightbreather did not accept. However, then Lightbreather referred to it as if it existed.

Very sad. Personally, I'm in the "better to light a candle than curse the darkness" camp, so I strongly urged (heck, still urge!) you to move on, and do good things, for example, by cooperating with Scalhotrod on a new article. Hashing over who was right, and who was wrong, and just how right, and just how wrong, is very nice, but doesn't build an encyclopedia. Which is what we are all here for, right? In case that has gotten forgotten? This isn't a weird chat room, or a political forum, or a court of justice, you know? Writing an article will at least get that article written, and, strangely enough, will almost certainly get the two of you to be able to work together on other things. Please. Lay down the stick. Whether or not you're right. Go ahead and consider yourself right if you like, it doesn't matter. But please do go write an article; it does matter. --GRuban (talk) 16:15, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I am sure that GRuban means well in suggesting that Lightbreather and Scalhotrod collaborate on an article. I think that is a terrible if well-meant idea. These are two editors who do not like each other. Wikipedia is big enough that they can both make constructive contributions without the precondition of first learning to collaborate with each other. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:09, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I am paving a road with good intentions. :-) If you can write articles separately, that works too. But please do go write articles. --GRuban (talk) 19:55, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I am curious what Scalhotrod intends to work on regarding systemic bias. Kaldari (talk) 21:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@Kaldari, I make the effort to edit outside of my comfort zone and work on articles where I feel I don't have a distinct personal interest and/or specific knowledge on the subject. As a result the edits tend to be smaller and less comprehensive and it take me longer to research content, but I do what I can nonetheless. I don't remember the first article, but it was for a middle eastern political figure that is female that I first edited several months ago. Another writer and I colaborated on the formatting of the content and what constituted WP:RS. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 15:48, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

And then there were two...

[51][52] Please pardon the expression, but I can't help but think that the phrase, "Neener, neener, neener" with someone sticking their tongue out and possibly thumbing their nose at me should be associated with this... I guess Porn isn't so bad to LB after all. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 19:27, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I've thought that about you before (the neener-neener thing), but I always kept it to myself, because it seemed like the civil thing to do. Lightbreather (talk) 23:36, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Porno. Another turn off on Wikipedia to some women. Lightbreather's articles about organizations "Stop Porn Culture" and "National Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement" would be of interest to many women. Feminist wikiproject probably would be more supportive, of course. Pornography addiction is certainly a fascinating article which evokes sympathy for its victims. Anyway, I'll end my somewhat on-topic comments to this rather unnecessary subtopic. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 03:07, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Archiving discussion

Note: comment after I archived a couple things and talked about archiving others. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 03:22, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Please do -not- archive anything else, especially for what you deem 'offtopic' others will view as directly on the point. If needed, adjust the automated archival time but please do not manually archive things, especially recent things. Tutelary (talk) 15:52, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Just noticed this. As I thought I inferred, but should have been more explicity, at this point I only was looking to archive threads that are 90% about frustration, attack, defense. Not more substantive discussions. If not, they only should be hatted by participants because the last hatting removed relevant material, moved things around and made a mess. And then we can move to a one week archiving to get rid of the nonsense. It is a total turn off to the individuals, especially women, we want to get involved. And there are a lot on the Gender Gap email list. If they came here during the last week I'm sure most ran for the hills... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:45, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to hear it from somebody other than you and Lightbreather, and then I will back down on this, it's just incredibly frustrating for discussions to be hidden from view or just stopped entirely due to some person having a contention on this. Tutelary (talk) 16:49, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

From what I've noticed, she's only archived off-topic discussions that were not even currently active. Tutelary, perhaps it would help if you gave a dif for something that was archived by Carolmooredc that frustrated you.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 16:57, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

How about first we unhat the conversations that someone else hatted? That in itself made the actual issue unclear... I see lightbreather agrees in the post below. Maybe others will jump in. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:51, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I personally did not think all those conversations needed to be hatted but agreed with the closing of the one discussions that seemed mostly personal attacks and wikihounding. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 17:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I think we should let Carol archive or unarchive as she chooses. Someone needs to look after the page to make sure it stays on-topic, so let's allow her to get on with it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:28, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's a wise choice for what amounts to a Moderator role. What about one of the Admins here (assuming we go in that direction at all). Personally, I favor liberty and personal freedom. SPECIFICO talk 00:30, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

As I wrote here you are jumping to conclusions that we want one person to make all the decisions or be the "Moderator". Much better to have several strong voices dealing with disruptive issues. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:39, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Relevant workshops at Wikimania 2014

Wikimania 2014 in London has five workshops related to the gender gap during the August 8-10 programme. Not too late to sign up!

• Creative_Ways_to_Alienate_Women_Online:_A_How-to_Guide_for_Wikipedians
• Systemic Bias Workshop Development
• Internet Skills and the Gender gap
• Diversity Workshop: Gender gap strategy into action
• Gender and Beyond: Building diversity in the digital space
• And if you are a woman, sign up for the Wikiwomen's lunch
  

I went in 2012 and it was a lot of fun. Quick, get those passports out! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:34, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Toolbox better than a drama board

Just a comment that sometimes we have trolls on wikipedia who are simply jerks to everyone and it's not a gender issue. We also have people on-wiki who are utterly clueless about systemic bias - and that includes some women editors. I for one oppose the idea of a civility board because it's a great place for bullies and trolls to go crying to mommy when people (like me) call them on their crap. I also dislike assumptions that "women" are some sort of uniform set of personalities that all dislike conflict or can't dive in there and hold their own in a dogfight. I think articles like WP:BAIT and WP:NPA are better tools to use where there is a problem. I think a useful thing here might be to create a "toolbox" of links to useful guidelines and policies for the most common situations, sort of like a FAQ. (Example: Q: What do I do when an article about a notable woman is put up for AfD? A: Use Policy A, subsection X, Guideline B, subsection Y and Guidline C, subsection Z to establish notability, as was successfully done for Foo Afd and Foobar AfD.) Montanabw^(talk) 18:55, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Something is occurring that is keeping WP approximately 90% male. To increase retention of women, I honestly think it would helpful if we avoided referring to discussion of issues that drive women editors away as "drama". Whether or not we need a specific board is a valid issue but I think phrases like "crying to mommy" are not particularly helpful if we are serious about reducing the gender gap. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 19:14, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I was not clear: per my comment below, "drama" is all the crap that's all over the place - ANI, etc. The wall of tl;dr tendentious arguments where everyone is talking past each other and no one is listening. The issue that I see driving women away (at least the stuff that tempts me to quit) are, in short, bullying and abuse. The best way to combat that is to not let them win. Pick your battles, but then find allies, hold your ground and dig in. As another example of a way to find tools to help retention, we need to address Guidelines: for example, look at some revisions to WP:CANVASS so that it isn't used as a bludgeon to keep people from responsible organizing - the trolls ally all the time but then are the first to slap at others for coordinating their efforts. Montanabw^(talk) 23:29, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Montana, the toolbox is a great idea. Re: Bobo's point about language. It's not that people can't hold their own in a fight. It's that they don't want to, so they leave WP rather than risk it (not just women, men too). If someone comes online to write, they don't want to spend that precious free time dealing with idiocy. So it would be good to avoid language that implies weakness or emotional responses. It does seem obvious that women are more likely to be deterred by personal attacks and locker-room stuff, but men are deterred by that atmosphere too. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:32, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I think that troll-whacking is needed on wiki and bullying is a huge problem. But, as an example, the spat at the Birds project (which only got on my radar after it was over) was a good example of how the trolls and bullies run in packs, tend to never give up unless they overstep and get blocked, and without strength in numbers, and a tenacity that's greater than theirs, it's tough to prevail. People have to learn how to stick together. I'm personally tired of being The Little Red Hen and Taking Point all the time. Allies are nice to find and working collaboratively with others is very cool. Montanabw^(talk) 23:29, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

And, basically, it's a big bad world out there. If people don't want to hold their own, they just leave people like me to do twice the work. If people want to reduce the systemic bias and sexism issues on WP, then it's a fight. It's no different than women going to West Point or women becoming programmers and engineers. At first you are excluded, then you are grudgingly admitted, then you are barely tolerated, and, eventually, if you stick together and stand up for one another, you get to a critical mass and it becomes like (for example) Vet school, which was once a male-dominated field but is now overwhelmingly female. Anyone here read or remember this poem by Marge Piercy? Montanabw^(talk) 23:29, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more about sticking together and critical mass. But the issue of burnout and lack of time is always there because we're volunteers. And so much of what's going on is incredibly childish. It feels horrible to waste a day arguing about these things. Yes, in ten years' time, things will have changed because we all wasted those days (i.e. they weren't wasted), but it's really hard to feel that way when you're in the thick of it. Plus, you make yourself a target in this very publc venue. It's a lot to ask of people. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:55, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

If you'll notice what has been added to the main page so far and the listing of proposals, most are related to specific tasks people can accomplish inside and outside the project, including researching the gender gap, something which the Foundation is already funding. In fact most of theses issues already have come up in one way or another at WikiFoundation or its Gender Gap email list.

There is a resources section which includes making HELP pages more user friendly, especially if it's some editing area women have problems with. We shouldn't have to duplicate tit for tat that huge project here, if that's what you mean by Toolbox or FAQ.

It would help to say which of several specific proposals you dislike about the gender gap members giving aid and advice to women who need it on gender gap-related issues.

Finally, if this has been a drama board so far it is because specific individuals have come in either repeatedly pushing an agenda rejected by others or bringing outside issues with editors here. I think either should be considered disruption, not drama. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:19, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Carol, you seem to consistently misunderstand everything I say. I've been a feminist for decades, recognize when someone is on your side, for pete's sake! The "drama boards" are places like ANI, Jimbo's talk page, Arbcom, AN, 3O, etc... the places where there are stupid, endless fights that rarely accomplish anything. I didn't even know this project it existed - until invited by Lightbreather. I have occasionally posted at WP Feminism, but not a lot. So I come here, take a glance at things, I make some comments based on my impressions, and all you can do is basically try to shut me down and tell me to follow the rules. I'm sorry if I am somehow unwelcome here, but this reception from you feels no different from much of the rest of wiki other than Queen Bee syndrome seems to be alive and well. Montanabw^(talk) 23:29, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

As for tasks, the front page of this project is the usual yada, yada, yada welcome to our project page - sure, we all want to write more biographies of women, that's a fine start. May I point out that I created and am lead editor for Kathy Ritvo, Sheila Varian, and Bazy Tankersley, all GA-class articles? I also took the Rosie Napravnik article (which was originally pretty poor quality) to GA. I can do that any time I want. I'm more interested in ending stupid fights like Montanabw^(talk) 23:29, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Rather than making editing somehow easier (it isn't any harder to learn to edit wiki than, for example, to master some new database software at a job), I think focusing on guidelines and policy is the way to address a bias issue: I think that people here SHOULD band together to fight stupid AfDs which is the biggest threat to article creation. (Note to all, if you haven't already get yourselves autopatrolled rights ASAP and skip the AfC process). Montanabw^(talk) 23:29, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Again, sorry I didn't realize you were a woman. I thought you were a guy lecturing women on how to behave and what to do, which obviously I might have a problem with, especially here. Being part of the "fighting Irish" I enjoy a good fight, sometimes anyway... However, I know that many other women, and guys, shun a fight.

The problem on Wikipedia is the problem in the world: a certain small number of macho, high testosterone guys form gangs, grab territory and beat the heck out of anyone who doesn't kiss their butts. Some times I feel just like you do about women working together and fighting the power, and obviously I do now or I would not be putting so much energy into this project the last couple weeks.

Other times I agree with some lesbian separatists I know, but I won't detail their views or all hell would break lose.

Note that I just noticed in the last few minutes that there has been quite a battle raging on Jimmy Wales page on just these issues. I was aware of some recent things on ANI from Lightbreather's links. (I'm thinking of listing a few of these separately since they are of interest and more solutions may be offered.) So anyway now I know what you were talking about drama wise.

While I haven't read the article yet, I was glad to see there is one on Task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership. Both types of strategies are important and should be available as options. Sometimes one type of strategy is more relevant, sometimes another. But excluding either is a recipe for failure. I hope you agree. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:29, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, well watch your own assumptions, eh? (do you remember "CLICK") Or am I not a "real" woman because I'm not all pink ponies and fuzzy, magic rainbow unicorns? Really, one would not think we'd see stereotyping here. We would not want to fall into the thing that drove me nuts about second wave feminism, which was a rigidity about the proper way to view things, with a dogmatic attitude, combined with the older feminists treating young women like dirt because we "late Boomers" weren't quite old enough to have faced tear gas in the 1960s. Please. Montanabw^(talk) 22:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

In our lives, we can reject and/or contest the mainstream view. On WP our mandate is to represent the mainstream, even when we feel it is biased, bigoted, or whatever. We can't reject the mainstream as illegitimate while we're wearing our WP editing hats. SPECIFICO talk 03:23, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Are you talking about this article? "Government-Funded Study: Why Is Wikipedia Sexist?" What could be more mainstream than the US govt. :-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 03:53, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree, Specifico; we don't "represent the mainstream." We observe WP:NPOV, which includes nearly ALL viewpoints, though with WP:DUE and [{WP:UNDUE]] weight. I personally call it "teaching the controversy." In particular, who decides what "mainstream" is? Not us, that would be WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. We create content to increase the world's knowledge, neither to kowtow or to overthrow it. Montanabw^(talk) 22:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Well said. I didn't have the energy, so just mentioned a "mainstream" study... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:53, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I did not mean to suggest that WP presents only mainstream viewpoints. However we cannot set an agenda to give undue weight to dissenting viewpoints here. The study about WP being "sexist" does not represent a mainstream view of WP merely because it receives partial funding from a government source. Governmental entities in the USA have funded millions of projects without endorsing the views they express or the results of their research. SPECIFICO talk 02:05, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

One of my projects is to list WP:RS (and not so WP:RS) articles on this topic, perhaps for a separate resources page, to make the point that millions of people have been clued into Wikipedia's "little problem." The purpose of this project is to close the gap. It seems to me arguing with us about whatever you think isn't mainstream about this project isn't very helpful. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:44, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

NPOV isn't a synonym for "mainstream". That's an unhelpful way of thinking about it. Things like horoscopes are mainstream but they don't represent the views of better scholarly or scientific research. If all we were doing was reflecting the most common views of any type, then we wouldn't have a requirement to use reliable sources; we'd allow all sources across the board, ranked by popularity over any other consideration. We can set an agenda to give due weight to underrepresented viewpoints from better reliable sources. I think any assumption that everything's currently fine in all articles and that they couldn't be improved with better sources would be a bit naive and pointlessly discouraging at this point, honestly. That sounds like you would assume women currently have too much attention from Wikipedia, which is neither the mainstream or scholarly view. I think a list of better reliable sourced articles is a good project.__ E L A Q U E A T E 03:30, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Hello. I was not referring to NPOV but to our mandate to give due weight to views according to their incidence in RS references. In this context, I don't understand what you mean by "underrepresented viewpoints" -- do you mean RS views which WP does not present according to their incidence, or do you mean views which are not sufficiently voiced in RS? SPECIFICO talk 13:22, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I said underrepresented viewpoints from better reliable sources. That doesn't sound like a call to ignore whether the views are sufficiently found in RS.__ E L A Q U E A T E 14:29, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I understand, but could you please address the question I asked above? Does the "underrepresented" refer to their incidence on WP or in the world literature among RS? Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 14:50, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

We're only working on Wikipedia here, and not issuing demands that scholars produce material in the "world literature". My reference to underrepresented viewpoints from better reliable sources could only be to their secondary expression in Wikipedia discussions or articles. If there's a discussion about the gender gap, and it's filled with anecdotal "I don't think it's a problem" from random editors, then the viewpoints of better reliable sources are arguably underrepresented in the arguments of that discussion, not in the "world literature". Beyond that, if the scholarly literature generally agrees that an imbalance of editors causes undue weight to be systemically given to the concerns and interests of those editors as compared to what is predominantly found in better reliable sources.....well, that's also a situation where reliable sources could be underrepresented compared to their prevalence in the "world literature". This project could help identify articles and topics where the views of reliable sources are not being adequately reflected.__ E L A Q U E A T E 17:24, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Added late: OK, the Post above later explained the issue a bit better. Anyway, the list of copious refs on the whole topic are being worked on :-) I'm lost, what's the topic that mainstream RS are supposed to be commenting on? And again, if it's that there is no such thing as a Gender Gap on Wikipedia, maybe any individuals claiming that should let those of us organizing copious evidence from RS on a resources page just get to it? Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:30, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Are there some examples that could be cited to demonstrate that predominant mainstream RS views are being neglected due to a disproportionate number of male editors on WP? SPECIFICO talk 17:44, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Are there examples that prove the WikiProject should exist, you mean? What a fascinating question. I'm sure that the refs Carol is working on might point out some specific examples, and maybe we can discuss them. You're basically asking if there is any work for the project to look at, as Carol is saying she's gathering some of that material. Maybe you could do some research of your own in the meantime, if you're interested.__ E L A Q U E A T E 18:14, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

It's important to gather any such evidence. Because in general we don't know the gender of our fellow editors, it's not clear to me how we can establish a record of the facts. Moreover, no editor is obliged to work on any particular article or to work on any particular content or references therein. What pattern of facts are we looking for? If I'm able to understand what to research, I will be glad to help out. SPECIFICO talk 18:58, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

There is a report from 2011 on Gender Differences in Wikipedia Editing which is useful. Perhaps the most significant finding is that male editors tend to make an edit followed by revisions to that edit, whereas women tend to make single, larger edits and less revisions (perhaps suggesting they work on the edit elsewhere and add it when it is ready). Note: the report is based on 437 editors (500 minus 63 where the data was unavailable), table 1 is made up of 131 editors who made 1 or 2 edits, table 2 is made up of 124 editors who made 4+ edits, I think the 'missing' 182 editors must be the editors who made 0 edits. So the 'bottom' 75% of editors in table 1 is made up of 131 (editors with 1 or 2 edits) + 182 (editors with 0 edits) which actually = 313 editors. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 01:34, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. Does it speak to the question of whether there are gender-determined differences between editors with respect to content, for example any systematic bias? SPECIFICO talk 02:46, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

No, but it wasn't interviewing the editors, it was just surveying the stats of the first three weeks of new accounts and the authors state: "...it is difficult to observe a consistent pattern, especially because of the relatively small number of revisions in several categories. Only 9% of revisions were made by editors in the bottom 75% of our sample. As a result of the small sample and wide variation, no differences achieved statistical significance among the bottom 75%." Having said that, based on the results they did have they said: "We did not see evidence that men and women are attracted to different types of editing work. Of course, such differences may not exist. Alternatively, users may take time to gravitate towards specific types of work. If this were the case, we might not observe gender differences in an editor's first three weeks of participation. However, the analysis of revision size is another indication of gender differences in editing behavior. Notably, two areas of work in which women made significantly larger revisions involved creative production, synthesis, and reorganization of text." I don't know if anyone kept a list of the user accounts that made up the 500 accounts or it it is possible to do a follow up and see what the retention figures look like. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 11:56, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Behavior guidelines box on top

I want to thank Lightbreather for closing the thread going after me above. I knew it was just a matter of time before those hounding me started here. And I'm obviously not the only women with that problem. (I actually got suspicious and found that thread before Lightbreather posted it.) However, I think both these threads are examples of how women have to watch each other's backs - even the backs of those of us who don't act like perfect little ladies all the time (the horror). Two specific proposals:

• Disruptive threads, including those that look like they originate in some sort of wikihounding, should be quickly closed and archived as not to impede progress. (Also irrelevant ones and those successfully dealt with, no more work needs doing. Tidy-ness good...;-)
• Behavior guidelines on the top of this talk page [later note, similar to what is there now], perhaps like the Wikimedia Foundation Gender Gap email list rules which currently read:

Since this is a sensitive topic, the mailing list has a simple code of conduct. The basic gist is: please be considerate and constructive. That means ...

• No personal attacks
  
• Try to stay on topic and take other things off-list
  
• Try to turn fighting into constructive discussion, or disengage/take it off-list
  
• Help guide discussion toward concrete action
  
• Be aware that using an aggressive or argumentative tone (or even just posting too much) can discourage people from participating.

Thoughts? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:21, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Who gets to decide what is a 'disruptive thread', what is 'offtopic', what is 'fighting', or an 'argumentative tone'. That all seems very vague and as a result, seems very difficult to enforce fairly or even enforce at all. Tutelary (talk) 22:58, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you can't moderate a Task force page the way you do a mailing list. So maybe there need to be clearer guidelines than what is currently in the box at the top of this talk page. And then we'll just have to use our best judgement and decide what to do about various questionable postings. I think the most important point is, the more women there are asserting that others are being disruptive, whatever the reason, the more likely social pressure alone will work.

Editors with a lot of "Men's Rights" editing already are on warning here. But otherwise, there isn't a wikiquette board any more for repeated annoying behaviors and it's doubtful the current community will endorse a civility board. Still this can be a safe place for us to share problems we are having that pretty clearly are gender-based (often it's guys busting a woman's chops for behavior they'd tolerate or deal with less nastily if it was a guy). On the other hand, since there always will be lurkers looking to harass women in a way a little too polite to call "uncivil", it probably is best done by reporting trips to ANI or any other relevant notice board here and then getting involved in those discussions. It's a long term consciousness raising project with a lot of these guys. late sign: July 28, 2014‎ Carolmooredc

I endorse this. We should use ordinary-course channels to deal with gender bias issues, making clear that these issues relate to observance of WP policy, not special exceptions. Of course, we'll have to be mindful of WP policy on canvassing. SPECIFICO talk 12:27, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Proposal

So let's think how we can tweak the above and put it into a box at the top of the page. For example a box with a more dramatic/relevant graphic (like the "Be civil" one below) that starts with what's already at the top of the page but details what that means:

Note that the "uncivil messages will be deleted" statement is on several "Be Civil" type templates, so we aren't alone in that statement. Thoughts? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:47, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

You know uncivil text can be redacted by any editor at any time. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 03:14, 2 August 2014 (UTC).

True. Reminders don't hurt if there's a problem (and some women would feel they need "permission".) But things have calmed down from couple weeks ago, so hopefully what's up there now in the top box will be sufficient. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 11:27, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

What's the difference between Wikipedia and academia?

The extraordinarily low participation of women in Wikipedia, if it's really true, seems hard to understand vis-a-vis the very successful integration of women into academia over the past decades, to the point where they are a majority and tend to do better. Wikipedia and academia are both online, both involve immature and emotional people mostly drawn from the U.S. and Europe, both have their share of conflict and politics... so why would one go a different way than the other? Wnt (talk) 01:06, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Check out some of the resources listed here and more at the Wikimedia Foundation Gender Gap list. We're still working on getting our own materials on that topic together. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:18, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Wnt, it's a good question. Wikipedia is very unlike academia, in all the ways we see on this page, for example. There are fewer shared ideals on WP. Also, I think lots of women are less willing to accept the "build, destroy" culture when it comes to writing. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:36, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'm not understanding all of that. I'd think WP should have more shared ideals than college, and I don't understand what you mean by "build, destroy" (unless you mean deletionism, but that turns off everybody) Wnt (talk) 01:49, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Good question, Wnt! I believe that much of the answer lies in the fact that in real life, women in the United States are protected by laws such as the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974. "It prohibits discrimination against faculty, staff, and students, including racial segregation of students, and requires school districts to take action to overcome barriers to students' equal participation,". Does Wikipedia have any equivalent policy requiring administrators to "to take action to overcome barriers to equal participation"? -- Djembayz (talk) 02:37, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Jayen466 wrote (or words to this effect) that editing WP was like trying to create art in the sand on the beach, with other people just walking through it whenever they felt like it. If you manage to create a decent article, against all the odds, you have to keep on devoting time to maintaining it. It's actually a crazy thing to get involved in, and I think women are less inclined to do it for something that might be completely ephemeral. I have no evidence I can show you for that; it's just a hunch. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:00, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Better watch out, you're reminding me about one of the reasons I use to talk myself out of editing. I mean my own web articles on some of these topics, promoted correctly, could come up higher in returns than wikipedia and reach more people. I guess it's that higher level video game-type addiction. (Or else people are purposely pushing an agenda.) I'm trying to keep it down to an hour a day and with last few days I'm way over budget! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:18, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Statistically, women seem to prefer to have more control over their online environment, and desire other things from it than men. I posted the following elsewhere the other day:

From The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality:

Recently, women have come to outnumber men in some social media domains. They use social network sites such as Facebook more often and more actively than men (Brenner 2012), and female users predominate on the microblogging site Twitter, the consumer review site Yelp, and the online pinboard Pinterest. More males, in contrast, frequent music-sharing sites such as last.fm, as well as Reddit, a social news website known for its sometimes misogynistic content (HuffPost Women 2012; Williams 2012); contributors to Wikipedia are also overwhelmingly male (Lam et al. 2011). Moreover, the professional social network site LinkedIn has attracted almost twice as many males as females. LinkedIn representatives claim that this is because men are better at professional networking than women, at least in some industries (Berkow 2011), whereas women have traditionally focused on maintaining relationships (Fallows 2005; cf. Tannen 1990). Women's greater concerns about privacy and identity disclosure on social network sites (Fogel and Nehmad 2009) may also predispose them to interact with individuals they already know and trust (Muscanell and Guadagno 2012), which Facebook and other social network site facilitate through features such as "friending."

Crocco, Cramer, and Meier (2008) argue that the move toward web-based computing has had an equalizing effect on gendered technology use. If equality is defined as equal in principle access, women in the United States have caught up with men. At the same time, the web is becoming increasingly specialized by gender. Although many sites are male-dominated, women today have more choices of online environments than they did in the past, including social media sites in which they can exercise a degree of control over who reads and comments on their contributions. As discussed further below, users of these social media sites tend to be less anonymous than in earlier text-based forums.

Summarising, women online place more importance than men on spending time with people congenial to them, and prefer to avoid people who are not. They also like to form more meaningful personal relationships than men.

Wikipedia is quite hostile to all of these concepts. Forming relationships (beyond the Iron Law of Oligarchy that establishes the ruling class) is actively discouraged in some ways (cf. rules against canvassing, meatpuppeting). Anonymity is a paramount value.

And like a waterhole, Wikipedia articles attract species of editors with opposing agendas who have to somehow coexist, despite the tension between them, in order to access the social resource that Wikipedia represents to them.

In short, despite initiatives like edit-a-thons that emphasise the communal aspects of editing by like-minded people acting without the cover of anonymity, the deck is stacked against equal gender participation on Wikipedia. Andreas JN466 09:29, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself, one thing I've seen is an unwillingness of many (not all) women editors to stand up for one another and fight together. Though I have two or three staunch women wiki-allies that I can usually count on for backup, I frankly get exhausted taking point most of the time. (So do they, I think) In fact, sometimes people I thought were my allies wound up being the first to say, "gee maybe you are both in the wrong" when I was in the right. I've been dragged to ANI more times by women editors than male ones. I win, but the cost is really a drag. (Full disclosure: I've edited for eight years, and still have a clean block log and have never been sanctioned beyond a trout slap). The people who have been the most hateful to the point I've wanted to quit have mostly been women (by about a 2:1 margin) I don't know if it's just me that attracts the crazies or what, but when it comes to women allies, most just turn tail and leave me holding the bag. If I need troops, it's usually the guys who show up. So if there is one way to help women feel more accepted, perhaps it would be a supportive community? Oh wait, wikipedia is just like the real world. Women seldom support each other there either, queen bee syndrome or tall poppy syndrome rages everywhere. :-P Montanabw^(talk) 04:48, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

You sure have been taken to ANI a lot for reasons people can judge for themselves. Though you have avoided any blocks. Perhaps you need to take all participants comments more seriously if it keeps happening. A comparison of what females get blocked for as opposed to what males do not get blocked for definitely is a worthy part of any project research project on differential treatment of women on wikipedia. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:19, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

See? You just proved my point: Women don't support other women, but instead, when a woman stands up for herself against bullies, other women turn on us and tell us how we are to blame! You just did it! You didn't even skim the list or you would note that close to half of those were ones I brought due to the behavior of others. You might also note that I "won" almost every case brought against me and many of them boomeranged back on the accuser. One person (sadly, a woman) brought about three ANIs against me for calling her on her OR and FRINGE nonsense until she was finally blocked. Another individual who tried to get me was busted as the mass sockpuppet ItsLassieTime. If we can be judged by our opponents, then I am the opposite of trolls, bullies and fanatics - and proud of it. Montanabw^(talk) 06:40, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

[Insert:Sorry, I didn't know you were a woman. Your language was a bit ambiguous so I read your whole post as criticism by a guy who was putting down women for not sticking together. After having a lot of other nonsense going on last couple days by known males, you can see why I might be a bit sensitive. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

This is of course one of the tricky things, what do you do when someone you have collaborated with extensively, or who has leapt to your defence does something you disagree with? The way I see the wiki-ideal, you have to simply say "You are, in this case, wrong." Of course it needs to be a collegial discussion. But the idea that we should back each other up in substantive matters because of our gender, nationality or membership of a WikiProject is anathema. We should support each other morally, of course, regardless of theses things. But the key to a good working environment is avoidance of personalities in conflict, and willingness to follow standard procedure on content disputes. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 03:28, 2 August 2014 (UTC).

Carolmooredc there is research on gender and blocking. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 03:28, 2 August 2014 (UTC).

• Anyone read this? http://iwantedwings.wordpress.com/2014/07/21/a-response-to-women-against-feminism/ Thought it well-written. Montanabw^(talk) 06:40, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• Excellent article, thanks for posting it! SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:24, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I helped to bring the 2012 Delhi gang rape to a GA and I am now working on the 2014 Badaun gang rape article. Gandydancer (talk) 14:50, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Here's a new German Wikipedia Diversity Study which of course focuses a lot of gender gap/women. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:00, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. Personally, I wouldn't look to Europe for any wisdom on gender-related issues. The study is full of its own weird stuff, e.g. "women are tending the kiddies at night" etc. SPECIFICO talk 13:07, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

History, philosophy and analysis of the "gender gap" issue

Would it be acceptable for some of us to create a list of articles here that pertain to the history, philosophy and analysis of the "gender gap" issue? Best, Jim

For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protofeminism — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jim-Siduri (talk • contribs) 16:23, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

There are one or two relevant links in Wikipedia articles about that Wikipedia gender gap and there is a Gender gap disambiguation I just added this Task force to :-) However, anything that doesn't specifically mention "gender gap" just gets into a lot of off-topic theories on women/feminism/etc. that are better dealt with elsewhere. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 11:19, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Carol, thank you for uniting this movement. Your dedication, passion and hard work is very much appreciated. Some of us will find other ways to affect the necessary change on Wikipedia. Jim-Siduri (talk) 22:33, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Civility board

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 11#Where and how to request a Civility board, in case anyone wants to join in. There's some talk about the gender gap and civility, particularly in the subsections "If Wikipedia wants more editors" and "A trout for all the sexist pigs who run this site". SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:24, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I've been procrastinating about drafting an essay, but I just left a long new section contribution there at this diff that gave me some good material to work with. Interesting times... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 06:15, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

A Thought

As a side effect of the discussion at WP:AN, I am about to post an RFC. Some issues really do have to do with systemic gender bias. However, some misunderstandings have to do with differences between regional uses of words. In specific, the word "cunt" apparently is vaguely humorous in Australian English,and maybe in British English. In American English, it is deeply offensive when applied to a person, because it degrades a woman as a sex object. The solution is simple if surprising. It is to specify the use of Standard written English, which is cross-cultural, and is standard across the Anglophone portions of the world, except for trivial differences that are mutually understood and do not affect connotation. The words that are humorous in the Commonwealth and offensive in the United States, like words that are humorous in the United States and offensive in the Commonwealth (e.g., "bloody"), are not standard written English but slang. Specifying the use of standard written English will not be a double standard, and will not be affirmative action. It will just be a reasonable way to avoid misunderstandings. I will be posting an RFC at WT:TPG; see my preliminary comments. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:38, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Of course, the differences also are within national cultural subgroups. I won't even list some of the words that are considered highly offensive if used by people outside a group, as opposed to those inside it who may use it in a friendly way about themselves or others. It's important to say that people should just avoid language which is likely to cause far more trouble than it's worth using. That might even include WP:Dontbeadick, as much fun as that might be to use! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:50, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to add 'bitch' to list. The U.S. version of Hell's Kitchen was shown in the U.K. on one of the digital channels and I was shocked by the aggression shown by the men to the women and the constant referring to them as bitches. It is a really extreme word to use and yet it peppered their conversations. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 18:17, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

It is strange, especially since I am pretty convinced sure most bitches are men. However, imposing a "Standard English" is just a different form of discrimination, which should not be encouraged. I think that in today's interconnected world we should all feel free to use any word from any part of the world we want, mixing and matching freely. So far as I'm concerned there's only one language English. There's no Valley Girl English, Hacker English, Football Preacher English, and the differences between countries seem smaller than that. I don't know why people expect me to learn idiocies like "twerking" but not enjoy the description of a traffic light as a "robot" like the South Africans. A gentle note clarifying harmless intent should be enough, and with Wikilinks that is particularly useful and easy to do. There is nothing intrinsically bad or hostile about the four letters themselves, or the sound, or indeed the organ it most literally refers to; so why should we think it has to be bad when used in conversation? Wnt (talk) 01:03, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

The purpose of an article talk page is to discuss the improvement of the article, which is in Standard written English of the appropriate regional variety. The purpose of a policy talk page is either to discuss improvements to the policy or to ask questions about the policy, and the policy is in standard written English. I see no reason that these comments cannot also be in standard written English. Since all of our editors should know standard written English, under the competency requirement, and cannot be required to know local non-standard English, what is the point to editing the talk pages other than in standard written English? Robert McClenon (talk) 12:37, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

There may be the perception that a talk page is a conversation, in conversational English. That is a perception, and is not really accurate. It is really a written historical discussion, and can be in language like the article or policy page being discussed. Robert McClenon (talk) 12:37, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I oppose the idea of a civility board. I've worked on several very difficult articles and in my experience the editors that I have found most difficult are just as nice and cheerful as can be, and as often as not say "please" and "thank you" and sign themselves off with "Cheers". They patiently try and try to explain to me why I am wrong by saying things like, "as I've already tried to explain" and such. Or, for instance, as at the To Kill a Mockingbird article where I pointed out the irony of calling my remarks "immature carping, fussing, griping, grumbling, bickering, protesting, agitating, and finger-wagging" while asking me, "May we please keep this on an unemotional level without unkind personal implications?", the editor responded saying, "When I commented on the tone of your postings and the nature of your words, I strictly limited my characterizations to your public verbal behavior – your behavior alone; at no time have I said anything about you as a person.  Again: I've described your behavior but not you as a person. And then, as usual, signed his post with "As always, smiles and best wishes,". Gandydancer (talk) 13:48, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Very true, but one has to try writing articles to realise the truth of what you say. So many of those complaining about incivility seem to feel that actually writing content is a menial job for those lesser beings they want to police. Eric Corbett 14:08, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I didn't expect that from you Eric. Even though my contributions are pretty puny compared to what you do here, I am very capable of understanding the "truth" of what I said. Gandydancer (talk) 15:13, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

God, everyone's so touchy around here! I used the word "you" in a generic sense, I wasn't talking about you. Eric Corbett 15:30, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Well Eric, that's why I was so surprised - I know very well that you are anything but a misogynist. That's one reason that so many women hang out at your page. It was a kneejerk reaction on my part and thinking further I realized what you were saying. I'm a woman, and a "feminist" too, but I am so comfortable with it all that I'm not hypersensitive and don't imagine that innocent remarks are a putdown of women. But my work here is a little different in that I do sometimes feel that some people feel that one must have created a lot of articles to be taken seriously. So, the sensitivity... Gandydancer (talk) 18:59, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I understand, everyone seems to be very touchy recently. But I haven't created all that many articles myself as it happens. Eric Corbett 19:30, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

There's no doubt that the seemingly polite people can be disruptive and infuriating and even lead to others getting in trouble for losing their tempers with them and getting in trouble for incivility. (It's happened to me a couple times, for sure.) To me it's an absolutely last gasp alternative; I prefer just getting more women in making rational arguments and making it clear that those who are being jerks, whatever their modus operandi, are just being jerks... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:14, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Request for diff

Can someone please provide me (on my talk page is fine) with the diff for Eric's most recent use or uses of the "c" word? Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Corbett is not the person to be going after. He needs to moderate his language, but he's kind of a special case and we all know it. He also likes to just poke at people, equal opportunity offense. I'm not saying he's right, I'm just saying that it ain't worth the drama of going after him because he's an odd duck and is bullied as much as he gets bullied. You want to go after someone, try the real trolls like the one a while back (now blocked, I think) who said something to me like "shut up, woman." Or deal with creepy weirdos like this guy (old case, now done, just as an example) Montanabw^(talk) 23:45, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I actually searched the "C" word on WP:ANI and there were lots of returns. Enough for a research project in itself! Or maybe an essay for fun, if done from a women's perspective of course, IMHO. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:42, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

For Robert McClenon's benefit, how many of them were from me? Eric Corbett 18:18, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm curious why you would want to find it. I ask, because I get the sense that some think he was blocked for his use of the word. That isn't the case, or at least, the reality is more complicated.. If you want it for some other purpose fine, but I'd like to nip, if no longer in the bud, the urban legend in the making.--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't be such a killjoy Montanabw. You know how much pleasure so many seem to derive from going after me. I've begun to think that I'm offering a service to the public really. Eric Corbett 18:12, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Gender bias on Wikipedia article

The article on Gender bias on Wikipedia was recently tagged as needing attn due to non-NPOV. Points of contention appear to be proper wording to neutrally present the National Science Foundation study on gender bias on WP and whether or not to include men’s right’s organization assertions regarding sexism against men on WP.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 00:11, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Affirmative action program...

[Note: concerning Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force#Possible_affirmative_action_program.
What's currently described in the section would obviously require users to identify themselves as women in order to benefit from it, and I think that in itself is an issue that needs to be considered. Even with protection from reversion as a carrot, users may be unwilling to identify themselves as women given the corresponding uptick in harassment. Is visibility of women on WP a goal - more editors known by their fellow editors and readers to be women? Or just a more equal proportion of women editing, pseudonymously or no? IMO, that's a discussion that should be had before suggesting any large-scale implementation of a solution that requires users to identify their gender. In my mind, other steps that don't require such identification, such as WP and the WP community cracking down harder on harassers and stalkers, would nonetheless benefit female editors. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:54, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Please consider that some women, and I include myself, would be very uncomfortable with a situation in which their edits were "propped up" by some policy that prevented reversion and thus gave their edits unfair advantage over those of men. I would be embarrassed to edit at all under those circumstances. I suppose I could start over with a gender-free username. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:43, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I think the affirmative action suggestion is not practical because those that harass and/or make WP an uncivil place for female editors appear to also be the type to troll and engage in all sorts of sock-puppetry. So if we had an affirmative action policy for female editors, I honestly think it would be largely misused by a specific sub-group of male editors, pretending to be female editors, to get affirmative action, while disrupting the group this was actually designed to protect. I agree that cracking down on harassers and stalkers seems a better approach, as well as possible discretionary sanctions in areas that tend to attract a lot of trolls who rant irrationally about feminism and/or make blatant sexist comments and who generally make WP an uncivil place for female editors. Perhaps some sort of discretionary sanctions with respect to sexism against female editors/women's issues could be a better solution here. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 21:05, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Not to mention that verification of female editors may also be a problem. Are we gonna make sure they give us a copy of their birth certificate and a photo ID to make sure that they're female before they receive affirmative action? Oh, and what about trans women, will it apply to them? Tutelary (talk) 21:12, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

On the user preferences page, it asks whether an editor would like to be referred to as "She edits wiki pages" or "He edits wiki pages". It does not ask for birth chromosome confirmation, or surgical history. (It also offers the choice "I prefer not to say".) To me, this means Wikipedia intends to treat cis- and trans-women the same. Binksternet (talk) 16:53, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Referring to your terminology, don't forget all the cis-men and trans-men editors who will be treated the same way in being addressed as they prefer; unless they or another editor prefer not to use a gender specific pronoun at all, of course, this being a volunteer organization. :-) The relevant policy being Wikipedia:Pronoun#Tone and ArbCom Chelsea Manning. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:57, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

It might not be a bad idea to create more of a newcomers program instead, or have an opt-in function for women editors. While some editors might not like the idea of having their contributions "propped up", for others it would help them feel more comfortable and increase the incentive for contributing. I don't believe that affirmative action will solve the core of Wikipedia's gender troubles, but its not a bad start. I could also see such a policy benefitting non-Western contributors, as I have seen an appalling amount of non-Westerners begging white male editors not to delete their pages because the people or texts they are writing about don't conform to "our" standards of what constitutes a reliable or notable source. Of course, enforcement is also required but I don't think it needs to be one or the other.--femmebot (talk) 21:06, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

The WP:Teahouse came out of discussions about creating some sort of a women's wikiproject. I think this project is still finding it's way, but certain should be a place for women to come for advice about WP:Dispute resolution issues, since in the end that is what it is all about. Learning that system early would help a lot of women. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:32, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

If our project is perceived as hostile or indiscriminately accusatory toward good-faith male and trans- editors here, we will fail ourselves and the larger mission of WP. SPECIFICO talk 21:49, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Actually there are different issues that people may assume under the title "affirmative action", which move up a scale from recruiting to setting targets to inviting participation to more complicated projects. Regarding whether women choose to identify as women, that really depends on the progress we make in creating a friendlier environment here and dealing with the trolls. The more women there are, speaking up for each other, the easier it gets.

• Actively recruiting women, which the Wikimedia Foundation has committed to through lots of media publicity, Gender Gap at Wikimedia and WikiWomen's Collaborative.

Including having projects like this that help women deal with the various issues women face once they start editing and raising consciousness across the board on how Wikipedia culture discourages women from editing and encouraging the rational males to join females in dealing with the overly combative culture and the minority of guys who go out of their way to give women a hard time.

• Setting targets for numbers of new women (recognizing that not all will choose initially to identify as women). (Added later: Under Sue Gardner, the Foundation already set a target with a specific number by a specific date; don't remember numbers off hand. When I find it in my researches will add it to the main page.)
• Setting up programs that even more actively invite women's participation. One way the wikimedia foundation does this is through setting aside a certain amount of grant money to study the issue.
• More complicated projects. A couple possibilities have been mentioned here which I don't remember off hand. But personally I think we have to work on the above first. Only when there are enough women circulating to make any further action possible is it worth really promoting any further affirmative actions - and by then they might not be needed. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:55, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

I feel like one thing that might tie into it is that every single time somebody calls a female editor "he" they get corrected by somebody or other. I dunno, I never care and seldom know what the sex of an editor is, it rarely makes any difference. I don't know, but I would guess that the women who edit must get mighty tired of seeing people leap in the middle of a regular conversation to make sure everyone knows they're really female. I wish we could adopt one of the many schemes to remove sex from English pronouns, or invent a new one (Personally I would be partial to replace he/his/him with xe, xes, xer with xe pronounced like "ge" in "gerente"; but with potential to vary the vowel among several options according to the role of the person named to permit pronouns for multiple people like you can do with "she saw it was his". But I digress...) Wnt (talk) 00:50, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I went through a period of calling everyone s/he if I didn't know their gender. Usually only guys object. Then got lazy (his/her being too long), and "he/his" is shorter and percentage wise more likely. Maybe I should start again. As for alternate words maybe "pers" for person or "indy" for individual. :-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:04, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Note: I did have some problems with this section as needing more work and didn't realize that was what this original thread addressed. So just stuck a link at the top of the thread. Anyway, still a work in progress. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:39, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I think the idea of affirmative action for individual editors is impractical because this would lead to various forms of sock-puppetry with editors who are not female identifying as female to get affirmative action. It would look like female participation had increased when it hadn't. I think the goal of increasing women admins is better idea because by the time someone is considered for admin they are better known on talk pages and such and this could be better verified. Other goals I think we should look into to increase women's participation involve civility rules/policies regarding blatant sexism on talk pages and cracking down on wikihounding and stalking which appears to disproportionately affect female editors. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 23:14, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force&diff=619044452&oldid=619044038

At this diff] I did clean up this section, moving Sue Gardner material to top, removing excess verbiage and tightening up other sections. Scope probably needs more work, but another job for another day. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 23:14, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

• This is a joke, right? Women getting "protecting from reversion" is a real proposal? Ignoring verification for the moment , this is the most asinine thing I've ever heard suggested on Wikipedia. Wow. Two kinds of pork (talk) 06:40, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Hatting vs. closing vs. immediate archiving vs. indexing on subpages

OK, this discussion has now happened on four or five threads, with all sorts of opinions and User:Neotarf just sent me an email about it, so it would help if we all could decide what we want to do about off topic/disruptive postings. How about a sense of the group? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 23:01, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

1. 1 Hat them under a little line so people have to open to read
2. 2 Close them in a blue box so everyone can see
3. 3 Archive them immediately or asap
4. 4 Index discussions on their own specific topic page.
5. 5 None of the above: simply ignore disruptive remarks. [added by me due to request below. Carrite (talk) 16:28, 14 August 2014 (UTC)]

Poll

• I vote #2, soon moving to #3.
  1. 2. #3 is a slight improvement over #1, since it is an invisible cover-up rather than an apparent cover-up that doesn't hide anything from the curious. I take it that by archiving, you mean moving to an archive folder, while #2 is also referred to, loosely, as archiving, because it uses the {{archivetop}} and {{archivebottom}} markers. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:17, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
• I vote #4. Best, Jim Jim-Siduri (talk) 00:31, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
• Depending on the nature of the post and its totally disruptive and non-constructive, I vote #5 Remove, otherwise if its simply off topic or qualifies for WP:NOTAFORUM, then #1. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 17:08, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

5 None of the above. Simply ignore disruptive remarks. SPECIFICO talk 19:54, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Per my comment below, I have added and hereby advocate #5, "just say no" don't reply. SPECIFICO talk 19:54, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Just disregard my old comment and archive them, it's obvious that you guys are all leaning towards that direction. We aren't a bureaucracy and don't need to be forced to do procedure when it's not necessary, though I do appreciate the thought in trying to get people's opinions for it. Tutelary (talk) 23:06, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

When I originally said to archive them rather than hatting them, I meant to use {{archivetop}} and {{archivebottom}} to box them. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi, some suggestions we may want to take into consideration:

Some of us suggest we consider a new approach to Wiki-discussions.

Some of us suggest, if possible, we consider making a novel "always open" Wiki-discussion system where the material/thread is moved to independent non-archived "discussion pages" for that topic and subpages are opened for any new topics that emerge (plus link to subpage on the parent page). This would: 1) keep material open, 2) searchable and 3) allow visitors to effectively find and contribute to the relevant thread, without having to plow through pages of text. Topic titles on the linking index page(s) would need to be clearly written and standardized, such as "Topic: Discussion regarding gender gap", "Topic: Discussion regarding Civility board", "Topic: Discussion regarding the Civility Wikiproject", "Topic: Discussion regarding how to recruit and retain members", "Topic: Discussions not related to WP Civility/off topic" etc.

Some of us suggest the "watch this page" feature should be highlighted to members as a way of keeping track of the topic discussions, now and into the future.

Some of us suggest the feature for making new sub-pages be made very clear to the new member and a civility reminder be placed at the top of every page.

Jim-Siduri (talk) 5:25 pm, Today (UTC−6)

Just watching threads on the same page can be confusing; this sounds worse. Would have to see a working example. Plus I'd like to think we are focusing on problem solving, not discussing ad nauseam, and thus once the problem actually is solved, you archive. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:36, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Which threads? I don't even know what discussion we are discussing. (Unless it's Corbett, in which case they shut that one down fast because otherwise it would just escalate into a months-long rodeo that generates more heat than light like it has the previous 10,000 times he's pissed off someone. ) Montanabw^(talk) 23:47, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

As I wrote above, at the very least close the discussions that have gone most off track: New member; Respect - if this is not a value here, is it time to fork a "Women welcome and respected Wikipedia"?; and if Lightbreather feels the discussion is done, Departed member explains, in her own words, with DIFFS; Abuse of edit summaries. However, I think #s 1-6 have been incorporated into the project or into later threads, like my one on proposals page, so they shouldn't hang around much longer. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:39, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Carol, I think you should go ahead and do what you want. If it were me, I would close off-topic discussions using one of the templates that doesn't collapse them (not only so they're visible now, but also searchable in the archive later). Then after a few days I would move to the archive. If there is something actually abusive or threatening, I would archive it immediately, or just remove it if it's very bad. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:58, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Will wait til see how things shake out. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:39, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Disruptive comments or threads should simply be ignored. They will then die out or be confined in a voluntary and neutral manner. All the proposals here are based on the premise that one wise editor passes judgment, declares a thread to be disruptive, and then squelches it. Of course Admins may from time to time do that, but for editors in general to do that is only likely to prolong the disruption and contentious debate. SPECIFICO talk 18:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

This is not your average article or project page. There definitely may be individuals out to disrupt the project or individual members; others may unintentionally disrupt through pushing a questionable agenda or other means. A project can get bogged down for weeks and months with such nonsense, making it difficult to find and deal with project-oriented threads. This is happening here already. And there are Gender Gap email lists members, Wiki Foundation people, admins, academics, women activists and journalists keeping an eye on what's happening here. So why give them junk that turns them off or gives them something to complain about or "expose" to the general public? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:10, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Why? To ensure we don't let one person's opinion determine what is disruptive and encourage peremptory action to close a thread. SPECIFICO talk 20:35, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

No one is saying one person's opinion decides what gets quickly hatted/closed/archived. In fact the original hatting was done by one person. Others objected. There was discussion and closing the three oldest seemed sensible. More than one person would be involved in such decisions. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:39, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

In that case, it sounds as if a second-order contentious discussion will erupt, so that there is still at least one disruptive thread and possibly two. They could multiply like bunnyrabbits. I really think that the spirit of WP is to allow open discussion and ultimately to hold editors accountable to the entire Community, per due process, for their actions. SPECIFICO talk 21:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Automatic archiving

Carol, ought we to add the bot for automatic archiving? We can still maintain subject archives, but we would also have the automatic chronological one. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:45, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind if I move this here. I'm all for it and was thinking of adding it but just didn't have energy to figure out how. I'd say 30 days would be good. If something desperate needs to be brought back, it can be. However, I do think we need to get rid of disruptive comments quickly since there is no doubt some people will be out to disrupt the project; others may do it unintentionally. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:04, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

We can have 30-day automatic archiving, and we can change that if there are a lot of posts. We can change it on a daily basis if need be during busy periods. We can also archive single threads manually or using "one-click archiving". I don't know whether you have that enabled. And we can separate categorization threads if you want to maintain that separate subject archive. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:16, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Maybe more one more "task" vs. one more "relationship" type archives. Something to think about. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:25, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I've set up the basic bot archiving, and one topic archive, as it was before (categories). We can then copy threads into separate subject archives if we want to, though it's better to let all the threads be archived in the chronological ones too; if you only have threads in subject archives, it gets hard to find things after a while. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:30, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Great. Though the gray box does seem to take up a lot of space. What is the advantage? More a Wikiproject box?

Of course, it takes up less if we add some of the suggested language from the box below it or even my "behavior guidelines box".Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:48, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

If you mean lots of space in edit mode, I'm going to move it to its own template page, so then it will just be a link here. Or did you mean lots of space in read mode? The reason it's taking so long is I'm trying to work out how to include the archive and search box (with the topic archive) inside the gray box. There is a way to do it, but I haven't got there yet. When that's done we can remove the separate archive box. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:57, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I've moved the divbox to its own template, which means there is less clutter at the top. I still can't see how to add the subject-archive link to the divbox, so for now we have two boxes that refer to archives. I've seen other projects incorporate subject-archive links, so I'll try to figure it out. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:39, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

By the way, Carol, I meant to say earlier that you've done a great job with the task force page, with the boxes across the top. It looks really good. Thank you! SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:14, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually The Vintage Feminist did the boxes across the top of main page. [53] Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:45, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

In that case, thank you, The Vintage Feminist! SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:47, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Of course as I was thinking about how to fit in a Resources or Proposals page, I looked at the HTML and realized what is there now just automatically turns existing page sections into headers. What we'll need to do is create a separate header page linked by html. Like Wikipedia:WikiProject_Israel/header or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Palestine/Tabs to name first two with those formats that came to mind. They have different color schemes and shapes of boxes; I'm sure there are lots more options. We could just look through a few to find the one with color and shape we like the best and substitute our own sections. Of course, the html can just be at the top of the page, like at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Feminism. But it can be more confusing to new users and risks getting disrupted more easily. But something to sleep on for a few days. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 07:40, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I've been looking at what bots might be able to take some of the load and found the popular pages bot, I requested it a few weeks ago, it takes about a month from the request to the page being set up, but it is here now so I've put a link in the navigation box. Since we are talking automatic things & bots I noticed that Hooters is listed as being of 'top importance' to the gender studies wikiproject. When I looked at the edit history to find out when it had been put there in 2007, a couple of weeks after the article appeared, by MadmanBot. I don't even think Hooters should be in the GS Wikiproject at all, let alone have it as being of 'top importance'. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 11:50, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

The article is full of gender equality employment issues, and I would have thought the premise of the chain would make it very relevant to gender studies. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:01, 3 August 2014 (UTC).

In the project as a poster child for sexism, but in the grand scope of women's issues, low importance. Montanabw^(talk) 16:26, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm a little confused about the topic of the last three postings. So Vintage Feminist was not talking about archiving? Is she talking about bots that collect list of articles and put them on the main page? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:06, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I was talking about any bot that would assist in the workload such as these. I put in a request for one which means that gender studies now has a list of popular pages which is generated automatically each month. I had a look at the list it produced and was surprised to see Hooters, not only is it listed under gender studies but it is of "top importance". I went looking to see who had assessed it and realized it had been assessed by a bot in the early days of the project. For me it's a bit like saying that an ashtray is of "top importance" in the study of carcinogens. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 00:33, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I got it. I don't know if this project will have a lot of articles under it, besides maybe essays and very topic specific ones. What more did you have in mind? And we'd need a template to stick on the articles, right? Will the bot's box automatically be stuck someplace on main task force page or can we choose where? I know the main page still has formatting and other issues but I'm still slugging through old gender gap emails and finding a lot of really good stuff which hopefully will end the "prove it" challenges. (sigh) Plus dealing with various small wiki fires here and there, not to mention Life! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 04:23, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:RSN on Transadvocate use in BLP

This does not appear to relate to the 'gender gap'; and in any case should be discussed at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Transadvocate use in BLP's. Most of this is inappropriate comments on other contributors anyway, closing this now. I strongly recommend confining comments here to editorial concerns and not comment on each other. For behavioral concerns, follow WP:DR/User conduct disputes. Dreadstar ☥ 17:07, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Regarding article Radical feminism and comments about women. Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Transadvocate_use_in_BLP.2C_etc. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:11, 8 August 2014 (UTC) You've went to multiple different Wikiprojects and other pages for this, and you still haven't demonstrated what BLP it's going to be used for. Tutelary (talk) 14:48, 9 August 2014 (UTC) I mentioned it here and Wikiproject feminism and the article talk page and upon request gave more details at WP:RSN which anyone can clearly read. BLP is not the only issue of course. A poor source is not used for anything on Wikipedia. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:10, 9 August 2014 (UTC) This is starting to look like WP:FORUMSHOPPING because you don't like the discussion you had about a particular source. You understand that this type of proposal could lead to the invalidation of all feminist-identified sources from being used on any topic to do with women, right? 'Off our backs is used as a citation in many Wikipedia articles, and what you're pushing for would eliminate it as well. Sources with some identified bias are sometimes used for some citations as long as they are considered reliable in other ways, in context. I have to say that I think using the Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force to find support for removing a source about trans women to be deeply problematic. This effort seems like it's promoting the gender gap, not working to reduce it. __ E L A Q U E A T E 16:39, 9 August 2014 (UTC) The relevant policy here is WP:CANVASS and I'm well within policy. Forum shopping is bringing a whole big issue thread to a whole nuther noticeboard, talk page etc., which I have not done. It can be ok to do so (or to leave a note about another discussion at a relevant board) if there is little or no response in one place or if it's a BLP issue. In fact, you just reminded me re the latter point. I should leave a note for people to join the discussion there if they chose. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) Posting links to project-related discussions on WikiProjects is pretty standard practices afaik. Don't see a WP:CANVASS issue here. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 17:47, 9 August 2014 (UTC) This is clearly forum shopping. SPECIFICO talk 03:12, 10 August 2014 (UTC) SPECIFICO Read FORUMSHOPPING again. It's for when issues are posted on multiple forums, not when you notify multiple groups neutrally about an ongoing discussion and providing a link to it. See WP:CANVASS. It is common practice to alert relevant projects about AfD, CfD, RfC, and such. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 04:29, 10 August 2014 (UTC) Hello, @EvergreenFir:, if one notifies interested edtiors or groups of editors neutrally at the time of posting a thread, that falls within policy. Policy is not intended to grant editors the option to post on a designated policy Noticeboard, wait and see which way the wind blows, and then if it's not favoring OP's view to post on a Noticeboard regarding a different policy issue. That is forumshopping, and it's not constructive. SPECIFICO talk 14:29, 10 August 2014 (UTC) SPECIFICO, Carol added this notice before anyone replied to the RSN. There were not winds blowing. You are assuming bad faith without looking at the details. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 15:59, 10 August 2014 (UTC) No, I have not commented on anybody's motivations or intentions. I am making objective comments about policy and stating my opinion that policy was violated in this case. I have not spoken as to whether the action was done with knowledge, premeditation, good faith, or error. Anyway, your response doesn't address the issue at hand, which is not me. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 16:48, 10 August 2014 (UTC) I should say that at the time, I wasn't talking about the notifications to related wikiprojects, some of which were perfectly appropriate. I was looking at the initiation of an RS noticeboard discussion and a separate discussion to change the relevant rule in Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources at the same time. As far as this talk page goes, there are two issues: 1) In order to get rid of one trans advocacy source she doesn't like, Carolmooredc was suggesting to change the guideline to consider all groups that involve any advocacy as questionable sources. This is singularly unhelpful with regard to this project. It would mean that groups that admitted any advocacy of anything like Feminism (or any groups that didn't mention Feminism but just said they advocated for women in any way) would be considered questionable whether they had a good reputation for accuracy or not. That kind of recommendation is directly counter to anything that would be helpful to this project. 2) A second issue is why this project was notified of the discussion. I can't see an argument that removing access to this website has anything to do with reducing the gender gap or its underlying causes. I could see an argument that removing sources that involve trans women could be a symptom of systemic bias against women, but Carolemooredc was the one suggesting that removal so I don't understand her motivations here. It all seems regressive to the project's implied aims. Any work that actually reduces any project-wide undue weight caused by the gender gap and systemic bias is welcome, whoever helps with that. I'm not down with work that looks like it would only increase a particular systemic bias, or systemic bias in general. __ E L A Q U E A T E 16:51, 10 August 2014 (UTC) If anyone thinks there has been forum shopping or cavassing, take it to WP:ANI. (Last year at WP:ANI an admin held that SPECIFICO posting to 10 Wikiprojects, 4 or 5 of them irrelevant, was merely "excessive". Otherwise, this is just disruptive. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:08, 10 August 2014 (UTC) I checked the link to that old ANI. I see that, contrary to what you state here, no Admin called 4 or 5 of my notifications to Project pages, not Noticeboards "irrelevant." As a matter of fact, for anyone who cares to review the ANI link, it actually provides useful context regarding Carolmooredc's behavior with respect to this policy. For my part, I have nothing further to say about it on this page. SPECIFICO talk 17:29, 10 August 2014 (UTC) Sorry, I should have clarified "(4 or 5 of them which I considered irrelevant)". (Or as another editor wrote: "The requirement is that the projects be directly related to the topic. In the case at hand, such a relation is tenuous indeed, and raising a concern is reasonable." Followed by other editors discussing which were and were not "relevant" (without actually using that word.)Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:42, 10 August 2014 (UTC) My concerns about this aren't ANI-worthy, but the options aren't "ANI or shut up", either. (My concerns weren't about how many notifications about RSN you made, either. They were about the separate discussions and your involvement of this project.) No one has explained what discouraging use of the Transadvocate has to do with this project. You're not obliged to answer my concerns (and you haven't tried), but in the future this project should focus on addressing systemic bias, not whatever was going on here.__ E L A Q U E A T E 18:50, 10 August 2014 (UTC) For note, Carol also posted to WP:XX which is more relevant, and I posted to WP:LGBT a day or two ago as it's relevant there. I was going to suggest that this be taken to ANI if there's truly a problem. Frankly I don't see one and I'm the one advocating for the use of TransAdvocate as a source. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:30, 10 August 2014 (UTC) I was never concerned about the fact there were notifications about the RSN discussion beyond asking what made it relevant to this one. I was more concerned that it wasn't the only discussion started by Carolmooredc around the same time about this issue. If her suggestion in the second, non-RSN discussion had been taken up, we would have faced a lot of new challenges to all sources that could be argued were advocating for women. It's the kind of suggestion to avoid if we want to find ways to counter systemic bias and I'm happy that it doesn't look like it's being taken up. So I don't see a situation to be resolved at this point, but I'm also hoping we don't see that advocating in those directions is a particularly useful strategy for this project in the future.__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:45, 10 August 2014 (UTC) A) Be more specific about what other discussions besides on the talk page of the article were started? and B) if there was a problem why not bring it to my talk page where things can be clarified rather than bringing it here and causing a long disruptive thread? If women are going to be attacked every time they post here, this project might as well close itself down now. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:17, 11 August 2014 (UTC) A) I see no one attacking anyone else, and B) it reasons to follow if there are no attacks, there no attacks against women or men. Your last sentence is polluting the well a bit.Two kinds of pork (talk) 15:01, 11 August 2014 (UTC) If you look at the history of this page there are problems with wikihounding and casting aspersions against members of the project. Since User:Elqueate chose to complain here instead of the more relevant WP:RSN posting or my talk page, it was easy to assume more of the same. Looking more closely above, I assume User:Elaqueate was complaining about my general complaint at WP:RS guideline talk page that conflict of interest and advocacy needs to be mentioned more explicitly so one doesn't have such a hard time convincing people it's relevant. This was not about changing policy but clarifying guidelines detailing existing policy. I did it since it was on my mind and that's when one tends to act. From now on perhaps we should just ask others to move inherently disruptive comments like that to the relevant talk page rather than allowing the disruption, even if it's merely accidental. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 23:05, 11 August 2014 (UTC) That is a personal attack on Elqueate. I believe her concern was justified and appropriately articulated. SPECIFICO talk 00:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC) Describing my concern as "inherently disruptive" is not helpful. And if you're admitting you didn't even really read them at first, it's hard to take that judgement seriously. My comments were specific to "systemic bias" concerns, which is why I placed them here, so they were arguably more relevant to this page than your discussion about removing a source you didn't like. I didn't post at the other notifications because I had no objections to those, just, why is that discussion specifically relevant to this problem? Is too much trans advocacy increasing the gender gap? It seems unlikely. (I had asked a number of times what removing a trans-related source had to do with this project, without any response.) I had moved on many comments ago, but my comments kept being misframed as opposition to neutral discussion notices (that I have made myself quite often). There was no need to go from that to "take it to ANI" or insinuating that talking about focussing this project on systemic bias concerns is disruptive. If you don't want to discuss those concerns, then go on to more constructive things, but please don't frame a specific voiced concern as an attack.__ E L A Q U E A T E 00:52, 12 August 2014 (UTC). This is a belated rationale. The only relevant discussion now is how to deal with threads like this. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:10, 12 August 2014 (UTC) You could consider not starting them in the first place if you don't want to address project-specific concerns they raise.__ E L A Q U E A T E 14:21, 12 August 2014 (UTC) But I've already advised moving on. You are entitled to your own opinion of what "the only relevant discussion" is. I was one of the first editors here to ask people to not bring outside squabbles that have little to nothing to do with the project. I would apply that to you as well, if you can't justify why a discussion you're bringing to the project has relevance to the project, then your addition was problematic even if it was, in your words, "merely accidental". __ E L A Q U E A T E 14:33, 12 August 2014 (UTC) If this was your real concern you should have asked it. My leaving a message about "why" at the time would have brought accusations of "non-nuetral posting." In short, I don't like the use of non-RS sources to trash women on wikipedia (be it in full biographies or in mere mentions, per WP:BLP). I think that's a concern of this group. Otherwise the reliable source discussion belongs at either Radical feminism talk page or WP:RSN, not here. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:15, 12 August 2014 (UTC) If this was your real concern you should have asked it. I'll assume that's sarcasm offered in good faith. I'm happy at this point to leave it to others to decide how many times I did.__ E L A Q U E A T E 16:13, 12 August 2014 (UTC) I've disputed closure of this section due to the fact that Pork both participated in the discussion at RSN and cannot reasonably and unbiased-ly close this discussion. However, I will not contest a closure based on no decision by the closer; where it's simple closed without comment/minor comment indicating no consensus of sorts. Tutelary (talk) 19:37, 12 August 2014 (UTC) Which section, here on this page or WP:RSN? If that one, please bring the issue there. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:05, 12 August 2014 (UTC) On this talk page. Tutelary (talk) 21:20, 12 August 2014 (UTC) I took the bold action of closing this section; The sniping is getting out of hand and serving no further purpose. My assessment of the thread at RSN that TA is not a RS is of course, my opinion. An un-involved party would likely (also IMO) come to the same conclusion. I've no problem with you un-doing my closure. I understand this is an emotionally charged topic area.Two kinds of pork (talk) 22:27, 12 August 2014 (UTC) Not so much that, it's just that you !voted in the original RSN which does not make you the unbiased/uninvolved closer which is mandated by WP:CLOSE. Neither would Carol be an uninvolved member either. Tutelary (talk) 22:45, 12 August 2014 (UTC) Not to mention Two kinds of pork's discussion of this topic on Carol's user talk page. Closing this discussion was way out of line. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 01:12, 13 August 2014 (UTC) If my action cause you umbrage, I suggest you go find someone else to close this. You are unlikely to get the answer you desire.Two kinds of pork (talk) 02:10, 13 August 2014 (UTC) @Two kinds of pork: I don't desire a specific answer. I already expressed this on the RSN. No one needs to close this anyway. It's not an RfC. Why you closed it in the first place and your comments on Carol's talk page are what bother me. You treat me like some stubborn fool trying to lecture me in high school level logic and going as far as to think of starting an RfC on RSN (which Carol pointed out is nonsensical). I looked into the editor on TransAdvocate and they don't have journalistic experience. Not a good source. Carol was right that it should be treated as an SPS. This whole damn thing is fairly pointless anyway since the BLP issues on Radical feminism have been fixed and better sources have been found. Your battle is over general. At ease. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:33, 13 August 2014 (UTC) I closed it primarily to end the bickering, I see that I failed. And if you wish to avoid lectures in logic, don't repeat fallacious arguments after it's been pointed out to you more than once.Two kinds of pork (talk) 02:41, 13 August 2014 (UTC) I hope your reading comprehension improves. Start by practicing on WP:CLOSE. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC) I'm all for closing it and archiving it to discourage future off topic escapades, but not with a summary of the results. Perhaps we've all agreed it's SPS now, here and at WP:RSN, and the discussion is finished? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:43, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Study of "WP Gender gap coverage in media and blogs"

I found a summary of this interesting article at Wikimedia blog: “(Re)triggering Backlash: Responses to News About Wikipedia’s Gender Gap”. Journal of Communication Inquiry 37 (4): 284. doi:10.1177/0196859913505618 2013.

Anyone have access and want to improve summary below? Last sentence seems a bit ambiguous. "Gender gap coverage in media and blogs" section summary of article:

"studies how Wikipedia’s gender gap concern has been treated in the news, based on a qualitative analysis of 42 articles from US news media and blogs, and 1,336 comments from online readers. The authors argue that this discussion can be seen as an example of a “broader backlash against women, and particularly feminism” in the U.S. news media and blogs. Reading the article, it appears that the views of this gap in the media represent the variety of views about feminism, from the most concerned and documented to the most stupid and misogynist. However, the synthesis of these opinions and the discussions the authors had with some leaders at Wikipedia/Wikimedia Foundation (among them Sue Gardner) let them argue that this problem has not yet been properly addressed, because of its complexity, but also because of a clear political decision from the management of the project to tackle it."

Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:08, 12 August 2014 (UTC)