Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force/Archive 7

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Social norms approach

I've started a new thread as the previous one has changed course a little. Smallbones, thank you for the suggestions and the encouragement. Johnuniq, I've been thinking about the UNICEF material we read about, the material about the social norms approach. This is based on the idea of the "majority fallacy," namely that "the majority is silent because it thinks it is a minority, and the minority is vocal because it believes that it represents the majority" (I've copied this from the WP article, which is quoting an academic).

I think this is what has happened to the idea of civility on Wikipedia. It has a bad press: not cool, too American, not what real content contributors care about. I don't think any of those things are true. Just about everyone prefers to take part in a conversation where people are being respectful of each other. The question is: how do we start from that point and achieve a better editing environment? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:09, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

How about a noticeboard where participants can request civil help? Something like a Wikipedia:Request for comments, but less formal, just a place to post a link to the discussion and a note that cooler, uninvolved, heads would be appreciated to bring some sanity. Then if there really are more civil editors than uncivil ones, that will become obvious, and the uncivil ones will have good examples to follow. Something like this:

EditorA: Anyone who thinks this article needs an infobox is a diseased camel!

EditorB: You could see that an infoboxes is obviously needed if you weren't the degenerate spawn of a rabid mongoose and a lame wombat!

EditorC: Hi, I'm here from the Civil Help Request. I see that these three articles - X, Y, and Z - each have infoboxes, which seem very useful, and it looks like this is a similar article. EditorA, can you explain why this article is different?

EditorA: Well, X, Y, and Z are more clear cut: to fill in the infobox's third slot from the top takes a word each in X, Y, and Z, but we'd have to write a paragraph of text in this article.

EditorB: Are you going to listen to this rabid wombat?

EditorC: I don't think EditorA is a rabid wombat, instead she seems to have a point, the third slot issue does seem to be complicated here. EditorB, what would be your proposal to fill in the third slot from the top without writing a paragraph of text?

I've found that namecalling breeds more namecalling, but civil discussion breeds more civil discussion. Not always, of course, but often enough that it's worth trying. What do you think? (Noting that if you disagree, you are, of course, a three legged wildebeest with dental problems.) --GRuban (talk) 19:44, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea of the social norms approach simply from the standpoint that it has a testable methodology. It would require a very well designed poll with a large sample size but that may well be doable with WMF aid.Capeo (talk) 19:55, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

This would make sense to me, if it could be implemented. The one very real concern I have is whether such a noticeboard or similar place to regularly post such complaints might not get enough attention to make it really a viable option. Regarding the speciest comments above, well, I've been called worse, even by myself [1]. John Carter (talk) 20:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Capeo, do you have any ideas about what would need to be done to organize that? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:06, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't. Not really anyway. You're about a million times more familiar with Wikipedia in general than I'll ever be. If you look at my history you'll see I mostly lurk and just add little tidbits here and there when something catches my fancy. Simply brainstorming such an approach, without taking feasibility into account and just now reading of this methodology from article you linked, I would think it would have to be by email somehow. The usual problem with any internet poll is the fact that the same person can take the poll as many times as they want. Email polls where the respondent sends the poll back to you cuts down on that issue greatly. I can't see how that can be done here though. I would think a bot that mass emails people would be highly frowned upon. You could start a specific mailing list for the poll but that has the disadvantage of only reaching the people who are already invested in the discussion when what you really want is to also include the views of the people who have been silent on the issue. I'm assuming the WMF can mass email editors though correct? If so maybe a proposal can crafted to see if there's any interest in doing so. That also has the benefit of privacy wherein respondents wouldn't be hesitant about revealing information such as their gender where they might be if it were a user conducted poll. From what I've seen the WMF seems pretty approachable. The toughest part after that would be crafting a poll. It's very hard to make a poll that is totally impartial in the data it collects.Capeo (talk) 20:28, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

User:Piotrus has some familiarity with sociology, and I know that he has polled editors here before. He might be able to help get something together. John Carter (talk) 20:34, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both, this is very helpful. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:39, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

You're quite welcome. I was just thinking about this a little more and reading about the methodology a bit more. I would think the best information gathered would come from not questions related to the gender gap specifically but more along the lines of what dissuades editors from editing the most. Then the metrics that would be valuable would be sex and or gender, amount of edits, etc. It seems the idea of the approach is to find the disconnect in perception within a community. By knowing and comparing the perceptions of these groups you should then be able to deduce the disconnect more specifically and, if the theory is correct, you'd find there isn't that much of one to begin with while pinpointing specific areas to work on that would effect the gender gap positively. In theory anyway. Capeo (talk) 21:01, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, maybe, and I say this as a complete and total nonexpert, having the poll contain a few questions relating to broad issues of civility, both of the person being polled, people the person being polled deals with, and their society in general might be relevant. So, maybe, some questions like "On a scale of (whatever), how important to you consider the following subjects in terms of your social interactions: ..." might be useful. But, like I said, I'm not an expert and I know that and anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt.

However, I do think that there may well be different standards of what is and is not an acceptable of civil interaction in various countries, or at least maybe a few cases where out of common usage certain terms may have lost much of their impact, and it might be worthwhile to somehow found out what they are. The "c" word seems to be one of the points of contention, and I think it is worth noting that the party in question here said in the ArbCom case, I have to assume correctly as I don't remember seeing it directly contradicted, that he personally only ever used it against two individuals, both of whom were to his knowledge males. In addition to trying to sensitize some editors to offensive language, it might also be useful to find ways to try to perhaps desensitize editors to some language they might take more offense to than was necessarily intended by the person who used the term. John Carter (talk) 21:21, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm no expert either but I like the idea of gradations like that. It always seems those types of polls are more informative. One danger with any poll though is being overly broad or, conversely, overly restrictive. On the restrictive side you can simply have not enough answers to pick from. I believe most people never pick "None of the Above" so you can bias a poll that way. On the other side is using wording that's too broad. I'd say the term civility falls under that. For instance, take the a question like, "What has most discouraged you from editing Wikipedia?" One of the answers could be Civility but I think you'd get far more information if you broke the term down into specifics such as swearing, condescension, sexist remarks, etc. I'm just tossing those off the top of my head but you get the idea. Come up with twenty or so of the most commonly heard complaints, including non-civility related things such as user interface and other technical things then have people put them in the order of most problematic to least. Or maybe better yet start with a broader list, in which Civility is one of the answers, and then each answer in that list gets a further, more specific, gradation like above. Now I'm just throwing things against the wall but you get the idea. To get the best data I think you need to be as specific as possible while offering the broadest range of possible answers so you're not steering the respondent to any degree.Capeo (talk) 22:01, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

GRuban, I like the idea of a board, though I suppose I'd worry that it would become another Wikiquette situation – that ended up being problematic, though I don't recall why. But yes, civil discussion breeds more of the same, so it would help a lot in that regard. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:12, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Another idea might be to ask the Foundation to pay for a social-norms theorist to write about the editing environment and what practical steps could be taken to change it. I wonder whether we have such a person as a Wikipedian. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:17, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Can you expand on how your proposal might differ from the Dispute resolution noticeboard, or requesting a third opinion? isaacl (talk) 20:23, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

... or the Wikiquette board that was shut down? If there is one thing that seems certain from umpteen discussions over many years it is that the civility pillar isn't particularly effective/enforceable except in extreme cases. Given recent events, it might be better to focus on other aspects. Rich Farmbrough raised a few here that seemed to have some support. Are those not worth looking at? - Sitush (talk) 20:51, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Do you have a link to where Rich proposed those ideas? John Carter (talk) 20:56, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

The problem with the Wikiquette board was the same one with enforcing the civility policy - people kept saying "I'm not being uncivil, being called a nine-toed baboon is perfectly acceptable in my culture; instead he, over there...". The Civil Help responder wouldn't criticize, just propose civil help. Would serve as an example of what should be done, rather than punishing what shouldn't be done. --GRuban (talk) 21:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for the background info. There might be some merit in that approach. - Sitush (talk) 21:10, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

The dispute resolution noticeboard and the request for a third opinion page are the current informal mechanisms I am aware of for requesting some non-confrontational, polite assistance. (There used to be an informal mediation page, but as it had fallen into disuse, it has been marked as inactive.) Would these approaches cover the type of help you are thinking of, or is there another distinct area of aid that you are contemplating? isaacl (talk) 21:28, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

The idea is to gather people interested in helping with civility specifically. The same way that we have a BLP noticeboard, and an RSN noticeboard, though those also overlap. --GRuban (talk) 14:29, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Whereas the BLP and RSN noticeboards interpret Wikipedia's policies regarding their topic areas, if I understand your proposal correctly, the suggestion is to get someone to mediate the problematic discussion while demonstrating civility by example. I think this is basically the same purpose as the dispute resolution noticeboard. I expect a prerequisite for dispute resolution is to do so in a civil manner, and to defuse any inappropriate behaviour. It seems redundant to specifically request that a dispute resolution volunteer participate politely. isaacl (talk) 15:45, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Not quite identical. DRN often addresses perfectly civil disputes; also DRN only addresses disputes that can be boiled down into a specific question. The Civil Help Noticeboard would address civility conflicts, many of which can not be boiled down into a single specific question, but are, well, editors not getting along. Finally, DRN relies on both sides explicitly agreeing to the process. Looking at WP:DRN, maybe half the requests are stymied due to people not agreeing to the process. Civil Help wouldn't require that - the person would just shows up and start setting an example. (In that way it would like RSN and BLPN, which don't require participation from all sides - but, perhaps because of not requiring it, generally get it.) Between all of that, I see it as sufficiently different to be worth separating.

I can see that this might not be ideal, and I'm very willing to try better ideas, but I haven't seen any other proposals. What would you recommend, Isaac? --GRuban (talk) 19:13, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I do like the idea of people trying to defuse acrimonious situations and lead by example. However in my view this means not having specific groups of people to be called in for civility conflicts, since all dispute resolution volunteers should be capable of working in this manner. If a special team has to be called in, then it's implied that more than just setting an example is required. At the moment, all dispute resolution mechanisms short of Arbitration Committee cases require voluntary participation from the involved persons, which as far as I can tell is in line with the expectations of the Wikipedia editing community. You could try making any step in the dispute resolution process mandatory, but unfortunately I'm not optimistic about this gaining acceptance. (For example, I think a committee that could make binding decisions on the validity of policy arguments would be useful, but I understand why there is reluctance among many to delegate editorial control in this way.)

In a few places I've suggested having professional moderators whose time is dedicated to moderating discussion (here's a link to the last post in one thread; please see the immediately preceding posts for the full context). A lot of disputes could be made better by someone devoted to smoothing them out. But there are structural issues which make the general problem of disputes difficult to resolve. Ultimately, all communities depend on its members to want to get along in order to function effectively, which typically means either the community becomes self-selecting (if you don't think you'll fit in, you leave), or some group will do the selecting. English Wikipedia has been pushing the first option as far as it can. Although it's not hard getting agreement on wanting the vandals to leave, it's a lot trickier with many other conflicts when all sides have good-faith intentions, but are simply proceeding from different assumptions and goals. At some point, for better or worse, it's likely that Wikipedia will have to codify more specific guiding principles in order to resolve this. isaacl (talk) 20:12, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Not suggesting a specific group of people, just a board for people to post requests for help to. Like WP:RSN, and WP:BLPN, where participation in the board is unrestricted, just a centralized point of discussion, a place where people can go to seek help or advice. Similarly like those boards, and unlike DRN, there would no requirement for both sides to participate - there has never been a BLPN or RSN discussion stopped because one side won't involve themselves. They're specifically places to get more people involved, not places that everyone has to agree to. Yes, BLPN and RSN don't have enforcement power themselves, but they're darn useful despite that, it's highly rare that consensuses formed there are ignored. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure any suggestion that involves the words "professional" is dead in the water right there. We are a volunteer encyclopedia, that's rather fundamental to the whole enterprise. --GRuban (talk) 21:52, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

In practice, if the disputing parties fail to participate, the third party won't be able to settle anything. Regarding volunteerism, I don't think editors mind that the Wikimedia Foundation hires staff to run the servers, for example. I think there can be a role for a paid moderator who would not contribute content but just defuse disagreements and work at building consensus. The only reason to make it a paid position versus a volunteer one is so they would be dedicated 100% to resolving conflicts, day-in, day-out. Informal mediation shut down because of a lack of volunteers to staff it. isaacl (talk) 00:03, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

"the vast majority of people in the world know..."

(Taking the liberty of breaking this section off) --GRuban (talk) 03:47, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

And I have refactored it as the previous wording ("the vast majority of people in the world know that (calling somebody a cunt, or similar actions) are terribly wrong.") contained an assertion that has been refuted. Johnuniq (talk) 04:11, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

While I think some organized fact gathering (i.e. a poll or similar) would work well here, i do think that it's pretty obvious "that the vast majority of people in the world know that (calling somebody a cunt, or similar actions) are terribly wrong." It seems so obvious to me that perhaps I need to break it down so others can see what I'm talking about:

• A small majority of people are women - every woman that I've met would object to being called a cunt.
• All men have close female relatives, e.g. a mother, wife, sisters, or daughters. Most men would object to having these relatives subjected to such insults, especially in a public place like Wikipedia.
• A majority of people - in the world at large and in the US in any case - are religious - every religion that I know of would object to that type of degradation of another human being
• A large number of people just believe in good old-fashioned politeness. This is my personal take on the issue. Politeness doesn't mean that you avoid talking about problems, only that you avoid using derogatory language in talking about problems.
• And, yes there are feminists, both female and male, who take such language as a red flag being waved intentionally in front of a bull.

Actually I think all these people - clearly a huge majority of people in the world - probably think of it in the same basic terms. Using such language is an active declaration of contempt for another person, meant to close off conversation and intimidate others.

Against that there are a few groups that do, for various reasons, consider such language "normal," e.g. teenage boys and to a lesser extent some men in their 20s. We do seem to have some of these groups over-represented on Wikipedia. But to my reading, most male Wikipedians in their 20s are fairly reasonable people. So I conclude that a large majority of Wikipedia editors are against the use of these insults.

As part of the majority, I think we should let all Wikipedians know this.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:59, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't work. See about halfway down Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/Archive_6#Clarification_from_Sitush_and_follow-on where I tried to back up someone saying that namecalling was, in fact, childish. Eric Corbett did not agree. No one else, not even the original writer, backed me up, so eventually when Sitush told both of us to stop discussing it, it ended. --GRuban (talk) 21:10, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

The problem with your comment ("Namecalling of any sort is childish") is that it could not lead to anything useful in that thread. Moreover, the assertion that X is childish is an assertion that X is a bad thing that only immature people do. In the context of Wikipedia, whether or not that is correct is irrelevant—we only need to establish that X is bad. In the case of Eric the assertion fails because he is mature—flawed perhaps, but not immature. Johnuniq (talk) 02:39, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Not fair to discuss people who aren't present. In general, though, we will always be able to find a reason not to defend civility in any given case. --GRuban (talk) 03:47, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I was just providing some reasons that your comment may not have had a response. Johnuniq (talk) 04:11, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

• SV raises the million-dollar question; I'll try to think of something useful to say later, but it's difficult. For now I'll respond to comments above. As noted, WP:WQA closed because people felt it was just a venue to rant because it was rare for action to occur—if admin action is wanted, use WP:ANI not WP:WQA was the mantra. Re surveys: All I can find now is this, but in the past there were some cases of people asking editors to do a survey, and there was strong pushback from some who regarded it as spam, and from me who regarded it as a potential security problem. I can't find it, but there was a way to get WMF approval for an "official" survey, and there was talk about running such surveys on a WMF system. I don't think a survey would be helpful as inevitably it would be simplistic ("99% of respondents said they did not want to be called a BADWORD"). The problem at the heart of all civility drives is oversimplification—it's easy to agree that offensive words are bad, but what about also dealing with any underlying issue? There should be an easier way to deal with NOTHERE users who upset people, but blocking the first person who cracks and resorts to offensive language would often give a poor result for the encyclopedia. My favorite example is here—that involved a very good editor who responded to a request for help, then started to advise the complainant about how Wikipedia works. Because the nice person didn't do what was wanted, they became the enemy and the exchanges escalated out of control with a wonderful string of expletives as the helpful person tried to stop the idiot from posting on his talk. I took over the battle, but we lost the good editor (who was fed up, but not blocked). I have not seen any attempt to enforce civility that also tries to deal with civil POV pushers and other disruptive editors. The issues in the recent GGTF case were long-lasting but rare problems that have been handled by Arbcom and it is very unlikely that someone would get far if they tried to emulate the language highlighted in the case. Johnuniq (talk) 03:43, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Regarding Wikiquette assistance, my understanding is that, by design, no administrative actions were intended to come out of discussion. It was supposed to be a place where concerns could be raised with an editor—kind of a less formal request for comment on user conduct. Unfortunately, as with many discussions on Wikipedia, it can only be effective if the involved parties are open to working together, and typically disputes are indications that this is not the case. isaacl (talk) 03:55, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
  • I actually took part in an off-wiki survey Piotrus conducted some time ago of editors whose involvement had decreased lately. I don't know if he has gotten around to publishing the results yet. In a case like this, I would think that the questions would include some to get information on the standards of civility people think they apply to themselves, the standards they like to see others live up to, and some indication somehow of what the standards of civility they encounter in their general off-wiki life are. I wouldn't expect an editor in a supermax prison (assuming we have any, of course) to necessarily expect of himself or others behavior we would expect from someone at an Upper East Side soiree. Including in a survey some specific terms or types of terms to determine which such terms editors find most or least offensive, as well as find out which they encounter most frequently, would I think be very useful in general. John Carter (talk) 19:53, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Since I was pinged, I'll put my sociologist/researcher of Wikipeedia hat on. First, it's an interesting question. Second, a survey is totally doable, and I can help with that, I have conducted several surveys on Wikipedia already. Third, to design a good survey, we need to be clear about our research question, which in turn will tell us what we want to ask. We also should be clear on what benefits the Wikipedia community would get from answering the survey. It's one thing to show - as I indeed expect would be the case - that civility has significant support in general, and people would like Wikipedia to be more civil. But such a survey would also allow us to ask editors about how they think it should be enforced, something that would, I think, be even more interesting to learn, and more useful from the practical perspective for the community. At the same time, keeping as survey as short as possible is key in maximizing responses. I'd be, again, totally happy in helping to draft a survey; I suggest that an interesting editor may want to start it as a draft somewhere (like, uh, Wikipedia:Civility/Survey, or perhaps even better, at the talk page of a to-be-created project at meta:Research:Index. And on that final note, a proper literature review would be helpful. There have been a few papers published on that, so a search through Google on "wikimedia research newsletter civility", Google Scholar on "Wikipedia civility", and a look through Good Faith Collaboration and User:Pundit's Common Knowledge? books should be done. (I may have time to do it next week). Oh, and I have a paper under review, based on a survey of most active Wikipedians who retired/reduced activity, which does confirm that it is a major reason for them retiring (prior research showed that civility is a major factor for regular/newbie editors, too). This paper could likely provide some useful theory/data/literature, and if anyone want a copy, please send me an email.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:49, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

We don't need a survey to know that people do not want offensive language, nor do we need a survey to know that most people would click "Yes" if asked "Should uncivil editors be blocked?". What we do need is a way to handle underlying issues because blocking the first person who cracks and resorts to offensive language would often give a poor result for the encyclopedia. I gave an example above of a case where one editor was very civil and the other melted down (after being very helpful and civil for a long time). Blocking the good editor because of the bad language would be stupid, and would not have community support. Also, this talk of surveys is missing the point that Arbcom has now spoken and admins will find it much easier to enforce reasonable behavior. My only request is that before blocking someone for a few bad words, the admin look at the underlying issue and see whether the cause should be addressed. The criterion should be to do what is best for the encyclopedia given that we all agree, and Arbcom has ruled, that long-term violations of CIVIL will not be tolerated. Johnuniq (talk) 06:33, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I, on the other hand, would support such a survey. While I acknowledge the problem Johnuniq says above is also a serious one, it is not the only one.

I think one particular point which the survey might address is the question of regional/cultural/systemic bias in some incivil language. As has already been indicated, the "c" word is in fairly standard usage as a derogatory term applied to males in the UK. I think it might be useful, as part of a "pre-survey," to ask various editors from the US, UK, British Commonwealth, the African-American community, Hispanic-American community, and other groups with significant representation among editors here for the incivil terms they most regularly encounter in real life. Then, the most common of these might be potentially included in a survey with a maybe "1-5 how offensive do you find this word" question. George Carlin's seven dirty words are a good starting point, but are from a specifically American viewpoint and may be outdated to some degree in some communities. John Carter (talk) 17:45, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't see this as related to the word's perceived taboo-ness. If someone speaks of a woman that way in order to suggest she is inferior in some way, then it is an epithet usage comparable to an ethnic or sexual orientation slur; but if it is merely a term of abuse it is not such an issue. An editor who makes a habit of saying "stop being such a woman and just learn to deal with ---" is creating the same kind of problem, no seven words required. Actually, a while ago I suggested half-seriously at Meta:don't be a dick that "Meta:don't be a cunt" ought to be a redirect in the spirit of gender equality. :) If we use these terms in a gender specific way and imply that one is better than another, we're getting roped into sexism; but if they are interchangeable and a man or woman can be said to be either, that can be just vulgar language. An editor might, of course, be using them either way, but which way matters. When people are speaking fairly innocently and you call them out as sexists, it creates a backlash that contributes to ongoing sexism. Wnt (talk) 19:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

White House Women in STEM recordings

Not sure this is the best place to post this, but please repost if you know a better place.

Please see http://www.whitehouse.gov/women-in-stem which is a page on the White House website featuring U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith and others recording brief summaries of the lives of Grace Hopper, Katherine Johnson, Rachel Carson, Lydia Villa-Komaroff, Ada Lovelace, Sally Ride, Barbara McClintock, The Mercury 13, The ENIAC Programmers, and Rosalind Franklin. U.S. Secretary Of The Interior Sally Jewell contributes a recording on one of her teachers, Mrs. Black.

I can't quite figure out how to download the sound files (from soundcloud), and then we'd need to format them as .ogg files before putting them in the articles. They should be in the public domain as they come from the White House (U.S. gov't). Any help appreciated. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:04, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Smallbones—it looks to me like you could use a website like http://soundflush.com/ to download the files from soundcloud as mp3s, and then use something like http://media.io/ to convert them to ogg. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:11, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. It's a heck of a way to do a simple download (who at the White House came up with that idea?), but it's all worked twice now (see Grace Hopper and Katherine Johnson) . I should get the remaining 10 done this weekend. Thanks again. Any further help appreciated. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:59, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

You can click on the "Soundcloud" icon on the top right of the recording, which takes you to the Soundcloud page for the recording, then click on the icon that looks like an arrow pointing down to a line, which is the download button. (The interview with Katherine Johnson doesn't have a download link; the others I spot-checked did.) isaacl (talk) 01:17, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Whoops! Sometimes the simplest things are are hardest. So I'm a bit embarrassed, but I have got a the third, Rachel Carson, done. Thanks to all. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:24, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, 10 recording downloaded ,reformatted, and included in article(s). The only one I didn't download is "Mrs. Black (As Told By U.S. Secretary Of The Interior Sally Jewell)". It might be appropriate in secretary Jewell's article, but there is no Mrs. Black article. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:50, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Crowdsourcing of funds for acquisition of relevant materials?

Some of you may be interested in this page. And also the discussion at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 179#Kickstarter. If one of the problems in the topic of women's issues and women is lack of access to the sources, it might well be possible to get together the money to allow one of the chapters, maybe the New York or UK one, to purchase reference books or subscriptions to journals or similar material which could then be made available to members here to develop some of the content related to those topics either here or maybe in one or more of the other WMF entities. Granted, choosing what sources to acquire could be a pain, but for a topic which might have as many people interested in it as women and women's issues, there is also a rather real chance that there might be a very good deal of money raised rather quickly.

If it were to be done, I think the first best step might be to figure out what specific materials, maybe including access to some subscription databanks not available from the Wikipedia Library as well as any books or journals or whatever first, and be able to give anyone contributing money an idea in advance what would the money would be used for. Who knows, it might even in some rare cases happen that the publishers themselves may donate some specific items requested. Just an idea, anyway. John Carter (talk) 21:08, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

List of feminist comic books

I created a List of feminist comic books in tandem with the creation of a stub for Priya's Shakti. Someone has already proposed deleting it, without any discussion. I DEPROD-ed it, but just in case it turns into an AFD, thought I'd place a heads-up here. Lightbreather (talk) 01:10, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I would support the deletion unless you can provide some reliable sources showing that it is a majority view and even then it needs to be presented in a WP:NPOV way. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:30, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

See WP:V and, for some entries, WP:NLIST. It might also be worth noting that, like categories, list articles really should be based on commonality of discussion in reliable sources. That is, you can't just create a list out of thin air by assembling what you think is valid: people need to have discussed the focus of the list itself. Or something like that (I'm not explaining myself very well, sorry, but there is a guideline/policy/essay somewhere). - Sitush (talk) 01:46, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm also not sure that you should have de-prod'ed it yourself, given that you are the creator. It might be strictly permissible but, really, the best option would probably have been to open a discussion on the talk page. Reviewing admins would take account of that. Certainly, I wouldn't de-prod my own stuff and, as happened only a few hours ago, I don't close even obviously incorrect AfD noms involving my creations. Better to be safe than potentially create another wikilawyering battleground. - Sitush (talk) 01:51, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

That's bad advice. Article creators don't have to sit on their hands and not de-prod an article; it can't prejudice a later discussion that the article creator still thinks their article is worthwhile enough to not delete without a fuller rationale given by the nominator. Now for actual AfD noms, an article creator couldn't close them if they wanted to, so it's not exactly a choice you were exercising.__ E L A Q U E A T E 02:18, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

It is a really bad idea to de-prod and not give a rationale on the article talk page. That's where the action should happen, not here or anywhere else. - Sitush (talk) 02:27, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Notability requirements for a list article are discussed at WP:LISTN, but it's vague. My guess is that this list is reasonable, but it's a while since I've seen lists argued at AfD.

Elaqueate is correct about prod: the article creator is welcome to remove the prod; ideally they would outline their reason in the edit summary (which was done), but there is no requirement for the creator to start a discussion anywhere.

With regard to this GGTF page, it is perfectly reasonable for a neutral statement to be made at a relevant wikiproject, as was done. However, this page should not be used to pile-on objections. Johnuniq (talk) 02:37, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

(ec)From Wikipedia:Proposed deletion: "PROD must only be used if no opposition is to be expected". Prodding an article within a day of its creation is often questionable in the first place. Certainly the can be legitimate reasons to do this (e.g. an article that barely avoids speedy deletion, but has little prospect of ever becoming a valid article), but I can't see the justification for this prod. The article needed to cite sources - and a note to that effect on the talk page would have been adequate to indicate this. If there was no response, after a reasonable time, then it might be appropriate to propose deletion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:40, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say that something was required; I said it was a bad idea not to explain fully. Edit summaries rarely have the room to do that. I won't be commenting on this list anywhere other than here. I don't think it was at all neutral to post a "heads-up" in case an AfD situation might occur, especially for something that really relates more to the feminist project that this one. "Neutral" would be "Article XYZ is currently at AfD. Please comment as you see fit." - Sitush (talk) 02:58, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

A recent example: Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics#AFD_Saffron_Terror. - Sitush (talk) 03:03, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm also not sure that you should have de-prod'ed it yourself, given that you are the creator ... Better to be safe than potentially create another wikilawyering battleground. - Sitush

The very notice placed on my talk page after the article was PRODed said, "You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page ... Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised." I did both of those things, and no "battle" was started over the de-prod, though there are certainly a handful of editors who don't like the article... but that discussion is going on there. Lightbreather (talk) 18:05, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Back to the article - good job! I like a (mostly) well sourced list. --GRuban (talk) 03:02, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I also want to add how is this any different than making an article about scary movies? List of scary movies, same thing some people think a select group of movies are scary, others do not seeing that all of the titles in this list are marked as being feminist it is not a NPOV list without the other side's say in the matter. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:20, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Are you saying that we don't, or should not have an article like List of scary movies ? I think we do have an article like that somewhere, a very comprehensive one, and expanding all the time. I will find it for you if you are willing to make this same argument about NPOV there. If you think it is not NPOV without the other side getting a say, I support you and welcome you to find the "other side" or other views, if they exist at all.OrangesRyellow (talk) 03:49, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Priya's Shakti at WP:RSN

I have started a discussion about Priya's Shakti at RSN that some members of this group may find relevant to the gender gap.

--Lightbreather (talk) 22:33, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion, it's not relevant, and the scope is vague in this regard. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 23:14, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of Samantha Nock - A Halfbreed's Reasoning for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Samantha Nock - A Halfbreed's Reasoning is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samantha Nock - A Halfbreed's Reasoning until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 05:20, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Multiple transclusions and, maybe, creation of women's noticeboard

I've said before that I think the best way to proceed would be to find out, probably through a broadly-publicized RfC, which topic areas around here women are particularly interested in and also which areas they feel are perhaps in some way subject to systemic bias of the largely male editing population. However, if there are any existing projects which individuals feel relevant to this group, I think it would be possible to transclude the article alerts notifications and maybe assessment pages into a subpage here. Also, if this were to become, as it were, a kind of "superproject" about women's issues and topics of particular interest to women, it might well be possible, maybe, to turn one or more related wikiproject talk pages into redirects to a more central project-wide talk page, like WP:MILHIST has done. That talk page could function as a form of "noticeboard" for those topics. John Carter (talk) 20:12, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Q. "which topic areas around here women are particularly interested in"

A. All topic areas. There is no such thing as a female topic area. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 14:53, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Simply noting that the above comment seems to rather pointedly ignore one of the quesitons asked, which is, and I quote, "which areas they feel are perhaps in some way subject to systemic bias of the largely male editing population." If people are going to respond in a way which can seem to cast aspersions on the person they are responding to, they could at least make a bit clearer effort to actually also respond to the questions asked. John Carter (talk) 16:22, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, if it were just me doing this, these would be some of the steps I would take to develop this project:

1) Go to the Guide to Reference website (anyone is I think given a two-month free trial subscription) and find the reference works it lists which deal broadly with the relevant topics. Then, put together a list of those works in some place readily accessible to other members of the project.

2) For the reference works there which are broadly of an encyclopedic nature, put together lists of articles and named subarticles similar to the one at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Encyclopedic articles which could be used by other members to locate topics and sources.

3) Maybe set up a project banner which would allow quality and importance assessments, perhaps particularly including a "missing" article quality status. This could be used to indicate specific articles or significant named subarticles found in encyclopedic sources which exist or don't exist here yet, and the relative quality of same.

4) Work to get together a list of periodicals and websites for specific relevant topic areas which could also be prominently linked to in the pages of the relevant projects.

5) Get together a list of individuals who would be willing to use their access to some of the databanks available from the Wikipedia Library to find relevant materials, and, maybe, a list of individuals who can check relevant acaademic libraries in their areas which might be useful.

6) Once all of that is done, maybe try to start some sort of regular collaboration or content development contest similar to others which exist here.

Just a few ideas, anyway. John Carter (talk) 19:36, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Topical topics

I'm not sure exactly what goes on here but down at the coal-face, I keep bumping into issues that involve feminism or the female POV in some way. FWIW, here's a recent list:

• basic bitch — I came across this at AFD. It's too misogynist and recentist for my taste but others differ

• representation of Women in The Big Bang Theory — another one from AFD, as that's my main patrol zone. It's not really in our house style but I have the feeling that there's something to this one. Perhaps it needs merging into a more general page like women in science?

• quarter yard. This is one of several tetchy deletion debates about obscure units of measure. The female angle here is that the unit is most commonly used for fabrics and so shows up in quilting books and the like. Fabrics, textiles and related crafts generally seem neglected on Wikipedia - see wrap reel for a related recent addition too. Likewise, there's a bunch of culinary units in the firing line here. And, as a strange coincidence, when working on this bundle, I found that that one of the authorities on Ethiopian weights and measures was the son of Sylvia Pankhurst, the famous suffragette. It's a small world...

Note also that I have a new female editor as a protegé - user:Mauladad. I have been protecting her first effort but worry that the immediate exposure to the Sturm und Drang of article creation may have been too intimidating. There's another similar female editor out there that I mentored - User:Nteli78. In my experience, you can get such educated women started as editors but they tend not to follow through - I've trained many examples now. Perhaps they would benefit from explicit direction - the setting of tasks or goals - and so maybe tools like the SuggestBot might help?

Andrew D. (talk) 15:26, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, this page is probably not going to be helpful to you. It's dominated by people largely hostile to addressing the gender gap in any meaningful way, and the people actually interested in the aims of the "task force" have mostly been driven away. Nathan ^T 19:52, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

dominated by people largely hostile to addressing the gender gap in any meaningful way Really? Still, if it ever was? people actually interested in the aims of the "task force" have mostly been driven away Ditto, although since the aims are a somewhat thin in detail ...

Like so much here, Nathan, your comments seem to be a bit hyperbolic and assumptive, sorely lacking in evidence. If we want to reduce the gap, we need to understand why it exists and we desperately need the input of the much larger number of women who contribute to Wikipedia but who thus far have shown no interest in this project. Otherwise, we're just a very small group of people wandering around randomly and not even remotely close to including a decent number of en-Wikipedia's women. The project is "campaigning" for a demographic that it doesn't represent and seems only vaguely to understand.

Andrew D. raises an interesting point re: his experience of women who are mentored but "tend not to follow through" as editors. I wonder if that retention issue is proportionately more serious among women than men? It sounds like another one for the survey that has been mentioned a few times, including in the section above. I've helped plenty of new Wikipedians out in my time, btw. That certainly includes some who self-identify as women, such as CaroleHenson, so it hurts when the randomness of commentary extends to accusations of misogyny as has happened to me in the past here. I've no idea why people like her are not involved with GGTF, although I'd be surprised if none of them know of it. I've also worked well with long-established contributors such as Orlady, Moonriddengirl, Voceditenore and Anna Frodesiak, all of whom seem largely to be absent from here. A survey, promoted through the centralised notifications system, might have a secondary effect of drawing people in. Is anyone capable of designing one? Would WMF assist in framing the questions? - Sitush (talk) 09:54, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree. You won't be filibustering me with vaguely reasonable-sounding but intentionally disruptive, obstructive and deceitful verbosity. I decline to engage with you or your cohort here and strongly suggest others do the same. Nathan ^T 21:59, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

There is no intent to filibuster. I've just seen this and, broadly speaking, it seems to be eminently appropriate. If you think that I am being "intentionally disruptive" or part of some "cohort" then take it to WP:AE rather than shout about it here. Money, mouth, is. - Sitush (talk) 02:30, 1 January 2015 (UTC)