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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.Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages – 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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)

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: - 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 Misplaced Pages? jps (talk) 13:46, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

The Meta/Gender Gap/Research section cites several studies on "gender differences" in editing on Misplaced Pages. (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,Misplaced Pages: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 - Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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)

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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages 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? Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, 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 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 Misplaced Pages – 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 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 Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages. 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 , 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 , the Sarah Brown naming dispute and your claims that the Isla Vista shootings were misandrist 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 . 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 Misplaced Pages 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:Misplaced Pages 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 03:16, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

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 Misplaced Pages, 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 18:04, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

no systemic gender bias against men on Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages. With respect to gender, the systemic bias on Misplaced Pages 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 - Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages 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. Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages: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)

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

Hi. I've been working on an interview-based research project about women and Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages: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 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 ],] 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: . __ E L A Q U E A T E 23:34, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

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 Misplaced Pages: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)

Women's corner

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

Affirmative action program...

[Note: concerning Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages 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/search/?title=Misplaced Pages: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)

Civility board

Discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Administrators' noticeboard#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 Misplaced Pages wants more editors" and "A trout for all the sexist pigs who run this site". SlimVirgin 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)

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 , 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.

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:

Please read the associated Gender gap task force page before posting here. Constructive suggestions for dealing with the gender gap welcome. Comments that disrupt the project or are not civil are not welcome. Uncivil messages will be deleted. Please help make this a safe place for those who want to increase the number and effectiveness of women editors on Misplaced Pages.

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)

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)

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

The comments of Powers and John raise the possibility that it is time to fork a "Women welcome and respected Misplaced Pages". 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)

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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages: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)

What's the difference between Misplaced Pages and academia?

The extraordinarily low participation of women in Misplaced Pages, 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. Misplaced Pages 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. Misplaced Pages 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 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)

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 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)

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 Misplaced Pages have any equivalent policy requiring administrators to "to take action to overcome barriers to equal participation"? -- Djembayz (talk) 02:37, 29 July 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 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 06:40, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

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

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)

Departed member explains, in her own words, with DIFFS

I was invited to join this project, took up the invitation, and left the project within a span of less than 48 hours. Another member went to my talk page to "explain" the problem. He apparently misunderstood why I left - which I have corrected, at least in part, there - 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:. 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. This other, male editor whose intentions I questioned? He joined within 48 hours of my joining, 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).

(About 10 hours later, having received no feedback on my complaint, I decided to simply take it to ANI. That was closed within 15 minutes, so I appealed to another admin, Drmies, on his talk page. 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.)

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"?) 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. 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)

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 Misplaced Pages, something tells me those details will get around to the media and might make the New York Times given the media's obsession with Misplaced Pages. (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 06:46, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Yup, a lot of weird creepy things can happen to women on Misplaced Pages. 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, 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 Misplaced Pages.... 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)

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 Misplaced Pages:Civility (Civility Board?), Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks, Misplaced Pages:Harassment, Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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)

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)