Misplaced Pages

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User:Lightbreather/Kaffeeklatsch

User:Lightbreather/Kaffeeklatsch (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Against the spirit of wikipedia, A place that excludes editors based on anything violates the idea of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. By all means create a place for woman but it is against the spirit to say "only this type of editor can join" RetΔrtist (разговор) 00:58, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. For the time being, it serves as an experiment based on a discussion at the Wikimedia IdeaLab re a space for women, similar to spaces used on other projects (other languages). This subspace in my user space does not prevent any editor from editing in any space beside this subspace. I am replying from my phone and will return when I am next at my desk. Lightbreather (talk) 01:11, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@Lightbreather: That discussion was, first of all, at meta, so any consensus found there does not apply here. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 03:46, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose An analogy suggested at the idealab, which may be flawed in general but valid in userspace, was that a women-only discussion forum would be like a table at a cafe, where a group of women are seated, talking. The claim was that a man shouldn't necessarily expect to be free to draw up a chair and join the group, as the group has a reasonable expectation of privacy unless they invite someone to join. In the context of the idealab discussion I had doubts about this reasoning because it seemed to me a discussion forum on an open wiki has no such expectation of privacy, however a page in a user's userspace does seem to have the right, at owner's option, to an expectation of privacy similar to that of a table at a cafe: those talking at the table should expect to be overheard, but might limit who is allowed to join the discussion.

  For those who prefer citation of policy, here's a relevant passage from WP:User pages#Ownership and editing of user pages: "Policy does not prohibit users, whether registered or unregistered users, from removing comments from their own talk pages, although archiving is preferred." Lightbreather has been polite about the experiment (not even, I believe, even removing comments considered out-of-place but merely moving them to a different page), so imho civility and AGF are satisfied as well, and I don't think the wider Wikipedian community should object. --Pi zero (talk) 03:17, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

To counter on the terms of your analogy, I'd like to say that you have no right to force the cafe to provide you with a table. And also, a cafe is for the consumption of food and beverages, as well as discussion. An appropriate analogy, would be a chess cafe, a place where people come to play chess amongst each other at the tables. If people at the table are discussing backgammon, while not actually playing chess, the owner might ask them to leave, and ask them to go to a backgammon cafe, a place more appropriate for discussion of backgammon. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 03:32, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@Pi zero: And also, to quote WP:User pages, it says that "if the community lets you know that they would rather you delete some content from your user space, you should consider doing so - such content is only permitted with the consent of the community." Policy does not specifically prevent removal of user talk page comments, but community consensus holds ultimate judgement over userspace. The community can come to a consensus for whatever reason it wants to on whether to delete this user page, as long as the consensus doesn't violate any other policies. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 03:42, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Sure the wider community could, but seems to me it's being done civilly, appears it's being done in good faith (I don't think this appearance even requires assuming good faith), and since it's in userspace, I'd think private conversations would be more usual to allow than to disallow, so that it's not against the spirit of Misplaced Pages to allow it. Hence, as I said, I don't think the wider community should object. (It's not even the content being objected to, but rather the conversants.) ---Pi zero (talk) 03:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, and to reiterate another point, afaik the material wasn't even removed as such, just moved to a different page. --Pi zero (talk) 04:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The analogy is probably overtaxed by now anyway, but I might note that the analogy doens't extend very gracefully to likening Misplaced Pages to a chess cafe because, following the analogy, it's not a cafe at all; only certain side areas of Misplaced Pages are used for semi-private tables at all (userspace), and those areas also tend to have relatively greater flexibility of topic (not unlimited, of course, but in this case the intent seems to be that the discussion be about Misplaced Pages, so that calling it off-topic would be a bit of a stretch). Oh, and since you ask it, ping:Chess. --Pi zero (talk) 04:28, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep. I don't see any harm in this, nor any actual pointer to what policy it violates. The fact that people think the problem of "but it's exclusionary" is a bigger deal than the problem of Misplaced Pages's discussion venues being, at the very very most good-faith, implicitly biased towards a discussion style men are sociologically conditioned for, is a really good argument for its existence. Ironholds (talk) 04:47, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
• Delete. I really can't see any reason why this should exist, and there are other places that can handle any discussion that could take place in the kaffeeklatsch better than in the kaffeeklatsch. Content dispute? Talk page of the articles. Behavior dispute? ANI, AN, civility noticeboard, user talk of the offending editor. Advice? Help desk, teahouse, #wikipedia-en-help, the {{help me}} template, even! Off topic discussion? Take it to an off topic forum. Discussion about Misplaced Pages? Village pump. There is literally nothing in the kaffeeklatsch that could not be better handled by another place already in existence on Misplaced Pages. It's like buying a swiss army knife when you already have a kit of full sized tools that you use often. The swiss army knife has a bunch of worse versions of the tools you already have, so there's no practical reason to use it, unless you don't use the full sized tools enough to justify maintaining them. And also, the hypothetical swiss army knife only works on around 10% of objects. Grognard Chess (talk) Ping when replying 05:13, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep, for now. I wouldn't object to a deletion request if the page were dormant or clearly being used for non-encyclopedic purposes, but it seems a little hasty considering that it's just getting off the ground. Let's come back to this in 6 months or so and see if the discussion has proven meaningful for supporting and retaining editors. Shii (tock) 06:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep - it's not actively harming the encyclopedia anyway. So you say it is exclusionary, huh? The entire environment of Misplaced Pages has been proven time and time again to be a hostile environment for women, what's the problem with a women-centered discussion? Many other areas on Misplaced Pages have criteron for membership; AfC requires a certain number of registration days and AWB requires 500 edits. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit but this user subpage is not preventing anyone from editing articles (or even the subpage itself). In fact it is an alpha-test-phase version of a space that may very well in the future encourage women to edit more on Misplaced Pages, just like women's colleges in the real world. There exists a reason why there are women's colleges in the world, but very few women's colleges: Because women need it. This page is not even hidden to the public. Any and all people can open up the page, read what's going on, and not even have to have an account or join. There is no closed door here, no only-women-can-read. In fact, men can choose to edit this page; there is no technical restriction from doing so - evident by the nominator's ability to send this to MfD. The only reason a man would chose not to edit the page would be out of respect for Lightbreather, because it is in her userspace, and we respect people's userspaces like that.

The nominator states that he is willing to allow for a space for women to exist, but how can a women's space be created if men are allowed to be present? How can there be a true women's space when men are present - wouldn't that just become a place for humans instead of women? I find this proposition confusing and illogical. How can us women editors have a supportive women's environment if men are allowed to butt in (and we are not allowed to keep them out or even respectfully ask them to avoid commenting?) It is impossible for it to become a true "women's space" when men are there.

Finally, one may argue that it adds no benefit to the project, but what's wrong with it neutrally just sitting there in a userspace subpage, then? There are no policies linked in the nomination to advocate for deletion. We do have things like the Gender Gap Task Force for these kinds of related things, but it is hardly a women's only space and it has been touched by Arb so it is obviously a contentious place. It is definitely not similar to a Teahouse-way of interacting with women editors. The Teahouse is for interacting with newbies, the Kaffeklatsch can be for interacting with the very small percentage of women editors that are on the project. Those who want to discuss the uselessness of things can first investigate the numerous WikiProjects that are either defunct or inactive, and then ask themselves why those have not been subject to MfD. It is ironic that Chess above mentions the Swiss Army knife working around 10% of objects, because... well... Misplaced Pages only has about... 10% of women, so of course it would only benefit them! Now, the real question is: What percentage of women would this benefit? — kikichugirl  07:23, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep I'm flatly unconvinced that the space presents any real disruption or harm to building an encyclopedia. Not convinced the space is a slippery slope of any kind. This seems like a good time to remind folks that Wikimania 2014 (and probably previous years) had a meeting slot intended for editors who identified as women. Was it disruptive or did it present harm to the conference participants to learn about and help improve Wikimedia and other open-source projects? Nope. I suspect that the people like me who could not go to it thought, "Oh hey, I'm really glad they have that because they're bringing perspectives to the table that I probably don't have, and I appreciate more diversity in perspectives rather than fewer." I also suspect the event allowed a lot of women to meet and start sharing, building, and implementing ideas over the past six months. What is the benefit of prematurely shooting down a space that has the potential to do exactly the same thing? With that said, I agree with Shii, if the space does not facilitate constructive discussions over the next several months, we could consider marking the space as historical (I don't think it's necessary to delete the space). I, JethroBT 07:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)