User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Rebooted discussion

And I'm writing here just to say that I'd like this discussion to continue but with concrete proposals for improvement rather than the fight that was going on.

As for me, one proposal that I would make - just to open brainstorming - is to ask "What can the Foundation do?" and answer it with a hypothetical (which I neither support nor oppose but think worthy of consideration): imagine if the WMF hired community managers and gave them mediation training and asked them to help the community deal with civility problems. The idea here is to say: look, here is a problem worth solving, and resources to give good people time (a full time job in fact) to help solve it can be useful. There are obvious potential objections to this idea: what powers will these new WMF community managers have? Will this be a tyranny of staff? What recourse will the community have if the mediators aren't behaving properly themselves? Etc. I think it's not too hard to devise a plan which overcomes such objections. Please discuss and although Wikimania is coming up, I will read with great interest.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:59, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. It's an excellent idea. I have my granddaughter this morning, but I will think about it. Lightbreather (talk) 18:08, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

It is a mistake to think that language has unexplored territories. These terms are not expressive. Beyond a certain point, which has long since been passed, it is not the terms which matter but rather the overall message. This is a discussion about words, is it not? But nowhere in this discussion, unless I overlooked it, is there a discussion of wider communication, i.e., what is one is one trying to say? I think you will see that nine times out of ten the same message can be said without resorting to the questionable terms discussed. Therefore—why are questionable terms used? I don't know if questionable terms should be banned, but their use should be frowned upon. Bus stop (talk) 18:05, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

One of the reason I hatted the original discussion is that I think discussion about whether particular words should be banned or filtered is not a very fruitful approach. The problem here is not that particular words are magically bad, but that aggressive and abusive communication (whether using questionable words or not) is a huge problem. The negative impact is disproportionate across different demographics as well, which negatively impacts the quality of the encyclopedia.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:18, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Or, don't bite the newbies. Bus stop (talk) 18:28, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Give these CM regular priveleges, including the possibility of RfA, and maybe a dedicated noticeboard where they can post and discuss and uninvolved admins can act on them as needed. The CM's should be subject to the same possibility of admin imposed sanctions as anyone else. John Carter (talk) 19:12, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo, I honestly believe one of the problems Wikipedia has is separating content disputes from personal conflict. There seems to be a somewhat uneven handling of conflict, incivility and personal attacks on Wikipedia. Many times there can be a very quick response to tell editors to have a thicker skin one moment, and the next outrage that something stronger isn't being done. The uneven reaction is understandable...that is just life, but in a group or crowd sourced editors we do need a more standard approach. But a standardized approach can be difficult to achieve with so many people of differing opinion. Lightbreather had asked about a civility board, but your suggestion of paid mediators sounds interesting as well, although I would suggest these not be editors. It might be better if these were mediators that were independent of the project.

A centralized board for personal attacks sounds like a difficult arena to control, but...perhaps if we were to accept that along with dispute resolution....we should be attempting some sort of Conflict resolution the project can move forward. I just feel that, some editors cannot understand the difference between a "dispute" and a "conflict" and I am not trying to split hairs here. I truly believe that generally, disputes are over content and conflict arises as a personal issue or attack on the individuals or groups.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:29, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

• I'm going to rescue a snippet by Wbm1058 from the hatted section that I think is very smart: "Doesn't it seem to be a double standard that we have an Orwellian friendly space policy for in-person events, but are like the Wild West online? Some balance needs to be found." — That is very true. There needs to be a reasonable place between shrill, ultra-PC, bureaucratic micromanagement of every word, thought, and action on the one hand; and intentional loutishness by those who feel they simply can on the other. The problem we face is that by attempting to write formal proscriptions of the behavior of the latter (small) group of people tends to create the first-mentioned situation, which leads to the censorship of all. And, speaking for myself, I don't find that outcome at all acceptable. Carrite (talk) 19:56, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

• Not one word of Eric Corbett's comment in the edit summary would ever end up on a list of "blacklisted words", if such a list were even desirable. Yet, the manner in which these innocuous words were fashioned into a sentence were clearly in violation of the foundations Terms of Use. To paraphrase, the terms state: "You are free to: [participate] Under the following conditions:  • Civility – You support a civil environment and do not harass other users." There is no ambiguity in those terms, and the foundation is egregiously remiss to not enforce them; verging on culpability. Civility needs to be elevated to the same level of enforcement as "no legal threats" and because so many administrators are willing to exploit the "second mover" advantage, wp:office is not ill-advised. The terms of use are a legally binding instrument by the way, and trampling them contemptuously as I have too often seen erodes our institutional standing in lawful commerce. So tell me, why should wp:office be out of bounds as a corrective measure?—John Cline (talk) 20:14, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Short answer: because as soon as WMF begins meddling in the daily activity of the community, there are no logical limits to their intervention. They have inspired no confidence with their so-called Friendly Space Policy, which takes "civility" to ludicrous (and offensive) extremes. Carrite (talk) 20:44, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

• In the lead of the policy WP:NPA is the following sentence.[1]

"Derogatory comments about other editors may be removed by anyone."

Could this have been used in the example where someone was referred to with a vulgar word? --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Discussion re: this question moved to side discussion WP:NPA discussion per WP:TPOC — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lightbreather (talk • contribs) 22:46, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

• Back to Jimbo Wale's original proposal which was: "imagine if the WMF hired community managers and gave them mediation training and asked them to help the community deal with civility problems. The idea here is to say: look, here is a problem worth solving, and resources to give good people time (a full time job in fact) to help solve it can be useful."

What if it was far more limited: WMF hires mediators to do mediation and to train and monitor volunteer mediators. Mediation would be voluntary but it is likely Admins and Arbitrators would not look well on those who refused to engage in mediation or obviously did not take it seriously once they agreed to it.

I was in one mediation around 2007-8 on a really controversial topic. The mediator was inexperienced and had to start over at one point; but it still was extremely effective and greatly diminished edit warring among a few editors over several articles. However after that I couldn't find mediators for a one or two issues that had been accepted for mediation because no moderators were available, so I didn't try again for a few years. When I did four people wanted it; two refused on questionable grounds. The issue went to arbitration but Arbitrators didn't take the mediation issue seriously, perhaps because it was known that there aren't many mediators or they aren't effective.

In short, I don't think people could find fault with such a limited mediation proposal, but it could be extremely effective in chilling people out, making them think rationally and keeping them involved in editing instead of just going away mad and disgusted. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 04:10, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Early response from BHG & LB

• Jimbo, that's an interesting proposal. I think that a mediation approach could be very valuable in some contexts, and useless in others. But I wonder if it wouldn't be better to start by breaking down the problem?

My thinking is that there are several different situations in which incivility occurs:

1. Generally civil editors who snap when having a bad day, or find themselves in a situation more stressful than they are used to
2. A disagreement (whether about policy, content or conduct) where the conduct of two or more parties progressively deteriorates down a slope from "I think your edit was inappropriate" to personal abuse
3. Editors who fail to consider how comments which may be acceptable to people like them may be offensive or threatening to people from a different demographic (racism, sexism, *phobia)
4. Editors who have a persistent pattern of aggressive, rude or abusive behaviour

(Others may identify a longer list)

I think that the ability of mediators to respond to those situations would vary by type. Hopefully trained mediators would have the skills to engage effectively with people. They should be able to point people from #1 towards resources on how to identify when they are reaching their flashpoints; #2 needs guidance on techniques for structured non-accusatory discussion; #3 needs someone with a lot of skills to try to build some empathy and explain how the world may look very different from someone else's shoes; and #4 is probably unamenable to mediation.

But in each case, we need the ultimate backup of sanctions against editors, which is where the community currently fails.

Personally, I would support adopting the full wmf:Friendly space policy; it is no more than what applies in the workplace of most responsible employers in the developed world. But the problem we have is that a vocal minority of the community repeatedly opposes upholding even blatant breaches of our current relatively weak policies on civility and personal attacks.

If an editor reject the approaches of a mediator, what then? Unless they have power of sanction, then I fear that the best any mediator can do is to engage with the least problematic type of incivility. The sort of editor who replies "**ck off" to an attempt to engage them about civility is one of the most corrosive on Wikipedia, and those are already the type who the community is least effective at restraining (not least because they seem to attract an über-loyal fan club).

Every web forum or email list I have ever been involved with has avoided this sort of problem by having someone empowered to draw a line by curtailing the access of people who cross the line; the visible evidence of that enforcement reminds others to restrain themselves. The best fora have skilled mediators who can help people avoid draw back from the brink or improve their approach, but their carrots are backed up by a stick.

Sadly, en.wp currently has no stick, so my reckoning is that without effective enforcement, mediation only tinkers with the edges of the problem. Sorry to appear negative, but that's my first take on it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:11, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, yes! Brainstorm on the problems. Identify commonalities. Define problems that are relatively easy to address. Handle those first. The others require deeper discussion.

1. Misuse of edit summaries. Make all or part of that article policy. My personal experience and observation is that abuse of edit summaries is one of the top easily-addressed problems re: editor conduct.
2. WP:PERSONAL is already a policy, but it's not consistently enforced, that I've experienced or observed, especially WP:WIAPA. I have seen numerous editors accuse other editors (not just me) of being "tendentious" or "disruptive" - without evidence. Saying it doesn't make it true, but the more it gets said, the more the sayer and his/her audience start to internalize it. WP:TENDENTIOUS is an essay with a long list of "Characteristics of problem editors." Allegations of tendentious editing are serious and should fall under WP:WIAPA bullet 5: Serious accusations require serious evidence. Evidence often takes the form of diffs and links presented on wiki.
3. Have online, self-paced harassment training, followed by a simple test, that editors are encouraged to take. Taking it is voluntary, unless civility has become an issue for an editor; then, it would be required as a condition of keeping editing privileges.
4. Allow civility blocks to be punitive, not just "preventative." Allowing someone to behave uncivilly sends a strong message to others: Incivility is tolerated on Wikipedia. Punishing those whose conduct runs afoul of workplace civility policies (after first receiving a warning, if the behavior wasn't egregious) will make a whole lot of editors think twice about behaving similarly.

(I chose to add the last two items here to keep my ideas together.) Lightbreather (talk) 21:51, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

--Lightbreather (talk) 22:37, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

BHG, that conference Friendly space policy is a great overall policy. The whole thing, including contact info is a little over 300 words. And you're right, it's comparable to a bare-bones, plain English workplace policy. Lightbreather (talk) 23:00, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

@BHG. The so-called Friendly Space Policy implies the existence of an inner circle of (politically correct) censors who are to make determinations about the limits of "legitimate" and "illegitimate" speech. It also implies a specific and inevitably expanding list of formal behavioral proscriptions. For example, whoops, nobody even mentioned age discrimination! Add one to the list. And the NYC conference took the bold and silly step of including "favored copyright license" as a protected class! This will go on and on... Eventually, we are all oppressed victims carping over interpretations of the laundry list behavioral rules, enforcement of the laundry list of behavioral rules, the composition of the body policing the laundry list of behavioral rules... Which is fine if you want to have a picnic of like-minded people at a charming conference in New York City or something (where the FSP document was filed as unnecessary), but not so good in the real world of haggling about writing an encyclopedia — in which some of the most valuable contributors are also the grumpiest. Carrite (talk) 23:19, 29 July 2014 (UTC) —Last edit: Carrite (talk) 23:27, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

@Carrite, could you put your concern into a form that meets Jimbo's request (as host of the discussion): I'd like this discussion to continue but with concrete proposals for improvement rather than the fight that was going on. Lightbreather (talk) 23:39, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

@Lightbreather: I read Carrite's comments as an endorsement of the status quo, where some editors are effectively given carte blanche because they write good content. Jimbo specifically invited discussion based on the fundamental premise that we do have a problem, and that some people should be banned for it. If Carrite does accept that premise, they should make that clear. If not, then as Jimbo wrote, they are in the wrong discussion.

@Carrite: the cries of "censorship" are getting a bit old. People who want unfettered speech are free to go set up their own website; but any collaborative project has boundaries, and the Friendly Space Policy (FSP) just spells them out in an inclusive way. The current policy on en.wp does not properly describe practice ... because the practice on en.wp is that some boundaries (such as racism) are clearly marked and vigorously policed, while other are vague or non-existent, such as the tolerance of sexism and transphobia, where complainants usually get more grief than the offenders.
No magic inner circle of interpreters is required, just a commonsense interpretation of good manners which doesn't stop at the things which personally offend the young men who predominate amongst editors. What we have at the moment is a different sort of inner circle: a small and self-appointed group of a few dozen cheerleaders for a particular type of aggression.
The claim that tightly enforced civility somehow impedes open discussion about writing an encyclopedia is simply implausible. If someone is genuinely capable of writing a fine encyclopedic article, then are also quite entirely capable of expressing disagreement without resorting to obscene language or accusations of brainlessness, and capable of ending a discussion politely. If they are capable of fine writing which adheres to NPOV, then they are also capable of understanding that some language is unacceptable to others. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:38, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, BHG, in recent days it finally sunk in that despite the policies, if someone has been unofficially (maybe it's official?) awarded the valuable contributor award, then their conduct has earned less scrutiny. I actually read this in a discussion yesterday: "[editor] is an enigma: he can be so course, yet he writes amazing prose, one of our finest by anyone's standards." While I do appreciate good prose, no-one is irreplaceable. In a collaborative environment content ≥ conduct. Lightbreather (talk) 01:08, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

@BHG. I am sorry that you feel discussion of the implications upon free speech of the so-called Friendly Space Policy is "a bit old." That argument is not going away. I personally think that complaints about "obscene language" and demands for "politeness.........or else" are a bit old. Those are not going away either. The fact is, the Orwellian-named "Friendly Space Policy" is already pretty much the law of the land on-Wiki and has been for years. See: WP:WIAPA. Of course, be sure to read that carefully: the banned behavior are attacks made against an editor or group of editors; and there is no universal consensus here about the limits of such things. There is always going to be someone making the call and someone not happy with that call and at that point the food fight begins. Sure, it would be swell if smart people with rude streaks would bite their tongues. Sometimes they don't. We have procedures for dealing with that, and the consensus is what it is. I'm a realist. Carrite (talk) 01:03, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

@Carrite, en.wp is not and never has been a "free speech" zone. The terms and conditions make it very clear that some types of speech are unacceptable, and what I find old is the repeated desire of some editors to uphold a principle which is not and never has been policy.
As to realism, I am a realist too. The reality is that some editors are behave disgracefully because they know that they will get away with it. I am quite sure that they are well capable of behaving responsibly when they are in their employer's office or talking to a cop or to the grandmother; they choose not to do so here. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:17, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

@BHG. Ah, yes, let's return to policy. Excellent idea. An objectionable statement was made. A complaint was filed. A discussion was held. Consensus was rendered. Then the forum shopping and drama began. Consensus is what it is. Carrite (talk) 06:12, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

@Carrite, that brings us back to the nub of the problem, which is that by leaving these issues to the consensus of the young white men who predominate on Wikipedia, our civility policy is filtered through the lens of that demographic. That dominant young white male group has repeatedly shown a consensus not to uphold the civility policy.

When we have an admin openly expressing a view such as this, without apparent fear of sanction, then we have a problem which the community is unable to resolve through its usual mechanisms.

Leaving this to a consensus of the currently active community of editors amounts to the appointment of young white males as the arbiters of what constitutes good and bad practice in creating an inclusive environment. I know of no other context where that approach has has successfully overcome a gender imbalance, and am unsurprised at its failure here. That's why I believe that the Foundation should actively intervene, just as it did over BLPs. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:00, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl - You express an axiomatic belief that the gender imbalance is a direct result of the failure to create of an inclusive environment. Well, I suppose that could be, although you are guessing. Let me repeat here a little story for you that I have told before and recently repeated on Wikipediocracy......... During the 1990s I did a punk rock label. I put out a lot of stuff — across all formats, something like 100 releases. I was active in the national scene for my subgenre, pop-punk. We are not talking about shirts-off, ultra-macho, fights-in-the-slam-pit hardcore here, but rather the most melodic and accessible form of punk music. Think about Green Day and The Ramones, there ya go... Anyway, I promoted local shows, I went to a fair number of shows in the state of Oregon. The gender of the crowds? Eh, maybe skewed a touch past 50-50, male:female, but pretty darned close. But my mailing list, sent out to 1200 or so record buyers around the United States — that ran about 85:15 male-to-female almost as a constant (+/- 2%) throughout the entire 7 year history of my label. I know because I tracked gender on my database, I noticed the disparity ("gender gap," if you will) almost immediately, and I was interested in it. [Digression: my #1 customer in terms of dollar sales was a woman, interestingly.]

Now why was this? The live shows had gender parity, the record buyers had a gender imbalance almost precisely the same percentage as that of Wikipedia... Why? There was nothing misogynist about it, the printed catalogs were neither more nor less "impolite" than the language used at any live show or at any high school or university anywhere in America. My own personal-political background included a year sitting in on meetings of the New American Movement, a self-described and actively practicing "socialist-feminist" political organization. I don't have any hesitation in saying that I identify with the feminist tradition. There was absolutely nothing that I did or said or wrote that caused the gender imbalance of my mailing list — it is something that simply was... So you will have to forgive me for being sanguine about this situation, to forgive me for doubting the basic premises being advanced here. I do believe that aggressive obnoxiousness can drive away good editors. That's obvious, and it can be proven — see, for example, the case of User:Khazar2 cited above. But I absolutely do not believe that the attitudes and decision-making of "young white males" are necessarily (or even very likely) to be the cause of the gender disparity at WP. It is an interesting phenomenon, to be sure. More study needed. best, —Tim Davenport, Corvallis, OR (52 years old, white, male). /// Carrite (talk) 17:10, 31 July 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 17:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Carrite, you are falsely assuming that attending a concert = being a fan, rather than attending = being a fan or being friends with a fan. Looking at your numbers, I'd assume that two-thirds of the women present at your concerts were there because their boyfriends wanted to attend. (Presumably the next weekend, they'd both be at a concert that the girlfriend wanted to attend.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:06, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

You need to look at that Khazar2 situation more closely before you attempt to draw any conclusions from it. Eric Corbett 17:22, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

What are the correct conclusions to be drawn from that Khazar2 situation? DeCausa (talk) 22:08, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@Carrite: you claim that I express an axiomatic belief that the gender imbalance is a direct result of the failure to create of an inclusive environment. Not actually so. My evidence-based belief is that change in this area is a necessary but insufficient step in closing the gender gap.
Plentiful research which shows that the women are less likely to participate in collaborative activities (whether employment, voluntary projects or social gatherings) where aggressive and.or sexist behaviour is tolerated. More specifically, studies of Wikipedia have shown many factors behind the gender imbalance among Wikipedia's editors, but one factor is that some women find that the levels of aggression and sexism exceed their tolerance levels. Women learn how to live with that sort of conduct in many aspects of our lives, but when there are many ways of spending free time, women tend to prefer to do so clear of such behaviour.
The studies are v clear that there is no single solution to increasing the participation of women. My point is that one crucial part of the solution is tackling the aggression and sexism which flourishes in some corners of Wikipedia, and which is repeatedly sanctioned at ANI.
We have just had another instance of a wholly inappropriate behaviour being not approved, but actively cheered on even by administrators. Male administrators have pronounced at great length and in extraordinary numbers about their right to make such personal attacks, and to use gratuitous obscenities. An extraordinary number have gathered to denounce requests for an end to aggression and obscenity as "censorship" or as a demand for "special privilege". I have now gathered diffs on at least half-a-dozen cases of male editors engaging the classic patronising put-downs of women who object to inappropriate behaviour, denouncing the complainant as "emotional", "irrational", etc ... and we even have an administrator who openly advised those who don't like these systemic breaches of policy to leave en.wp.
One piece by former WMF ED Sue Gardner identified Nine Reasons Women Don’t Edit Wikipedia. And elsewhere (I can't find the ref right now), she expressed concern that recruiting more women editors was not a great idea if they were then driven away by the community's social dysfunctionalities. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:18, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

@BHG. You seem to imply some sort of semi-organized mass reaction as a mechanism for preserving some sort of gender-based privilege. That is off. Actually the issue is not one of gender at all, it is one of civility. Those who frame it as a gender war and rail against "male" editors not only miss the point, but they draw battle lines. Nor have you even considered the free speech implications of an external "civility" authority. In my humble opinion, that is what is driving about 75% of the defense of the current consensus on the Civility Question. As for the gender gap, it is almost definitely the byproduct of a whole array of contributing factors, many or most of which remain to be identified. An essay by Sue Gardner is no more authoritative than the post on the topic I just put up on WPO. We do not agree on much. There is news percolating of serious academic study of the question this week; that's what is needed. That also has little to do with the current brouhaha. Carrite (talk) 00:52, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Carrite: I have no idea whether the reaction is organised or simply a group of people with a similar outlook and interests; my guess is most likely the latter.

I stand by my point that this is in part a gender issue. Conduct such as that displayed earlier this week is much more likely to be offputting to women than to men, and I repeat that many chunks of it followed a classic pattern of sexism and misogyny. The belittling of women's objections; the trumpeting of obscenities; the depictions of calls for more woman-friendly conduct as "special privileges" (as if male patterns behaviour was the human norm). I am not drawing the battle lines; I am pointing to the battle lines which have been drawn by those who practice and support sexist and misogynist conduct.

I am bemused that you claim to know that I have "even considered the free speech implications". A more constructive approach would be to ask my views on that. Since you merely presumed rather than asking, I will spell out my views.

Wikipedia is not and never has been a free speech zone, nor has it ever claimed to be. Some editors appear to believe that it should be, and some may even have persuaded themselves that it is such a place; but encyclopedia-building is not usenet. Wikipedia is a collaborative project with many boundaries, and there are many many restrictions on what may be said. Unrestrained speech lets the loudest and most aggressive voices drive out the others, as happened to usenet.

As a general rule, I prefer the notion of a self-managing community, tho not strongly so; it is self-managing only in a rather illusory way, as it operates with externally-set limits. However, those who want to maximise self-management and fear intervention need to ensure that it operates with the broad support of the community rather than privileging the voices of the most aggressive men. Otherwise, self-regulation loses the confidence of the wider body of editors (90% of whom stray well clear of ANI), and creates a self-reinforcing community in the image of its vocal bullies. (The more that aggression and sexism are tolerated, the less likely that those who prefer better conduct will participate, which strengthens the position of the aggressors).

So the community has a choice: clean up its own act, or face external intervention.

If it wants to keep these matters internal, the community needs to start enforcing the civility policy, clampdown on gratuitous obscenity, and tear up the free passes of the big beasts. It can devise a mechanism whereby exclusionary problems like sexism and racism are examined by people who have at least some basic training in inclusivity and non-discrimination, rather than by gangs of angry white men who make a loud noise at ANI. If it succeeds, then there will no case for external intervention.

OTOH, it the community continue as now it will reach a point where external intervention very quickly becomes unavoidable. The UK has just been through a prolonged exercise of this type with its media: decades of pleas for self-regulation were destroyed by a cascade of evidence of systematic criminality within the media. Result: Leveson Inquiry and statutory regulation.

Something similar could very easily happen here. All it takes is for a few prominent write-ups about Wikipedia as the place which praises editors who uses the c-word when talking to women and denounces those who object or try to restrain them, and the Foundation suddenly has a serious credibility crisis forcing it to make a rapid intervention to reassure its donor base that their money is being spent on building an encyclopedia rather than running a Bro Code festival or a usenet refugee camp. I hope that the Foundation will not wait for such a crisis to break, and will try to act pre-emptively.

I believe that community-only-regulation of civility is sustainable only with major reform. Those in the community who abhor external regulation need to understand that the choice is not between the status quo and big brother: it is between reform or a ceding of some control. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:18, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

As some one who could be really uncivil and insulting in the Wild West of various anarchist and libertarian email lists over 17 years, I had to learn to chill it here at Wikipedia. However, a lot of male editors here are a heck of a lot more sensitive to uppity female snipes than guys on anarchist and libertarian email lists and will go yelling "WP:NPA" at the slightest hint of an insult, even if it's just their imagination. (Maybe it's the idea that some female - or anybody else for that matter - actually can rewrite or delete their work. On email one only can criticize.) I'm ambivalent about having learned to bite my tongue here and be more diplomatic. I respect diplomacy and consider it more effective than flaming. On the other hand, if the guys are allowed to have all that fun of insulting and flaming, those women who want to act like jerks and do it too should be allowed to. So please decide which way you want it guys, no double standards. Because what's good for the goose is good for the gander male gander is good for the female goose. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 06:23, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

WMF arbitrator for incivility cases

Regarding the idea of the WMF getting involved, I suggest having a WMF arbitrator with enhanced administrator powers, that editors can go to for help when they encounter an uncivil editor. The decision of the arbitrator could not be reversed by administrators or other editors, although an administrator could appeal to the arbitrator to change a decision. After a case is closed, the involved editors (plaintiff, defendant, and possibly a regular administrator) have the option of giving a brief review of the arbitrator. WMF management could periodically look at the editor reviews and case histories, and discuss with the arbitrator as needed.
This arbitration system for cases of incivility could be done on a trial basis for 6 months. Near the end of the trial, the Wikipedia community would have the opportunity to comment on whether it should be continued. --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:02, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

This seems like a reasonable suggestion, K31416. An alternate possibility would be a threshold for escalating to ArbCom - for example, if three or more administrators disagree with the decision of another administrator, then the issue at hand is automatically moved to Arbcom. That might help reduce the divisiveness of some of these issues. --129.94.102.201 (talk) 03:10, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I've found much incivility arises from content issues, in which case good mediation can be helpful. When it's an individual who just constantly uses clearly insulting words/phrases - especially clear slurs and curse words - admins just have to be strong and deal with it. But as I can see from the recent ANI thread "Conduct unbecoming of an administrator" discussed here, when all sorts of personal relationships/histories/etc. get involved it can be hard to have a neutral individual figure it all out. Maybe hired mediators also could have private conversations with individuals to try to figure out what the problem is. Hopefully they would not have developed various allegiances and the knowledge that a real person might talk to you some day (in a sympathetic and rational fashion) might be enough for people to control themselves a bit. The human touch, and all that. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 04:26, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Why not ask the women?

The first step would be to create an environment in which editors feel free to raise concerns.

I was quite interested to read in the recent interview of Lila Tretikov that the interviewer claimed to have had contact with more than one female editor who revealed their gender to him privately, but not on-wiki.

I too have had women identify themselves to me privately, when their public identity was not known. I am not really up to speed on the topic of gender, but here is a collection of comments given to me by women editors Offwiki.

On editing

• It is dominated by men. Everyone is assumed to be male.

• There are crude, sexist jokes among administrators and any objection is ignored.

• Topics that in any way involve feminism or men's rights are dominated by men.

• Then toss in harassment of female editors, who then end up in this place where male editors can tell them to fuck off, question their reading skills, question their language skills, tell people they should be editing... all while doing very little of their own content work.

•  Women who start contributing at a certain level have to be perfect while dealing with harassment. Anything else is not acceptable.

•  I'd guess that the level of women amongst elite editors is even lower than the 10% estimates because once you get to that point, women bail to get away from the toxic editing environment.

•  Admins have repeatedly been willing to count votes and articles getting more traffic as a way of circumventing WP:NPOV in terms of treatment of gender segregated sport. This has a huge potential impact on female editor retention because it sends a message that NPOV is secondary, and when women or editors of women's sport bring this up, it can get really ugly.

On articles

• Articles on topics of interest to women are often required to have better reliable sources, which does not apply to topics that tend to be of interest to men.

• Images of women on WP are too frequently pornographic and in some cases sadistic.

• Women who are BLP subjects are much more prone to have difficulties having irrelevant information about them taken out of their WP articles.

• The categorization system on WP is sometimes used to separate women novelists (fill in anything to replace novelists) from the category of novelists.

• Women of notable achievement in all areas are less likely to be in Wikipedia than men; irrelevant muck is too often drug up when there is an article on a notable woman.

• In sports naming conventions (because only one topic can be at a particular title), a non-neutral position of preferencing men's teams over women's teams when it comes to national teams where they are by rule segregated by gender and both represent the country at the national level.

How could this be addressed?

• It probably can't. At this point women either have to edit WP as a man or as a gender neutral name or they have to band together to get their proper edits to stick.
• Ridiculous. I do not edit as a man, and have never really felt a need to do so. Yes, there are a few jerks on Wikipedia of all genders and backgrounds. Let's not begin man-bashing, just because it might be popular and politically correct in the context of this thread, its too easy for it to turn into a whiny "I'm a woman and the men are holding me back, poor little me!" I have been working with the men on this project for about eight years and have never felt ganged-up on because I am a woman. Yes, there is the occasional jerk of course, (of all genders), and they are best handled on an individual basis. There is no cabal. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 00:10, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

well said Sue Rangell, and glad to hear of your experiences here. --Malerooster (talk) 02:55, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Sue Rangell. I'd love to hear your tips on how to edit without being subjected to the variety of problems listed above, including wikihounding, harassment and being subjected to double standards. And how to deal with them should they occur. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force wants to generate some good essays on that topic and your insights probably could be valuable. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 04:32, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Some of my own suggestions

1. Participation of at least one woman admin in gender-topic situations, as in the three-admin closing of the Hillary article. Agree on the names of closing admins in advance.
2. A specific policy for respect, tolerance and acceptance stating that comments that demean any person—whether a fellow editor, an article subject, or any other person on the basis of personal characteristics such as race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex or gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression—are unwelcome, and are grounds for blocking, topic restrictions, or other sanctions. The ArbCom has already come to terms with some of this in the Manning naming dispute case.
3. I have read somewhere in some Wikiproject that WP:Mansplaining is still a redlink. Someone should fill it in. striking because of explained objections> I'll leave it up to the readers' sense of irony to see if it is edited first by a male or female user. See Splaining. —Neotarf (talk) 22:25, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Then I can haul it to AfD to see whether it's a Non-Notable Neologism, as I presume it to be... Carrite (talk) 22:32, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Mansplaining was created by Sue Gardner in August 2013. There's a redirect from Splaining. PamD 22:39, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

And, to quote from the article, "In 2010 it was named by The New York Times as one of its "Words of the Year." PamD 22:40, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Wow, that's an easy pass of GNG from footnotes showing... Learn something every day. Carrite (talk) 23:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry to whoever did the thoughtfulness of writing all of the manifesto above but holy shit what a load of bullshit. I'd sure like to see where this is a huge problem on wikipedia, sure every once in a while some moron will come across that thinks he is superior cause he has a dangler...but holy shit 3 days of fucking bickering and whining? Who cares who calls who a cunt, queer, nigger or insert offensive comment. Pull up your big boy pants or panties let's not let those get in a twist either and move the fuck on. AN, ANI and Jimbo's page are not places to solve issues like this, they are places to ferment the discord and draw more people in. Drop the motherfucking sticks and go and beat vandals with the self righteous angst you are putting in this. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 22:46, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure who or what this mess of epithets is directed at, but I have left a note on the user's talk page to the effect that its removal is in order. —Neotarf (talk) 23:46, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I've replied declining as the intent is clear in the comment that I am not singling anyone or group out. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 23:49, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

So, it's ok to be a jerk, just as long as the jerkishness is directed at everyone? Tarc (talk) 23:58, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Well let's try it this way...sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you. If you haven't the ability to see the message behind the words, I'm sorry I can't help you. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 00:01, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

<Sigh.> —Neotarf (talk) 00:21, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Sigh you deserve a barnstar for the most cowardly and passive aggressive ANI notification I've seen in almost 4.5 years. Congrats. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 00:42, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

You got a ping, isn't it bad enough to have all that embarrassing stuff on your talk page as it is? That's more consideration than you show for anyone else. —Neotarf (talk) 01:04, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

So, Hell in a Bucket...can I drop the c-word on your mom? Your grandma, wife, sister, girlfriend? Would you tell any of them to just shrug it off? Tarc (talk) 00:44, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

We're told that often enough as kids to ignore the bullies or people that call us names. Do we just forget it just because we are adults? Sorry but that's a non-sequitor Hell in a Bucket (talk) 00:49, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

You're an adult? If they told you that as a kid, they lied. —Neotarf (talk) 01:04, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah I guess the beard didn't key you off on that...guess that explains a lot about the person I'm dealing with...and in reference to your excuse on why your passive aggressive ani notice about wanting it to be nicer then having it on my page...bullshit you have been here long enough to know that notice means shit. You posted it here in hopes that more people here would see it and comment and thus stir up the pot more. Nice try how's that thread working out btw? Hell in a Bucket (talk) 01:08, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd still like to see the internal wiki WP:MANSPLAIN version go bluelink, maybe with some DIY tips. I bet in time it could replace WP:DICK and WP:DIVA in popularity.<striking because of explained objections> —Neotarf (talk) 23:59, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

All very valid points, and gender problems do contribute to overall civility, though I'm still pondering how to address this on WP. I was invited to join the Gender Gap project just a few days ago, but within 48 hours of my joining, another editor joined whom I do not trust at this time. When I mentioned this, and why, a couple of male editors on the project chastised me - so I withdrew from the project. My focus now is overall WP civility. Maybe when that improves, individual projects will seem safer and more female friendly, too. Lightbreather (talk) 23:24, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

What I just wrote is in response to the larger issue you described, but your first two suggestions above are spot-on and do-able. In fact, the second one is just about covered by the first item in WP:WIAPA:

Racial, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ageist, religious, political, ethnic, national, sexual, or other epithets (such as against people with disabilities) directed against another contributor, or against a group of contributors. Disagreement over what constitutes a religion, race, sexual orientation, or ethnicity is not a legitimate excuse.

It just needs to be enforced! Lightbreather (talk) 23:30, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Enforced by whom? Carrite (talk) 23:37, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't know. Who enforces BLP policy? Or en dashes? Formerip (talk) 00:12, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

The concept of WP:Mansplaining is a hateful and sexist neologism and amounts to an ad hominem attack against men based on their gender. I will MfD any incarnation of that page. There is no room for discrimination on Wikipedia whether it be focused on women or men. Focus on the central point of an argument, not on the argumenter.--v/r - TP 23:58, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Then what about WP:DICK? —Neotarf (talk) 00:17, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

If Mansplaining becomes standard use in 100 years and is part of our vocabulary, I'll grudgingly accept it as an essay peice like I grudgingly accept WP:DICK. I'd prefer a discrimination free encyclopedia though.--v/r - TP 00:21, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

It's already in common use in various corners of teh interwebs, and is certainly a shorthand way to conveniently explain a set observable behaviors, but in any case, I won't be the one to start it, at least partly because of your strong reaction to it.

But for the way the phrase can hit the nail on the head, see this heartbreaking combination of obvious good will and "don't worry your pretty little head about it because I know what's best for you-all lady folk". —Neotarf (talk) 00:57, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

It is in use in certain areas of the interwebs activism and it can stay there. It's a neologism that amounts to telling people to shut up. Regarding your comment about Dennis - you'll have to prove Dennis wouldn't talk to anybody like that and that his comments are motivated by gender before I'll accept it as evidence of 'mansplaining'.--v/r - TP 01:21, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Then, TParis, you don't understand it, because it has nothing to do with motivation. Try this one. —Neotarf (talk) 02:08, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

No, Neotarf, you don't understand. And sadly, you never will. 'Mansplaining' is entirely hateful, sexist, discriminatory ("Mansplaining is when a dude tells you, a woman, how to do something you already know how to do"), and diversionary. You arn't bridging a gap by perpetuating the neologism here, you are widening it. You mine as wlel be one of the other editors saying the "C" word, because you are having the exact same effect.--v/r - TP 02:35, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we can just agree to use the word "patronizing"? __ E L A Q U E A T E 02:43, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely. I have no problem describing the behavior. I just don't want us to pretend to be talking about gender equality by using gender discriminatory words. Patronizing is good with me.--v/r - TP 02:48, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm late with this, but I agree. Patronizing is the (much) better word. Lightbreather (talk) 22:14, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

These proposals seem to be targeted more at gender bias on WP that at incivility. There is overlap between the two, and there's no doubt that there is gender bias on WP. But the proposal for mandatory women closers has nothing directly to do with incivility, and I doubt that "mansplaining" is much of an issue here (it could even be argued that it would be a sign of progress for male editors to talk down to female a little more, since this would at least be a form of acknowledgment that they exist). Formerip (talk) 00:12, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

This is being framed as a hostile work environment issue. The c-bomb especially, repeated at least ten times on that thread alone, is being seen as a dog-whistle message for women to get out of Wikipedia. —Neotarf (talk) 00:35, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and it's terrible and you should focus your efforts there. I'd be your biggest ally.--v/r - TP 01:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

When places like AN/I are filled with hostile and garbage advice that women editors should hide the fact they're women or they forfeit any expectation of non-harassment or equal treatment, as shown in this gem or reasoning, then it's going to be viewed as a hostile environment; at least until there's some indication these viewpoints are more broadly repudiated by the general population of editors. Anonymity is a great as a choice, but it shouldn't be an expected requirement. There's a lot of people worried about civility concerns somehow restricting their freedom that then have no problem demanding other people live under a code of silence. That's a bit of "Liberty for me, but not for thee."__ E L A Q U E A T E 01:38, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

There was also the admin who invited[2] women to clear off if we find the place too male-dominated or too rude. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:50, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

@Elaqueate: try reading what I said, not some warped interpretation of it. I never said women editors should hide their anonymity. I said that everyone has that option. Yours is typical of the bias: reading things that are not there an then labelling them as hostile, garbage etc. The sooner the misconceived "Task Force" (why not "Project", instead of a military-inspired term that implies official status?) is disbanded, the sooner harmony will be restored. - Sitush (talk) 02:02, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Ahh, if there aren't groups of people talking about problems facing women editors, then there won't be problems facing women editors. You have fascinating ideas. Maybe if you stop sharing the things that bother you, then you will achieve a similar harmony for yourself? __ E L A Q U E A T E 02:20, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

You still don't get it, do you? You've not addressed your original misinterpretation and you've not addressed the dreadful naming of GGTF. All you've done is cast an unwarranted aspersion and made an illogical assumption. Class act. - Sitush (talk) 02:25, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

How did I misinterpret? You said: What gender gap? This is all BS promoted by, mostly, a vociferous group of people who, if they chose to apply the anonymity that they are entitled to, could just get on with doing what we're supposed to be here to do. Hard to interpret that as anything other than something like "people who complain about bad interactions from people who know their gender had the right to hide, and if they didn't, they don't have the right to complain". Am I far off your intent? (As for naming a task force somewhere, that's some strange red herring you've brought up. Demanding I address it is just weird. Did people somehow hurt you when they named it whatever they did? In any case, that's not me.) __ E L A Q U E A T E 02:38, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I have an observation about the use of the "c-bomb" (the four-letter "c" word) in recent conversations. It was repeated about 15 times by eight or nine male editors. (One female editor used it five times in one post. Seemed a bit much to me, but she had her point to make, I guess.) Anyway, I used the word "cocksucker" in my original post to Jimbo. No-one repeated it. Talk amongst yourselves. Lightbreather (talk) 22:34, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

WP:NPA discussion

• In the lead of the policy WP:NPA is the following sentence.[3]

"Derogatory comments about other editors may be removed by anyone."

Could this have been used in the example where someone was referred to with a vulgar word? --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, and in this case the post was removed and the editor that made the comments just put it back.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:19, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Do you have a diff for that? Eric Corbett 21:31, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

The next sentence in the policy WP:NPA is the following.[4]

"Repeated or egregious personal attacks may lead to blocks."

Could this have been used when the editor repeated the attack? --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

What attack? Eric Corbett 23:01, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

• Who was referred to with a vulgar word? Eric Corbett 21:16, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if this is no longer a valid argument. I defended the remark, only because you have said it to many people. But, should you be saying it to anyone? I mean after all, your very own words could be used to describe your behavior...could they not?--Mark Miller (talk) 21:21, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I've said what to many people? What about answering the question I asked just above your evasive reply? Eric Corbett 21:28, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

My reply was not to evade. I think you know the answer to your own question and I find it a little odd being asked by you. Seems rhetorical to me.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

What I may or may not know is not the issue here, so why not answer the question? Eric Corbett 21:36, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

You asked a question you are fully aware of, even if you don't agree on the details.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:42, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have to press you, because you're propagating a lie. Who was referred to with a vulgar word? It's a simple enough question to which I do indeed know the answer: nobody. Eric Corbett 21:51, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Other editors and for the derogatory word see:[5] [6] Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:44, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

You as well eh? So which "other editors" did I refer to with a vulgar word? Eric Corbett 21:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

The wording is "derogatory about", and the editors would be the ones you sought to advise. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:19, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

As evasive as ever. Which editors were referred to with a vulgar word? Eric Corbett 23:00, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Eric, if you're looking for an example of you referring to editors in a vulgar fashion perhaps this edit summary will suit? It took less than five minutes to find. 81.171.97.186 (talk) 23:45, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I was actually looking for an answer to my question, which you and others here are for some reason desperately trying to avoid answering. Eric Corbett 23:59, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I believe I've answered your question 'So which "other editors" did I refer to with a vulgar word?'. Or are you now going to try to say that your edit summary wasn't directed at an editor? Moral fibre indeed. 81.171.97.186 (talk) 00:10, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

The policy concerns "derogatory comments about." The editors you advised in your comment is not evasive, that's who you were addressing. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:26, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, I get it that you don't have the moral fibre to admit that you're simply dissembling. Eric Corbett 00:03, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Don't mistake yourself. I'm just reading the words other people have written. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:16, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

For reference: diff that introduced the word cunt to the subject discussion [7]; diff that redacted it [8]; diff that restored it [9]; link to the discussion section for context [10]; link to corresponding WP:ANI section of complaint [11]. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:05, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Summary of the above diffs — An editor used a word that another editor considered offensive and a personal attack. The two editors could not settle the issue between themselves. A complaint was filed at WP:ANI. No administration action was taken. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:23, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Entrenched sexism

Wikipedia isn't alone in having a toxic work environment. There are a lot of real-world examples of organisations that have successfully dealt with this issue. Why doesn't the WMF partner with, or solicit advice from other organisations as to how they changed? One example that comes to mind is the ACLU, whose key mission is to educate, and who I'm sure would be able to give some very useful advice, but I'm sure there are many others. The issue of entrenched sexism is not unique to WP and I think it would be very helpful to learn from others in this circumstance. 101.116.91.82 (talk) 23:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Where's the evidence for the existence of "entrenched sexism" in WP? Eric Corbett 00:01, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Just have to look - anyone can do it - [12] and [13] .. [14] -- Moxy (talk) 00:16, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

This source doesn't describe it as sexism, but it does analyze the gender imbalance on Wikipedia:

• Lam, S.; Uduwage, A.; Dong, Z.; Sen, S.; Musicant, D.; Terveen, L.; Reidl, J. (October 2011). "WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia's Gender Imbalance" (PDF). WikiSym '11. ACM.

--Lightbreather (talk) 00:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Gender imbalance =/= sexism. Just think about it, anyone can do it. Eric Corbett 00:49, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Your observation is noted. Have you read the paper yet? Or the other links? Or maybe done a little research yourself? Can I get you a cup of coffee? Lightbreather (talk) 00:59, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

What research do I need to do to know that gender imbalance =/= sexism? What research have you done to prove the case for your claim of "entrenched sexism"? Doesn't seem like you've done any. Eric Corbett 01:05, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Its hard when people are not willing to even consider others POV. A better rebuttal would have been this link. Wikipedia is made up of people from all around the world and many come from places where women simply dont have right or are consider less able .....this is reflected in attitudes towards women here. They bring up problem and get even more humiliated for being considered to sensitive. We have to ask ourselves - are there just a few bad apples we need to toss out or is it a bigger wide spread problem? -- Moxy (talk) 01:09, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Probably both at this point.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:20, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I've seen no "entrenched sexism" on Wikipedia. I see the odd (in both senses) individual, just as there are for anti-Semites etc, but not some institutional ethos. That seems to be more a case of some people making illogical leaps. Like Eric, I've got on well with various contributors who self-identify on-wiki as women but I really couldn't care less that they are such and & it is evident because I cannot name names off-hand. They are no more special here than someone who self-identifies as a man. - Sitush (talk) 02:19, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

It seems your personal experience with it has been great then. Thanks for self-reporting how fine you are with women.__ E L A Q U E A T E 02:55, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Sarcasm, or whatever it is you were aiming at, won't get you anywhere. I am still waiting to see proof of the entrenched sexism. You and others are shouting loudly but you are not providing proof. Which is typical of many pressure groups and of at least one specific person who is at the heart of the GGTF. - Sitush (talk) 06:19, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

How about looking at our content? Female-oriented content is barely visible, while male-oriented content makes up most GA and FA work. Start there. Viriditas (talk) 06:28, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I've no metrics for that but, yes, it might be true. However, all of the shouting is about civility, not content. If the GGTF (better renamed}} was intended to promote more coverage of those topics then I'd support it. I know that they do mention that aspect but their main purpose - encouraged by radical real-life activists like CMDC - seems to be more "anti-male" and civility-based, intended to sanitise and censor rather than improve. I'm probably not saying this well: should have been out of the door & off to work five minutes ago, sorry. You don't have to be female to cover female-related topics, of course. - Sitush (talk) 06:34, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea what female-oriented content is. J3Mrs (talk) 09:02, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

You can start by reading Wikipedia:WikiProject Women scientists ("part of Wikipedia's systemic bias is that women in science are woefully underrepresented"). Viriditas (talk) 10:16, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

But I find anything with women in the title so off-putting. Why would any editor want to be directed there? If you think that's what women come to edit then I'm not too surprised at the lack of take up. J3Mrs (talk) 17:27, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

It's difficult to tell if you are being purposefully obtuse or if you are in denial of the gender gap. You've been given evidence, yet you still deny it. Viriditas (talk) 22:18, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Obtuse? Not deliberately but I really still don't know what it is. What proof is there that closing the gender gap would produce this "female-oriented" material? I think there are more women here than some suppose, writing about all sorts of things that interest them, art, history, geography, literature, biography, industrial archaeology, who knows. Editors will edit whatever takes their fancy and should be judged on the quality of the content they produce, not whether they are male or female. I've produced, with help, some GAs but I don't see them as being oriented in any direction, male or female. Volunteers will do as volunteers please, thank goodness. J3Mrs (talk) 08:12, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

A thought or two on "Don't ask, don't tell"

I'm wondering whether "DADT" might be a viable solution for the sexism problem on WP. I's sure most well read editors will be aware of the application of a DADT policy in the US military establishment w.r.t. sexual orientation and the problems that have consequently arisen/not been solved. However, the online environment is different because "nobody knows you're a dog". We don't (or at least don't need to) reveal our actual identities/characteristics at all - an editor's WP-persona is whatever they say it is. If nobody on WP knows that I am a 40-something, white, South African, English speaking, male, wheelchair user - it is impossible to subject me to any of the "-isms" that arise out of those characteristics. I would be immune to sexism, ageism, racism, disableism, etc. because a potential insulter/discriminator won't know which "-ism" to use against me. Has any IP editor ever complained of sexism/racism/etc? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:02, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Are you actually proposing the implementation of a failed policy that was recalled in 2011? Seriously? So when discrimination does arise, we should just ignore it? That's your solution? My gosh, is it 2014 or 1914? Viriditas (talk) 10:20, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Viriditas, sometimes on Wikipedia it looks more like 14BC :(

I wonder whether people who make suggestions like this one ever stop to consider what their life would be like only if they took care never to disclose some core attribute of themselves, such as their gender, race or sexuality. Have they ever considered what it would be like to be fired from your job because someone became aware that you were -- whisper it -- heterosexual? Or that if they disclosed the fact of being male, they had nobody but themselves to blame for abuse or discrimination or hostility which followed?

Hiding those attributes doesn't make hostility to those attributes go away. It just means that people are unable to disclose the impact of denigrations of those attributes. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:01, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

@User:BrownHairedGirl I fully realize the hostility doesn't go away - but by not revealing that you have the attribute the hostility cannot be aimed at you - someone can't be stoned if there are no stones. I'm not saying blame the victim, but maybe if the victim stops actually giving the haters the stones, they won't be able to throw any. Just like WP:Deny seeks to disarm trolls, if there are no easily available targets for the haters here, they can't exercise their hate. Again - this is cyberspace, nobody really needs to even have a race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, etc here. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:25, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

(ec)I'm not proposing anything, I'm just putting an idea here for discussion - this is Jimbo's talk page, not WP:VPP. As far as I know we have never had such a "policy" so how could it have been "recalled in 2011"? You seem to be missing the key point - if nobody knows that I'm male/female/white/black/gay/Muslim/atheist/Australian/Russian/whatever it is impossible to use it as a basis for discrimination. That's where the US military policy failed - in the face-to-face world it is basically impossible to hide characteristics that form the basis of discrimination. Here in the online environment people only know things about me that I have actually revealed. BTW the WP:Advice for younger editors page does in fact recommend exactly this strategy - it advises young editors not to reveal their age to make it impossible to victimize them for being young. Has any IP editor ever complained of racism/sexism/homophobia? No, because an IP editor is just a number, an IP has no gender, race, nationalty, religion, etc. - maybe we should all just be numbers. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:12, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

As I understand it, isn't the argument more around what in European discrimination law we call "indirect discrimination" e.g. an atmosphere/conduct that repels women, preferencing topics that find more favour with men etc The disclosure of gender only has a bearing on "direct" discrimation. I'm not saying whether or not I agree with the foregoing - just that this suggestion wouldn't address much of the alleged problem in any case. DeCausa (talk) 11:15, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

IPs complain about racism/sexism/homophobia all the time. You want examples? "I don't want to take part in the community aspects of this website, particularly as the area that I edit in has a lot of openly sexist editors and it means forming an identity with them --80.193.191.143 (talk) 14:19, 19 July 2014 (UTC)"[15] Dodger67, please try to familiarize yourself with Wikipedia. You couldn't be more wrong about your characterization of IPs and how to best deal with discrimination. Hiding our heads in the sand is not the right approach. And as for victimizing people for being young, that's somewhat of a joke. In the real world (such as not on Wikipedia) people are victimized for being old, not young. Unlike other countries, in the United States, for example, youth is prized above all else in every facet of life. This kind of youth-obsessed culture didn't really exist in the US until the 1960s. And if you do the slightest bit of research on the subject, you'll discover it's a long-term marketing campaign intended to provide a fresh supply of consumers who will demand that their parents buy them the latest x, y, and z. So if you're looking for victims, look no farther than the old people who have been discarded by society at every level because they are no longer hungry consumers and productive creators of junk. Young people like Frosty who think it's unbearably funny to refer to women as cunts are victims of their own immaturity. Viriditas (talk) 11:30, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

• Yeah....because DADT worked sooo well for the US military it surely will work as well or better on a civilian, international, encyclopedic website? (In case anyone missed that...it was sarcasm) So what....you gonna ban everyone who uses their real name? Force us back into the "closet"? This was just not thought through very well, but I trust the good faith of the OP. The issue isn't our characteristics, its the problem of allowing others to discuss them as weapon or a blunt object to beat over an editors head.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:50, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

• "Don't ask, don't tell" only would work if a) people weren't allowed to use names that indicated gender and b) those who had done so before be allowed to change their user names and start editing from scratch with just a note that they had a previous editing history and were an editor in good standing, with maybe a "stamp of approval" or something. But what a step backward in human consciousness that would be, eh? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 04:49, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

In the interests of WikiLove and WikiPeace

How about we let go of all this pointless hositlity, join hands, and sing a lovely ditty?--The Loving Kindness Advocate ^{♥ ♥}23:37, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Hall of fame quality troll, vanishing in five - four - three - two... Carrite (talk) 23:44, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I like the way this Devil's Advocate thinks. ~Frosty (Talk page) 01:09, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Which proves my point. Your user page says you are only 18 years old. You don't yet have enough experience nor knowledge based on experience to understand this discussion. Viriditas (talk) 02:28, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Well ain't that just a beautiful (and inappropriate) ad hominem. KonveyorBelt 03:33, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

On the contrary, in the context of proving my point (which is discussed on Lightbreather's talk page), there is nothing ad hominem here. I maintain and continue to theorize that all of Wikipedia's so-called gender bias problems can be attributed to its young, immature demographic, which just so happens to be male. In other words, older males are less likely to fall afoul of the gender bias, and we've seen this to be true time and time again. Young males like Frosty up above, who openly praise and admire trolls who make fun of women simply don't have the necessary self-reflection that comes with experience and age. Physiologically, his brain hasn't even finished developing. To address the gender gap, therefore, we must first address the immaturity of our editors. I've recommended on Lightbreather's page that we should focus on education and strategies over and above noticeboards. This means doing exactly what Lightbreather is doing, calling editors on their bad behavior whenever it appears and offering insight and strategies for dealing with and getting along with other editors. So, nothing ad hominem here at all. Viriditas (talk) 06:13, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Uh, nope, under Big Brother's Friendly Space Policy™, you have just committed an ageist attack and you are gone. The Thought Police (pro staff of WMF) have so ruled. There is no appeal. Thank you for your service to Wikipedia! Carrite (talk) 06:31, 30 July 2014 (UTC) last edit: Carrite (talk) 06:34, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

You've evidently never been to Silicon Valley, the Solar System's leader in real, institutional ageism. It's worse than Logan's Run. Viriditas (talk) 10:23, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

What does any of this have to do with real ageism, racism, sexism, ultra-nationalism, or religious hatred, ad infinitum? This is all a gigantic diversion. Civility can't be policed with Civility Police, it takes a common will of the entire community to show provocateurs of all stripes the door. This issue should have ended with the first ANI decision. The next step would have been an ArbCom case. Instead, we all have made Orville Redenbacher (kindly deceased front man for ConAgra) into a rich man with forum shopping, idiotic epithets, involved blocks, non-consultative unblocks, abruptly terminated ANI debates, and on and on. The mess traces back to the original verbal bomb-thrower and the aggrieved party who refused to accept community consensus and follow standard protocol for an appeal. Carrite (talk) 17:28, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Technically speaking, 18 is quite advanced in catfish years.--The Ichthyology Advocate ^{tlk. cntrb.05:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC)}

Refocus indeed?

I would like to point folks back to the initial response by DangerousPanda to the initial post (all now hatted), where DP laid out the forum-shopping background to the OP and suggested there was some WP:SPIDERMAN action going on here. I want to go back a step further than DP did. Just prior to launching the civility/sexism crusade that DP describes, Lightbreather received a topic-ban from gun-control topics at Arbcom Enforcement, which you can read here. As far as I can see, and as I tried to point out to her here, Lightbreather has pretty much zero self-insight into the behavior that led to that topic ban, and instead of taking the topic-ban as a wakeup call, has shrugged it off and redirected the advocate's zeal that got her topic-banned into a new crusade.

It is crazy to me see all the whirlwind that has been created from such a beginning. They make movies about stuff like this.

And the discussions and drama that have unfolded point up the difficulties of enforcing Civility as a pillar. The aspects of Civility in action that matter most, are very hard to clearly define, and when violations arise, it takes a lot of work to sort out what happened between other editors, and it is so, so easy to put one's own spin on things and just hear what is important to you, and so hard for so many of us, to see the plank in our own eye. Which one can observe a lot of, in what has unfolded. And these are the some of the reasons the community's efforts to enforce Civility have collapsed in the past. ~Maybe~ it is worth putting some structure back in place, but it needs to be done deliberately and wisely. By insightful, experienced editors who have lived through past efforts and understand why the community walked away from them. Not in a passionate crusade.

And in my view, Lightbreather remains as unaware of her inability to leave advocacy at the WP login as the day she received her topic ban. The problem for her is still the speck in someone else's eye.Jytdog (talk) 01:18, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I tried to point out to her here, Lightbreather has pretty much zero self-insight into the behavior that led to that topic ban... Re: that link, I do hope everyone who's interested does read it: Jytdog's comments and mine. One of my favorite lines from him is: "Plenty of kind folks have you tried to help you see you what you have been doing wrong." Though I'm not too keen on the term, this is a good example of mansplaining. If you don't want to gum-up Jimbo's talk page, here's a space for you, too. [16] Please keep it civil. Lightbreather (talk) 01:33, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

No. That is perfectly normal to be said in the course of almost any administrative action. It has nothing to do with gender or incivility. Sometimes people just aren't listening. GoldenRing (talk) 12:27, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Oh! And since Jytdog wants others to read DP's initial response to my discussion with Jimbo, I want others to read my response to DP.[17] Lightbreather (talk) 01:46, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

@Jytdog - Arbcom is not made up of perfect saints. WP:A/G itself states that the arbitrators "do not have much time" and they "care much more about product than process", which ensures that the majority of their decisions are at least controversial, if not outright inaccurate. -A1candidate (talk) 02:08, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

A1, generalities aside, if you take some time and read the discussion and links in the AE, you will see that the outcome was apt. Jytdog (talk) 02:14, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I clicked the link to ArbCom, and the first thing that caught my attention was an inaccurate topic-ban of Herxue, but that's another topic for another day. As for Lightbreather, I actually took the time to read the bulk of the discussion, but I came out less than impressed. What happened was that EdJohnston first proposed a warning to both parties and everyone agreed. Then EdJohnston changed his mind and proposed an arbitrary (pun fully intended!) 6 month topic-ban and everyone agreed again. The ability to pause and critically evaluate an issue before passing a judgement was (and is) entirely non-existent. -A1candidate (talk) 02:42, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry but that is an inaccurate reading. On July 2 already Ed brought up the question of who was making edits on other side of Scalhotrod's reverts, listed by Lightbreather, and said that if that was one person, that person would likely be sanctionable also ... 6 days later Ed said it was looking to him like both parties should at least be warned, and by July 12 Ed had looked and seen the edit war was the two of them and looked at the behavior of both of them at RSN that had developed since they had started deliberating, and found that "we have two one-note editors who are going to make edits favoring their own position on any mainspace articles", and recommended topic ban for both. Other admins were following the reasoning all along and consented. There was never a "change of mind" but an evolution as they looked deeper. It was deliberative and not rushed. Jytdog (talk) 03:06, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

But this is off topic in any case. The point I am trying to make is that enforcing Civility is pretty much impossible. Way too subjective, and way too often (present company included) folks are too busy looking at the specks in other people's eyes and not seeing the plank in their own. Especially on emotionally-laden topics. And even in pretty-clear cut cases, it is hard to get admins to read carefully through a bunch of horrible discussions and actually take action; what volunteer wants that job? It needs to be really screaming bloody murder - a real personal threat - to get action taken. And that is not what this crusade is about - it is about much more subtle things that are much harder to define, much less take action on. Jytdog (talk) 03:14, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I think Lightbreather’s topic ban isn’t really relevant. I admittedly know nothing about it, so will not attempt to comment on whether or not it was fair, but either way, it seems we should stick to the civility debate she’s brought to light regarding whether or not “cunt” is an appropriate word to throw around on Wikipedia and whether or not Wikipedia’s current norms and practices represent something similar to a “hostile work environment” for female editors. Currently, only about 10% of editors are female so this is a serious issue and I think it’s best we stick to the issues as much as possible and not make things personal regarding editors. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 03:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Having lurked at ANI for a bit and seen quite a few civility-related discussions come and go, it seems to me that the problem is that there are a few admins who very vocally oppose any action on civility and that this is interpreted as a lack of consensus to take any action. A related problem is that the probability of ANI action is generally inversely proportional to the length of discussion minus what has been contributed by the parties in a dispute. There have been a number of cases where there has been more-or-less consensus to take action but no action has been taken and my slightly-cynical assessment of the reasons is that no uninvolved admin could be bothered reading it all to assess consensus.

Presently almost any accusation of incivility on ANI is quickly shot down. Usually it is explained that action for incivility is almost impossible, citing some other particularly egregious case where no action was taken as precedent. Why this isn't dismissed as WP:OTHERSTUFF I don't know.

So it seems to me there are three possibilities for fixing this, if indeed it needs fixing:

• Change policy to allow any single admin to impose a (perhaps limited) block for incivility. This would avoid the inertia of long ANI discussions but would be easy to abuse.
• Remove responsibility for enforcing civility from the general run of administrators and give it to someone else (the Civility Board that has been suggested elsewhere). This would avoid the inertia of long ANI discussions but would probably lead to a lot of complaints.
• Create lots of new admins who view incivility as a problem, effectively stacking ANI. I'm not sure this would really work - it's hard to get the right people, they would have all sorts of other powers we might not want them to have and it might actually make the inertia of ANI worse anyway.

GoldenRing (talk) 12:45, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

As an afterthought to that, I also think that this discussion needs to be separated from sexism. Where it happens, sexism is a problem and a nasty one, but the problem of incivility is much wider than that and I don't think it's productive to frame it as mainly about sexism. Much of the discussion above demonstrates this. Even if every complaint of sexism above is an example of the worst sort of discrimination, it has nonetheless had the effect of derailing the discussion. Perhaps that in itself is even a demonstration of entrenched sexism. Nonetheless, I take the pragmatic stance that making progress toward our goals is more important than arguing every point to death out of principle. GoldenRing (talk) 12:49, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

• Since I've been mentioned in this discussion, I'd like to make a comment. The person who is campaigning for a means to encourage enforce civility on WP and presumably concurrently reduce sexism is same person who made a what I consider a sexist personal attack, twice, during an ARE proceeding and then later made a reference to it, though in a less direct way, on the Talk page for the Gender Gap Task Force when Lightbreather accused me of joining for no other reason than to annoy/intimidate/disrupt her. I asked about the original instance and it was acknowledged by an Admin that it was a "personal attack or close to it" [18]. I was advised to let it go because of the impending Topic Ban and did that. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 17:55, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

• Why did I leave the Gender Gap project less than 48 hours after acting on an invitation to join? Here's the full story, in my own words: [19]. Lightbreather (talk) 21:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Administrators specializing in civility issues

Suggest having a registry where administrators can voluntarily register to handle incivility cases. Editors who encounter an uncivil editor can choose one of the administrators from the registry for help. After a case is closed, the involved editors (plaintiff and defendant) have the option of giving a brief review of the administrator to aid future editors in choosing an administrator for help. A link to the review history can be conveniently located next to the administrator's name in the registry. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:11, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I suspect those volunteering for such duty would include a wide array of personal-political POV pushers. One could choose their favorite agent of change and obliterate their foes in five minutes, QED. Actually the best people to remedy such conflict are apt not to be administrators at all... @Cullen328 (Jim H.) for example... Carrite (talk) 16:52, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

A biased administrator could be identified by the history of reviews and would risk being sanctioned upon further investigation.

An alternative is to have an employee from WMF with administrator powers, instead of the registry. Such an employee would be subject to a performance review by WMF management which would include involved editor reviews as in the registry. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is something I think could work....need not be admin and yeah...Cullen is an excellent editor for civility issues and I can think of a few more, but everyone has their detractors.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:41, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Re "need not be admin" — a non-admin would not have enforcement power. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:22, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Civility cases are almost invariably content disputes that get out of hand. Sometimes they are provoked as a POV-pushing tactic. Do you want a compromise negotiator or a dissident crusher? I'll go further the other direction: if we're going to have Civility Specialists, they should NOT be administrators. "Get the deal done or I will call in somebody and get you blocked" is all the leverage they would need. We've seen in this very incident how administrators can be quick to escalate to blocking when they get frustrated. The parties should have ZERO control over the selection of the Civility Specialist, otherwise this institution would almost immediately devolve into a simple POV warring tool. (Civility Specialists are not necessarily a horrid idea, but if done wrong it's a horrid idea...) Carrite (talk) 07:39, 31 July 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 07:44, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Re "Do you want a compromise negotiator or a dissident crusher?" — Neither. I want the admin/arbitrator to look at the diffs presented by the plaintiff, get the views of the plaintiff and defendant, and determine whether there has been incivility. If the admin/arbitrator determines there has been incivility, the admin/arbitrator would remove it. If the defendant restores it, then the defendant will be blocked. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:54, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@Bob K31416 - (redacting, I didn't read well enough...) In other words, no examination of the underlying editorial dispute which caused the outburst, no examination of the questions of past history, or stalking, or provocation... Just a couple diffs (out of any context) followed by a quick ruling as to whether on the face of it the comments were "uncivil" and "blockable"... A bright line, like 3RR, that shall not be crossed for any reason? I can't imagine a hardline mandate like that gaining widespread support even among the administrative caste. Carrite (talk) 17:30, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I think Carrite redacted after noting the part, "get the views of the plaintiff and defendant". Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:39, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

My experience and observation is that incivility has become a POV warring tool... to the point where editors accuse other editors of being too civil. Civility is considered uncivil by some powerful editors and groups of editors. They might not lead with such an accusation, but if one stands their ground and keeps their cool? Yes. And then civility gets equated with censorship or tendentiousness. There is no policy that says asking another to keep their comments civil is censorship, or that standing your ground - if your evidence and arguments stand up under scrutiny - is being tendentious. Lightbreather (talk) 15:16, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Instead of special admins for handling civility I think it better that we simply insist that no admin take an admin action in an area where they are unwilling to or unable to understand and follow the consensus of the policy. That is to say if you think NPA should not be enforced then you should not be engaging in unblocks for NPA. Chillum 15:40, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

A modest proposal

Suppose Wikipedia:Civility/Noticeboard be created with a discussion to be held on its scope and methods of resolving disputes, whether by mediation or enforcements (IBAN, block, etc.) KonveyorBelt 15:18, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

FYI, there was some discussion of that elsewhere. [20]. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:01, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Excellent idea. Past discussions re: WP:WQA and WP:PAIN, and why they were closed/shut down,[21][22] need to be reviewed, as do suggestions made here, but actually creating the board, with a "Coming soon" message would make it clear that there is intention to make this happen in some form, details TBD. Lightbreather (talk) 22:43, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I oppose this. For one thing the old WP:WQA was easily gamed, especially by fringe POV pushers, some of whom were prone to take criticism of their pet ideas personally. Cardamon (talk) 02:17, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Oppose. Civility needs to be enforced by everyone, editors and admins alike. We need to stop thinking that the "tools" are going to change anything. At the end of the day it's just us, whether you have a block button or not. I've said it before and I'll say it again, people have to learn to be civil, and they need to be taught which strategies work and which don't. Wikipedia's biggest problem is that it doesn't spend any time teaching users how to improve their skills, from researching to writing to basic strategies for dispute resolution. Until we focus on how to make users better editors, we will be chasing our tail. There is no noticeboard nor any admin toolset that will solve this problem. The answer lies only in self-improvement, nowhere else. Viriditas (talk) 02:24, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't need to be an admin noticeboard, rather I would hope uninvolved editors help, like in DRN or even sometimes ANI. KonveyorBelt 03:02, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that most DRN and ANI threads don't really need Administrative intervention. The proposed board will need an administrator to impose specific sanctions (IBan, TBan, Block, CBan) because these are cases where either by convention or by toolset a regular user cannot impose a sanction. By giving the sanction the authority of an administrator whom the community has vetted, it further demonstrates to the sanctioned how grave the situation is. Hasteur (talk) 12:45, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

It isn't the problem Hasteur, it is the solution. The proposed board would no more need administrators imposing sanctions that the DRN. DRN, as part of its guideline for volunteers, tells us that we are to assist in recommending the proper venue and if that be administrative action, it would be directed to AN or ANI. We even toyed around a bit be literally transferring threads over to other notice boards when it was just a content disputes or RS to the RS Noticeboard. Conflict is no different...it can be handled without the board needing an admin to do anything. None of the boards really work that way.

I know a lot of people don't want "yet another board", but some think this is needed...but I would not call it the civility board. I would model it after DRN because that has worked, but in a simpler form and call it the Conflict resolution noticeboard.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:48, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

If you think that habitually uncivil editors are going to suddenly shape up and become paragons of civility just because an editor at a noticeboard told them to behave, I've got some nice oceanfront property in the middle of Kansas that I'd love to sell you. At this point the rot is so pervasive that we need sanctions application/enforcement that sticks much the same way that ArbCom sanctions stick. Hasteur (talk) 00:56, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Re "yet another board": As I mentioned when I first asked about the existence of a civility board, I commented on how many other boards there are. Why have separate COI and paid advocacy boards? Or separate sockpuppet, username and vandalism boards? Those first two could be merged, as could the other three. Since we have civility policies, room ought to be made for a Civility board - to address civility policies only. (Make people take disruptive and tendentious editing, and other guideline or essay based conduct) to ANI or ArbCom, just as they do now, because those are harder to prove.) Lightbreather (talk) 01:05, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Viriditas, It appears that your suggestion is to teach editors to be civil. How would you do that, especially if an editor isn't receptive to being taught? --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

First thing I would do is improve and streamline new editor recruitment and retention by developing a slick registration process that explains the importance and necessity of civility, and explains where to go if you run into problems and how to deal with issues. Right now, we've basically got children telling adults how to do this, which is backasswards. So to summarize, the introduction for new editors should encapsulate this process. Second thing you do is spend 30 days analyzing the dispute resolution process and how to improve it and make it more efficient and more importantly, more effective. This means, essentially, that anyone who is interested in DR or goes through it, should come away with improved DR skills. For me, this is the heart of the problem. Users aren't learning how to be better editors; the site is more focused on "fighting" vandalism and reporting trouble. This is a huge waste of time for everyone. As for editors who aren't receptive to being taught, I've run into this several times, and for the most part these editors were highly educated and intelligent, but intentionally stood in the way of progress and behavior change. In at least one incident, the editor was indefinitely blocked and continued socking; in another, the editor abandoned their account and started a new one, but continues their bad behavior at this time. Putting aside the obvious mental health and competency problems that may arise, I believe that most editors are capable of being taught. Humans are, after all, learning machines. Although I am by no means familiar with educational technology or teaching in general, in my own experience, several factors can prevent learning, including a) bad habits, and b) poor listening (or reading) skills. If you can address both of those, then I'm sure we can make progress on this issue. Viriditas (talk) 01:28, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Regarding new editors and civility, I've had similar thoughts. The basic idea is that trying to change the behavior of experienced uncivil Wikipedians may be impossible in most cases because they are set in their ways, but new editors would be more possible to influence before they join the uncivil combative subculture. However, I think that a large majority of new editors are civil and remain civil during their Wikipedia editing, so that it may be inappropriate to stress civility with all new editors, relative to the other four of the five pillars.
• Regarding DR, it takes a special temperament and aptitude to engage in that, somewhat like a lawyer litigating for oneself. It may be hard to get around that. However, if there were volunteer Wikipedians who were willing to advocate in DR for editors who don't have the temperament or aptitude to do so themselves, that might level the playing field. I think almost everyone who comes to Wikipedia wants to work on articles, rather than to get into conflicts. The conflicts may be a very unpleasant surprise for new editors. It may start with the first of their edits that is abruptly or rudely reverted.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 03:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

We're definitely on the same page. What's the next step? Viriditas (talk) 03:25, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I just noticed that your idea of teaching editors to be civil and the two bulleted items in my last message might be addressed by the same method, i.e. volunteer advocates who are skilled in DR and civil in their style. An editor (new or experienced) who encounters a problem editor could request help from such an advocate. New editors (and maybe experienced editors too) might learn how to approach problems with problem editors by the example of the advocate who is civil in style. The editors who are helped might eventually be able to handle future encounters with uncivil editors without becoming uncivil themselves. --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:31, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

One of the most serious problems is that that many of the people enabling and engaging in personal attacks and incivility are admins. What we need to do is become more willing to block an admin without a handful of other admins screaming bloody murder over it.

Call me crazy but I think if we all had the same treatment for the same behavior things would be a bit better. Chillum 15:43, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

IMHO eliminating the admin class would do far more towards creating a civil atmosphere and encouraging more women, 3rd world located ppl etc to contribute than any of the increasingly authoritarian approaches others are suggesting (such as desysopping those who dont agree with whatever the ppl at the top are saying, e.g. the terms of service proposal by BrownHairedGirl on this talk page♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 16:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

This place would be encyclopedia dramatica if we had no admins. Surely this is not a serious suggestion? All we need to do it eliminate the culture that admins are immune to blocks and then block those that don't follow consensus. Chillum 16:06, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Chillum, I am not suggesting doing away with wikipedia blocking people but at the very least the current admin system, with its 2 classes of wikipedians and endless power disputes, needs utterly overhauling so of course it is a serious suggestion, what does this comment of yours say about your openness to other and perhaps radical solutions? Can't even take them seriously, sigh! We need to look seriously at other solutions and IMO unless this voluntary work place starts to become less and not more authoritarian it certainly wont attract women and minority groups to participate more♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:53, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

The admin class should be eliminated completely, and the various tools granted on an individual basis the way rollback, reviewer, etc., are done. In this way most Wikipedians will have the tools they need for those areas of the project that they work on, without anyone being able to feel that they are better or lesser than anyone else. Besides, the admin request process is a horrible horrible procedure that I wouldn't wish on anybody. It is broken and needs to be replaced with something better. Manytimes the requests are denied when the user really only wanted one or two of the tools. For example some have wanted the ability to lock pages as part of their anti vandalism duties, and have no interest in blocking or unblocking anyone, but they can't have it because they have to become an admin to get the one tool and simply don't want to go through that grueling process... --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 22:10, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@ Chillum (talk · contribs): We don't need the anarchy that is the current admin system. It is a major part of Wikipedia's problems. This huge body of loose cannon legacy admins, appointed for life, act on individual whim with no centralised control and not even a mission statement or constitution to guide them. Additionally, these admins have assigned for their own exclusive use nearly ALL of the additional tools that should have been distributed to the experienced users who need them. Most admins are not equipped for, and should not be given the ability to block long term productive content builders. Further, the views of incumbent admins should carry little weight in discussions on this matter, since they are too highly invested in the status quo. --Epipelagic (talk) 22:42, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@ Sue Rangell (talk · contribs): I entirely agree with your sensible comments. However these matters have been thrashed out many times before, and never get anywhere because the huge body of legacy admins, together with their retinues, always have the controlling edge when these matters are put to the vote. --Epipelagic (talk) 22:42, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

"Why is Wikipedia Sexist"

This is from a right-wing paper. Note that the question is not "Is Wikipedia Sexist?" but "Why is it sexist?"

The lede reads:

"The National Science Foundation (NSF) is spending over $200,000 to find out why Wikipedia is sexist.

"The government has awarded two grants for collaborative research to professors at Yale University and New York University to study what the researchers describe as “systematic gender bias” in the online encyclopedia."

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:48, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

• It seems pretty obvious to most people except a small, very loud group among us, that there is a problem. Jusdafax 19:01, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

  I could argue with equal validity that it seems pretty obvious to most people except a small, very loud group among us, that there is no problem. Eric Corbett 19:39, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Leaving this off-topic discussion of taxpayer financed research here but closed so that we can get back on track discussing the main issue.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Even so, it's our problem to fix. I object to my tax dollars being given to the NSF to "study" it and then do what?--ukexpat (talk) 19:07, 30 July 2014 (UTC) Well, the purpose of study is not necessarily "to do" anything, it's to understand. Understanding Wikipedia has been an inquiry of study for awhile now. It's part of internet study, and it would be very odd if the internet or online phenomena were not studied by people at places like Yale and NYU. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:19, 30 July 2014 (UTC) A little over only 1 percent of income taxes funds all public science research in the US, including the NSF. You object to this pittance? Are we supposed to take this kind of reactionary view seriously? Viriditas (talk) 20:21, 30 July 2014 (UTC) I'm afraid that you don't get line-item veto power over NSF grants by virtue of being a taxpayer. Believe me, I wish I could exercise more discretion over my tax dollars as well. (For instance, Congress has spent nearly $54 million holding symbolic and ineffectual votes to repeal Obamacare, if that helps put the NSF's $200,000 in perspective). You can take heart in the fact that federal science funding in the U.S. has plummeted at an unprecedented rate over the past decade, though. MastCell Talk 20:42, 30 July 2014 (UTC) The only reason Silicon Valley exists in California and not in Buckinghamshire, where it should have flourished, is because people like Ukexpat saw no need to fund the dreams of boffins and anoraks. The same is true for the British space programme. They missed opportunities that could have made the UK a leader in technology simply because they refused to fund it. That's a historical fact. Viriditas (talk) 20:56, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Because the internet attracts a large number of young technically minded males who hold rigid views not only of gender roles, but of society in general. So not only does Wikipedia skew more sexist than would be optimal, but almost all articles on controversial topics provide far too much weight to fringe views. Also, the manner in which content is determined is highly confrontational. For example, if one editor insists on reverting to his preferred version, other editors must apply for a block in order to stop them. That environment is more attractive to confrontational people, who often hold rigid views on social issues. TFD (talk) 19:46, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Leaving this off-topic discussion of Marxism, Phillip Larkin, and so on here but closed so that we can get back on track discussing the main issue.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The real "reactionary" view is that people still think that sex and gender exist. They don't. They're just tools created by the capitalist classes to divide the people, pure products of biological essentialism and social darwinism. Humanity must stand united in the face of capitalist classes. Anyone that believes that there is such a thing as a "man" or "woman" apart from the simple "human" is a fool. This discussion that's been going on is sheer proof that the capitalist classes are succeeding in their misdirection of the masses. RGloucester — ☎ 20:45, 30 July 2014 (UTC) Serious? Are you saying that sexes did not exist before the capitalist class arose? How do you know it is your analysis, that does not suffer from a false consciousness? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:05, 30 July 2014 (UTC) See The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) by Engles. But actually, as far as Glouster's main thesis - I'll have to ask my wife :-) Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:13, 30 July 2014 (UTC) ... and then they invented sex in 1963? - Sitush (talk) 21:18, 30 July 2014 (UTC) . . . Perhaps? Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:27, 30 July 2014 (UTC) The English were a bit slow. In Ireland it was invented when we got television, which was on 31 December 1961. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:30, 30 July 2014 (UTC) Hail me as human, and so shall I hail you. Hail me as woman, and how can I hail you but as man? Such is the efficacy of semiotic division. RGloucester — ☎ 21:21, 30 July 2014 (UTC) Sex and gender have existed since before Homo sapiens and will continue to exist, until the end of time. They may become equal, bu differences will always be present beyond simple anatomy. KonveyorBelt 21:25, 30 July 2014 (UTC) Sorry, mine was an attempt at humour - Larkin's Annus Mirabilis says (approx) "sexual intercourse was invented in 1963, just too late for me". His This Be The Verse has long been a standard text in UK schools etc and, curiously given the present contretemps, contains a certain word in its opening line. - Sitush (talk) 21:32, 30 July 2014 (UTC) Sadly, I don't think This Be The Verse has ever been standard in UK schools. Formerip (talk) 00:05, 1 August 2014 (UTC) For anyone who didn't follow the link, so was mine. The anti-semitic, fascist-sympathising politician Oliver J. Flanagan claimed that "there was no sex in Ireland before television". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:43, 30 July 2014 (UTC) I followed the link and had a bit of a giggle, thanks - that guy had passed me by. With all the recent kerfuffles, a bit of witty banter etc should be allowed even if we ain't a social network ;) Can we all lighten up a bit for, say, 10 minutes at least? - Sitush (talk) 21:51, 30 July 2014 (UTC) @Sitush: Christmas 1914 :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:16, 30 July 2014 (UTC) Gloucester may be right. The Soviets didn't have sex until 1985, with the advent of Perestroika, learning about it from Phil Donohue. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:02, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

• What seems clear is that a number of editors here are threatened by the question "Why is Wikipedia sexist?" With the growing popularity of the 'pedia in the last decade, and its obvious importance as an online source, pov pushers of various stripes established themselves here. I think for some, if not a majority of these types, a hostile "Wild West" editing environment serves their interests very well. Women generally tend to focus on viewpoints that don't represent the concentrations of power in our society, which often are headed up by males or profit them. Additionally, the increasing shootout mentality, only mildly ameliorated by the veneer of Wikipedia-en governance originally designed to uphold the Five Pillars but now riddled with corruption, allows the isolation and marginalization of feminist voices and viewpoints. I continue to advocate notihing less than a complete reboot of the self-interested administrator caste, which operates largely immune from sanctions or even meaningful scrutiny, with few exceptions. Admins who buck the trend, like BHG, are reversed with impunity. I additionally submit, Jimmy, that enforcement of the Five Pillars by the WMF through terms of service provisions and appointed facilitators is the sole remaining option to address the increasingly unpleasant editing environment at Wikipedia-en now effectively serving entrenched interests. Jusdafax 14:52, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
  • So essentially you believe a more authoritarian wikipedia will attract more women? Or am I misunderstanding you?♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 16:08, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• Please do not be so dramatic: it isn't clear at all, BHG was not reversed "with impunity" (the discussion about that action rumbles on) and as for "corruption", well, prove it. I think your feminist bias is showing and it really doesn't help your cause if you misrepresent things. You are, I hope, aware that there are many men who support reasonable measures that would aid female contribution here and also that there are many women here who do not subscribe to your feminist worldview: you run the risk of alienating both groups. Then - because of consensus - a fork for "feminist Wikipedia" might really be your only option and I don't think it would work well. It most certainly would have problems maintaining neutrality in its actual article content because it would have very little at all of the balancing effect inherent in contributions from a wide range of worldviews. - Sitush (talk) 16:28, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

...ah the classic put down "please do not be so dramatic." That there is a severe problem in the editing experience for women is not under debate, as studies are underway to find out why the problem exists. As for the "discussion" regarding BHG's reversal, it will be drawn out until it is judged stale, and tabled per standard practice here, and (to SqueakBox) the comment about "more authoritarian" is inaccurate inasmuch as I advocate dumping the entire admin corps, replacing them with selected volunteers and WMF-paid facilitators with a gender balanced makeup. We need to fix Wikipedia or lose it, and continuing on as we have been is no longer an option. Jusdafax 19:24, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Jusdafax says I advocate dumping the entire admin corps, replacing them with selected volunteers and WMF-paid facilitators with a gender balanced makeup.

The admin corps already are selected volunteers. And the gender make-up of admins has a larger female percentage than the gender make-up of editors.

As to WMF-paid facilitators, this would indeed (potentially) be a good use of WMF funds, however a lower bar might be set by getting WMF to fund some proper facilitator, mediator and arbitrator training.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:11, 1 August 2014 (UTC).

User:Jusdafax, I agree about getting rid of admins entirely with some paid WMF members to perhaps do any blocking that is vital to the well-being of the encyclopedia and hopefully done in a way to minimize authoritarian attitudes which are never pleasant in a voluntary working environment♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:59, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

If it's so clear cut that there's a severe problem then why has nobody yet been able to provide any evidence? Eric Corbett 19:35, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Why is it a classic put down? You're being dramatic, making fictional claims and overegging the pudding. What is worse is that you have not addressed my challenge of two of the dramatic points you raised and you've dodged round the third. Would you prefer that I strike "so dramatic" and replace with "such a liar"? - Sitush (talk) 20:09, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@Sitush: I suggest that you invest in a dictionary or consult a free online one. Merriam Webster defines "impunity" as "exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss". The editor who used the c-word and dismissed the complaint as irrational and brainless was indeed exempted from punishment at ANI, as were those who supported his conduct. Yet you choose to apply the label "liar" to the editor who used the word "impunity". Are you trying to outdo Eric as a poster-child for community's failure to restrain even the most blatant incivility? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@Sitush: there is a widely documented phenomenon that women who complain about inappropriate male behaviour are put down by being accused of over-reaction, hyper-sensitivity, being emotional, or (in its most extreme form) as "hysterical". I do not intend to post a pile of references here: go do some homework.

@Eric: your repeated demands for "evidence" are at best disingenuous. There have been plenty of studies in plenty of contexts demonstrating that women are less likely than men to engage in environments which include aggression, profanity and abusiveness. There are studies specifically of Wikipedia which document how women are put off by the behaviour of some editors. You choose either to ignore all that evidence, or leave your self unfamiliar with it. An editor who is capable of writing featured articles is quite capable of doing the mininmal research required to familiarise yourself with this, but you choose not to do so.

Eric and his defenders have been demanding specific evidence that their abusiveness has driven away identifiable editors. Eric's test requires that people who give up editing or decide not to start editing take the time to explain their reasons in some location easily accessible to Wikipedia editors. It takes very little imagination to understand why that does not often happen.

More fundamentally, Eric and his enablers are engaged in a FUD exercise of trying to invert the burden of proof. The repeated use of intentionally obscene and offensive sexist terminology is not tolerated in most workplaces or in most social settings, nor is blatant personal insult such as accusing other people of being both irrational and brainless. The onus lies on Eric and his enablers to justify their desire to behave on Wikipedia in a manner which would not be tolerated in other environments, and which in many would count as gross misconduct.

Despite being a skilled writer who repeatedly demonstrates his ability express himself clearly, Eric repeatedly chooses to express himself aggressively and/or obscenely, in blatant contravention both of Wikipedia's civility policies and the WMF's terms of service.

I have had enough of playing the game according to the rules set by Eric and his small but vocal band of enablers. The WMF has clear terms of service which explicitly require editors to support a civil environment, and it has a non discrimination policy which commits the foundation across all its projects to the principle of equal opportunity. Eric and his enablers are engaged in an entrenched pattern of action which breaches both the terms of service and the non-discrimination policy, and community processes have failed to uphold these policies even in the case of a flagrant and repeated breach.

The WMF has traditionally relied on the community itself to uphold Foundation policy, and that approach largely works well with BLPs, legal threats, privacy etc. However it fails with civility, and I could flood the page with diffs of editors (including admins) who explicitly insist that civility policy should not be enforced. That's why I want the WMF to find new ways of ensuring that its policies are upheld. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:53, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl: ok, I see. In that case, for "dramatic" please feel free to substitute "such a liar", pending some informed suggestion of an alternate description. The claims made were false in one aspect, misrepresentative in another and unproven in the third. It's unfortunate that bluntness has to be substituted due to a completely unfounded characterisation of my intent. The only way to be sure of avoiding upsetting people here would seem to be to say nothing. - Sitush (talk) 21:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@Sitush: As I noted above where you first chose describe another editor as a "liar", I suggest that you invest in a dictionary or consult a free online one. Merriam Webster defines "impunity" as "exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss". The editor who used the c-word and dismissed the complaint as irrational and brainless was indeed exempted from punishment at ANI, as were those who supported his conduct. Yet you choose to apply the label "liar" to the editor who used the word "impunity". Are you trying to outdo Eric as a poster-child for the community's failure to restrain even the most blatant incivility? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:34, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• I came here to comment on Jimmy's page to Jimmy. The subsequent rhetorical hostility is exactly what I and others, including those now studying Wikipedia's editing climate, are referring to. Jusdafax 20:27, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• Or maybe it is just that the bluff in your rantings has been called? I know that there isn't a requirement to provide evidence here but, really, when you come out with the sort of statements that you have done it probably would assist your case if you did. And you haven't, at least in part because they're plain misrepresentations. If you think that I'm going to get a thesaurus and a "dictionary of misogynistic words" out every time I write something, just in case I would otherwise unwittingly offend you, then you have another think coming. Feel free to suggest an alternative, accurate word for "dramatic", though. And to amend your use of "corruption". You've gone way too far, sorry. - Sitush (talk) 20:43, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• @Sitush: words which cause offence degrade communication and impede resolution of the substantive topics under consideration. That's one of the reasons why they are banned in all forms of parliamentary proceedings and in most offices. A person who strives for effective communication does so in many ways, and one component in any context is to try to develop an understanding of what terminology causes offence, and avoid it. It is your choice whether you do that by studying lists of words or by learning as you go, but in a massively diverse environment like Wikipedia great care is needed. There will be plenty of occasions where terminology inadvertently causes offence, and those situations are very easily avoided: apologise, withdraw the remark, and move on. That is what a normal, functioning adult does in any society ... but sadly Wikipedia has a small but vocal core of editors who intentionally flout those basic social conventions. When challenged they complain of being persecuted or censored, and in some cases set out to wilfully repeat the offence -- as we saw with the editors who repeated the c-word.

One of the most notable things about all of this is that the editors concerned to take great care avoid those type of offensive terminology which the community does support sanctions against, for example racist or anti-semitic language. The fact that editors such as Sitush openly refuse to exercise the same self-restraint in respect of misogynistic terminology is very revealing. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:11, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, what it reveals is that some people are hypersensitive and perhaps even delusional. They are seeing things that are not there. For example, ANI is often referred to as a "drama board" - are there really so many female editors contributing to the drama there? I would have used the same word if Jimbo had posted that comment. - Sitush (talk) 21:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

There's another diff for the collection. We are discussing the gratuitous and repeated use of a word widely defined as obscene, extremely vulgar and misogynistic ... and you choose to respond in classic misogynist fashion by accusing the complainants of being "hypersensitive and perhaps even delusional".

You brilliantly illustrate the case for WMF intervention. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:25, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Yuk. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:48, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I have asked Sitush to behave better or stay off my talk page.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Why Sitush? --Epipelagic (talk) 22:07, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I see that just after your warning to Sitush, one of our best admins, Boing! said Zebedee, has blocked himself indefinitely with the parting comment "I don't want to be part of this community any more". --Epipelagic (talk) 22:51, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, I would like to ask why Sitush as well, there doesn't seem to be a clear reasoning for singling out a single editor in this can-of-warms discussion. There are far better people who would deserve the warning, but even if there were, I wouldn't want you to do that in any case. Asking one party to stay away from the discussion they're involved in seems a bit out of place to me. Tutelary (talk) 23:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

It rains. Wnt (talk) 23:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• The vague "sexist" headline conflates two different issues: imbalance among editors, and imbalance in coverage. I don't argue about the former, although the picture is much more even when you look at heavy content-creators (which it would be nice if these people could study), but I'm much less certain about the other. Before and after being Wikipedian in Residence at the Royal Society (the UK's National academy of science) I've been involved in events based around Women in Science, which tend to be a good deal more successful than such events on other themes. There is a lot of loose talk about Wikipedia's coverage underrepresenting women in science, but if this was ever the case it ceased to be so a good while ago. I set out the only hard evidence I know on the subject in my WMUK/WMF blogpost a couple of months ago. I'd be interested to see if they produce any other evidence-based studies, for example on the American academy. I'm sure there is imbalance in other content areas - fashion is very poorly covered, and I am (bizarrely to anyone who has met me) one of the more active members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Fashion. Though I've always thought Noam Cohen's Sopranos vs Sex in the City comparison completely useless - the former ran twice as long per episode, with about 8 times as many characters, all of whom had complicated back-stories, usually involving them or their relatives murdering the relatives of other characters, all of which needs some explaining. User:Wiki at Royal Society John/ Johnbod (talk) 20:41, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• Jimbo, Sitush has asked what you meant by "conduct yourself with more honor".[23] I would like to know too. When you use your heft against an ordinary user with such phrasing, it would seem honorable to be prepared to explain what it means. To justify it, if you like. People ask others to stay away from their talkpage all the time, often with scant respect for the natural justice of letting people answer allegations against them; that's not such a big deal. But saying that a user is behaving dishonorably is different. Please explain. Sitush will leave a big hole in one of the most unmanageable parts of the encyclopedia if you drive him off. Bishonen | talk 23:52, 31 July 2014 (UTC).

• Jimbo, if anything Bish puts it mildly. If you drive him off, if your post is the proverbial straw, you have no idea how big a hole it will leave in an important area of Wikipedia. Those of us who work there know just how painfully difficult it is to maintain many of the articles with even a semblance of neutrality and verifiability. You should be thanking him for all his good work. You certainly should have made yourself aware of it, including the problems we are having with an organisation that claims to have thousands of accounts, before criticising him. Dougweller (talk) 07:13, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Wow. The rush to defend Sitush is interesting. Seems very clear from reading Sitush’s above exchange with BHG what Jimbo was referring to….yet people are acting incredulous, demanding an explanation, and are acting super concerned that Sitush might be “driven off”. This is actually even more interesting in the context of a discussion regarding women editors being driven off in mass by the exact sort of conduct that Sitush engages in above and in the section Why not ask the women to the point that we have such an extreme gender gap on Wikipedia (approximately 90% male editors). I can't comment on Sitush's good work elsewhere because my contact with him is actually limited to the above exchanges and to his popping in on the gender gap task force page, not to address the serious issue of the gender gap, but instead to engage in off-topic insults and criticism of a task force member. [24] It’s interesting that people are so concerned with Sitush being "driven off" while the behavior he is being admonished for appears to be the exact sort of thing that often drives female editors off and Jimbo corrected Sitush in a more polite and civil way than it appears Sitush uses with others (at least with respect to above exchanges and his contributions on gender gap task force). --BoboMeowCat (talk) 15:44, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

@User:BoboMeowCat: Huh what? I wasn't defending Sitush, I was criticising Jimbo. There was nothing polite and civil about his "correction" of Sitush, it was insulting and pompous. Correction is an interesting choice of word by you btw — shades of Victorian governesses and old-time heavy fathers. Is that the kind of authority figure you see Jimbo as, and pay deference to? But you're right to emphasise how little you know of the matter. Bishonen | talk 16:07, 1 August 2014 (UTC).

Bishonen, I was actually responding to multiple comments made regarding Sitush and not just you personally, but either way it seems Jimbo can ask people to behave better or stay off his talk page without it being related to "shades of Victorian governesses and old-time heavy fathers". This is his talk page. Personally, I didn't find what Jimbo wrote pompous and insulting, while I did find what Sitush wrote to BHG and in the sections I linked above to be pompous and insulting. I have no problem emphasizing that I don't know much about Sitush in general, as my interaction with him is limited to this talk page and to the gender gap task force talk page, but I think it’s notable that Sitush has publicly expressed interest in seeing the Gender gap task force disbanded [25]. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 18:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• I disagree to a certain extent with his position on civility, but Sitush's general conduct on caste-related articles has been extremely civil; that is, he's consistently able to tell people why their proposals won't go without belittling them and quite matter-of-factly. All this in the face of sustained and deeply unpleasant attacks. Throwing the book at him does not suggest whatever's going on here will be very fruitful. Choess (talk) 02:49, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Choess is absolutely right - Sitush conducts himself with honor and civility in the fact of continued personal attacks, false accusations of criminal activities and even death hreats. Dougweller (talk) 07:07, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• I understand the annoyance at realizing that "conduct yourself with more honor" means "stop saying things Jimbo doesn't agree with", and that "civility from thee but not from me" is a deeply ingrained Wikipedian philosophy, but really, Jimbo is doing Sitush a favor. It is never a good use of time to post to this page. Ever. (Well, except for me right now.) --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:35, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Well let's take a look. Sitush said some fairly silly and unhelpful things (""BHG was not reversed with impunity" when of course she was (discussions rumbling on are not a punishment) and furthermore Judasfax is "such a liar" for saying this true thing, and some other things) but also some pretty offensive things. "I think your feminist bias is showing" for instance, and "a fork for feminist Wikipedia might really be your only option" (he doesn't think it would work well, because, you know: women).

Well I don't know. Sure, you can criticize feminism at the margins. Andrea Dworkin and whatnot. You can argue about what feminism really means, at the level of details. But Sitush's not doing that. The basic core of mainstream feminism, I guess, is along the lines of "Women have equal rights, and equal standing with men as human beings, and rate equal consideration as human beings" and this is what Sitush is criticizing. I mean that's what I gather. If he's got another point he could have made that, but he didn't. He's not saying "so-called feminism which is not really feminism" or like that; he's saying "feminist" and he sure as heck seems to mean "feminist" (actually I think it's a lot worse and in context he seems to mean just "womanly" but let's give him a break).

Where I come from (I come from the European Enlightenment as manifested in the present day; I recommend a visit) "I think your feminist bias is showing" in the context Sitush said it is roughly equivalent to "I think your race-mixing bias is showing" and so on, so these are fairly inflammatory sentiments, yes.

I dunno. "You're obviously a feminist, so I discount your arguments" is awfully close in essence and sentiment in this context to "you're obviously a woman, so I discount your arguments". Is that an OK argument to make? Hmmm. I do think that Sitush's arguments have their place. The problem is, their place is 1957. It's hard to get there from here. Things change. It's hard to keep up but you got to keep up, you know? You got to.

This is a serious issue and a serious problem, so Sitush should get serious if he wants to engage. Maybe there's no easy solution to this problem. Maybe there's no solution at all. Maybe any solution would introduce other problems (most solutions do) and maybe these problems would be worse than the original problem, and so on. All of these are reasonable and helpful things to think and say. Denying that there's a problem is not reasonable or helpful, particularly when it's done with egregious offensiveness. So let's not do that. Herostratus (talk) 05:21, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

@Herostratus. Way to chuck the gasoline on there by failing to WP:AGF. Everybody loves popcorn, right? Carrite (talk) 14:58, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Not only that, but it is quite "dishonorable" to continue badmouthing someone on a page they are no longer allowed to post on. Somehow I doubt Jimbo is going to ban Herostratus, though. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:50, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Let's not overstate the situation. Sitush is still allowed to post on this page and I don't see that anybody's been banned.__ E L A Q U E A T E 00:36, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I banned Situs from my talk page for repeated unpleasant comments months ago, so I have to sympathize with the user page owner. Of course Sitush keeps posting there anyway and insulting me for banning him[26]. Sigh... But I'm an optimist and maybe he'll take to heart Mr. Wales' comment here. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 05:40, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

That being said, Sitush was never banned from this page and it feels like propagating an urban myth to imply that he was. Floquenbeam described this as "a page they are no longer allowed to post on" which isn't true. An understandable mistake, but saying Herostratus was talking about someone who couldn't respond isn't fair comment regarding what actually happened. __ E L A Q U E A T E 20:25, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Moreover, unless I missed something, Sitush seems confused about being accused of uploading kiddie porn. Doing a quick search of WP:ANI archives I saw July 29 an individual from Indians against Corruption (as in India) reported at ANI that the group had gone to WikiFoundation to complain about Sitush's allegedly libelous editing on their groups article. Something the Foundation obviously won't do anything about though the group could always pursue action against an individual editor. Then, in the next sentence of the same paragraph, the individual mentioned an entirely separate issue, which was the group's complaint to Indian authorities about child pornography on Wikimedia and Wikipedia India sites. The guy was banned for reporting/advocating(?) that and, I believe, for allegedly being a sock puppet of someone else who'd made legal threats. But in the thread Sitush sounded as if this was the first time he had heard this accusation. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:01, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

@Carolmooredc: Harping on about possible claims that a named editor is associated with child porn is an extreme personal attack by smear. However, it is easy to understand Sitush's response on reading what he was responding to: "Notice has been issued to both WM Foundation and Sitush by the Govt of India to defend the allegations that they have uploaded these child pornography images on an organised and systematic scale." (diff) Anyone can examine commons:Special:Contributions/Sitush and verify that the claim is a complete fabrication and nonsense. Johnuniq (talk) 02:19, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

My post made the point amply clear that it was not an accusation against him and that the accusation was against Wikimedia in India. Thus he misunderstood. If he keeps telling people he was accused, some might think there's something to it and he actually is hurting himself. Understand now? Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:41, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Sexism on Wikipedia

Doubt I'll be commenting here - maybe, but it looks like I may be busy for awhile elsewhere. Since there were numerous calls for evidence of sexism on Wikipedia... The one by Lam et al. is about the gender gap/imbalance, which is related, IMO, and the others are worth a read:

• Bort, Julie (February 15, 2014). "A Growing Army Of Women Are Taking On Wikipedia's Sexism Problem". Business Insider. Retrieved August 1, 2014.
• Filipacchi, Amanda (April 30, 2103). "Sexism on Wikipedia Is Not the Work of 'a Single Misguided Editor'". Atlantic. Atlantic Monthly Group. Retrieved August 1, 2014. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Lam, S.; Uduwage, A.; Dong, Z.; Sen, S.; Musicant, D.; Terveen, L.; Reidl, J. (October 2011). "WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia's Gender Imbalance" (PDF). WikiSym '11. ACM. Retrieved July 30, 2014. RQ3: Gender-Conflict hint at a culture that may be resistant to female participation.
• Leonard, Andrew (April 29, 2013). "Wikipedia's shame Sexism isn't the problem at the online encyclopedia. The real corruption is the lust for revenge". Salon Media Group. Retrieved August 1, 2014. {{cite news}}: line feed character in |title= at position 18 (help)
• Zandt, Deanna (April 26, 2013). "Yes, Wikipedia is Sexist -- That's Why It Needs You". Forbes. Retrieved August 1, 2014.
• Zevallos, Zuleyka (June 8, 2014). "Sexism on Wikipedia: Why the #YesAllWomen Edits Matter". othersociologist.com (blog). Zuleyka Zevallos. Retrieved August 1, 2014.

--Lightbreather (talk) 01:34, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Great, I've been working on a big list for a separate resources page on WP:GGTF. Maybe we should just start it now and start putting the material in. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)

One of those articles argues that the creation of Category:American women novelists was a sign of sexism. I was always under the impression that feminists themselves preferred to edit women's articles and make categories for them (Wikipedia:WikiProject Women's History), like outside Wikipedia there is a feminist academic subject women's history that separates womens' historiography from men's too. So, you probably have a more queer-oriented feminist calling a more traditional one sexist. The Forbes article claims "vandalism of women's pages" is a sign of sexism, but it's not like only women's pages are vandalized. For such a claim, you would have to study the frequency of vandalism on different pages and directly identify a pattern of sexist vandalism. Besides, vandals are usually anonymous, non-frequent IP editors that in my mind atleast are not considered part of the Wikipedia community. Apparently it's very easy to construct this narrative of "we have a problem, yes we do!" with disregard to rational analysis. It all has a very shallow American activist feel to it.--Pudeo' 13:07, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

This issue may be near and dear to many -- including those who keep mute for fear of retribution -- so unless someone can substantiate that the issue is "shallow", I'd say to avoid referring to it in that way. I'm also unclear why this has an "American activist" feel to it, but I haven't tried to figure out who lives where. Yes, Lightbreather's examples appear to be written by Americans, but in my mind, the issue isn't American-centric at all. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:10, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

If you need a key example of the sexist culture of Wikipedia, check out the discussions on Talk:2014 Isla Vista massacre, where a contingent of editors are refusing to categorise it as misogynist violence because "men died too", in contravention to the vast majority of reliable sources… Sceptre ^(talk) 14:24, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I fail to see any great failing with the lead of the piece as it sits at this moment. Carrite (talk) 20:20, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

• The Lam et al. piece is actually an academic study, as opposed to the mainstream media echo chamber with sexy headlines assuming "sexism," so let's look at that, shall we? I found this interesting: "Females are now more likely than males to participate in some social media sites such as Facebook or MySpace [footnote 28]. In addition, females are more likely to tweet (10% of females, 7% of males), and teenage girls are more likely to blog (25% of girls, 15% of boys) [footnotes 23, 15]." (Lam pg. 2) That's clearly a "gender gap" in blogging, but opposite of Wikipedia's. Lemme see, what does that work out to? Assuming equal gender populations (i.e. slightly underestimating the female percentage) that would be a male-to-female ratio of 37.5 to 62.5 — in contrast to WP's gender gap of roughly 85:15 the other direction. Interesting, yes?

There is also identified a gender gap in WP readership, more males than females reading (56% v. 50% of internet users by gender, respectively). (Lam, pg. 2.) So our expected editorial parity level would not be 50:50, it would be more like, by my math with the same proviso as above, something like 53:47 male:female. Also interesting. It probably implies a higher perceived usefulness of WP to males than females, just guessing.

In any event, the mainstream media's use of the words 'Wikipedia" and "sexism" in a headline mean zero. If people are interested in really understanding the gender gap, there's plenty of research and theorization remaining to be done... Carrite (talk) 20:09, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

What Can the WMF Do (about incivility and other problems)

Jimbo Wales requested that we comment on what the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) (the Foundation) can do. He was initially asking that question about the increasing level of incivility in the English Wikipedia. His specific suggestion as to what the Foundation can do is to provide a few professional mediators to address conflicts. I will expand my comments to include not only incivility, but also conflicts between the Foundation and the English Wikipedia community (currently the subject of an ArbCom proceeding), and the slowness of the arbitration process. I think that mediation will be of little use with respect to incivility, but will address its effectiveness in other contexts.

Incivility

Civility is one of the traditional five pillars of Wikipedia, but it is essentially a vacant pillar. It has not been effectively enforced for many years, and its absence is becoming toxic.

I am not sure, but I think that, at this point, the combination of the systematic failure to enforce it and a small but prominent number of persistently uncivil editors is resulting in meta-incivility, an attempt to make the culture of Wikipedia a culture that is seen as uncivil by most would-be editors. While presumably the large majority of editors agree that a civil culture is a comfortable culture, and that an uncivil environment is a hostile (work) environment, a small number of editors feel quite the opposite, that civility is uncomfortable, and that they would prefer a crude "boys’ clubbish" environment in offensive language is simply the way it is. The longer regular incivility is ignored, the greater the opportunity they have to make Wikipedia comfortable for themselves and uncomfortable for everyone else. If that happens, they will “win” something not worth winning, and Wikipedia will lose.

BrownHairedGirl identifies four areas of incivility. The first occurs where a generally civil editor has a bad day. The second occurs where a dispute causes tempers to rise. The third occurs when editors fail to consider the cross-cultural impact of their language. The fourth is the case of habitually uncivil editors. I think that the English Wikipedia does a good job of handling the first case, and a reasonably good job of handling the second case, content disputes that bring out conduct issues. Occasionally WMF mediation might work for content disputes, but usually the community, including its own mediation processes, either are satisfactory, or are unresolvable due to conduct issues that go and must go to ArbCom. Also, WMF mediators should understand that, with regard to habitually rude, aggressive, or abusive editors, their job is not to mediate, but to support taking those editors to ArbCom.

For the fourth, mediation is a genuinely terrible idea. See Argument to moderation. It concedes ground that must not be conceded. Mediation between civility and incivility will be a compromise, not only over how much incivility is tolerated, but over to what extent to establish a culture whose incivility makes it comfortable only for uncivil editors. Only the third situation, cross-cultural differences, is a good case where mediation should be used.

A situation in which mediation might be useful would be while a necessary but controversial block is in effect. A mediator may be able to help the blocked editor, the blocking admin, and would-be unblocking admins to communicate. Unfortunately, what too often happens is that one admin chooses to unblock, and then further discussion is not useful, because a reblock would be punitive and would risk wheel warring. WMF could strongly discourage admins from unilateral unblocks in order to encourage discussion of the terms of unblock.

What the Foundation can do about habitually uncivil editors (some of whom are proud of their incivility, viewing it as being “genuine” or “earthy” rather than “refined”) is to work with those administrators who are willing to make difficult civility blocks and to encourage administrators to enforce civility.

It would be extremely useful for the Foundation to emphasize strongly that civility is essential, and to reiterate that incivility is not mere noise but is blockable. Mediation would be useful to encourage exploring the issues behind civility blocks, especially if admins were strongly discouraged from unilateral unblocks as fait accompli. With respect to editors who have a pattern of aggressive, rude, or abusive behavior, mediation must be avoided. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:56, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

This is well thought out, however I would add a fifth category to BHG's list: Editors who are deliberately uncivil for the purposes as diverse as proving a point, revenge, provocation, attracting attention, etc. In these cases, it may also be habitual, but it is by no means unintentional.- MrX 16:59, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Some editors are uncivil for a deliberate purpose. Again, as with editors who are simply rude, aggressive, or abusive, mediation directly with the uncivil editor is dangerous. It would reward the uncivil editor because the mediation would focus on compromising on the extent of incivility. Any mediation should be between the blocking admin and an unblocking admin, except that by the time mediation would take, another admin chooses to unblock, at which point further discussion is useless, because an unblock, even a wrong unblock, is final. (A reblock would be either punitive rather than preventive, or wheel warring, or both.) Mediation over current blocks will only be feasible if admins who want to unblock can wait to work with the mediator. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:02, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Conflicts between WMF staff and the community

There is currently an ArbCom case open resulting from a dispute between the English Wikipedia community and the WMF staff over the use of particular software (the Media Viewer) that the English Wikipedia community chose to make the non-default. Mediation might have mitigated this dispute, at least if the mediation team understood that it did not represent staff or the developers and was charged with reducing tension rather than enforcing the will of the WMF.

The slowness of ArbCom

In 2006 through 2008, ArbCom was able to handle a hundred or more cases in a year. Now it often handles about a dozen cases in a year, and those often take two months to resolve (during which time the name-calling often continues on ArbCom talk pages). I would ask the WMF first to ask the ArbCom whether any WMF-supported assistance, such as paid clerks or special software, would help. If ArbCom does not ask for assistance, then I would suggest that WMF audit the processes of the ArbCom to see whether business process re-engineering, or other assistance such as paid clerks or special software, would help. This issue overlaps somewhat with incivility because the ArbCom is the only body that can actually deal with habitually uncivil editors. The community cannot deal with them, because they have entourages who can block “consensus” (supermajority) at the noticeboards.

The WMF can recognize that ArbCom is backlogged, and can look into what can be done to facilitate reducing that backlog.

Robert McClenon (talk) 03:38, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

There are a great number of important workloads that could be handled by paid editors/mediators hired by the Foundation, but a lot of resistance to the possibility of them pushing for / representing WMF's interests, which may conflict with the community's from time to time. Robert McClenon said "if the mediation team understood that it did not represent staff or the developers". It seems like a good way to advance the discussion would be to explore models that would give mediators independence from the Foundation, such as sponsored mediators through grants or a separate non-profit. CorporateM (Talk) 04:07, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Robert McClenon Current uproar aside, why do you think that "Its (civility's) absence is becoming toxic"? I am a bit concerned that the current drama (and in this case, the epithet is deserved) that is really centered on a few editors, is generating a perception that all of WP is moving toward a crisis. So.. why do you think there is a growing tide of incivility? I work on pretty controversial topics and have seen them go through waves of ugliness and relative peace (again, usually driven by the arrival and departure of difficult editors). Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 04:25, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Those topics are only controversial because you make it your job to push a singular POV that eliminates opposing viewpoints. I'm curious what a woman like Gandydancer would have to say about your characterization of this problem, Jytdog, as many of these so-called "difficult" editors you refer to happen to be women. And yes, I've personally made it a point to show up to those articles and help them out, so I'm happy to be characterized as "difficult" because I refuse to let you drown out their voices. Viriditas (talk) 04:35, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I can't read minds so I don't know if Jtydog is referring to me or not, though I doubt it. I will say that although Jtydog and I generally don't agree on content, he is an excellent editor and has never, ever, in our exchanges showed any gender bias. He has always been willing to discuss areas of disagreement in a respectful manner. I do, however, question the suggestion that women, or "the ladies" if you will, seem to need some sort of special support, which suggests that they are unable to stand their ground on their own. Gandydancer (talk) 17:02, 2 August 2014 (UTC) \

He's not referring to you (and I don't know why you thought that). There is absolutely no suggestion that women need special support, there's a suggestion that one component of gender bias on Wikipedia involves editorial interaction between males and females, with women disliking combative environments. While you might interpret this as women being "unable to stand their ground on their own", that's not what it means. It means women are less prone to stick around in the kind of articles that Jytdog describes because of the constant conflicts and reverts. You are welcome to disagree, but the evidence says otherwise. Viriditas (talk) 02:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Those topics are only controversial because you make it your job to push a singular POV that eliminates opposing viewpoints. That's a rather hearty and overt accusation, and I think it's a bit ironic considering we're talking about how incivility at the moment. Nonetheless, speaking as a woman, and having been editing in some controversial areas, my experience has mostly been gender blind. Rarely, if ever at all has my gender been mentioned beyond using my first name (which I sort of invited by using my first name on my user page) or using my pronouns. Many times editors who encounter me use male pronouns--and I sort of chuckle at that. The only thing which I can say I've encountered 'misogyny' was when my user page was vandalized by some vandals, which was in itself an isolated incident. Tutelary (talk) 10:57, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

and with that remark from Viriditas, I choose to exit, as I have before in discussions where V shows up in this manner. There are places to work and discuss things that are not toxic. Jytdog (talk) 16:21, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Please see here for some thoughts from one arbitrator on the reasons the Committee's caseload has declined. With regard to delays in resolving individual cases earlier this year, they resulted primarily from availability issues that affected particular arbitrators at particular times, rather than any more systematic problem. I don't think there are any software issues that would help resolve arbitration cases, nor do I think more clerical assistance is the answer. There are some tasks that have been assigned to ArbCom that most of us do think would be better handled elsewhere, but they don't include deciding the actual arbitration cases. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:56, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Arbcom is not a venue that lends itself well to solving these issues, mainly because ArbCom cannot pick its issues, but has to wait until the community makes a request. By the time Arbcom gets involved, it can be several years after the initial disruption has been noted, and the whole Arbcom process can take an additional month or more. The Arbcom can be very useful in clarifying and articulating long-term issues. But a disruption on a talk page is immediate; a series of such disruptions can drive away serious editors long before Arbcom can have a chance to get involved, if it ever does reach that point at all. Disruptive situations need to be dealt with immediately, and stay dealt with. —Neotarf (talk) 21:37, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Some ideas

I don't think the WMF is needed to solve issues of sex bias, but for that to be true we as a community should show we are able to do something about it. I would suggest...

• Affirmative action. While this is (literally) an open question (ideas welcome!), my suspicion is that universities broke the boys-club model through a period of affirmative action to recruit women, which has since become obsolete since they are now the majority of students. Now in society at large the government has been able to compel people to hire or admit women for affirmative action, but not to promote them, but in Wikipedia we have less control over the former and potentially more over the latter. These steps include:

• Jury system. I have previously suggested we adopt a jury system for settling disputes, so that combatants aren't voting on whether each other is the target of administrative sanctions. This system could be modified to provide a two-fold or three-fold higher chance for editors who formally identify as female in preferences, in recognition of the troubles they sometimes face and those driven off by them who cannot participate.
• No big deal adminship. We should consider having a similar random pool of people who indicate themselves as up for adminship who are generally in good standing. Before and/or after joining the pool they should have to earn various "merit badges" for stuff like acting as third party mediators, nominating DYKs and ITNs and elevating GAs and evaluating AN issues, to make sure they have a rough understanding of the site, but rather than facing a high vote threshold they should merely not get in trouble and be picked randomly from the pool. Once again, the random pick allows us a chance to apply an affirmative-action factor.

• Sex-neutral language. Currently we are in a catch-22 where if you look up whether an editor is male or female you are likely to treat him or her differently; but if you don't and use the standard English generic "he", you're accused of assuming all editors are male. And saying "him or her" gets tiresome, and still seems a bit sex-obsessed if you ask me. 99.999% of the time I couldn't care if an editor is the proud owner of a cat or a backyard rooster, nor what sex he or she is. So maybe it's time to invent some language to encourage on a social basis, whether it is simply acronyms like HOS and HOH, or (my preference) inventing pronouns to fit (I personally like the idea of using xe/xes/xer for he/his/him and she/her/her, with xe pronounced like ge in gerente, or kse if you can't manage, and "e" replaceable by any other vowel for different persons to permit simultaneous pronoun references).

I should add that I really do believe the usual instinct here - civility enforcement, policy proliferation, administrative drama - that's worse than useless. It's what failed before and it will fail again because you can't know what people intend and you can't be neutral when deciding about it. So it's important to pursue other ideas of some sort per the usual "definition of insanity" rule. Wnt (talk) 14:24, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Note: I've since written WP:xe with a fuller description of the language idea, and I might be tempted to try using it and see if it catches on. (Hey, I can always dream...) Wnt (talk) 15:56, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• As to your last point, I recommend the Singular they. No need to invent any new words or anything. Even comes with a handy userbox {{User singular they:Yes}} to show your support. Basically the universal pronoun, covers males, females, persons of a third gender, persons who don't identify with a gender, robots, or anyone/thing else that wants to edit. Monty₈₄₅ 17:19, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

The problem I have with singular they is that it's spectacularly unclear. Never is this more true than in Wikipedia internal discussions; I have chased my tail over that usage a number of times. With "xe" you can look it up once and grok the idea, but with "they" you have to try to figure out if more than one person is being spoken of every single time, for the rest of your life. Wnt (talk) 20:26, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

As I recently remarked on Talk:Genesis P-Orridge, inventing new words that layman readers don't understand is a terrible idea. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:32, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Some of us like "xe", some of us like "they", some of us like "s/he", some of us like "one", some of us like "some of us"...Jim-Siduri (talk) 21:00, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I should apologize about the misunderstanding here - I am speaking of using this in our own conversation, not presenting them in articles where jargon of all kinds is best avoided. Wnt (talk) 20:26, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

If you don't like singular "they" (and I prefer it), a more formal copyediting option is "s/he". It may also be possible to use "one" or to reword a sentence completely. —Neotarf (talk) 21:17, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

The only person I've ever seen using xe/xem etc anywhere was Qwyrxian on WP. Despite him (it *is* a him) editing a wide range of pages, it obviously didn't catch on. He's been inactive for some months now for reasons that I cannot divulge but which, in all honesty, are a far more serious problem for people editing in some topic areas than mere usage of a few allegedly uncivil words. The chances of him coming back are practically zero. - Sitush (talk) 17:52, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't see the relevance of that (and I also don't see any block notice on that user's page). There was actually some support for an actual article Xe which existed as of 2006 [27] with a few editors supporting the idea on its talk page. Nonetheless, it was determined to be original research, so I'm not thinking that that usage is something I have to stick with (their proposed forms like "xyrs" were different than what I have in mind, as is their pronunciation). Basically: the English language is our language. I don't think that we should have to have an advanced degree or (more likely) an advertising contract with some big corporation to be allowed to change it. I think that if we right here were to decide to try this idea out, we might just set off a new phenomenon that spreads not just through Wikipedia but the world at large. It should be up to us, and we should not be afraid to use our power if we can agree among ourselves that a few new words are desirable. Wnt (talk) 20:23, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I think you may need to manage expectations. Expecting people to communicate in a professional manner is a fine goal. If though you think to spur some wave of utopian genderless language through use on WP talk pages you should probably brace yourself for disapointment.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:31, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Why should I discard the idea as utopian when there are so many people above looking to impose a utopian "civility" language throughout WP talk pages? I mean, my idea is voluntary and simple while theirs is complex and requires constant forcible interventions. Wnt (talk) 20:41, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I am certainly not one of those you speak of above. I think there's a range of ideas above, some doomed to fail, some destructive. On your idea, I'm not going to stop you. I just don't think it'll spread like wildfire through society.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:52, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

You don't see the relevance of what? And who mentioned a block? You said that you might try using the xe notation and see if it catches on. I'm saying that a reasonably high-profile admin, with whom I got on well, has been using it for years and it didn't. Times may change, of course, but I for one will not adopt that notation. We're an encyclopaedia, first and foremost, not some socio-linguistic experiment or trailblazer.

I'm not going into detail re: Q's inactivity but take my situation as being analogous: death threats and wildly libellous accusations both on- and off-wiki that have a very real, very nasty impact on my life, as well as a tirade of abuse that has absolutely nothing to do with gender and everything to do with trying to maintain an extremely messy area of Wikipedia. One which, I must say, has become more messy since Sue Gardner's ill-advised "push" in India and some of which seems indubitably to be directly connected to that effort. I don't ask for special treatment and I don't get it. - Sitush (talk) 20:38, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, I don't know about any of this and definitely not your particular interaction, but with Sue Gardner I assume you're referring to [28] [29]. But Sue's ideas there sound good to me, and it seems difficult to avoid a certain amount of threats (however much we abhor them) when dealing with India and Pakistan due to the amount of censorship that, unfortunately, continues to go on in the region. I waded into such an issue a while ago at Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The problem is, when people can be arrested or attacked for what they say in a society as a whole, how easily can they be ideally disinterested Wikipedia editors? But the solution is not to discard the country but to uphold our ideals until they ooze out the far end of the social pipeline. Wnt (talk) 20:56, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm in the UK and am not Indian, Pakistani etc but am allegedly under criminal investigation of some sort in India (distribution of child porn seems to be the gist of it) due to a fracas involving me upholding English Wikipedia's policies. The issues apparent in the Indic sphere of Wikipedia, and in particular those relating to me personally, usually have nothing to do with censorship in the subcontinent. But we're drifting way off-topic now: my point was, there are very real, very damaging issues resulting from participation in Wikipedia that are more life-impacting those being raised all over the shop at the moment regarding language. FWIW, I disagree entirely with your solution: that, again, seems to presuppose that Wikipedia is some sort of engine for social change. If it was, it would be a bad one. - Sitush (talk) 21:14, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Of course it's an engine for social change. The whole idea of the sum of the world's knowledge being available to anyone, regardless of wealth, caste, or ideology, is vastly radical. Just like personal computing, BBSes and the Internet, Wikipedia is the lineal descendant of Yippie ideas like Steal This Book. I don't know how to interpret your comment about your situation - you say it doesn't have to do with censorship, yet that you are under attack by a censorship law which, hardly a surprise, is being stretched in some very partisan way. It sounds like whatever has happened to you is an important issue for all of us to know about so that we can show solidarity. Wnt (talk) 22:51, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

It's discussed in the literature as a medium for the democratization of knowledge, not an engine for social change. I think comparing it to Yippie antecedents is a bit off. If you haven't read John_Markoff's What the Dormouse Said, Fred Turner's From Counterculture to Cyberculture, Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget, or Nicholas Carr's The Shallows, then it might be a good time to take a look-see. Access to information is not the same as social change. Viriditas (talk) 01:16, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

You've named some interesting books, but I don't see how they disprove what I suggested. After all, didn't Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs start out by selling blue boxes, which you might say was toeing the Youth International Party Line?^[30] Weren't early BBSes and networks a hotbed of radical politics? And in general, doesn't the role of sites like Wikipedia in providing information to the public follow in the footsteps of all those before them who sought to make information less secret to the general public? It is true, of course, that merely knowing about economic inequality doesn't make people equal. But being able to look up the list of free software makes you a lot more equal than someone who is unaware of some of the free options and has to buy software for a certain function or do without. This is just one of thousands of examples where we put the poor and the rich on at least a somewhat more even playing field. Social constructs have deprived people of so many of their birthrights, from the right to work the land to the right to broadcast in radio. But Wikipedia is an effort to partially roll back the idea that the poor should be deprived even of their right to learn, receiving only as much knowledge as they can scrape together the money to buy. Wnt (talk) 03:59, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Have you read E. M. Forster's The Machine Stops? You can have access to all of the information in the world, and still have a stagnant society with no social change. And in a surveillance society, access to information can be used to control and prevent change. In terms of technology, there's really only one kind of engine of social change, and it's called a molecular assembler. Plug one of those puppies in and all working social concepts are obsolete overnight. Trek called them replicators. Viriditas (talk) 11:48, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

That's a good story, and it was a long time since last I read it. But fiction is not actually evidence. I should emphasize, however, that even in that story, a robust Wiki faithfully documenting the explorations of the people who escape by strange paths and try breathing the outer air would have been transformative. Its premise was a censorship that required face-to-face communication to evade, and after all, the digression from which this one sprang concerned opposition to that. In the real world many people do not worry that Wiki and Internet are irrelevant - they fear flash mobs, coordinated protests, people learning how to make bombs or drugs, and so forth, and constantly call for the sort of censorship that the Machine-dwellers of the story might find comforting. Wikipedia can scarcely be accused of coordinating a world-wide surveillance - the NSA builds their own software and their own machines - rather it provides some small counterbalance, a weak technical sousveillance, a pool of knowledge from which the ordinary people can drink. But the ultimate agents of social change are the marks of Beast and Lamb, the former nearly a mature technology to substitute the human soul with something more causal and pliable, the latter I fear utterly a mystery to me. Wnt (talk) 14:11, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I refer my honourable friend to the short story Business As Usual, During Alterations. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:10, 2 August 2014 (UTC).

Wnt, I must respectfully take issue with your statement that "fiction is not actually evidence". That statement reflects an older paradigm that I believe has been superseded by newer theories about literature and language. There are many types of evidence, and fiction can conceivably be classified as a form of speculative analogical evidence like a model or simulation. More to the point, fiction can act as a model or simulation that can both predict and explain.[31] Let me give you a relevant example. In the above, you refer to the use of cognitive prosthesis technology. The use of such a device has been modeled and simulated extensively in science fiction, such as in the 1995 episode of Life Support (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). But back to my example. In 1909, Forster was able to model, simulate, and predict how the development of Internet technology would influence society.[32] George Orwell and Philip K. Dick did the same thing with surveillance societies. As it turns out, there is solid evidence that fictional works can act as an engine for social change, as these simulations "[train] us to extend our understanding toward other people, to embody (to some extent) and understand their beliefs and emotions, and ultimately to understand ourselves."[33] Viriditas (talk) 01:54, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

True, fiction can predict, rather interestingly at times. And the point the paper makes about communicating empathy is fairly persuasive. But fiction often falls far short of the mark. Orwell may have "predicted" the long-ongoing state surveillance of his era, but his anti-Communist viewpoint definitely missed the idea of an invasive capitalism that declares information as property and redefines the consumer's relationship to a product into mere "licensing", so that everything that the consumer still naively regards as his property is constantly working to spy on him. And, so far, cognitive prosthesis in fiction largely misses the specific practical aspects of the prosthetic hippocampus -- why will a wealthy elite consent to subsidize 20 years of education for people who could be fitted with far more effective prerecorded skill memories in an afternoon? why would they pay for 20 years of imprisonment with no practical benefit when they can write over someone's ethical programming? But to well and truly digress, I think the true horror of the device goes much deeper; I would consider the origin of free will and "actual" conscious sensation in the causality violation produced by the well-restricted precognition of the immutable future, the human being as boundary condition from which the mathematical solution of the cosmos is drawn. In other words, so long as paranormal events (first and foremost among them consciousness itself) are not understood, I don't think the replacement of memory can avoid destroying the essence of the human being. The victim of the procedure might look and act human, even access the records of past memories and make convincing emotional appeals... yet be no more a person than a video recording. Wnt (talk) 12:21, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Jury System

Wnt refers above to various proposals to implement some sort of jury system for user conduct cases. I will note that this is another answer to Jimbo's question of: "What can the WMF do?" The governance of the English Wikipedia is based on the policies of the English Wikipedia, determined by consensus, subject to the ultimate authority of the WMF. However, the English Wikipedia is so large and divided that it is extremely unlikely that any changes to its policies will be enacted voluntarily. Any changes at this point to the governance of the English Wikipedia can only be handed down to it from the WMF. If the WMF agrees with some editors, including me, that the breakdown of civility, and the breakdown of civility enforcement in its admin corps, are becoming toxic, then the WMF must act on its own. The WMF has been rightly reluctant to enforce its will on the normally self-governing English Wikipedia except by necessity. The rewrite and tightening of BLP policy was a legal necessity. If the WMF agrees that civility is both necessary for the English Wikipedia and being ignored, then some sort of intervention, whether or not a jury system, is a necessity. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:32, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

What we need isn't really force from the WMF, just people who are interested. Get enough people willing to administer the jury picks, and we can be bold and go ahead and start spamming a fairly large pool of candidate random editors in order to get the smaller number who are actually interested. We need merely set up the pages and call them in and make it happen, and provided there's some impetus behind it, nobody's going to stop us. But if we don't have that pool of interested people, no decree from on high is going to make the system work. Unfortunately, I don't have the feeling for organizing people that is needed to make things like this catch on. Wnt (talk) 01:44, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Conflict resolution

I believe there is a direction that we could take, one I have attempted to bring up before and modeled after Steven Zhang's Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard. Building off the suggestion of Konveyor Belt I would like to discuss a Conflict resolution noticeboard.

I while back Wikipedia:WikiProject Conflict Resolution was begun and got a good number of member quickly. This seems to indicated that there is some interest[34] in understanding how we, as editors can try to resolve more than just content disputes.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:03, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm a little confused as what the difference between the dispute resolution and the conflict resolution board would be? And what do you think of the idea of just changing Wales' initial suggestion to hire people to make those people only mediators who would engage in voluntary mediation and teach it to volunteers. Detailed here. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:56, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Gender disparity

There is a documented gender disparity both in the editor corps and in Wikipedia coverage.

Unfortunately beyond this it is difficult to go. Sweeping assumptions are made about "locker room" mentality, editing environment and so forth. Research shows that, if anything, the "bad" editing environment is more conducive to males leaving than females. Obviously we should still be aiming at a collegial rather than combative environment, but we should not expect that that would fix the gender gap (though it may assist with editor retention).

Similarly there is evidence that "women's films" have shorter (by about 20% if I recollect correctly) articles than "men's films". This is the most robust research I know of that demonstrates a content gender gap. Yet even here we have vast areas of ignorance - possibly "men's films" are more action and plot driven, and hence amenable to creation of longer articles from the primary document, where "women's films" are more emotion and character driven and require secondary sources (compare "Jo shoots Bob with the whaling gun" and "Jo, by this time already angry at Bob") - there may even be less subtle differences like cast size.

Consequently more research must be welcomed, both into gender disparity and other forms of demographic disparity (age, sexuality, geography and disability all spring to mind).

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:45, 1 August 2014 (UTC).

Or WP:RS just don't bother to cover women's films as much, or a lot of other things women create, or their activities, unless they are young and sexy or so fucking brilliant they blow competing males away. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 05:55, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Google's Impact Challenge

Jimbo, good job volunteering for the Google "Impact Challenge". However, are you aware that someone who said they have worked with employees of Google may have been violating the WMF's Terms of Use recently, when they added this content to Google.org without disclosing that they are paid by Google (if we can assume they are paid by Google, which is hardly a stretch)?

In 2013, Google.org created [http://g.co/globalimpactchallenge Google Impact Challenges]—a grant competition for nonprofits using technology. The public votes for winners on the Google Impact Challenge website. Google has held Impact Challenges in the UK, India, Bay Area, Brazil and Australia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://google.org/global-impact-awards/challenge/}}</ref>

Fortunately, a bot quickly reverted User:Emilykettering's spammy links, so Wikipedia's integrity was protected. But, as long as you're at the Impact Challenge now, maybe mention to Jacquelline Fuller that it's not appropriate for Google employees to directly edit Google.org (or for that matter, the articles about Andy Rubin, Susan Wojcicki, Cynthia Kenyon, or Hal V. Barron, who are all employed by Google or subsidiaries). We know your track record on this is untarnished, that you'll advise anyone and everyone about the Bright Line Rule, regardless of your personal or professional affiliations. Keep up the good work! - Spotting ToU (talk) 15:58, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Mr. 2001.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:53, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

You seem to know my IPv6 address, so we must assume you ran a CheckUser without going through the proper channels. AN/I for you! (Just kidding.) You're welcome, by the way. Maybe the WMF should hire a former paid editor to exclusively ferret out undisclosed conflict-of-interest editing being done by any vendors, donors, employees, and affiliates of the Wikimedia Foundation. It could be a 10-hour-per-week contractor role, for 1/8th the salary of Lila Tretikov ($60 an hour, approximately). Think about it. - Spotting ToU (talk) 18:27, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I support the foundation hiring someone (but I see no reason to think that former paid editors have the right skills for this) to assist the community in combatting all kinds of spam - of course including any done by vendors, donors, employees, and affiliates. And you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:37, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Pardon me for intruding, and maybe I missed an inside joke or something, but is it appropriate to mention somebody and how much money they make? That seems like pretty personal information in my view. I don't know who Lila Tretikov is, so perhaps I'm missing something, but I know I would not want my name and financial info put out like that. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 00:28, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

The Wikipediocracy staff, including the one who started this thread, have been engaging in that (and worse) since the day she was appointed. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:15, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

>so we must assume you ran a CheckUser without going through the proper channels

>I don't think Jimbo needed "CheckUser glasses" to behaviorally discern your identity. JoeSperrazza (talk) 17:58, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Horrors! You mean to say that people responsible for Wikipediocracy have engaged in looking at Form 990 documents that the Wikimedia Foundation is required to file as a tax-exempt organization, then repeating this publicly-available compensation information... in public?! And then you weasel in an "(and worse)" to make us believe that even more heinous things are taking place at Wikipediocracy than looking at government-mandated documents? Someone should call the FTC and get Wikipediocracy shut down. - Spotting ToU (talk) 13:31, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I just found out who she was (Thanks Viriditas!) and so I'm a bit embarrassed, lol. I actually thought Sue Gardner was still director. My apologies for my ignorance. Still, we should try to keep the five pillars standing, and do our best to present good examples to others. If I let slip someone's financial information when handling a new account request, I would lose my account creator responsibilities and access to the tool, so I'm a bit hyper-aware when it comes to those things. Be well. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 02:42, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

To chime in regarding the edit(s) in question, there was a misunderstanding on my part and this should not reflect on the Google.org or Google team as a whole. Thank you! - Emilykettering (talk) 05:45, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Non-tenured administrators

Just floating a thought here, prompted by one of the comments above. What if administrators weren't tenured? There are very few tenured positions in the real-world, and other aspects of Wiki have undergone periodic reviews as requirements have tightened (eg FA, GA), so why not something similar for administrators here?

Administrators every 3-4 years could undergo a brief, mandatory community review, something like an RfA, in which their behavior and decision-making over that time span is reviewed.

Advantages

• Administrators may be more cautious when acting in disputes, and more careful and professional in what they say, without the freedom to run rough-shod over civility in the name of brevity.
• Contentious administrators that do not reflect community consensus or appear to be immune from other forms of review may be removed over time
• This time period will be sufficient to address the issue of admins who straddle the boundaries of civility, sexism and stirring the fire
• May improve the quality of administrators, as they are forced to be responsive to the community of other editors
• Mirrors the removal of tenured positions in real-life due to these same above issues (namely improving quality and ability to remove poor performers)

Disadvantages

• May impact the ability of administrators to resolve 'controversial issues' -- however as we have seen, if anything the tenured position of administrators makes divisiveness more likely
• Will be stressful, and may decrease our administrator levels -- however, I think this may actually expand the user base by improving the atmosphere
• The process may be equally as divisive as the current circumstances -- however, the admin group as a whole will likely become more civil and professional

This is not a comment about any admin in particular, but a statement that the community may be improved by removing the tenured position from the admin role. I mean a mandatory maximum term after which admin rights are removed, not the semi-voluntary self-review that admins may choose to engage in. This idea could be trialled for a few administrators and then expanded to the full group. What are the thoughts of other users? 129.94.102.201 (talk) 03:21, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Term limits for administrators has been up in the past and like all attempts at reform in the past seven years or so that I have been around here, has been shot down. I once supported the idea but now feel the systemic problems run too deep to be fixed without WMF intervention. Jusdafax 07:28, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

There is no need for this. We just need to be more willing to block admins who use their tools contrary to community expectations. If they unblock themselves they can be desysoped. If they are blocked often then there is arbcom.

As it stands if an admin is blocked they tend to be unblocked right away by another admin and the blocking admin is abused, regardless of the validity of the block. Chillum 07:52, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

If the community provides unambiguous rules to admins on how the tools should be used in a particular instance, and an admin refuses to abide after being informed, the community and/or Arbcom is generally pretty quick to deal with it. But there has never been consensus to establish such rules when it comes to civility/NPA. Instead, we rely very much on Admin discretion to deal with the issues, and then a bunch of people get upset however that discretion is used. Monty₈₄₅ 13:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: It would be interesting to hear from people familiar with the Swedish Wikipedia how the system of one-year term limits is working there. Are they generally happy with it? Is there a perception that it has made admins more cautious? More likely to curry favour from other admins and try to be friends with everybody? @Peter Isotalo: ? Bishonen | talk 13:05, 1 August 2014 (UTC).

I will note that any lessons or experiences that we attempt to draw from svwiki (Swedish Wikipedia) should be taken with great caution. Enwiki (English Wikipedia) has 1407 administrators; svwiki has 69. For annual reconfirmations on svwiki, there are 5 or 6 reconfirmations each month; on enwiki, there would be 120. (Even if you stretch out to 3 year intervals, enwiki would still see an unwieldy 40 reconfirmations per month.) The pool of Swedish admins is far enough below Dunbar's number that a significant proportion of editors (including other admins) are likely to be able to contribute constructively to reconfirmation hearings. (To a greatly oversimplified approximation, it remains a "small town" where "everyone still knows everybody else".)

On a related note, the pool of Swedish speakers in the world at large is much, much smaller, appreciably less geographically diverse, and more culturally homogeneous. To take one silly issue we deal with at enwiki, Swedish speakers don't have to deal with endless bickering over U.S. versus UK versus Australian versus Canadian English. Svwiki doesn't have to face the same scale of nationalistic and ethnic disputes that would be imported into an enwiki reconfirmation process.

Svwiki experimented with an Arbitration Committee for a couple of years, but abandoned it in 2008. Enwiki has had an ArbCom since 2004 (or thereabouts), and has established policies, procedures, and experience for dealing with admin misconduct. Because of our size (and out of necessity) we have developed institutions that svwiki could not support—in the same way that we could not support the burden of reconfirmation circuses. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:05, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I was aware of those consequences of the difference in size and diversity, as they have been widely stated before. I just thought my particular queries might still be of some interest, mutatis mutandis. But thank you for preempting the need to answer them. Bishonen | talk 14:15, 1 August 2014 (UTC).

I figured that you would be aware of those differences, but the same probably couldn't be said for everyone participating in this discussion and I thought it relevant to mention them. It's best to be clear from the beginning when we are having a philosophical discussion versus when we are considering a policy proposal, as it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference.

Though truth be told, I didn't know some of the details until I went looking a few minutes ago. The precise size of svwiki's admin corps, for instance—if pressed, I might have guessed 30 or I might have guessed 150. I wonder if their annual review procedure was instituted when that corps was smaller, or when it was about the same size as it is know, and I do wonder if there are concerns about what will happen if it grows larger. Or another example—I don't know if svwiki has any mechanism (beyond 'ask a steward') for desysopping admins who misuse their tools; I didn't know that svwiki doesn't have an ArbCom, and I didn't know that they had experimented with one. (And I don't know why it shut down six years ago.)

I certainly don't see anything wrong with hearing answers to your questions. Even though their policy solution wouldn't work here, we could still learn something useful. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:08, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

TenOfAllTrades, I generally agree with your analysis. From my limited experience with admin nominations on Swedish Wikipedia, I have come to the conclusion that the regulars over there really, really dislike discussions about other regulars that are critical of behavior, even if they are reasonably constructive. To some degree, it's a result of the small size of the community, but also the debate and discussion culture. There used to be a regular desysopping procedure like here, but as far as I know bred irritation, dispute. And, believe it or not, a majority vote was required to to depose someone. So "sitting" admins could keep their positions with less support than new nominations. Limited tenure for admins was as far as I know a pragmatic solution to get away from the old rules and to avoid having to put any user in the awkward position of instigating a vote against someone.

And I should add that Swedish Wikipedia has no functioning dispute resolution process beyond raising issues at the Village Pump and normal talkpage activity. That means that long-running grudges between regulars, or between regulars and outsiders and newbies, tend not to get resolved. It's part of the reason why I recently decided to leave Swedish Wikipedia for good.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:20, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I hadn't thought about adminships being tenured here, but you're right. And to ask if that "policy" (is it a policy?) should be reconsidered is a good one. And the fact that it might not work on the English Wikipedia as it is administered on the Swedish WP is no reason to dismiss it without due consideration. How about any administrator who has received "X" number of formal complaints in a 12-month period needs to go through a review process. "X" could be a set number, or a percentage of some other number. It could be total complaints, or it could be "E" number of editor complaints and/or "A" number of admin complaints. I don't know. These are off the top of my head, but I think that's what Jimbo is looking for, right? Let's throw some ideas out there and really think about them. Lightbreather (talk) 15:37, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, many of these things have been discussed previously and the entire concept is listed as a perennial proposal. There are some linked discussions at that link that provide some of the arguments in support and in objection to these ideas. Resolute 15:48, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the problem is not tenure, but that we don't have enough admins to handle the flood of spam, hoaxes, bad AfCs, and AfD closures.

If so, perhaps the answer is to encourage administrators and those with similar rights (e.g., Arbitrators, even Jimbo) to start nominating long-term editors to be Administrators. Once there are enough, periodic recertification can be reconsidered. JoeSperrazza (talk) 17:55, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

If privileges were to be unbundled and then redistributed in rational and targeted ways to experienced editors who want and are properly equipped to use them, then there would be no problem at all handling "the flood of spam, hoaxes, bad AfCs, and AfD closures". Instead, the vast bulk of the privileges that have been assigned are not used at all, because they have been assigned inappropriately to legacy admins, many appointed in the distant past when they were school boys. The problem is not that we need more admins. The problem is that we have far too many ineffectual admins who don't use, and wouldn't know how to use most of the tools they have been given. This is one of the reasons for the lack of professionalism we see in the Wikipedia administration. But admins as a group will never voluntarily relinquish their life tenures, which is why progress can never be made in improving the administration until the current overprivileged admins are excluded from voting against change to the system. --Epipelagic (talk) 19:17, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you can reasonably say that because someone (or some-many) chooses to use only part of the tool-kit that we are "wasting" privilege on them. If we have "ineffectual admins" then we can resolve that by recruiting "effectual admins" - there is no pot of admin-juice that will run dry.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:01, 2 August 2014 (UTC).

I would think there are enough editors annoyed at enough admins to get a good consensus in favor of a term limit of say one year, with a mandatory six months off before they can do it again. Also, it should be easier to "encourage them to take a break" even sooner for substantive reasons. It would be good for admins and prevent quick burnout and would be a check on those who might be in it for the power trip or to push a POV. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:52, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that an administrator who does nothing controversial, but constantly passes the buck will get reelected, but one actually willing to make hard decisions will not. There are some problem areas on Wikipedia that break our rules. There's lots of Theosophy articles that present very, very out there beliefs without framing them as part of the Theosophical religion. Alternative medicine has issues with having far too many articles to monitor, leading to what are, effectively, WP:COATRACKs. List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming survives by having the people who support its POV-pushing be much quicker to oppose deletion arguments - and because admins who, fearful of a controversial decision, close as no-consensus deletion debates even if it's not justified. We need admins willing to enforce Wikipedia policies, with some modicum of protection if they do so. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 02:06, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Mediaviewer

First, here's one really great thing about the MediaViewer. Yesterday I was able to tweet about a graph in an article and link directly to it in a much more useful way than the old media landing page. The image is large and nicely presented but more importantly, the article is "underneath" it so that it's very easy for the reader to click the 'x' and then read the full article. I really liked that and think it is a great experience for the reader.

Second, I wanted to call for a second round of attention to User talk:Jimbo Wales/NPOV report on problems with MV. Currently it is a discussion rather than an NPOV summary (although there is an admirable start at the beginning). In order to make the whole thing more comfortable how about if we attempt to read that discussion and summarize it on the corresponding user page? To make it NPOV we will need to use qualifying language like "Some have objected that X" rather than "X". And references (diffs) would be excellent. I want something that I can present to the relevant decision makers that is calm and helpful. Those who simply want to have a power struggle (whether at the Foundation or in the community) are barking up the wrong tree.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:46, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

One of the things that turns me off about it is that it is all icon based. Wikipedia is a word based interface and I found myself annoyed at having to hover over each thing to see what it did. You could fit more buttons if it was text.

Like the rest of Wikipedia there is no "What links here", I cannot see a history button. It seems bolted onto the side rather than part of the wiki.

I know it is meant to be a viewer but that does not mean it cannot have the same interconnectedness that the rest of the wiki has. Frankly the way the whole site was indexed and linked together and revisioned is what drove me to edit here.

I like the aesthetics and I like the ability to link to it with an associated article. I think it can be a great tool, but I think there needs to be significant community input. Input where people make actionable improvements to make it wanted, and constructive criticism to address valid concerns.

I don't think it should be a polarized use it or don't use it discussion. Rather it should be an attempt to improve the encyclopedia. Just like we don't delete an article that can be improved to standards this tool can be made valuable. Chillum 10:58, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I would put this on User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/NPOV_report_on_problems_with_MV but I am not sure how it fits with the format/scope of the page. Is it just for problems or are improvements welcome too? Chillum 11:08, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Chillum, Re icon based and "I found myself annoyed at having to hover over each thing to see what it did." — How does that compare to the row of 11 icons above each editing box when one edits Wikipedia? --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:04, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Just stick it over there on that talk page. I'd like us to roll up a clear, non-accusatory, actionable request for a set of things that will resolve the problems. As you say, Chillum, in words that I completely endorse, "I don't think it should be a polarized use it or don't use it discussion". We've had far too much climbing the Reichstag dressed like Spiderman when we'd be better off just clearly expressing what we need.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:34, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I just now copied Chillum's message over there.[35] --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:40, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Let me just say that that file a good example of bunch of things that are wrong with graphs on wikipedia and commons. It's a PNG not a SVG (perhaps not a big deal), but the worse part is that it's based on sources in Mathematica, which haven't been shared. So it's basically not editable by others in an easy way; they might as well recreate it. And this is the kind of graph that needs and has seen updates; see File:Diseased_Ebola_2014.png#filehistory (without the MV, because that app still can't show you the update history, it seems.) Without trying to derail the MV discussion, about which I think I've said enough myself, I'd very much like to see the WMF adopt a Debian-like policy of at least recommending if not requiring sources for graphs/sketches/diagrams, preferably made with open source tools. Normally I'd tell you to see FTBFS for further reading, but that's another "awesome" Wikipedia article... So instead I'll quote from [36]: “The Debian Free Software Guidelines require "source code" also known as the preferred form for modification, for both programs and non-program software such as documentation, artwork and other data assets. Other distributions have similar policies. [...] Pre-rendered images of vector image files are not source. Instead include the SVG or similar and render the images at build time or runtime.” JMP EAX (talk) 14:22, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't disagree but that's really another issue for another day. As it turns out, the source data is actually in a nice table in the article but that's obviously not as good as what you are recommending. That's really a social issue for commons more than for en.wikipedia.org and me talking to commons has typically proven to be counter-productive so I'll just leave that to others.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:34, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Could this be a useful role for Wikidata? Input the source data and plotting style, and get out a graph that knows how to display its labels in the appropriate language and automatically updates when the source data changes. --Amble (talk) 19:38, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I know, this is just me causing trouble again... But really, why will you "leave that to others"? Others can't do what you can do. Irrelevant to this discussion I know, but do you have any idea how disappointing that is to those who despair of the Commons mess, and look to you as a figurehead who might be able to actually do something about it? Begoon ^talk 19:42, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate the sentiment but I'm sure you can understand why I might chuckle. Just a few minutes after you said this you expressed dismay when I called someone here out for poor behavior. Imagine how badly it would go down over there. Working through difficult community conflict issues requires pointing out where people are going wrong, and requires a willingness of those who are being told they are doing wrong to think it over and either try to explain themselves in detail (as I have done below) or to apologize (as I have done many times in the past when I get something wrong). I'm not convinced that my going to commons would be helpful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:00, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I can appreciate you might chuckle. I wasn't suggesting you go and reason with the resident lunatics - I was suggesting you might use your levers of power to have the lunatics removed without discussion. I'd do that if nutters were squatting in my house. Begoon ^talk 20:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I suspect it has some uses in making Wikicommons etc. more user friendly for the masses. But it should have been advertised a lot more, especially on release, and the benefits explained. I'm getting use to the extra click back to the old way now, ignoring the other features, but was really ticked at first. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 05:58, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

More to the point (of MV) here. If I click on the big right-arrow on that image you tweeted, I get to this rod of Asclepius. Useful/meaningful "next" in that context? JMP EAX (talk) 09:51, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Hono(u)r

Jimmy

You post on the page of a fine and upstanding user, Sitush, implying that he conducts himself without hono(u)r. You disinvite him from your talk page.

Sitush is one of the most dedicated and right-thinking wikipedians I have encountered.

He has devoted countless hours to this website, in a difficult and often insane area which demands dedication, resulting in many personal attacks upon himself, and threats, because he wishes to do what is right. And boy, does he do what is right. Check his edit history. He has selflessly devoted himself to the values of NPOV and accuracy which you espouse. He has done that over years, through hardship, and under attack.

You have the right to disinvite him from your talk page. We all have that right.

You do not have the right to question his hono(u)r.

Retract that immediately please. Or remove your "open door" stuff from the top of this page, since it is, in that case, worthless.

Apologies are nice too.

Thank you. Begoon ^talk 18:13, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

While I appreciate the sentiment, and I'm sure Sitush does too, do we really need to expand the drama with yet another section? Wouldn't it be high time, for people committed to the encyclopedia, to stop pouring oil on the many fires, depersonalize and reboot the whole debate, and start looking for constructive solutions? MLauba ^(Talk) 18:31, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Imagine it were you, rather than Sitush, MLauba. Really, imagine that. Sometimes something is so wrong that it can only be "righted" by positive action. I'm not pouring oil - Jimbo is hugely visible, as are his actions, and they can hurt commensurately. Sure, the drama needs to dissipate, but this was egregious, and in many ways separate (and maybe even arbitrary? (a mistake?)). Dealing with it will help the dissipation of the drama. With great power comes great responsibility Begoon ^talk 18:38, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it was me. My contributions fell down to nothing after a similar experience with Jimbo. If this request of yours actually does achieve something positive, it would come as a huge surprise. Because my experience tells me otherwise. MLauba ^(Talk) 18:52, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Well then we may both live in hope. I'm glad I'm not Jimbo, because my utterings here don't have the duty of care which his do. Tough at the top - but he gets to go sightseeing on the community starship when we build it. I don't. He'll respond to this, I hope, it would be the decent thing to do - I'm sorry your disagreement wasn't as high profile as this one. Jimbo, when you put right your error with Sitush, think of MLauba too, please. Thanks. Begoon ^talk 19:02, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Listening to these concerns I decided to review Sitush's contributions to my talk page to determine if I made some error. I am only human after all, and error is always possible. Here's what I found, in chronological order and, as it turns out, in order of increasing bad behavior.

1. First the claim that there is no evidence of sexism in Wikipedia, dismissing it as the work or "pressure groups"- a rather absurd claim given the level of broad public awareness of specific examples of it. 06:19, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
2. Claims that concern being raised "seems to be more 'anti-male' and civility-based, intended to sanitise and censor" - a classic example of WP:NOTLISTENING 06:34, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
3. Classic insult of "dramatic" - 16:28, 31 July 2014(UTC)] - it is important to understand here that this was an outrageous distortion as nothing dramatic had been said at all other than a mere noting of the fact that BHG was reversed with impunity. (It may be helpful to look up what that word means if you think it's a dramatic statement. "exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action" - the admin who reversed that well justified block after a very short and inconclusive discussion at AN/I will of course not be punished and is free from any injurious consequences of that action. If you think it was a good reversal then you should say "such blocks should be done with impunity" - but the fact of the impunity is not a dramatic thing to note.
4. When called on the unfair use of 'dramatic', decides to go further with 'such a liar' twice - 20:09, 31 July 2014 (UTC) 21:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
5. Insult of another user as "hypersensitive and perhaps even delusional" - 21:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

You may additionally find this statement by BoboMeowCat to be informative.

This is precisely the kind of hostile behavior that I think needs to stop at Wikipedia, and which we need to understand is precisely the cause of both our editor diversity problems and our difficulty in recruiting new editors. Those who have not been around as long as I have will be forgiven for not knowing that I personally and successfully kicked people out of the project (with the support of the community who did the same in other cases) for precisely these kinds of behaviors in the era that led to our explosive growth. It is our toleration for behavior that would not be accepted in any paid work space that leads to massive costs in terms of the quality of the project and the harmony of the work environment.

One mistaken meme needs to be addressed with great clarity. Refusing to accept bad behavior on the part of good content contributors is not a failure to show appreciation and thanks for that good work. It is to say that good work on content is not an excuse to behave badly toward your colleagues. People fear that we will lose a handful of usual suspects (and to be clear Sitush is not among them) who behave badly and get away with it, but tend to forget the great cost they impose on the rest of us and on newcomers who encounter such things and simply decide to quietly go away disappointed.

I don't want Sitush to leave. I want him to take a deep breath and understand that behaving in such a dishonorable fashion is beneath him and to encourage a higher standard - a moral ambitiousness - to make this community and this project great.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:44, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

And a footnote on the word 'honorable' - from the New Oxford American Dictionary "1 bring shame or disgrace on: the mayor dishonors his good battle by resorting to sniping. 2 fail to observe or respect (an agreement or principle): the community has its own principles it can itself honor or dishonor." I think that Sitush dishonors his good work in other areas by resorting to such bullying tactics as I have outlined above. And I think that his behavior fails to observe or respect the principles that we have set for our community (and enshrined in both policy and the site's terms of service).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:44, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. You are wrong. Civility is not "saying pretty things and ticking the PC boxes". The most uncivil people here have never said a rude word. You are allowing yourself to be used by a PC bandwagon which will look good today and tomorrow, maybe even next week, but further than that will falter.

I'll have no further part in this discussion, since I've seen these lines drawn before, elsewhere, and it never ended well. Good luck. It's brave to pander to the loud, fashionable minority, I guess. Oh wait, no, just foolish, and momentarily "trendy". Begoon ^talk 19:59, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

First, I agree absolutely that civility is not "saying pretty things and ticking the PC boxes". Indeed, I think that 'civility' is too low a standard to ask of ourselves. We should be kind, generous, thoughtful, respectful, open to listening. We should understand that when people of long experience and a proven track record raise a concern from a position of not needing to do so, it is probably unwise to jump to odd conclusions about "PC" and "fashion" and "bandwagon". It is true that some things come into fashion and go out of fashion - I am not talking about those things. I am talking about love of others and the character traits that support and are supported by that. And calling people names and behaving in a nasty way is simply not the right path.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

So go and apologise to Sitush then, for calling his honour into question. That's huge to some, and in some cultures. That would be a kind and loving thing to do. He ventured an opinion - that's all. Tempers were heated. You overstepped. We're supposed to be able to see and realise that. You do that and I won't laugh at your beard. Promise. Begoon ^talk 20:17, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

You've overstepped. Jimmy is entitled to his view that there is a "more honorable" way to participate in that discussion than "liar", etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:27, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Well then, we've all overstepped, haven't we Alan? I'm sorry if I did, I'm sure you would be too if you felt you had (I'm entitled to an opinion too), and I'm sure Jimmy will be sorry if he feels he has also. Easy. Love these overheated discussions. Begoon ^talk 20:36, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Are you saying you overstepped? When you came here, had you not read that he rather asked that more honor be shown and that he had not barred anyone from his talk page? Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:06, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

My beard and I appreciate your thoughtful words. I will leave a note for him.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:43, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

You are thanked. Have a good conversation. Only good can come of that, and you will enjoy it. Begoon ^talk 20:53, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Just going to jump in here. Disclaimer: I'm a Wikipedian in good standing who just can't login right now due to technical reasons but I'll email Begoon later from my account once I can log in if he wants to know who I am. The edits made from this IP before today are not mine. Comments: Just like actions from one side can easily be misunderstood to be anti-whatever, we have to keep in mind that the opposite holds true as well. Doing something that appears "pro-whatever" might also be misunderstood. What I mean to say is, I don't think supporting an inclusive environment is "PC" or "anti-male" as much as folks genuinely care about getting a NPOV encyclopedia and think this is the way to do it. Just because Wikipedia's NPOV goal coincidences with a fashionable social goal at the moment doesn't necessarily mean the two are connected. The advocates might be connected to both issues, but the central goals are not. Correlation doesn't prove causation. When someone recognizes that they have a POV, regardless of who they are male or female, then they should be able to recognize that the only way to achieve actual neutrality is by inviting the opposite POV. A POV isn't a bad thing, it's just a thing. Acting with disregard to a POV is a bad thing. Acting carefully with regard to a POV and inviting the opposite site to balance is a good thing. As males, our opposite is females (not to be rude to other genders, just saying for simplicity sake and the sake of argument). Neither POV is wrong or bad, it's just a point of view. It's a matter of how we look at the world. Inviting someone who sees the world differently isn't "politically correct", it's how we achieve "neutral point of view".--198.201.23.10 (talk) 20:29, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• @Jimbo. Re: "...I personally and successfully kicked people out of the project (with the support of the community who did the same in other cases) for precisely these kinds of behaviors in the era that led to our explosive growth." — This implies causation, connection between the period of individual rule and subsequent growth. The growth in 2005-07 was a social and cultural phenomenon, a sort of fad, that had little to do with the editing environment (which was equally as acrimonious as today's) and less still to a handful of targeted expulsions. There will be no mass influx of random participants in 2015 if we start behaving in a draconian way towards "civility violators" because the nature of the project has changed. Low hanging fruit is gone, high hanging fruit requires specialists with tall ladders to pick. This isn't to say that nothing should be done when somebody goes off and personally attacks others, only that cracking down is no panacea and is not apt to boost participation levels in any meaningful way. Carrite (talk) 19:41, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

ArbCom

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Civility and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Requests for arbitration;
• Wikipedia:Arbitration guide.

Thanks, --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:31, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Is sexual harassment harassment?

I've started to squeeze some of the frass out of the civility policy at Wikipedia talk:Civility/sandbox and stumbled on a curious fact: in our present policy on civility, sexual harassment (the encyclopedia article) is described as one of the ways to identify incivility, in an item separate from our policy WP:Harassment. It turns out there's a reason: I don't see one word about sex in the latter policy.

Now policies on sexual harassment may have a bad name because some try to abuse them as a backdoor route to ban porn and such things, which I definitely don't want to happen here, but we do have to recognize that women here do report being driven off by comments/advances of this type, and there does seem to be some relation with other forms of personal attack and outing. I think it is possible that our weakness on these issues has to do with it being handled separately through this gloriously dysfunctional civility policy rather than the more straightforward and more frequently applied policy on harassment. Wnt (talk) 14:29, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it is important to distinguish between Sexual Harassment such as unwanted sexual advances, harassment based on sex/gender, and general incivility that may create a hostile environment, sometimes with terms that may be more offensive to women. I have honestly never seen the first case, where there are unwanted sexual advances, not result in swift and severe sanctions. Monty₈₄₅ 14:54, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Question from Colorado

Jimbo, what do you think are the reasons why your story about the founding of Wikipedia is so different from Larry Sanger's story? Note, I am not asking about whose story is more accurate, but rather your insight into why there is such divergence. Thanks, and I'll be smokin' through a bowl in your honor this afternoon. - 69.241.73.94 (talk) 16:56, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Armenians asked to write Wikipedia entries to promote culture

Armenian government officials are encouraging Armenians to contribute to Wikipedia with the "One Armenian, One Article" television campaign. According to The Guardian: "[Misak] Ohanian estimates that of the 20,000 Armenians living in London, around 40% can speak either language [the Eastern or Western dialect], and only 10% can read and write in them." Therefore, I think an opportunity arises for the English language Wikipedia to connect with English-speaking Armenians, with an overall benefit to the encyclopedia.

Do you believe enWP should be involved in the campaign, and if so, what outreach should we give? Seattle (talk) 18:30, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Have an essay that makes it clear that the most effective way for them to improve articles on the topic is to learn Wikipedia rules so they don't end up frustrated when people who know the rules revert some of their material. Link to the most useful Help and Policy pages. And/or do a wikiproject if someone wants to do the work. Make sure the promoters know about it. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:10, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Why Wikipedia is a joke

The tolerance of the Wikipedia community in general, and you in particular to behavior such as this is the reason that conscientious contributors leave your project and never consider it either unbiased or uncensored, and that only POV-warriors remain. 97.93.139.201 (talk) 02:05, 3 August 2014 (UTC)