Grants talk:IdeaLab/WikiProject Women

Scope

Would this be for English Wikipedia specifically? Would it include developing software to restrict edits to women only or would that be enforced simply by community agreement/convention? Kaldari (talk) 00:32, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that software-enforced restrictions make sense; they would be easily gotten around by switching one's gender setting anyway, and as such the space would need to be regulated by community norms regardless. Fhocutt (talk) 08:34, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I think software could help manage it, but based on two parameters: 1) the "she" setting on the user's preferences, and 2) an oath by the user that they are a woman or identify as female.

The "she" setting alone would not work because you can toggle it. The two conditions together should suffice, though there would still need to be community managers. I would be happy to be a manager, but of course we would need several to start. Lightbreather (talk) 16:40, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

It's possible to lie in an oath, too, so at some point there has to be trust and reliance on community standards. On the other hand, I can see where it might be useful to programatically require someone to have made a conscious choice to join the space, as a first line of defense against "please explain why this exists" or similar from men dropping by. Although I also suspect is that the harder it is to join the community, the less likely women who don't necessarily feel welcome in "women's spaces" will be to feel welcome in this one. Fhocutt (talk) 19:52, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I understand. I was thinking of something along the lines of the agreement women make with the Systers list at the Anita Borg Institute. It's a mailing list, but I think it would make a good model for this since they've fine-tuned the process over 20 years. Lightbreather (talk) 20:50, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Opposition

@AWang (WMF): I am new to this process. An "Opposition" subsection has been added to the idea proposal page under "Get involved." Is this typical for idea proposal pages? If there is to be an involved "opposition" group is that the place for it? Lightbreather (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Lightbreather. An opposition section isn't typical for every idea, but I suppose not totally unexpected for controversial ones like this. As creator, I feel that you should get to "own" your idea, however, even though respectful opposition will need a place to be voiced. I'd be ok moving opposition to a new section on the talk page here, instead of on the main page, and just linking it from the bottom of the main page, if you like. Thoughts? Happy to help make this happen if needed. This is in line with how we handle the issue of support/opposition on IEG proposals here on meta-wiki...endorsements on main page, concerns on talk page. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I actually thought of that, too, but was afraid to be bold, based on lack of experience with the IdeaLab process and some unpleasant experiences from being bold on the English WP. Lightbreather (talk) 19:07, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Siko (WMF), can you move "Comments" and "Opposition" to the Discussion page? Thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 19:57, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Canvassing

@AWang (WMF): I am new to this process. I invited a couple dozen Wikipedia women to visit this idea proposal page. A WP editor started a discussion on my WP talk page suggesting that I was possibly canvassing and asking me to stop. I'm not writing content here or proposing policy changes, I'm proposing making a women-only project that recruits, encourages, and supports WP women, regardless of their preferred topics and positions on policy. Is inviting women to review this proposal allowed? Lightbreather (talk) 01:01, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Just my 5c: a women-only project is in fact a policy change, as so far policy does not allow to restrict users from editing based on their real-life identity. But I would be glad if @AWang (WMF): clarifies what is a policy of IdeaLab on this, as I couldn't find any guidelines — NickK (talk) 01:26, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I am the editor who had the original concern. Lightbreather seems to have notified around 30 people, and I have no idea how she managed to come to this list. There's a gender gap wikiproject on Wikipedia, I thought she got it from there, but nope, there are people she notified that have never contributed to that wikiproject. Maybe the 'female wikipedians' category? Nope, as she's going totally out of order and in specifics, plus there's a lot of them there. So I'm not sure where she's getting this list of people to notify. It looks as if she's notifying random people, but some of them have !voted to endorse Lightbreather's own idea. Wikipedia has a canvassing policy. Plus, the gender gap is under discretionary sanctions set by Wikipedia's ArbCom, so canvassing would be in scope of that. If she's indeed only notifying people she thinks will be sympathetic to this IdeaLab, then that's votestacking, mass notifying, and selective notification, a violation of Wikipedia's canvassing policy and possibly a violation to the discretionary sanctions. Tutelary (talk) 02:41, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Nineteen are women on the GGTF who hadn't yet shown up here on their own; the other six (I notified 25 total) are just editors that are women. They all got identical, brief, neutral notices. I don't expect them to endorse the proposal, though I suspect some will - and some won't. If you think I'm breaking a Wikipedia rule I'd prefer you take it up at the appropriate WP forum. Lightbreather (talk) 03:55, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

You didn't answer my question though. Where did you garner this list? Tutelary (talk) 08:04, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Lightbreather informed women she thought might be interested, which is legitimate per the enwiki canvassing guideline. I've noticed that guideline – and that's all it is – being misused several times to try to stop women from letting other women know about issues of interest. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 13:43, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Of course it's canvassing. It's a proposal to exclude a majority of editors from participating, and not only are the canvassed editors women, the list excludes significant senior enwiki women contributors (e.g. Fluffernutter, SandyGeorgia, Bishonen), so it falls under Wikipedia:Votestacking. It also doesn't matter, as it's a sufficiently bad idea that word will spread. NE Ent (talk) 20:24, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

After reading the Wikipedia:Canvassing I'd have to agree it would count as vote stacking. The existence of such a group that would only welcome one genders participation is of interest to everyone on wikipedia. Inviting based on gender is an attempt to skew results. Thorrand (talk) 01:46, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi folks, here's my 2 cents from the perspective of IdeaLab organizers. This is a space for sharing ideas and getting feedback on them, it isn't a vote and nothing will be decided based on sheer numbers either way. Lightbreather, you started this page to get some early input from people about your idea as you were wondering whether or not it should move forward, and I don't think you've done anything wrong per se by starting to bring people into the open discussion here, where plenty of opposing voices have also entered, as noted below. We encourage folks to follow guidelines from their target wikis (in this case, English Wikipedia) for bringing more folks into discussions, but there is no formal canvassing policy here on metawiki that I'm aware of, and as SlimVirgin notes, English Wikipedia has canvassing guidelines, but doesn't actually have a formal policy either. In terms of IdeaLab guidelines, based on this discussion, it sounds like we might want to give a bit of extra thought to providing idea-creators some helpful guidelines about ways to engage their target communities in ideas they create, to help ease the discomfort and questions around this. Pinging Jmo, let's add this into ongoing idea-creation campaign planning. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:44, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Siko. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Lightbreather (talk) 19:05, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Opposition Canvassing on Reddit?

I just want to point out that this discussion has been brought to the attention of /r/MensRights and /r/WikiInAction (a GamerGate affiliated subreddit). I'm not sure if this qualifies as canvassing or if it should be just thought of as offsite critique, but people should probably know that this is going on.

Also how come there's nothing like en:Template:Not a ballot to use on metawiki, is there any way to use the enwiki version? Bosstopher (talk) 20:38, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Mhm I've also seen a few anti-Gamergate people link to this, see [1] which was retweeted by [2] who shows he/she's anti-GG by RTing these [3] [4] [5]

Seeing that the proposer has posted this on 30 user's talk pages, I'd say the canvassing boogeyman doesn't apply here to invalidate certain votes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Loganmac (talk) 00:48, 12 January 2015

Metawiki makes very little sense to me, but I'm fairly certain (or at least hopeful) that like in regular enwiki, this discussion is not a straight ballot count vote. For instance if 90% of commenters voted for this but it turned out to be against WMF discrimination policy, it obviously shouldnt pass. Similarly if 200 IP accounts suddenly Spam no votes, this should be treated with suspicion. Hence why I wanted to add a en:Template:Not a ballot template to the top of the page.

Also on the topic of staying updated with recent canvassing and discussion, influential GamerGate redditor and renowned man of mystery "Logan_mac" has posted about this on /r/KotakuInAction where it has gotten 246 comments and clearly been given wide exposure. Bosstopher (talk) 12:50, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Not only women?

Although I appreciate her impulse to support the proposal, I do not agree with the tweaks proposed by Carolmooredc. The proposal is for an area for women-only (or those who identify as women). To change that would not be a "tweak," but a different project. My inspiration for this proposal is the Anita Borg Institute's Systers forum - a place where women in tech have come together electronically for over 20 years. It's about women supporting women. Of course not all women feel a need for such a space, but a lot of women do, and considering how few women edit on Wikipedia, having such a place may be very attractive to some. Lightbreather (talk) 16:39, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi Lightbreather, I see a possible middle ground. A place where all women who want to can join and participate. Guidelines would allow the design and moderation of the pages so that the comments of women would be prominently displayed, and other people would have their comments placed in alternative ways. This would allow for new voices to be heard without them being overwhelmed by people using existing policy and guidelines to cutoff free expression of opinions. I'm not convinced that having an on wiki discussion in total isolation is desirable.

The important aspect of the plan would be for women to be able to speak their mind without having the area over run by people who on either outright sexists or nice friendly helpful regulars who are mostly males. The second group in many ways are more of a problem because each person needs to self censor and not comment or the new ideas are drowned out by helpful people explaining the current ways of thinking.

I don't think that it has to be a complete women only area for this to happen. It is possible to separate out comments so that voices can enter the discussion in managed ways. I think that this approach is one that would be a great pilot project and worthy of investing funds and human resources. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 21:29, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

The part of your proposal that I am open to at this time is the pilot project idea. Keep it women-only, as proposed, but at the end of one year, let the women vote on whether or not they want to include others, and how they want to include them. The larger project, as it stands right now, is 90% male and effectively run by the men. I think women need a space that is theirs. Again, it's not like it's going to be a secret space - whatever goes on there will be visible, just like all the other Wikipedia pages. Lightbreather (talk) 21:46, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the priority should be having a place where that women can go on wiki to work on topics that matter to them and get the support that they need. Other women can be encouraged to self identify as women and they can have a prominent location for their comments. But others who want to join in can be offered ways to either comment or support the women. This approach embraces the wiki ethos that allows all people to join. I don't think an on wiki isolationist approach is viable or desirable in the wikimedia movement. It loses too much of what makes the wikimedia movement work. I have no problem with an off wiki forum that is only women. But I don't see how that it is useful to have people see an on wiki discussion but not allow them to participate in it. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 22:02, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying that isolated places for women to support women are bad ideas or the wrong answer. But I think that my idea is more what is needed on wiki now and captures a lot of what happens in these groups but also eliminates some of the problems that occur in them, too. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 21:34, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

It's not like women in the group, if they want male input, couldn't go to one or more of hundreds of other pages if they want to discuss something in particular with the men... the Village Pump for example. However, I strongly believe that at this time, women need a refuge, so to speak from male-dominated pages. Perhaps there could be an agreement that at such time that women make up over 33% (or 40%, or some other agreed upon percentage) of the active, experienced editorial body, that the project would close. (Active might be "has made at least 'x' number of edits in the past year," and experienced might be "has made more than 'x' mainspace edits.") I dunno. It's hard to even imagine such a day! Lightbreather (talk) 21:54, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Discrimination

Discussion of Comments by idea creator: Discrimination

I don't see why there should be a ban for male editors here. I don't see any problem with males writing advice for female editors and vice versa. Nor I do see a problem if a bot owner will be a male and not a female user — this will not have any impact on article lists or tools used by the project. As I see from the discussion, the problem is that a few editors (and probably exclusively on enwiki) have offensive behaviour on gender-related issues. In this case the solution is a topic ban for them (or, probably, ban from the project in this case). I have not seen even in this thread even a single example of a discussion that shows how male editors harm discussions on gender-related topics, and you propose a quite radical change to all Wikimedia projects (as if you had wanted to propose a change for enwiki only, you would have probably chosen a local RFC page and not IdeaLab on Meta) — NickK (talk) 23:37, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with males writing advice for female editors and vice versa. This is exactly what happens on every other talk page on WP right now, and that won't change. There will be no rule that women have to go to WP:WOMEN to get advice. Lightbreather (talk) 23:41, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh, really, males writing advice for female editors and vice versa? So far my experience was more about a healthy collaboration between male and female editors who are writing advice for both male and female editors together.

By the way, I have found that fr:Projet:Femmes has also male participants... will they be banned from the project after this decision, or will French community have to create a female-only fork? — NickK (talk) 23:58, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

... the problem is that a few editors (and probably exclusively on enwiki) have offensive behaviour on gender-related issues. That is only one problem, not "The Problem," but nonetheless, women who would like a more peaceful environment have no option right now that doesn't involve many hours of complaining and defending your complaining... with no guarantee at the end that the environment will improve. In fact, you're likely to be attacked, harassed, and/or labeled a "civility warrior" for complaining about it in the first place.

Also, it should be noted, offensive behavior doesn't only happen on gender-related topics. Lightbreather (talk) 23:56, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Still, could you please provide an example of discussions — preferrably from several different wikis — where the discussion would have been constructive only without male participation? I can hardly remind seeing even a single similar discussion, I do remind only one gender-related discussion where both male and female editors had both constructive and offensive discussion patterns. But probably even after 100K edits I do miss something... — NickK (talk) 00:05, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Surely if the goal is to create a more peaceful environment in which to collaborate, then this doesn't have to be gender specific. YellowStahh (talk) 15:36, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• I'm no expert, but I suspect that civil rights experts would say it's not 'discrimination', it's 'affirmative action' (or whatever the latest equivalent expression is), justified by the need to counter the discrimination to which the existing system subjects women in practice (if arguably not in theory), as well as to try to help them obtain in practice equal opportunity (as also promised in the WMF anti-discrimination policy) in the many areas of Wikipedia where they do not appear to have such equal opportunity in practice (even if they arguably have it in theory).
• As an example from the real world, I've never heard of women being obliged to admit men to shelters for battered women on grounds that to refuse access to men would be discrimination (yes, I know the analogy is imperfect - all analogies always are).
• And, incidentally, what's sauce for the goose may eventually turn out to also be sauce for the gander, because quite likely in a few years time males may well be in need of similar affirmative action themselves, so it might not be such a good idea for males to try to outlaw it now.
• Still, it might perhaps be helpful to get the views of some people who are genuine experts on such matters.
• And if Wikipedia's legal people say it is discrimination, a second opinion might then be called for, because I'm not sure that Wikipedia's legal eagles are necessarily civil rights experts.Tlhslobus (talk) 11:05, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

  I don't think your example matches the case, as no one will ever think to discuss business affairs in a shelter for battered women. I would probably give a different one. If I meet a colleague in gent's washroom, I can ask him how he spent his weekend or whether we will have a coffee together, but I will never discuss business affairs with him there, just because this is not the right place.

  In my view, any restricted spaces are good for informal chat, but not for project-related discussions. In real life I would never organise a business meeting in gent's washroom (a gender restricted place) or in a monastery (religion restricted places). I do have some experience of real-life diversity-related discussions (things like equal representation of both genders or ethnic and racial diversity), but these groups were always diverse themselves. Of course, there were no trolls in these groups (e.g. no one invited racists to discussions on racial diversity), but composition of these groups was explicitly made as diverse as possible.

  This was just to say that I do not accept the point that discussions on diversity issues should not be accessible to the diverse audience. And yes, my opinion would have been the same if I had been the minority in question (either as male or by any other criterion)

  Speaking of experts, I think it would have been much more helpful to ask experts contribute to the gender gap strategy and not to this discussion — NickK (talk) 16:00, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Nick, you wrote of the groups you were in: "Of course, there were no trolls in these groups (e.g. no one invited racists to discussions on racial diversity)," but that's the exactly situation we've found ourselves in on the English Wikipedia – forced to discuss sexism and its effects on Wikipedia with people who are sexist (with varying degrees of insight). It makes intelligent discussion impossible, it causes people to get burned out very quickly, and it means no progress is ever made. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:15, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

  Quite helpful to know that this concerns only English Wikipedia. I thought this was a cross-wiki problem and such female-only project had to be created on all wikis, but if it concerns only enwiki, local discussion (e.g. at en:WP:RFC) would have been more appropriate. However, I do not think that gender-based discrimination is a solution. If people are sexist with varying degrees of insight, they should probably get a topic ban from ArbCom no matter what is their gender, at least this seems to be the most natural solution. Instead your proposal makes a risk of NPOV violations even higher, as you will exclude not only people with destructive behaviour, but also people who are males but want to participate in an intelligent discussion. This will most likely result in well-coordinated POV-pushing instead of intelligent discussion

  This reminded me of the case of en:Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list. This was also a kind of positive discrimination, as users from Eastern Europe were underrepresented in English Wikipedia. And this project could have been beneficial for the community, as Eastern European users were supposed to coordinate their efforts towards improving English Wikipedia. In addition, this discrimination (only users from Eastern European origin could participate) was perfectly reasonable, as users were often attacked by people with nationalist views on talk pages, which maed intelligent discussions impossible. However, you know the result. This project did not get a grant from Wikimedia Foundation, instead it got a ban from enwiki ArbCom. This option is my major concern about this project — NickK (talk) 20:26, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi NickK, I don't know whether this only concerns the English Wikipedia. I was only describing my experience there.

So how would you handle a project to combat racism, where racists turn up to join the discussion? I agree that the ArbCom or admins should ban disruptive people from Wikiprojects, and in some cases they did (in the case I am thinking of), but not all, and it took months for it to happen, which caused a lot of otherwise interested editors to leave. How would you ensure that such disruption is recognized and dealt with immediately? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:03, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• A reminder to everyone here, that this Grants was edited/created here on multilingual and multicultural meta-wiki (which is a hub to all wikimedia project), what makes proposer think that other people with different culture, will like this idea? if this is just for en.wp, proposer should just make an RfC on en.wp, ultimately, Grants is not for these kind of ideas.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 20:24, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Grant

Discussion of Comments by idea creator: Grant

• Women online receive a lot of harassment.^{[citation needed]}
• Internationalisation<-- What is this?
• Verify that editors who ask to join the group are women or people who identify as women (to minimize the disruption and help members feel safer).<-- Please read wmf:Resolution:Nondiscrimination and Privacy policy, per privacy policy, I don't think it's safe to leave your identity to non-WMF staff.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 21:14, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Feminism

Discussion of Comments by idea creator: Feminism

Consensus

Discussion of Comments by idea creator: Consensus

You're somewhat wrong. If you look at en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam/Members, you will notice that this project has participants who are atheist, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian or even Bahá'í. And I don't think they even considered banning all these users — NickK (talk) 20:56, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

It's not somewhat wrong, it's totally wrong, just like segregating religion and race is not okay, segregating genders is also not okay. It's creep me out, it's like en:Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, 1953 in south africa, there was a case about non-white can't enter this beach, I see this were the same case except in term of genders. This is very, very disturbing.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 21:34, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Forum

Discussion of Comments by idea creator: Forum