And now, a guest performance by the Bogglemen

[mme_hardy]

The Anita Borg Institute published an article encouraging women to edit Wikipedia. [e: Whoops, broken link. Fixed.]

The first section, about creating an account, contains the following advice:

Do not use obviously feminine names, such as SuzyQ or Pam I Am.

Do not use feminine titles like Miss, Ms, or Mrs.

Do not incorporate hobbies, interests, family status, religious affiliation, etc. For example, Knit Nut, Fairly Feminist, and Lovemykids are not the best usernames if you want to avoid Wikipedia gender-based harassment.

Another casual comment: "Edit summaries are supposed to be civil and about content, but bully editors abuse them. " What do you do if that happens?

A friendly or neutral-sounding edit summary (look for the words “good faith” or “AGF”) indicates you can safely proceed to discuss the revert. However, if the edit summary uses “you” or “your” aggressively; Wikipedia jargon (that an experienced editor knows a new user would not understand); or obvious insults (often in the form of questions such as, “Are you kidding me?”), it is time to disengage and decide what to do next.

If you thrive (or at least know how to survive) in such a situation, read up on the consensus-building process and go for it. However, if you feel uneasy, either abandon that article and move on to another, or seek help at the Wikipedia Teahouse.

I am bitter and tired, I admit this, but I genuinely don't see why women should invest their scarce time and resources in contributing to a public resource, no matter how valuable, that tolerates the behavior described.

Edit: I missed this gem.

perhaps join the Wikipedia Gender Gap Task Force (GGTF). The task force has been breached by some editors whose motives for participating are questionable, but not all men on GGTF are thugs, just as not all women there are friends. Many rational, civil editors on the task force really do want to discuss and narrow the gender gap.

Comments

[staranise]

Oh gosh, I can't wait to join the editing corps now.

[nineveh_uk]

Me too! I want to spend my free time disguising my identity so people I have never met won't harass me, and not defending changes I've made so that I don't get death threats. Sounds great!

[movingfinger]

I have a big Somebody Else's Problem field around Wikipedia. There are better ways to spend one's time than arguing with trolls, and if I can't put my real name on my edits, then what exactly am I getting out of it?

[mme_hardy]

Exactly. The toxicity of the Wikipedia editing community is legendary in all contexts, not just sexism. Why should I tilt against that particular windmill?

[lexin]

Totally agreed.

[movingfinger]

By the way, your link links to your own blog entry, which is typically Wikipedian...

[mme_hardy]

Oops! Thanks for the catch.

[muccamukk]

Wow.

So are they any where talking about how to get the "bully editors" to not be bullies? Or is surviving based solely on hiding your gender identity and being a doormat?

[mme_hardy]

The idea of the article seems to be that women's participation in Wikipedia is such a valuable good that it's worth collaborating with -- not just enduring, IMHO, but actually facilitating -- the culture.

[recessional]

If I were independently wealthy and thus did not have to save brain points for things like gainful employment and further education in hopes of more gainful employment, that article would actually make me want to find the femme-est possible name and go throw stuff. Not because I have any hope that it would improve matters, but just out of indignation.

[kore]

SO GLAD I was not the only one thinking this.

[(Anonymous)]

I promise you, if you were independently wealthy etc., you would still have better things to do with your time than troll the trolls.

[nestra]

I am stifling several blunt comments.

[mme_hardy]

Why stick to blunt comments? Blunt objects really hit these people where they live.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Men, of course, never Lovetheirkids. Whatthefuck.

[tadorna]

Well. This does sound like an enjoyable hobby!

[perennialanna]

Well, knowing nothing of all this I very recently made my first Wikipedia edit. With an obviously feminine username. Oops.

So far, all that has happened is that someone with a fairly masculine username (who I now suspect of being a woman in very heavy disguise) has said welcome and thank you. But possibly if I'd strayed outside the still backwaters of the list of books Robert Macfarlane has written introductions to it would be an entirely different story.

[movingfinger]

I like Robert Macfarlane's writing very much, but when I read it I become terribly sad that there is no more Roger Deakin.

[alexbayleaf]

It may be worth remembering that the Anita Borg Institute was notable in 2014 for having a bunch of "male allies" come on stage at their annual conference and tell thousands of women things like how they shouldn't ask for raises and payrises. My current take on this article is that it's a hamfisted, victim-blaming effort on ABI's part, and actually misrepresents a lot of what's going on in the Wikimedia community (as far as I'm aware of it).

I also note that the blog post is headed "best of systers", systers being a closed mailing list for women in tech that tends non-feminist or second wave at best -- last time I was on it, which was admittedly years ago, there was lots of talk about about what women should do to get ahead and not much recognition of the existence of systemic problems that aren't susceptible to individual leaning-in.

On the other hand, although there are toxic parts of the Wikimedia community, there's a strong feminist contingent there (including, importantly, among those who set priorities and budgets at the Wikimedia Foundation), and although it's a long hard slog I think they're doing slow but steady work in fixing some of this cesspool. brainwane for instance was instrumental in implementing their friendly space policy for in-person events, and the foundation is focusing their grants for the next quarter on gendergap-related projects, and doing it in ways that seem appropriate and workable to me. (Disclosure: they've approached me to work on the gender gap grants stuff, I don't know if I'll wind up doing it but I have talked to some of the people involved and like what they're doing.) Mind you, the whole thing is set against the problem that Wikimedia editorship on the whole is declining; this may be a case of evaporative cooling but then again it could be that the measures Wikimedia are taking for overall participation (eg. the visual editor) will also help with gender representation.

Anyway! Too much rambling. Wikimedia is complicated. That ABI blog post is terrible.

[mme_hardy]

I can *easily* believe that the article doesn't accurately represent the situation, given how slanted it is (as you point out) toward "don't annoy the nasty people by existing as a female". It's a terrible, terrible article. That said, trying to fix the acknowledged inherent hostility of Wikipedia (free-floating hostility, not merely hostility to women) is a job for somebody with many, many more spoons than I have available.

[isis]

Wow, how freakin' depressing.

[legionseagle]

That article explains a lot about my limited experiences in editing Wikipedia (for details, go to the article on the Protection from Harassment Act. Read the talk. Boggle. This was the one where I had a run in with an editor with a male pseudonym who was trying to stop me quoting from the actual text of the statute* in favour of decades old speculation that it would be used as a vehicle by vindictive women to persecute their exes.)



*Secondary sources are preferred otherwise it becomes Original Research and hence banned, apparently

[tree_and_leaf]

That is a particularly batty way to apply the 'no original research' principle.

[legionseagle]

Here's the dickhead in question's very reasoning. The section under "Seriousness" gets particularly batshit. "How can I convince this woman using an ordinary English word in its ordinary English context that she's Wrong, Wrong, Wrong and should go away and not come back until she's got a PhD in dialect and semantics?"

[tree_and_leaf]

My word.

[sabotabby]

Ugh ugh ugh the onus shouldn't be on women to hide themselves; the onus should be on men to not be harassing creepers.

True story: the_axel's friend got banned from editing an article about trans people that was under attack from transphobic types for being "biased" in favour of trans people.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

That makes me want to nuke Wikipedia from orbit. And I am an avid fan of Wikipedia.

[sabotabby]

He was part of the Wikipedia inner circle at one point, too.

[x-los.livejournal.com]

Oh my jiggly god, housemate and I shaking our heads. Like... I DO see it's valuable, right, and people have to break in but also ain't nobody got time for that shit.

[madrobins]

I like and use Wikipedia (with a spoonful of salt, because)--but holy God, the do's and don'ts would keep me away from being involved on the "life's too short" principle. Bless the women who put up with it; I don't think I could.