Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-11-04/Recent research

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Why women edit less

Study after study by researchers, sitting in ivory towers, about the causes of the gender gap on Wikipedia, yet none have studied what is obvious to many of the foot-soldiers edting here.

For example: How about the use of derogatory language when it comes to depicting women on Wikipedia referring to them females. This has been brought up time and again, but is still dismissed as silliness by many, including editors who themselves belong to a marginalized real-life group such as Gay (for example).

And how about marginalizing those who support more inclusiveness of women. It is not unheard of to characterize such editors who are perceived to be men as ‘’creepy’’. It creates an environment where any editor who is the target of attacks (many/most editors here) must think twice before showing support for these issues. Ottawahitech (talk) 18:43, 5 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Sure thing, colleague. And other male pigs derogate innocent maidens referring to them women. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:45, 8 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Staszek Lem: Could you please elaborate: I don't understand the point you are trying to make. Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 01:12, 9 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

@Ottawahitech: I find it weird that some find the word "wikt:female" derogatory, which is no less weird that the same some find the word "woman" derogatory as well, since it is etymologically inferior to "man". Staszek Lem (talk) 01:51, 9 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Staszek Lem: hmmmm…As far as using the word female to describe female humans there are plenty of RSes (just google it) that find it to be derogatory. This is what I found on the top of the google search for "woman vs female" today. It is news to me that some people find the word "woman" derogaroy, but I am learning new things every day on Wikipedia. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:08, 9 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

@Ottawahitech: Yep, it is amazing to what height of idiotism political correctness may be elevated. Last thing I learned some Chinese people find it insulting when being referred to as "that Chinese guy" At first "Oriental" became derogatory, next "Asian" became an insult. And now "Chinese". It comes both from inferiority complex and social stigma/stereotyping. I know it firsthand: when an American calls me "a Pole" I bet my ancestor's szabla he is thinking "Polack joke". Do you remember a scandal in the media about wikipedia when some militant feminist noticed the category:Women writers? To label someone a "woman writer" was fussed as an extremely gross insult. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:25, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Staszek Lem: Yes I remember more than one scandal in the media that involved the depiction of women on Wikipedia. I believe the one you are referring to is the Amanda Filipacchi controversy, which was not about labeling "someone a woman writer”" but about the fact that articles about women were being deliberately "orphaned" by placing them in categories that contained only women and removing articles about them from mainstream categories. It became a Wikipedia scandal when it was revealed by Filipacchi that experienced editors were behind this massive dislocation of articles about women. It was a scandal because the editors responsible were knowingly doing this in contravention of Wikipedia guidelines. Ottawahitech (talk) 17:17, 11 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

@Ottawahitech:the text says "perceived minimization of female novelists", i.e., labeling women as women is "minimalization", right? Pray tell me which guideline was violated. We routinely create subcategory by defining characteristics. Now, what shall you do with the ""racist"" Category:American women novelists of Indian descent? Some curry-muncher hater barred Indu Sundaresan from Category:American women novelists. Must be Donald Trump's hand. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:18, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Staszek Lem: the guideline which was deliberately violated by experienced editor(s) who removed hundreds of articles about women writers from sub/categories of Category: Writers is Wikipedia:GHETTO. This all happened around April 1, 2013. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:19, 14 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

@Ottawahitech:I admit I have never seen this guideline. Unfortunately our rulebook grew to become extremely unwieldy, so I am pretty much sure that it was not violated "deliberately". After seeing the guideline, I disagree with many of its guidance. In particular, the advice "do not create a subcategory for "African-American poets" is highly dubious, because there are tons of books of literary criticism specifically about AA poets. It is a well-defined and extremely useful category. Of course, some may argue that its function may be served by List of African-American poets, but it is long established that lists and categories are different, complementary search tools. Still, I agree with its core, but for a different reason: "ghettoisation" into minuscule subcategories makes search in categories extremely inconvenient. But this is not restricted to race and gender. For example, try to find an American city I forgot its name, ony remember it starts with "Ap". But this is the problem of WMF, which wastes its money on various weird projects instead of improving the wikimedia engine. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:00, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I never thought of molluscs as having some kind of female connotations. Or asteroids as male - they're just big rocks in space, what could be less gendered? Maybe there is something I am missing.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 06:40, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Bellerophon5685: are you saying that the gender of wikipedia editors is not important?Ottawahitech (talk) 19:50, 24 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]