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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2015-02-04. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Slamming shut the GamerGate (2,084 bytes · 💬)

  • Thanks for a comprehensive review H J Mitchell. It is I think a pleasing situation that more measured responses are coming out of the main Arbitration process these days. Gamergate is a somewhat complex issue, and it is good that the Committee avoided the trap of trying legislate ideology so cleanly, after struggling a little in the Gender Gap case. I still regret that such sweeping discretionary sanctions were imposed, even having removed a significant number of outdated DS in 2014, the percentage of the encyclopaedia that is under DS is continuing to grow. It would surely indicate community success if we were able to roll back the DS frontier a little. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC).
    • Now we have the central log, it's much easier to see which DS provisions are being used and which aren't—the sanctions under GamerGate, BLPs, and Israel-Palestine are well-used, but some of them haven't yet been used this year. I think they were absolutely necessary in this case, and it was necessary to have such a broad scope—we'll probably need a tidying-up motion at some point to centralise them instead of having half a dozen sets of sanctions on overlapping topics—but if some of the quieter ones haven't been used as the year goes on I'd certainly support removing them. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:44, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
      • Wouldn't the lack of enforcement actions be evidence that the sanctions are working, not that they're unneeded? Powers T 14:09, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Featured content: It's raining men! (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-02-04/Featured content

Gallery: Langston Hughes (413 bytes · 💬)

What a pleasant new column! It would be great if you continue to highlight new themes, especially when their are associated topics on Wikipedia that could use improvement! Keep it up, Sadads (talk) 22:50, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

In the media: Gamergate and Muhammad controversies continue (663 bytes · 💬)

  • As I read MarkBernstein's talk page, it appears that his GG topic ban has been lifted. He is still in the midst of a month long block so he won't be editing for a few more weeks. Liz Read! Talk! 00:48, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

News and notes: No men beyond this point: the proposal to create a no-men space on Wikipedia (47,915 bytes · 💬)

  • I am enraged to discover only 9 % of editers are women, but setting articles aside for women has no diffrence from a men-advantage world, except the advantage is for women and some statements are disrepectful to men. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Miner1212 (talk • contribs) 02:08, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I believe you misundertand – the proposal has nothing to do with who can edit particular articles. It's about "an on-wiki exclusive space for women to discuss issues, support one another, and recruit new editors". --Chriswaterguy talk 04:14, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I particularly love the point at which you note that Eric is topic-banned from gender-related discussions, and then quote him directly violating said topic ban. I assume you're going to block him, now? Having decided to author this article after previously intervening and commenting on an arbitration enforcement case instituted by Lightbreather, against Eric, in which you said that you felt he shouldn't be? Ironholds (talk) 01:09, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I believe all the comments on the proposal are from the Meta Wiki discussion, where an en.wiki topic ban would not apply. Gamaliel (talk) 02:22, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • No, that comment was made on enwp, on the Kaffeeklatsch MfD, here. This is now the second time in as many weeks that Eric has quite clearly violated his topic ban. Ironholds (talk) 02:34, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I stand corrected; I was basing my comment on my memory of reading this article in draft form several days ago. My apologies. I'm not sure if anyone wants to open this can of worms because the admin who does is in for a world of criticism. Gamaliel (talk) 02:41, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • For added bonus funtime points: "Although most agree the gender gap is a problem on Wikipedia" - "It's raining men! (singing in the man-rain)". Ironholds (talk) 01:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
    I think the question is what the nature of the problem is. The naive narrative that nasty brutish men are scaring off delicate shrinking violets does not hold water as a significant cause of the gender gap in editor numbers. The main indicators seem to be that lack of confidence is probably the top factor. I would posit that any measures which productively bring the number of female editors towards the number of male editors will include as a key component some means of removing or reducing the "confidence barrier" to becoming an editor in the first place. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:28, 6 February 2015 (UTC).
    No. Keilana|Parlez ici 01:48, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
    No. Djembayz (talk) 05:45, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
    Well. The statement is accurate—not everyone thinks that the gender gap is a problem, even if I personally think that view is a complete load of rubbish. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:13, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
    That...really wasn't why I highlighted the elements ;p. Ironholds (talk) 16:26, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • The real problem here is practical. The arbitrary exclusion of 82% of editors means that any question will have the attention of a comparatively small number of editors. Even the type of question posed at Teahouse often benefits from a second, or third reply. Any more significant discussion will be unable to achieve anything because consensus where the vast majority of editors are excluded in not consensus. Either the result will be illegitimate or more likely a fork will be created, and the result of that discussion will be implemented. Therefore it's hard to see how a "safe space" is actually of any use. Perhaps Lightbreather could instead persuade someone to create a Gadget which hides all comments by non-female editors, for those emergencies when "discussions in other spaces get overrun by testy men". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:19, 6 February 2015 (UTC).
    Yet you seem to believe a consensus where a massive part of society is excluded is perfectly practical - and that's part of the problem. Wikipedia is simply not fit for purpose at the moment. Instead of collecting the knowledge of humankind it is highly literally the knowledge of MANkind. I'm not sure what a gadget hiding comments by non-female editors should achieve. It does nothing against the selection bias and against the structures which perpetuate it - and by insisting on consensus over all editors, but only editors, you contribute to that. The exclusion of 82% of editors is hardly arbitrary when it is done to overcome a massive selection bias. It would allow the minority to form a consensus among themselves independently, which at least would give the 82% something to consider if they truly want to brush that position away. The press fallout should be a warning as to the consequences of such brushing away happening routinely. You are not going to combat selection bias by simply pretending it doesn't exist and allowing people a technical function to ignore some of the mechanisms perpetuating it. --95.90.52.88 (talk) 12:59, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
There is a difference between exclusion and indifference. Women are welcome to participate across all of Wikipedia. Unfortunately, for reasons unclear, fewer women choose to participate than men do. We cannot insist on consensus of people who refuse to participate, since Wikipedia is not compulsory. Your threats of "press fallout" and "consequences" if the 18% aren't allowed to form their own consensus and then impose that consensus on the 82% who would have been actively excluded from building that consensus because of their gender are an excellent argument against this proposal. Threats of "consequences" if some minority doesn't get their way are not how Wikipedia works. Pathore (talk) 21:59, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for proving my point - I said nothing about imposing a consensus and made no threats whatsoever. As for your last comment, you still fail to grasp that at present, Wikipedia doesn't work at all. It is unfit for purpose and no amount of duping yourself is going to change that. Throwing your hands up and saying Wikipedia is not compulsory is merely testimony of an unwillingness to do anything about that fact because you are comfortable with the status quo. It is in any case irrelevant whether you can "insist on consensus of people who refuse to participate". Selection bias is selection bias is selection bias, and it doesn't transform into anything other than garbage just because you find your ecosystem too cozy to do anything about it. Perhaps if you bothered to actually do something "reasons unclear" would very quickly become quite clear. But the fact that you consider a simple statements as to how the world outside works as a "threat" suggests you are more concerned with the preservation of your little self-created ecosystem than actually pursuing the official goals of Wikipedia. --95.90.52.88 (talk) 00:18, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a volunteer project. Selection bias, in the sense that Wikipedia will contain only information that its volunteers contribute, is an inherent and unavoidable consequence of the nature of the project. It is simple: topics that no one cares enough about to write about in Wikipedia are not covered in Wikipedia. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, which means that anyone can contribute if they so choose.
Wikipedia's purpose is to be an encyclopedia. You can say that Wikipedia is "unfit for purpose" (after all, Wikipedia is not censored), but the world disagrees with you or Wikipedia would not be the 6th most popular Web site in the world behind only Google, Facebook, Youtube, Yahoo and Baidu. link
Your "simple statements as to how the world outside works" were phrased in a manner that can be read as intimidating. Your statements referring to "something to consider if they truly want to brush that position away" and "consequences of such brushing away happening routinely" are only a very small step away from threats of unspecified "consequences" if the broader community disagrees with whatever position your favored minority arrives at without the broader community's input. To claim that the community accepting such an illegitimate consensus under threat of "consequences" would not be the minority imposing its will on the majority is an outrageous dissimulation. Pathore (talk) 02:14, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
  • There is a difference between not recognizing the problem, and not perceiving this proposal as a useful solution to that problem. Returning to the analogy of the gentlemen's clubs, social unrest depended less upon what happened within those clubs than upon what the excluded population imagined was happening within those clubs. If wikipedia is the men's club some believe it to be, admitting women doesn't seem to have altered the situation. Is there any precedent indicating a women's club would somehow be different enough for benefits to outweigh the disadvantages? Thewellman (talk) 02:29, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I imagine the editors who chose to participate in this space would find it useful. Gamaliel (talk) 02:25, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
My point was that they wouldn't. And indeed the existing "space" does not seem to be found useful by anyone. We will see in due course. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:31, 7 February 2015 (UTC).
But will having such a space actually help the project build an encyclopedia? Especially since, as Rich Farmbrough pointed out, any consensus developed on such a page, with most editors excluded, would be completely worthless on the broader encyclopedia. How does shuffling one group of editors off into a corner where they can do nothing of any importance help the project? Pathore (talk) 02:54, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
There are many different types of workspaces on the project. Not all of them are designed to develop encyclopedia-wide consensus yet they still provide useful functions to the project. The appropriateness of this space is certainly a valid point to debate, but if potential users of this space claim it will provide a useful function for them, why should we not believe that? Gamaliel (talk) 15:50, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
As I understand it, most of those spaces are organized around topics and anyone interested is welcome in the discussion. The important part is that anyone interested is welcome in the discussion. They are helpful to the encyclopedia because they serve to separate discussions by topic. This proposal separates discussions not by topic (which is intrinsic to the discussion itself), but by some aspect of the participants (which leads easily to forked discussions and meta-discussions elsewhere). Pathore (talk) 21:50, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Supplemental editor's note: Last week, I attempted to de-escalate a discussion on the talk page of a WikiProject with which I am involved in which Lightbreather was a participant. Unrelated to this, we received a request in the newsroom to cover this story. I had time, so I took the initiative to write this story. Lightbreather did not object to my writing the story, so I proceeded in the same fashion as I would if the discussion last week had not occurred. I believe this story reflects the same utmost level of journalistic integrity I expect from all Signpost stories. Go Phightins! 02:42, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I should note that while GP did every bit of the work on this story, I was consulted at every point during the process of taking this from idea to finished product. I had ample time to voice any concerns I had about GP's participation and objectivity, but I had none. I am confident in his integrity and the quality of his work. Gamaliel (talk) 02:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Another issue that I didn't notice — what about non-declared editors, those who don't say anything about whether they're male or female? What about the numerous editors who have never set the gender parameter, i.e. for whom {{gender}} is unable to return anything? Nyttend (talk) 02:51, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I believe that editors would have to identify as women to be able to participate in the proposed space. Go Phightins! 02:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The past weekend we had a software conference (FOSDEM) and we spoke with women about Wikipedia. The impression I get is that the software of Wikipedia is too much technical en too less social for women. What women like are in-person meetings and software where they can form a group where it is easy to follow what is happening in this group and can discuss this between each other. Sometimes wiki projects try to act social but that is still in a primitive phase. Also the education extension is in the current situation too primitive, while if those two subjects would have been combined in one extension, it is more female friendly. Romaine (talk) 03:04, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

  • Comment on group editing for women and training needs: Editing in groups in person works for women because it enables women to have experienced Wikipedians at hand who can defend their contributions. For an example, see minute 28:20 - 33:45 of today's metrics meeting, which describes how a woman needed to turn to a experienced Wikipedian for assistance. Asaf makes two points here that are well taken: One, the policies are not the problem, it's the implementation. Two, training for editors granted the use of certain tools could make a big difference. Samples of existing training proposals related to the gender gap are here: 1, 2, 3. Right now, the plan is that we will continue to put site and chapter administration into the hands of a group that has been estimated to be ninety percent male, and that this group will receive no training. Thus it seems quite probable that we will continue to experience inconsistent and unsatisfactory outcomes with respect to female volunteers. --Djembayz (talk) 05:38, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
    • My own comment would be that two things are seriously neglected here: (i) training, and (ii) the principle that all editors here treat the other editors as colleagues. I'm not prepared to listen to those who think (ii) is optional. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:38, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
There is no "men only" section of Wikipedia and I see no reason to establish a "women only" section. And no, the gender distribution of contributers is not a reason. Wikipedia is equal for all and should so remain. /Esquilo (talk) 07:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I'll concede that men and women do things differently, but I will never support a proposal that blatantly endorses segregation. This is not the post ante bell um south, its the internet, and I did not support Wikipedia in its opposition to SOPA and PIPA only to be disqualified from participating in sections of Wikipedia based on my gender. No discrimination means no discrimination, not some discrimination for the greater good. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:43, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Personally, I don't care whether an editor is male, female, neuter or anything else. I'm more interested in whether they are spamming or not... I'm 'out' as a male, but not through any feelings of superiority or inferiority - more to avoid being referred to as 'xe' or 's/he'. With a lot of editors, we don't know what sex they are (bots are presumably neuter, but one never can be sure...). I would oppose making a declaration compulsory, and without that, how can one have a workable restricted area? And are IPs going to be allowed in or excluded? (Now there's another can of worms opened...) Peridon (talk) 10:08, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
And while we're at it, how about other 'minority' areas? Colour, ethnicity, religion (how about banning the Bacon Cabal from commenting on Islamic issues?)? And would 'female' include born females only or would perceived gender females be included? And don't forget, On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog - or is that sexist because it doesn't include bitches? Peridon (talk) 10:18, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
What about bots? Imagine that someone blanks the women-only page, and ClueBot NG comes along; it doesn't identify as female. In more seriousness, consider maintenance bots and notification bots. And most seriously, consider IPs, which can't be trusted in the sense that they could switch: someone using an IP self-declares as a woman, but a month later, do you still trust that it's the same person? Nyttend (talk) 14:30, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • As a woman who's been editing here for the past five years, I don't feel the need for a "teahouse" or any other "women-centric" space on WP. I agree some editors are hostile, but that seems to go hand in hand with the internet, where anonymity and lack of accountability to others' feelings can bring out the worst in people. It's true that lack of women can introduce bias, just as lack of editors from non-Anglophone countries does, or any other factor that makes the editor base non-representative of the global population. From the beginning, the HTML-like interface for formatting WP made this site something that only people comfortable with coding would even dare edit. That alone drastically narrows the pool from which editors emerge. One very simple step that the site can take to attract a higher number of more diverse editors is to put a giant button or banner right across the top of the main page (or every article) that simply says, "Want to write an article? Click here!", taking the reader to a simple tutorial that gets them editing. As long as editing remains too much like coding, it's going to be off-putting to the majority who aren't IT people, and certainly the IT field remains dominated by the same type of people who currently form the core of WP editors. Lemurbaby (talk) 17:04, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • One point that seems to be chronically overlooked. Over the life of Wikipedia/Wikimedia, there have been women in positions of great authority: Anthere, Sue Gardner, & now Lila Tretikov. In addition, there have been a number of women on the Board of Directors. What this tells us is not that there is no problem, but that there is no single solution to the problem of a gender gap -- otherwise, someone would have identified & implimented the fix for it long before now. If I had to provide a reason for this gender gap, I'd look for it outside of Wikipedia, as lying in the wider world -- that is, something we can't fix with software patches or better rules. -- llywrch (talk) 19:31, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Earlier comments have understated the difficulties of establishing entry requirements for a male exclusion zone. Consider this proposal's similarity to the gentlemen's clubs of a previous era and their efforts to maintain all-male membership using the rationale that women somehow disrupted the ability of men to do whatever it was they wanted to do in their gentleman's club. I doubt the women seeking to establish this all-female bastion are the same women who sought to destroy those all-male bastions; but I hope Wikipedia finds the wisdom to avoid refighting a battle of the sexes which has already battered earlier generations.Thewellman (talk) 03:38, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • This analogy completely leaves out the different contexts of these groups. Many of those all-male bastions were centers of power where individuals conducted business and networked in a social setting, leaving women at a serious disadvantage in business, the workplace, etc. If there was a mostly female WMF board which met privately and excluded the male members, then we'd have an equivalence. Gamaliel (talk) 15:50, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I hope our goal is cooperation rather than equivalence to the gentlemen's clubs. The proposed De-Masculinized Zone might use the acronym DMZ for name recognition appropriate to its divisive potential. Thewellman (talk) 16:10, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I don't have any great moral problem with women establishing a female-only zone if they believe that will assist them in building this project. I do wonder how such a rule would be enforced though, perhaps it would be better as a separate female-focused wiki created under the WMF umbrella, perhaps similar to the outreach wiki, but with a more stringent signup policy. Lankiveil (speak to me) 07:43, 7 February 2015 (UTC).
  • I dont see this as practical because 1) as someone stated only a small percentage of the community would be participating 2) it will most likely devolve into an echo chamber and 3) I hate to say it, but we women really need to learn to fight, not shrink way from disagreeable interactions. This is life. There will always be idiots, especially on the Internet and isolating ourselves into a comfortable room will not achieve anything except the appearance that we are not ready for primetime. Besides, Ive taken as many, if not more hits in life from women than from men.Thelmadatter (talk) 08:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • A "No Boys Allowed" clubhouse On-Wiki is a predictably terrible idea to perk out of the Gender Gap Task Force crew, whose new base of operations is the WMF's Gendergap-l mailing list (archive at: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/ ). I expect Lightbreather's Latest Bad Idea will prove a failure not owing to matters of principle (something like this should not exist on egalitarian Wikipedia) but rather owing to its requirement of on-Wiki gender identification to participate; simply put, there are many Wikipedians of both genders who take advantage of the comical adage that "On the internet nobody knows you're a dog" and who decline to identify by gender... Good luck with that. This will additionally be the mother of all deletion discussions if LIghtbreather charges ahead... Carrite (talk) 14:25, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • This might be a terrible idea but: how about we make a section for women only, one for men only, one for anons only, one for muslims only, and one for every group that cares enough to create one. The restriction may be only stated: a template on the top that says "This section is intended for women only. If you are not a woman, please don't edit, you have all the rest of the encyclopedia". We may even find out that certain groups become more efficient at editing if they get their own section (kind of like wikiprojects) and that their discussions and contributions aren't in practice as controversial as some expect. If a group becomes problematic (like organized spam or whatever) we discuss it and fix it. And if a group never grows, then it never grows, and that's that. Space is cheap. --Sophivorus (talk) 18:02, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • "Moreover, discussions descend into vitriol rather frequently, which women often find off-putting." I think most people find it off-putting, regardless of gender. Eventually you're mainly left with people who thrive within the vitriol, which is a very toxic environment. I feel sorry for those driven off by that. Personally, I find it easier to disengage with the arguments and squirrel away quietly, but I know not everyone works that way. A collaborative space with greater mutual respect would be a bonus, whatever form that takes. SFB 19:41, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • UPDATE: The result of the MfD for the Kaffeeklatsch was page kept.[1] Luis Villa, Deputy General Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation, said this:
Without weighing in on the larger question about how to provide safe spaces so that all users are comfortable participating in Wikimedia projects, I wanted to clear up the misunderstanding related to the WMF non-discrimination policy. In WMF Legal's opinion, the non-discrimination policy does not prohibit users from setting up a women-only discussion in their user space, because the policy was passed by the Foundation board to apply to acts taken by the Foundation and Foundation employees, not individual users. Other policies may, of course, apply.[2]
--Lightbreather (talk) 20:35, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • "...most agree that having a disproportionate number of male editors has the potential to create—or already has created—a systemic bias towards topics in which men are inherently more interested". Somehow I doubt that most agree this, as I would hope that very few Wikipedians believe that men are "inherently" more interested in anything. Is this just clumsy writing? J Milburn (talk) 18:50, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I believe research has been done on the effects of systemic bias, and most has concluded that topics related to males and in which males are interested are overrepresented compared to female scientists, for example, hence all the edit-a-thons planned for topics underrepresented in an ostensibly male-dominated encyclopedia. Go Phightins! 19:30, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
  • You appear to have missed my point. The OED defines "inherently" (partially) as "in inward nature, intrinsically". "Inherent" is defined as "Existing in something as a permanent attribute or quality; forming an element, esp. a characteristic or essential element of something; belonging to the intrinsic nature of that which is spoken of; indwelling, intrinsic, essential." Men are not "inherently" interested in any topics. I accept that there are certain topics men are generally more interested in, but this is a very different claim. I hope this is just a (very unfortunate) semantic misunderstanding, but it is slightly depressing that an article about gender representation has dropped into essentialism by the end of the first paragraph... J Milburn (talk) 19:58, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I am afraid we will have to agree to disagree. I am familiar with the definition and connotation of the word "inherently", and stand behind my usage of it here. I perhaps am using it in a "lighter" context than the definition does, but for example, I never made a conscious choice to be interested in sports rather than anthropology ... at most, I am a product of an environment that encourages men to be interested in sports rather than other things. Whether you want to call that "inherent", "intrinsic", or just chance, it is a contribution to Wikipedia's systemic bias, insofar as more men are interested in baseball than women, and baseball is significantly better-covered than, for example, women's gymnastics, I suspect [although I must admit I have not checked]. Pivoting back to the topic at hand, perhaps the line would be phrased better as "most agree that having a disproportionate number of male editors has the potential to create ... an inherent bias towards topic in which men are generally more interested." I see your point about a gender not being "inherently" interested in something, but certainly topics in which men are more interested receive more coverage than those in which women are more interested when there are nine times as many male editors than female ones. Go Phightins! 23:06, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I do not disagree that the gender gap will result in better coverage of topics in which men are generally more interested- that's obvious. However, the fact that men normally like [whatever] is not inherent or intrinsic to their gender, nor is it inherent or intrinsic to their sex. I'm a long way from an expert in gender studies, but if you can't see the problem here, you should not be writing about this topic. Could you not simply change "inherently" to "generally"? As far as I'm concerned, that would solve the problem. J Milburn (talk) 23:19, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Changed. Sorry for the confusion; my intent was certainly not to imply the connotation you perceived, and had you not said anything, I would not haven noticed it. Thanks for bringing it up. Go Phightins! 02:34, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks, it's appreciated. J Milburn (talk) 08:32, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

How would this be possible? How would you keep men out? Will wikipedians have to declare their gender? Is the point just to create a space for people who are willing to pretend to be a woman? 95.90.209.215 (talk) 19:27, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah, found the proposal. So the point /is/ to have a space for people willing to claim to be a woman. Coolio. 95.90.209.215 (talk) 19:34, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I feel it important that someone mention that the WMF's statistics on the "gender gap" are not merely "debatable", they are wholly untestable. Unless and until the WMF wholly abrogates the principle of universal access on which the project was founded by requiring all editors to prove their identity, there is no way to know who is what. And that is as it should be. Systemic bias is a different matter; since we define notability largely in terms of previous writing, we inherit the bias of thousands of years of records that largely ignore women's accomplishments and have formed widely held assumptions today as to what merits recording. But privacy on the internet is something Wikipedia has historically defended - and which protects many women - and the effort to remedy an anecdotal lack of female participation in editing, while well intentioned, has led the WMF to weaken that privacy protection. That's both a sad waste of effort, since it has only a tangential relationship to the problem of systemic bias (unless one insults people of all genders by assuming only women want to or can write about women and about topics that have been denigrated as "female") and a serious step back in protection of editors' privacy. Thus, not only is this proposal purposely divisive and contrary to the basic principles of open collaboration, and not only would it be practically impossible to implement in a useful way (the IP and bot problem being obvious insurmountable barriers), it would drain further attention - and WMF money - from the actual issues, which are matters of editorial policy, and further erode actual safety for women on the internet by adding to the pressure to self-identify. Yngvadottir (talk) 08:16, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry to say but agree with Yngvadottir above. All this gender discussion is weakening privacy protection and adding to the pressure to self-identify. I know about women editors who simply doesn't WANT to say that they are women. I also collaborated and collaborate with many editors that actually are women, and very good editors too. In fact surprizingly many are (self declaed and not self-declared) women. Hafspajen (talk) 12:42, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
  • It actually is possible to estimate the number of female editors among those with undeclared sex, because it turns out that female editors are more likely to start articles about women than men. See this thread for a calculation - though the statistics were much too scanty to come to a reliable figure. Wnt (talk) 19:59, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Speculation. Some wrote about music, others about horses. Others are interested in other topics, and this above brings back to the fact that some editors want to find out about other editors gender. Hafspajen (talk) 04:30, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
  • As for spaces without men, I would suggest this is something best done (if at all) on an off-Wikipedia forum. The underlying principle that everyone has the same rights is too important to compromise. And, there are too few safeguards on Wikipedia proper to make sure that women are really women - we all know the trolls would descend on that page like flies. I don't want WP:ANI polluted with discussions where someone is facing sanctions with the defense that he can prove he's a woman by this way or that. Not saying you can't experiment, just not on these pages, not unless you're willing to use only an informal and unenforceable request for polite compliance. Wnt (talk) 19:59, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
  • This is something else that must be said in addition to the comments by Thelmadatter and Yngvadottir with which I completely agree... In my view, the now-accepted narrative of the gender gap that was started by Sue Gardner and has since been developed via more and more hyperbole is both counterproductive and destructive. It infantilizes and stereotypes women and turns our male colleagues from people into an equally stereotyped "other" from which we must be protected. With Gardner's 2011 blog post "Nine reasons why women don't edit Wikipedia", the negative narrative was set on its course. Unsurprisingly, the gender gap (to the extent it existed back in 2011) has really not improved at all. So, instead of applying a bit of lateral thinking, the solution was to ramp up the negativity even more to a level where all perspective has been lost. The narrative has now reached the point where women are declared to be literally in danger on Wikipedia and needing a safe place away from the dangerous "other". The implicit equating of the real and horrible violence suffered by women (which the program in Nigeria is meant to address) with what happens here is not only grossly insensitive. It also demonstrates that all sense of perspective has gone out the window. And bizarrely, it's being used to support the notion that the only way women can have this "safe" place is to sacrifice their privacy. A little thought experiment... What if Gardner had written a different blog post—"Nine reasons why women edit Wikipedia"—and had sent the narrative in a different direction? Voceditenore (talk) 09:07, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Add that there is an assumption here that women behave better than men. Really? While there may be a gender gap in the (for lack of better term) rank-and-file editors, there is no lack of women in leadership positions in the community, both in the WMF and community groups. As far as bad behavior, most of that is due to the anonymity afforded by current policies plus the fiefdoms that have emerged because of a lack of organizational structure and clear expectations/roles. These are the real problems Wikipedia faces and they have nothing to do with gender. Nothing wrong with encouraging women to edit or improve coverage related to women, but making men scapegoats is a distraction from the real issues.Thelmadatter (talk) 15:42, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
I've encountered "sub-optimal" behaviour (including quite blatantly insulting sexist comments) from men and women in equal numbers. If the WMF's figures are to be believed, that makes women proportionately more likely to behave badly than men. But then, at least three of those who claimed to be women were the socks of someone who at other times had male personas. All of which demonstrates the absurdity of this stereotyping based on selectively anecdotal evidence. Another place where women editors seem to hold their own with men is the paid editors/PR shils. If you spend any time at all at AfD, AfC, NPP, etc. you'll know what I'm talking about. No problems with wiki mark-up for them. Articles spring fully formed from their hands, complete with perfectly formatted infoboxes and multiple (spurious) references. Voceditenore (talk) 18:38, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes. And I'm there in the Mediawiki discussion of that blog post deploring her canvassing a group of her friends and letting them speak for female Wikipedia editors. However, it didn't all start with that blog post. There had already been at least one of the extremely flawed questionnaires from which this indefensible figure has been derived. The Teahouse, which was a good-faith attempt to replace the Help board for new editors with something that would appeal to female newbies by never linking to a policy or guideline, may predate that blog post. So may Wikilove, also intended to appeal to female editors. Both based on those out-of-the-air figures and the moral panic with which the WMF responded. The figures are indefensible. We truly cannot know, and seeking to justify them by guessing based on what people's names look like and what they are interested in editing is stereotyping. It's harming the community as a whole, and every gender's freedom - and has already led to harm to specific editors, including at least one trans* editor. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:49, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Wikilove and the Teahouse appear to be fruits of that blog post mindset rather than predecessors. Wikilove was implemented on Wikipedia in June 2011, 5 months after the blog post. The Teahouse emerged the following year in 2012. At least they're relatively useful. Unlike the VisualEditor fiasco, aimed in part (and quite explicitly so) at all those women out there who allegedly weren't editing because they allegedly couldn't get their heads around wiki markup. Voceditenore (talk) 16:27, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
My memory is that the VisualEditor was aimed at increasing participation in general, particularly in non-English Wikipedias. Wikilove was aimed at a climate where warnings were becoming increasingly more common. Please keep your facts straight. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:23, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes, Ed, they were aimed at increasing participation "in general" but they were also explicitly touted as a strategy to close the gender gap (especially the VisualEditor), e.g. this interview with Sue Gardner, this Wikimedia blog post. Voceditenore (talk) 19:29, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Of course they were, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was originally aimed at women. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
It is good to see some self-identified women commenting about the problematic aspects of GGTF and related initiatives at a central place, rather than being scattered around as they have been.

Ed, I think you have misread what Voceditenore wrote, which included the words "in part". FWIW, Sue Gardner was the person behind a lot of these failed initiatives and even in 2014 seemed to think she had "taken over WMF" - poor phrasing or what?!. Yours is an interesting point about Wikilove: I wonder if new research would show that it has been successful (in a statistically significant way) in countering the increase in use of warnings - do WMF often conduct post facto research? We have more weird WMF-centric blog posts going on at the moment, btw, one of which I've mentioned on my talk page. - Sitush (talk) 08:19, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I take your point, Ed. However, I was talking about the "selling" of these software initiatives. They are quite clearly sold as bringing in and keeping new editors in general and female ones in particular, although their metrics for determining the success of such propositions are very flawed. See meta:Research:Gender micro-survey and its talk page for an example. The bottom line is that the way such initiatives are sold forms part of the much wider negative narrative about Wikipedia and women with which I deeply disagree. Voceditenore (talk) 10:32, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
  • "Recently, Wikipedia editor Lightbreather, a participant in GGTF and other such projects, made a grant proposal"—yet the link goes to the IdeaLab, which is rather for the incubation of pre-grant-application ideas. Actual proposals can be found at the IEG and PEG pages. Could this be corrected in the text? Tony (talk) 09:31, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Op-ed: Is Wikipedia for sale? (15,093 bytes · 💬)

I have not encountered very many examples of paid editing. However, I have had some interaction with a disclosed paid editor who did the right thing and made requests on a talk page for some amendments to the relevant article, as opposed to making the edits himself. In that case, the paid editor was drawing attention to an article of significant importance that really did need a fair bit of work, including work over and above the amendments the paid editor was requesting. Regrettably, however, I still haven't had the time or the inclination to carry out most of that work. Bahnfrend (talk) 01:48, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Let's start with the big question - can we stop paid editing? No. It isn't going to happen. Wikipedia's profile is to high, we allow (and encourage) anonymous editing, and the paths to get work are many and varied. Elance and ODesk are two, but there is no way we can track the bulk of paid editing. Even if you ignore jobs not offered on the job sites you still have Guru, Freelancer and Fiverr, to name but three of many. And paid editors such as Morning277 don't generally need to rely on job sites at all. Then there are companies like WikiExperts - how do we identify who they hire, much less who their clients are?
Accordingly, the next question regards what to do. We have three choices - nothing, try to prevent it completely, or find middle ground. We aren't going to be able to prevent it, and we need to try something. So the path the Terms of Use have taken is to find middle ground - allow paid editors willing to disclose a path to continue to receive compensation for editing, while providing justification for acting against those who won't. It isn't a great compromise, but by allowing clients to find editors willing to work within policy we make at least some steps towards limiting the opportunities of others.
Finally, a number of editors actively follow the main paid editing sites. How effective we are is questionable - the more skilled offenders can only have articles identified about 1/3 of the time, although that increases up to 2/3 or more for the less skilled editors. - Bilby (talk) 01:56, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for this great op-ed. Paid editing is a huge risk for Wikipedia. It reduces readers' trust and discourages non-paid volunteers who spend increasing amounts of time, for free, fighting back the hordes of paid editors. It creates bias in articles and conflict among editors. I fear that the very existence of Wikipedia may be in danger in the long term.
In the Spanish-language version, the media has helped us uncover articles clearly authored by public-relation companies, for example about singers and other celebrities (see this discussion). I helped clean up those articles in June 2014 and have been watching them since then. Anonymous editors have come back to all of them and kept on adding "information" and embellishments. I have reverted some of those edits but most are legitimate and I have no way of proving that the editor has been paid, even if I strongly suspect it.
I am now convinced that there will always be editors willing to be sell their skills to companies, that just can't be avoided. What we can do is to deal with the clients: the PR companies and their customers. We need to make them see that paying to edit Wikipedia under cover is unethical, probably illegal and not a good business anyway because most of their work gets reverted or ridiculed. Industry-wide agreements should be signed to ban these practices, the same as multinationals in other sectors now have internal rules that forbid bribing government officials worldwide.--Hispalois (talk) 07:07, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes this is a problem. Can we do anything about it? Only what we do now - delete the most blatant ones and try to engage the mild offenders. I have noticed however that most illnesses are skewed towards taking drugs instead of diet or lifestyle changes. I guess we want both, and the pharma companies give us one part, while we lack volunteers for the other part. I tend to work in the arts and sometimes it seems that the only paintings worth seeing are in museums. But we are working on the sum of all paintings -- the entire oeuvre of painters, not just what hangs in the largest museums. At the end of the day, most of Wikipedia is good, including the work of paid editors. If anything, we might be responding to the work of paid editors every time we correct peacock terms, something that happens a lot. I think that we need those paid editors to keep us responding, though I can imagine it sometimes can be depressing if you feel swamped by it, like visiting that website. Jane (talk) 08:29, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

  • I would like to second Hispalois's praise for this excellent and thoughtful op-ed. I feel both hopeful and resigned about the issue: hopeful, because there is much that is wonderful about Wikipedia, and most of it is unlikely to be affected by paid editing (as there is no benefit to be had on many topics, such as mine, natural history); resigned, as commercial interest is always with us. However, we should not think that nothing can be done. Companies will feel drawn to hiring editors if there is a strong benefit (Wikipedia has many readers) and negligible cost (gee, your hired editor gets blocked, has to try a new sock). We need a sanction which hurts, and there is one: we permanently ban articles on the hiring company. Obviously, this requires proof (to avoid legal action), and equally plainly, that is hard to get. Doc James is right about one thing: the companies that hire editors have plenty of money, and we volunteers by definition don't receive any, so the scales are heavily weighted against us. Still, the existence of a powerful sanction would be useful in curbing the worst excesses, as all companies would have to do would be to disclose their editors. Reputable companies already have no problem with that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:00, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I am also grateful for this op-ed. The pharmaceutical company/product articles are probably the most frequently highlighted because WikiProject Medicine keeps a very eagle eye on those subjects. However, blatant paid editing is rife here, and unfortunately both WikiProject Organizations and WikiProject Business appear only semi-active, if at all. I have encountered dozens of paid-for articles and successfully seen them through AfD. Sometimes they are so blatantly advertorial that they've been speedy-deleted. When I find one, I check the articles linking and from it and the other edits by the creator and invariably find several more (egregious example). There are two tell-tale signs of paid editing:
  1. The article springs fully formed in the first edit (usually by a "new" user), complete with a impeccably formatted infobox including an image of the company logo or the person if it's a bio.
  2. Multiple, in fact too many, "references"—again impeccably formatted. On closer inspection, they are all press releases, press release-based, listings in company directories, "interviews" with the CEO, "articles" written by the CEO/subject but with the reference disguised to obscure the real author, articles in prominent publications which do not mention the subject at all.
Paid-for articles are significantly different from other types of COI creations, e.g. people writing "do it yourself" articles about their charity, club, business, or themselves. These are usually very messy with poor formatting, bare url references or no references apart from a link to their website, more blatantly promotional (the paid editors are usually more subtle as their goal is to fly under the radar), and often contain large amounts of copy-paste. Both types of articles are detrimental to the encyclopedia, but the paid-for ones are especially pernicious. I'd urge all editors to spend an hour a week checking Special:NewPagesFeed, pick an article that rings alarm bells or that is about a company or product, check it out, and nominate it for deletion if appropriate. If you have time, check the articles linking to or from it, and the contributions of the creator. If all the active editors did this, regardless of our main editing interests (mine is 18th- and 19th- century opera!) we could make a significant inroad into the problem. Voceditenore (talk) 09:57, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

WMF legal ought to be involved if paid editing breaking the terms of use of the site really threatens Wikipedia's reputation. I wonder if they could at least provide a FAQ about the issue. There is a fairly simple line to take, that paying for articles that are going to be deleted is throwing money away, with reputational risk. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:46, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

@Charles Matthews: Or stated shorter: what was the point of changing the terms of use if the WMF isn't going to enforce them? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:54, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Shorter, but more simplistic. If A pays B to edit Wikipedia in breach of the terms of use, both A and B are in false positions. B can be blocked (enforcement), but if you want to get at A, you need to combat that otherwise. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
That's an excellent point—thank you. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:18, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Entirely predictable result. WMF throws mountains of legal papers. Malicious editors continue business as usual; legitimate editors, scared by the WMF's legal threats and burdens, go away. WMF blames martians for the outcome. --Nemo 11:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • For many years we have had all kinds of problems with COI editing, but the degree to which specific edits are considered a problem seems to be mainly determined by people's political views. The Fluoroquinolone articles were completely taken over for years by people engaged in litigation against Bayer and JNJ. Information was posted to the articles on Finasteride, Isotretinoin, Alendronic acid, Varenicline, and most of the psychiatric drug articles that was well outside of medical consensus, in many cases factually incorrect. In many cases the articles or large portions thereof looked as though they had been pulled directly from the closing statements of a plantiff's attorney in a product liability lawsuit. But these inaccuracies seemed to draw only a very small level of interest or concern.
I think we would do well, especially on the medical articles, to focus on keeping them accurate and the views presented in line with medical consensus, irrespective of whether the source of the inaccuracy is paid editing, litigants attempting to tamper with the jury pool, or simply political activism. Bad medical information is equally harmful irrespective of what motivates the editor. Formerly 98 (talk) 15:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Articles often become liabilities - sounding boards of negative content - when anyone can edit the article. It's a double-edged sword, not a single-edged sell out. -- GreenC 01:50, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

  • The most straightforward thing we could do to put a significant dent in paid editing would be to raise our notability threshold. A rather shocking majority of articles written by paid editors easily meets our notability threshold, and if they employ decent third party sourcing and do not write in an overly-promotional manner, it's almost impossible to delete the articles. I recently had an experience where I'd PRODded an obviously paid-for, barely notable article (but not quite promotional enough to speedily delete it); then a completely different paid editor requested undeletion and was automatically granted the request per our policy. I took it to AfD, and it went the full 3 rounds before there were sufficient comments to get it deleted. Again, the editor who requested undeletion was an incredibly obvious paid editor (his original username was that of the company!), but the "rules" required the article be reinstated. We shoot ourselves in the foot like this on a daily basis. Risker (talk) 02:55, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • The problem lies in that "paid editors" is too broad a terminology and we really need to distinguish between what are paid advocates and paid contributors, the first group what the this article is identifying as insidious editors who purpose is to restrict and control content being presented. The later group of paid contributors are the legitimate editors who work within sectors like GLAM and their purpose is perfectly aligned to ours making information freely available, to providing reliable citations and sharing media files from their collections. Its possible for a person to edit honestly while being paid for those edits, for the most part its a method that can successfully address some of the gender imbalance issues we read about elsewhere within signpost. What we need is to encourage honesty though identification when a person acts within their employment conditions rather than driving people into hiding with socks. This approach would make it more transarent to our readers and easier for participants to discuss issues in good faith, and it may just have the side effect of less biting of new eds who always appear to be SPA. Gnangarra 03:28, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes this piece is about paid advocacy rather than paid editing. Many organizations share our goals and if they pay someone to help us achieve these shared goals there is no issue with this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:25, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Technology report: Security issue fixed; VisualEditor changes (1,047 bytes · 💬)

  • I think this is a good idea, however I think it would still be beneficial to replace the meta one with long-form ones on the occasions where major feature deployment happens, to allow for a more extended explanation/discussion of the deployment itself, maybe even with a title change to highlight the difference. Snowolf How can I help? 16:19, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes; the larger question is whether the Signpost has someone (a) with the required tech knowledge to write such long-form articles, (b) not affiliated with the WMF, which is necessary for some topics, and (c) open on the required week. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:04, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Traffic report: The American Heartland (3,230 bytes · 💬)

Sorry, the Sniper number still had the artifact of last week's views, the correct number is 807,758 (see [3]). I apologize for the confusion I caused.--Milowent • hasspoken 04:37, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Here is my second try at a top-20 by both edits and editors, ranked by the product of their logarithms, and weighted in an attempt to balance the rank by exceptional numbers of either equally:
article edits editors weighted_rank
TransAsia Airways Flight 235 570 110 38.71
Super Bowl XLIX 437 142 38.64
Deaths in 2015 482 84 36.02
Sergio Mattarella 373 51 31.57
Bobbi Kristina Brown 341 37 29.22
Bigg Boss Halla Bol! 214 42 27.57
Gamergate controversy 187 46 27.35
Valhalla train crash 248 30 26.47
2015 Mamasapano clash 181 33 25.45
Muath al-Kasasbeh 173 32 25.07
Monty Oum 126 39 24.49
2015 Australian Open 132 37 24.47
2015 AFC Asian Cup 152 31 24.29
Geraldine McEwan 222 22 24.26
Darrell Bevell 131 34 24.02
Novak Djokovic 120 36 23.86
Super Bowl 106 41 23.85
Super Bowl XLIX halftime show 140 27 23.21
Delhi Legislative Assembly election, 2015 149 25 23.11
FourFiveSeconds 145 25 22.99

This can be re-created from this query. This version counts all IP editors as the same editor, but the version you can see at that query now counts distinct IP addresses as different editors. I think I like this one better because it has Delhi Legislative Assembly election, 2015 instead of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water but who am I to judge? Milowent and @Serendipodous: do you have any automation for extracting top image and article class? EllenCT (talk) 13:35, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

  • Fascinating work, EllenCT! The WP:5000 pulls the article class when compiled, but we create this report by manually selecting the image, and copying the article class from the WP:5000).--Milowent • hasspoken 05:43, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject report: Dicing with death – on Wikipedia? (1,129 bytes · 💬)

This seems a somewhat short and limited interview with the project - it is important to note that the User:Good O'lfactory was an inspiration for the project - he had created a vast number of categories relating to death, and as typical of most category creators on the wikipedia front page main space, they are totally disinterested in the talk page or project tagging. As a result, the project was inspired by a large amount of material with categories - but no project supporting this. Also the portal was more or less User:Polinossis's doing, constructing designing and arranging. Also, the discussions towards the scope of the project seem even less understood now than they were at the time of creation. satusuro 03:50, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree; @Good Olfactory: and @Pollinosisss: have a lot to do with how the project is today so big credit to them. --Geniac (talk) 04:09, 6 February 2015 (UTC)


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