Wikipedia against feminism
January 23, 2015 1:14 PM   Subscribe

Wikipedia bans five editors from gender-related articles.
The editors, who were all actively attempting to prevent the article from being rewritten with a pro-Gamergate slant, were sanctioned by “arbcom” in its preliminary decision. While that may change as it is finalised, the body, known as Wikipedia’s supreme court, rarely reverses its decisions.
..."not only do the Gamergaters get to rewrite their own page (and Zoe Quinn’s, Brianna Wu’s, Anita Sarkeesian’s, etc); feminists are to be purged en bloc from the encyclopedia."
posted by urbanwhaleshark (6 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Probably a better idea to make a post about this that provides a little more context/background on the whole weird deal. -- cortex



 
I'm struggling to think of why an article like this would fail to mention who the five editors banned were and would fail to provide any mechanism to find out how the decision came about.

I'm either failing to comprehend English (which is distinctly possible) or this article is quite possibly the least detailed 720 word editorial I've ever read.
posted by saeculorum at 1:21 PM on January 23, 2015


This was mentioned in a MeTa thread earlier today.

I immediately found the email address for the donations department and sent them an email explaining that this particular action had ensured that I never would be contributing to any future Wikipedia funding drives as a result (and darn heck shoot, this was the first year I'd have finally been able to do so after using them for 10 years of writing....)

That email, by the way, would be donate@wikimedia.org.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:21 PM on January 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


This is probably a better article.
posted by empath at 1:23 PM on January 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's worth reading Mark Bernstein's series of three blog posts on this: 1, 2, 3

From the first one:
We have a blueprint now that shows how any decently-funded group with a modicum of access to the media – which is to say any group (unlike GamerGate) not patently criminal – can take control of any part of Wikipedia it pleases. You need a PR agency with a few offices in different cities and a phone – resources whose lack complicated GamerGate’s position.

Worse, the decision is so egregiously bad that it may well permanently discredit not only Wikipedia but the entire open Web. If a mature and well-funded site like Wikipedia can’t distinguish between reason and perfidious slander, if it punishes volunteers who enforce its own policies against libel, then who will trust any publication that doesn’t bear the brand of ABC/Disney, Reuters, or Al-Jazeera?
posted by RogerB at 1:25 PM on January 23, 2015 [4 favorites]


I realized this was a problem close to ten years ago when I decided, as just the sort of knowledgeable pedantic type of person who'd make a good Wikipedia editor, to start expanding stubs related to feminism and women's achievements, ironing out categories so that they actually made sense (IIRC my hackles got raised about this because the way they had it, Phyllis Schafly or someone of that ilk ended up in Feminist Theorists*, which, no), and otherwise really mostly just doing housekeeping on Wikipedia articles pertaining to feminism and women's history.

After getting smacked down hard for some incredibly basic change that made total sense to any rational human being trying to use Wikipedia, it became clear that Wikipedia was not a feminist space and the feminist-adjacent categories were just going to have to stay weak and difficult to use.

Not that I think the solution is for feminists not to even bother, but, yeah, this is not a new problem.

*This was in like 2003, no idea if she's still there. Though I do think feminist and women's history topics have gotten a lot better since then.
posted by Sara C. at 1:25 PM on January 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's a frustrating article. Lot of "May be" language over an issue that isn't resolved one way or the other. I kind of would like to have seen examples of what got these editors in trouble.

IMO the bigger issue is buried in the bottom two paragraphs, that is what would ultimately kill Wikipedia. New media same as old media just... FASTER!
posted by edgeways at 1:28 PM on January 23, 2015


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