There’s been a few recent conversations regarding social behavior and how to improve things within the Wikimedia movement that have caught my attention. I think these are important conversations to have, difficult and rife with misinterpretation and misunderstandings. They are, again in my opinion, the single most important thing our movement needs to figure out to succeed in increasing the diversity and representation within our movement. In both the content of our projects and those that choose to share their time in participation. We don’t need better software, we need better soft skills.
There needs to be a systemic rethinking of how we make it easier for folks to report behavioral issues – in the interface of things like WP:ANI, the handling of the case (private vs public) – but more importantly in the advocacy of “This is a place where we don’t tolerate harassment across the community – full stop. We want you to feel safe in coming forward with a report”.
We can’t continue to grow as a movement if we solely rely on individual admins and editors working in good faith in an ad-hoc manner. We can’t rely on people being strong enough in the face of adversity to have the energy to submit a report in public (with rather explicit instructions and requirements to boot).
It’s too inconsistent, fractured and obscure for mere mortals. 🙂 We need a critical rethinking of processes like ANI. We need research, design, and opportunities for admins to feel empowered to do this work.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Problem_behaviours_and_rudeness
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/1686423484738809/
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/1686423484738809/?comment_id=1686707984710359&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/1695314843849673/
Related: These shared experiences of a non-male community member in a male-dominated community. Like Wikimedia. Granted this is from another community outside of Wikimedia, but within the same society. There are very observable similarities.
https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/8t0wpb/are_you_gonna_play_the_victim_all_life_long_my/