Grants talk:IdeaLab/Gender neutral nicknames; teaching women and girls with an online class on how to be more assertive in their responses

Clarification on focus

You know, as a straight, while, male I never put much thought into the various usernames I've used when creating an identity online. In fact, you'll find that most of them are variations of my initials. Pretty boring. However I do agree that those with an obviously feminine username often don't have that luxury.

Is the focus here that those who identify with a non-masculine, non-gender neutral username - in the title you single out women and girls - should choose a gender neutral one? Why should this particular subsection of editors change their behavior (picking a username that matches their identity)? Especially when the overwhelming majority of those who single out this same group to harass have no need to consider how they represent their gender?

Ckoerner (talk) 21:03, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Opposition

•  Oppose I feel like this is solution is search of a problem. I have never seen female Wikipedians harassed simply for being female myself, and I really doubt this happens at rate higher than "very incidental". Furthermore, the 2015 Harassment Survey (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Harassment_survey_2015) reports no substantial differences in the level of harassment female face compared to males. So before even considering the idea you are proposing here, the problem must 1) be shown to exist; 2) be shown to occur with a frequency that warrants any kind of intervention; and 3) shown to be a specifically female problem (or else you aren't justified in only providing this online class for females instead of for a more general audience that has problems with assertive expression). Even if all 3 of these points are true (which I doubt), I'm not convinced that an online class will prove an efficient remedy; and at any rate, you should provide much more information about the form this online class is going to take. --Doveofsymplegades (talk) 19:53, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

• Well... I think that part of the problem stems from a lack of clear definition of harassment. I've had more than one situation where I've had people point out harassment that I didn't notice because I was simply used to the conduct and I construed harassment as something far more blatant. (IE, someone was openly condescending to me and treated a male Wikipedian differently. The user in question also hit on me right after being openly condescending. I had grown so used to this type of behavior that it didn't even show up on my radar as potential harassment.) In other words, I think that there is more harassment than is reported mostly because harassment isn't clearly defined on Wikipedia and because female editors are so used to certain behaviors that they're inured to them. For example, many women might not immediately construe being called "sweetheart" by their male co-workers as inappropriate because they've been conditioned to see it as non-offensive. By extension, openly female Wikipedians might be regularly talked down to because they're female, yet the language/phrasing is written in a way that it doesn't openly come across as potential harassment.

However that said, I do think that this idea needs more work. I like the idea of online classes/modules that teaches female identified editors how to become more assertive with editing, more easily identify harassment and problematic situations, and feel comfortable dealing with and reporting these situations. The last part is the biggest part since a lot of people hesitate to openly report anything for fear of retribution or not being seen as a "team player", especially if they believe that the people in charge are just more of the same. A lot of harassment is subjective, but I think that raising awareness would potentially help female identified editors detect and report harassment if and when it happens. The main thing is giving off a supportive atmosphere than anything else. However we also need to have a better and more clear definition of harassment, otherwise this would run the risk of turning into an amorphous and unhelpful blob of a class. We need better education but it needs to be carefully structured and identified because harassment is somewhat subjective.

Now one thing I don't like is the emphasis on gender neutral nicknames, since most female identified editors already use gender neutral nicknames. Female identified editors should feel free to use whatever handle or nickname they choose, without fear that they'd be harassed for said nickname. That's kind of like saying that someone should avoid wearing a specific outfit if they don't want to be harassed. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 06:48, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

"By extension, openly female Wikipedians might be regularly talked down to because they're female, yet the language/phrasing is written in a way that it doesn't openly come across as potential harassment." Perhaps. Honestly, I don't know as I haven't investigated this myself nor am I active enough to have formed a good impression of how female Wikipedians are treated. My hunch is that this is very rare and not systematic. It may be otherwise, but we can't just assume this is the case, we must provide evidence that this happens and happens more frequently than "very incidentally".

"Female identified editors should feel free to use whatever handle or nickname they choose, without fear that they'd be harassed for said nickname." Absolutely agree. --Doveofsymplegades (talk) 10:10, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

• Even so, a little bit of prevention might not be a bad idea in general since it could help foster a better environment (ie, that Wikipedia is trying to help). It might be better to make it more general though, to give examples of various types of harassment and not just gender related - an overall class on how to edit assertively and recognize (and deal with!) harassment could be a good idea. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 04:59, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

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