Grants talk:PEG/Ada Initiative/Gender-gap admin training

Grant Proposal

@SlimVirgin: I'm worried about the deadline here, so I started going through the grand application and here is what I have.

"Activities Describe the main activities of the project that will be completed if the project is funded. What activities will be undertaken? What will you make, create, or complete, and how will you test your solutions? Who will do what and at what stages? It's often useful to provide a project timeline."

The Ada Initiative suggested 1-2 test sessions among admins (one at Wikimania Mexico City). If those are successful, we would then bring 20 international admins for a train-the-trainers session at the WMF. These participants can then run sessions in their home countries. They suggested a budget of $50,000 for their program. We are also requesting an additional $10,000 to help with travel costs for admins and ensure that admins from different parts of the world are able to participate.

"Budget breakdown What kinds of funding do you need to accomplish your activities? Please breakdown each of your expenses into a list with bullet points."

• $10,000 2 Ada run training sessions for 50 admins each.
• $20,000 Train the trainer Ada training for 20 admins, who will become gender gap specialists, mentors, and commit to training other admins.
• $10,000 Ada Trainer Travel.
• $10,000 Travel Award Fund for Admins, who will become trainers.
• $3,000 Session refreshments and materials
• $7,000 Discretionary fund, additional session and travel, additional travel awards, travel funds for volunteers, price of train-the-trainers higher than estimated etc.

"Total amount How much total funding are you requesting for this grant? Don't forget to specify which currency you are using!"

$60,000

"Community engagement What are some ways you plan to incorporate community participation and feedback into each phase of your project?"

We'll survey administrators to ask about their interest in participating. We'll ask the community in different regions to nominate administrators for travel grants. We'll survey administrators after the initial training sessions. If one of the gender bias reporting proposals passes, trained administrators can also play a critical role in addressing these concerns.

"Sustainability What do you expect will happen to your project after the grants ends? How might it be used/continued/grown?"

Trained administrators will act as leaders and advocates for women and teach others about gender bias. They will particularly well suited to help with any of the proposed harassment reporting projects.

Trained teachers will be able to bring this program to their home countries. As more administrators are trained, they can serve as mentors and leaders.

"Measures of success How will you know if your project is successful and you've met your goals? List some ideas for specific, measurable targets."

To see if the initial training sessions were successful we will survey administrators. We will also talk to experienced Ada Initiative trainers about their measures of success and how they analyze sessions.

"Grantee Please enter your username here. If your team has more than 1 grantee, you can add more people below."

SlimVirgin

"Primary contact Please provide an email address (or a username that can receive email) that we can use to contact you."

[your e-mail]

"If your project team includes other grantees or advisors, please share their usernames here. For each member of your project team (including yourself), describe any relevant skills or background that you'll contribute to the project."

SlimVirgin: wikipedia editor since 2004, administrator since 2005.

Xttina.Garnet: Joint Master in Neuroscience student, her work focuses on process that recruit bias and stereotyping in decision making. Occasional Wikipedia editor since 2009, contributor in the Neuroscience Project. Relevant Skills include statistical analysis in SPSS, R, and Python, survey design in Survey Monkey.

ACrockford: Wikimedian in Residence based at the National Library of Scotland, post-doctoral researcher and teaching assistant at the University of Edinburgh.

Data crusader: PhD Candidate in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory, Digital projects coordinator at Emory's Center for Digital Scholarship, assistant managing editor for the open access, peer reviewed journal Southern Spaces. They are also community + advocacy coordinator for the Open Access Button and community representative for the Digital Public Library of America.

QEDK

Britneyfan07

Shrutisa

--Xttina.Garnet (talk) 11:29, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

If I don't hear back from you, before I go to sleep tonight, I'll just submit with my email and say there is more than one grantee (nb, I'm on european time). Also if they need more objective measures of success, I'm a social neuroscience master's student and I specialize in bias and stereotyping. I can come up with something, but it seems beyond the scope of this project. I had trouble writing that section, because I'm used to answering those kinds of questions in extreme detail and now I'm worried I went in the opposite direction. @QEDK:, @Data crusader:, @Britneyfan07:, @Shrutisaxena75:, please describe relevant skills and background. I will delete this after grant submission, to protect personal information. --Xttina.Garnet (talk) 11:29, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Data crusader:, @SlimVirgin:, @ACrockford: So I stalked your user pages to fill in the qualifications, because I'm creepy like that. I'm going to submit in about an hour (I need to sleep after that). Let me know if you want me to change anything and please add stuff. --Xttina.Garnet (talk) 20:59, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Pinging

Hi, I said I would let people know when I had something up, so I'm pinging those who had already commented: Siko (WMF), AWang (WMF), Neotarf, Carolmooredc, Gobonobo. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, SlimVirgin! Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

• Pinging WereSpielChequers, who has expressed an interest in hosting training workshops in London, so he can keep an eye on this. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:18, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

We have the facilities to host a session in the Wikimedia UK offices in London, and I for one would be happy to attend, book rooms and publicise this. But other than that I'm only qualified to make the tea. I don't know what you want to include in such training, which I suppose is why I'd like to attend a session. I'd suggest you get the course materials sorted and tested before global rollout, happy to be a guinea pig for a session in London when someone has worked out what gender gap admin training would entail. WereSpielChequers (talk) 22:19, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I would absolutely love to be involved in something like this - if there's anything I can do to help in any way, please let me know! I'm based in Edinburgh, but I can travel to London! ACrockford (talk) 13:32, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Connecting to some relevant research

Hi, SlimVirgin,

I remain a fan of this idea, hope to see it develop into a grant proposal when you, the Ada Initiative team etc are ready. Meanwhile, I wanted to point to some early findings from a current research project that Mssemantics has been working on, which could be a useful reference for a project like this. Training and supporting a group of admins to take on this type of "emotional labor" seems worthwhile.

Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 21:43, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd be more than happy to help re: identifying and preparing this group of admins for this type of "emotional labor."--Mssemantics (talk) 21:07, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Next step

What about setting up a meeting with some folks from The Ada Initiative, so you can start to get clearer on what sort of training would be most likely to succeed, who would need to do what bits of work to make that happen (would TAI lead the grant project themselves, or would a small team of Wikipedians do that and just pay TAI some of the grant funds to accomplish the actual training?), and start to think about what funds would really be needed to accomplish a first pilot? Once I understand a bit more about how the team taking this forward wants to try out the experiment, I'd then be able to suggest clicking either the "Expand to PEG" or "Expand to IEG" button on the toolkit to create a full grant proposal. Happy to help connect folks into a chat or call, if that's useful to you, SlimVirgin - I'm meeting up with Valerie next week. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 02:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Just noting that ArbCom's recommendation for introduction of discretionary sanctions for any gender-related dispute, to be imposed by any uninvolved admin may add some additional rationale for this proposal. Siko (WMF) (talk) 07:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi Siko, it would be very helpful if you could facilitate that. I'll write up some more thoughts and email you about it. Sarah (SV) ^talk 06:26, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, looking forward to hearing from you! Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:51, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin, QEDK, and Xttina.Garnet: hi all - just wondering if you were ever able to connect with folks from the Ada Initiative, and if so, what is the status of this proposal? I would love to see this turned into a full proposal before the deadline on March 31! -Thepwnco (talk) 23:01, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I can do that. I'm not exactly sure what I should be doing, but I suppose it can't hurt for the Ada Initiative to hear about the project twice. I have to work on a major data analysis tomorrow, but I can get that done this weekend. - Actually I did some research on the group and things people said in the endorsement section. (see below) --Xttina.Garnet (talk) 01:25, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Yup. It's time we got in touch. Xttina.Garnet, are you doing it? --QEDK (talk) 04:56, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

On it User:QEDK. --Xttina.Garnet (talk) 23:38, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Here is what I wrote:

Dear Ada Initiative,

I am a volunteer in a wikipedia idea lab project, "Gender-gap admin training", which suggests using the ally training programs you developed to train wikipedia administrators. This project is part of a larger project to improve the gender gap on wikipedia. Here is a link to the proposal page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Gender-gap_admin_training.

There may be some funding available, but to get that we need to submit the grant by tomorrow (March 31st). We imagine trainings taking place online. I am also aware that your training materials are available online.

First I'd like could the Ada Initiative work with the project, either by leading training sessions or by helping us identify appropriate teachers? Second, have you done online trainings and do you have suggestions or special protocols or a preferred platform for meeting online? Finally (for the grant application), how many people can participate in a training session and how much will it cost?

Thank you!

-[my name]

P.S. I am a volunteer editor and not affiliated with the wikimedia foundation in any way.

--Xttina.Garnet (talk) 23:58, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Ada Initiative

@Thepwnco: Questions about contacting the Ada initiative: What exactly are we asking for? An online ally workshop for admins, thorough Skype or zoom? Incidentally all of their Ally workshop materials are available online: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Allies_training. Here is the person to contact for a quote: contact@adainitiative.org. I'm happy to message them, but it would be good to get a clear request.--Xttina.Garnet (talk) 01:22, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

@Sumanah and Leigh Honeywell: You both say you've been involved in a workshop. I notice the online ally training information has suggestions for session teachers and indicates that people with "extensive experience supporting women in geek culture" can teach a workshop. I also notice that Sumanah says she's taught the workshops, after completing them.

Additional questions I'm hoping you might help with: How effective could an online workshop be? How many people do you think can effectively participate in a single online workshop? Would you feel comfortable teaching/ have time to teach a workshop? Would it make sense to have an initial group of admins dedicated to teaching other admins and then have them run other workshops? Thanks! --Xttina.Garnet (talk) 01:22, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

@Xttina.Garnet and QEDK: hi there, that is a good question and admittedly, one I don't have the answer too - I was just following up with your conversation with User: Siko (WMF) from above to see where things stand. If you don't think it's essential to contact the Ada Initiative again and/or feel you already have enough information to finalize your grant proposal then I would encourage you to focus on the proposal (specifically, outlining activities and budget items) over the next couple of days before the March 31 deadline. -Thepwnco (talk) 16:33, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Here's a technical comparison between Skype and Zoom. The tables are for group video calls only. 1 to 1 video calls and audio calls (upto 25 participants) are free and unlimited on both services. Firstly, if we consider the free versions.

Skype	Zoom
10 participants (5 for good quality)	25 participants (should be 5 too, we don't have great upload speeds)
100 hours per month with no more than 10 hours per day and a limit of 4 hours per individual video call.	40 minutes.

Then we have Skype for Business and Zoom's enterprise plans. SfB is not yet launched, we just have a technical preview. The only thing I found is "Meet with up to 250 people...." and that's much it. Zoom's features can be found at https://zoom.us/pricing . Both of them seem to have a very nice administrative system for their services but that's pretty much it and also - Zoom's quite expensive.

Skype	Zoom
250 participants	0-10+
Pricing unknown	Depends

No more info. Damn. Whether we should have Ada in this or not, goes a bit against this proposal. I believe a reliable third-party should be the one guiding us or even an admin who has been involved with them will do. I'm fine with anything sensible. --QEDK (talk) 17:01, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi. I'm sorry to be late in noticing this ping and in replying. Most of the questions you asked when you pinged me seem to already have been answered. I am not available to teach a workshop; sorry. Best wishes. Sumana Harihareswara 10:21, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Ada Initiative's Reply

So I heard back from the Ada Initiative and they do not think that online training will be effective. They suggest running 1-2 test sessions among admins (one at Wikimania Mexico City) and then, if those are successful, bringing 20 international admins for a train-the-trainers session at the WMF. These participants can then run sessions in their home countries. As @QEDK: suggest below, they can also help with the https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:IdeaLab/Wikipedia_Gender_Concerns_Reporting_Tools.

The Ada Initiative can conduct sessions at $5,000 per session, plus travel expenses and they suggest a budget of $50,000. I think we should make sure part of that goes to admin travel awards, so admins from all around the world can participate. So we'll make that $60,000.

• $10,000 2 Ada run training sessions for 50 admins each, at least one will take place Wikimania Mexico City
• $20,000 Train the trainer Ada training for 20 admins, who will become gender gap specialists.
• $10,000 Ada Trainer Travel.
• $10,000 Travel Award Fund for Admins, who will become trainers and help with the Gender concern reporting tools.
• $3,000 Session refreshments and materials
• $7,000 Discretionary fund, additional session and travel, additional travel awards, travel funds for volunteers, price of train-the-trainers higher than estimated etc.

@SlimVirgin, QEDK, Thepwnco, and Siko (WMF): Thoughts?

Glad to see this coming together. In your budget section, I might suggest dividing it into 2 phases: 1) costs for the initial pilot at Wikimania, and 2) costs for expansion into train-the-trainers or other venues. I think I can guess which items would go into which bucket, but it would be nice to see that called out a bit clearer, as we'd likely distribute only part 1 funds first, and then part 2 as follow up once learning was shared from the initial pilot. Another question: This will take time and energy to organize as well. Will the grantees want a stipend for project management? (just wanted you to know that's allowed in your request - community organizing requires skill, time and energy too!). Feel free to adjust your proposal as needed in response to feedback you're getting on this page. Cheers, Siko (WMF) (talk) 13:52, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

--Xttina.Garnet (talk) 22:54, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

It all comes down to whether we're making this a one-timer or a recurring project. Also, where are we doing this? By WMF, are you referring to the main office in San Francisco? Also, in $15000, you're counting the test sessions and the finalized one, right? Also, what about the selection of the admins. I think a 17 - 3 (enwiki - dewiki) will be right, since they're the largest. And the choice will be based on experience and travel costs. We can make the call. The budget distribution is nice but I don't know of we got everything covered. --QEDK (talk) 13:16, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Thanks for following up. I'm interested in seeing this go forward. Could we break down the cost differently to reflect holding several events for training. So that we can see the cost per event and the number attending each event. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 14:35, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I think, in my experience working with school organization budgets it's good to assume things will cost more than you planned on. There are still a lot of unknowns: Where will the ada trainer be coming from, how much interest will there be among admins, what will the ongoing cots of training be, once the trained admins take over. I think once we have a small group trained, if there was a lot of interest, we could do some research on moving the trainings online, but that would be more expensive, in the short run.

The Ada Initiative got back to me with feedback on the budget and they said that the train-the-trainee sessions cost a lot more than $5,000 and there is no way they would do two small sessions and a train-the-trainee session for $15,000. So I think we'll have to cut from the travel fund there. I've asked for an estimate on the train-the-trainer session. See the tentative changes I've made above. --Xttina.Garnet (talk) 19:26, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

This is quite a lot. Most round-trip flights will average around $1k and 50 people would mean $50k. In fact, I was checking tripadvisor for costs but I don't understand if it's showing me round trip costs or one-way ones. Also, Expedia says that there are no flights, which is awkward. I cannot even check anymore. :P This thing's going to cost a lot, I'm confident. What I propose is that we select a location, somewhere near the GMT so that eastern and western hemisphere people can reach fast. We select 20 admins, preferentially at least 1 from each of the 20 highest editing countries (from the latest Editor Survey). Then, they organize sessions at their own Wikimedia Chapter offices free-of-charge. --QEDK (talk) 17:12, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea for the train-the-trainers session. I hadn't included travel funding for the 50 test sessions, because the Ada Initiative suggested that they take place at a conference and people will already be there. I'll clarify that.

How Many Admins?

Does anyone know how many admins wikipedia has? I think we should also add a survey to see how many admins would want to participated to our plan. --Xttina.Garnet (talk) 23:38, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

enwiki has 1,358 as of 07:38, 30 March 2015 (UTC). I think that will be the best place to start. --QEDK (talk) 07:38, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Please remember the time difference

Online has a huge advantage over in-person training in that people from more than one hemisphere of the planet can participate. Please don't let this group of admins become everwhelmingly Western-centric. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 07:30, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Opposition

• My first thought: PC. It stands for political correctness. The idea calls for:" Any editor would be able to request that a discussion with gender-gap implications be moderated and closed by one of those admins." A discussion closed because the language is too coarse??!! Closing a discussion because it is not gender-friendly?! How unwikipedia-like! If a discussion derails, then a simple note to any administrator will be enough. Wereldburger758 (talk) 05:54, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

  Yes, you're right, any administrator is capable of handling this appropriately, across the movement; that's why we never have any massive cases of misogyny or highly offensive language that aren't dealt with because admins either disagree that it's a problem due to their cultural context or are simply scared of more aggressive, offensive language, this time aimed at them. Wait... Ironholds (talk) 09:17, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

  Can you provide any evidence of this? Where has there been massive cases overt misogyny which hasn't been adequately addressed or condemned? Regarding "highly offensive language", with all due respect, that shouldn't matter and does not have any relationship with females—that is, unless you're implying that females can't handle highly offensive language as well as can males? Certainly, you aren't implying that, since that would be sexist. –Nøkkenbuer (talk) 11:32, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

  See here. If we're asking questions; what motivated you to participate in discussions about the processes and fashions with which Wikipedians conduct themselves when you've made fewer than three hundred edits? I'm extremely interested in how the people who have a substantial problem with the very idea of this campaign almost all seem to fall into the categories of "newcomers I've never heard of" or "people who haven't been active for an age". Ironholds (talk) 16:46, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

  If you're referring to me, then I'm not sure what the issue would be. Yes, I'm new to Wikipedia, despite being a long-time user and occasional anonymous editor (usually to correct a typo or whatnot). I created my Wikipedia account only about a week ago, since I felt it was long overdue. When I saw the banner for this IdeaLab a few days ago, I was curious. I then began reading into it and found some issues which troubled me. I have since then been trying to contribute to this IdeaLab by criticizing where I believe appropriate. Since you specified "three hundred edits", however, I'm getting the impression that I may be missing something here. Is there some rule against new users or those under a certain number of edits, which prohibits them from editing? If that is the case, then I sincerely apologize for overstepping my role. –Nøkkenbuer (talk) 17:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

  No, I simply find it slightly strange that, as said, the collective group of "people who don't like this idea" seems dominated by newcomers. Mind you, that might be a good thing (in the sense that we're clearly reaching a somewhat wider audience than we normally do). Anyway; I've answered your question posted above. Ironholds (talk) 17:51, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I suppose it's reasonable to find it strange. After all, I wouldn't doubt that at least some of these accounts are alts or trolls. Some would undoubtedly resort to such methods in order to push whichever agenda they wish to promote. As for the evidence you provided, I appreciate it, but I have some issues with it. In the first link, I don't see what the violation was. The second instance was rude, but I don't know the context and from the looks of it, it appears to have been a longstanding feud which culminated in an insult. It may be wrong and should be condemned on Wikipedia, but not particularly out of the ordinary when it comes to online behavior. The third and fourth instances are simply the use of a certain vulgarity, which wasn't even directed at a female. It was inappropriate, but does that really qualify as "misogyny or highly offensive language"? I don't think so. The final instance appears to be ignorance of MOS:IDENTITY coupled with some colorful, albeit inappropriate, statements. Overall, I can see how all of these cases are ones where the content should be removed for being rude or inappropriate, but I wouldn't consider these to be evidence of any sort of systematic misogyny or hate speech. The only one which even comes close is the fifth and final example, yet even then it's just insensitive to trans people. In any case, those users' behavior may be offensive, but that is terms for removing it or admonishing the user for their misbehavior. I don't see how this is proof that "gender-gap admin training" is needed, though.

As a postscript to this original response (see my talk page for why there's a postcript and a distinction between this and the "original response"), I can see how the expletive used in instances three and four can be considered "highly offensive language". At this point, my main objection is with respect to the labeling it as misogynistic, since I don't see how it could be considered as such given the context in which the expletive was used—namely, that it was used as a general insult, and not directed at any females. Additionally, I'd like to clarify that I agree that the conduct in every single one of those instances you cited are wrong and should be condemned as uncivil behavior. My problem is that I don't see this as valid reason to justify "gender-gap admin training", since the issue here appears to be general uncivil behavior and not necessarily gender-related incivility. –Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 00:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

An administrator that cannot fence for himself/herself shouldn't be an administrator. Period. It comes with the territory so to speak. And speaking for myself, if one administrator is unable to fix something, I just go to another administrator. And using offensive language against an administrator is the most stupid thing to do, in my opinion. Because he is the one that actually do something about it.... So I don't see your problem. Wereldburger758 (talk) 14:35, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Then you might want to check out the policies about "admins aren't allowed to take admin actions in areas they're involved with as a regular editor". And, if you're ignorant of those policies, you might want to consider the value of your commentary about the way admins work with a former admin. Ironholds (talk) 21:27, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, I don't know the rules administrators have to abide by. But you said: ...or are simply scared of more agressive, offensive language, this time aimed at them." I read this as aimed at them in their role as administrator and not as regular editor. Correct me if I am wrong. And not having been administrator in the past, doesn't unqualify me to have an opinion on the gender-gap adminin training.
I have been thinking about it for I have decided to return a reply and I have come to several conclusions:

• Is there any training at all to become an administrator? If not then I think there should be.
• I have contacted a long contributing member of the Dutch Wikipedia. She is a sysop. And I want to know her experiences and opinon on this matter because I value her opinion.
  

I don't like this gender-talk. Wikipedia is open for all people and there shouldn't be any policies regarding race, gender or whatever. If you want women to contribute, make it easier to contribute to Wikipedia. Don't treat them differently. In any way. Regards, Wereldburger758 (talk) 09:36, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I oppose this because I remain unconvinced that the gender gap is deleterious to Wikipedia. In fact, I believe that enforcing an artificial closure of any perceived gap could be more harmful than if it were left alone. See my post on IdeaLab:Inspire/Meta for more. I also concur with Wereldburger758's above statements. –Nøkkenbuer (talk) 11:32, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• The idea that "there shouldn't be policies" encouraging accommodation of gender or racial minorities in a society because the society is better off without being "biased" by such policies, or because the society will adapt to fit all of those demographics naturally, or because it would make things harmful to or uncomfortable for the demographic majority, ignores that that argument is being made in an already-biased society and is an argument remarkably consistent in being advanced almost solely by demographic majorities, who often feel that the act of accommodating minorities is harmful to their own standing. And sometimes it can be, in the sense that the majority group will have to give up a little bit of "fun" (for instance, male employers being able to pat female employees on the behinds) or power (male wikimedians being able to force through their preferred edits by being aggressive or obstructionist in a manner men are much more comfortable with than women, demographically speaking). That doesn't mean that allowing space for the demographic minority actually harms either the demographic majority or the society; it just means that when you've had 105% of something, being asked to take 80%, or even 100%, can feel to the majority like someone's yoinked away their rightful property. The fact is, however, that that was never their property to begin with; they'd only gained it because the playing field had been tipped hugely toward their side before the game even began.

  So yes, I can understand how male editors may read these proposals and feel that it's unfair and they're being deprived of their rights, or their property, or their equality, but the fact is that the vehemence with which "How dare you ask us to accommodate women even a little bit, or acknowledge that perhaps they have been historically disadvantaged in society?!!" is being thrown around is evidence of how foreign it is to many male editors to function in a gender-inclusive environment, and thus just how badly we do need the majority to consciously make a little room for gender minorities. Fluffernutter (talk) 22:04, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

@Fluffernutter: I'm assuming this is in response to my above post. Well, my arguments, the majority of which are in the post I made on Inspire/Meta (and where you should post your criticisms if you are drawing them from that post), are against the current campaign because it fails to actually address the issue and risks harming Wikipedia, not males, as a result. I'm not interested in keeping this so-called "majority demographic" intact, nor do I have any interest in maintaining any sort of bias which may exist. My sole purpose is to criticize the campaign for its fundamentally flawed premises and to point out that it attempts to close a gender gap at the expense of Wikipedia's integrity. I would actually prefer it if there were an equal number of female editors to male editors, since I believe this would ensure equal representation even where none is needed. However, I believe that any attempt at artificially closing the gap is deleterious to the community and could detract from the overall quality of editors, since the gender of the editor would be placed at a higher priority than the content or edits they provide. I believe that a closure of the gap is ultimately unnecessary so long as the information is accurate and the edits are valid, but if a closure of the gap occurs then it should occur naturally—and not at the forceful behest of the Wikimedia Foundation.

There is a difference between accommodating for minorities, which can easily be accomplished by simply giving all demographics equal opportunity to edit and treatment when editing; and favoring minorities for no other reason than that they are minorities and they are oppressed in other social spheres. I consider this campaign to be accomplishing the latter, not the former. Your statements regarding what is sacrificed in order to "accommodate" for minorities are themselves stereotypical and belie the issue at-hand. You assume that aggressive and obstructionist behaviors are caused by male editors as if there is some causal relationship. Correlation, even a strong correlation, does not imply causation. In fact, I would consider your statements to be bordering on sexism in its own right, since it attempts to categorize male editors along narrowly-defined and caricatured lines, as if male editors are the cause for aggressive and obstructionist behaviors while editing.

Lastly, you're strawmanning my entire argument by misrepresenting it as an appeal to retain the status quo in favor of the demographic majority (i.e., male editors), when that is far from my point. I am ambivalent about the sex or gender of the editor, since I consider it to be largely extraneous to the quality and validity of their edits. My point is that this campaign can harm Wikipedia by prioritizing the sex or gender of the editor over the quality and validity of their edits, and by treating the gender gap as something inherently deleterious to Wikipedia as a site and community. I strongly recommend you reread my arguments carefully and respond, if you do, with a better understanding of my position before you presume me as simply being a sexist trying to stick up for his fellow males. Oh, and even though I am male, I find it rather indicative of your own bias that you assume that I am a man simply because I oppose this campaign. Could not a female oppose this campaign along the same grounds?

Whatever the case, I invite you to discuss this further on my Inspire/Meta post, if your criticisms pertain to the contents therein. I always invite criticism and if you can show me that my thinking is erroneous, I have no problem correcting my thinking. Misrepresenting my position, either knowingly or mistakenly, does not help bring us to any sort of common understanding, though. –Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 23:01, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

• So many money, so little to gain. IMO with just $10.000 all of this can be achieved with even better result.--AldNonymous^Bicara? 14:41, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Comments

In relation to the comment immediately above, the notion of closing off discussion would probably not be a part of this scheme; you're right, it's not the usual wiki-way.

I think the organisers have in mind to encourage the development of a core of admins and others who are able to use their diplomatic skills and powers of persuasion to calm things down where indicated. The newly developed friendly space expectations could be a good start: there, harassment is defined, and there's a list of questions that people involved in disputes can ask themselves. The challenge for this training project would be to develop ways of asking parties those questions, to prompt self-examination. What we also need to develop is ways of identifying situations that require intervention, and when it seems right to refer the situation and/or individuals further up the chain.

I presume that some kind of manual that sets out recommended protocols for admins will come out of this project. It could come with a series of mock examples of situations, with good and not-so-good ways of mediating them. The training itself could involve role-playing—that could be interesting.

Using an admin's iron fist is probably not the intention; and let's remember that admins and their forums can already deal with cases where tempers flare or there's harassment. It's just that most admins aren't yet oriented towards the particular issues involved in gender-based harassment. Tony (talk) 08:25, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Can you give specific examples of gender-based harassment? And why administrators should need a special training to deal with it? Wereldburger758 (talk) 13:24, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Your question is a perfect example of the way that many discussions about ways to make Wikipedia more inclusive are stalled or sidetracked. Many of these discusses began with same request(s) to explain the background information about gender based problems on Wikipedia, on the internet, in technology organizations, and in broader cultures in general. Women who want to edit Wikipedia should not be required to have the double burden of educating all administrators that they meet on Wikipedia about the reality of gender based harassment or systemic biases in on line communication or the real world.

It is giving proper customer service to our editor base to have well trained admins who can competently handle administrative issues that are rooted in systemic biases related to gender. At this point it is not feasible to give special training to all administrators but over time best practices will likely spread among more administrators and the need for specially trained admin will likely decrease. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 16:30, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

@FloNight: You still haven't given any examples. Is asking for evidence "sidetracking" now? Chess (talk) 14:28, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

@FloNight: "Women who want to edit Wikipedia should not be required to have the double burden of educating all administrators that they meet on Wikipedia about the reality of gender based harassment or systemic biases in on line communication or the real world. " That simply doesn't apply to this situation. One non-admin user (Wereldburger758) asked a question, not 'all administrators'. He wasn't forcing anyone to reply him, he requested specific examples of gender-based harassment. I second his request. It's totally unreasonable to expect people who don't understand something to just magically understand that thing. Perhaps @SlimVirgin: could enlighten us, as we simply don't understand the problem. This section sounds rather vague, whereas this comment doesn't really seem to be related to the administrators of Wikipedia - or am I misreading something? Peter238 (talk) 03:21, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Expand this into a grant?

Hi @SlimVirgin:! As I'm sure you know, the Inspire grants campaign is offering funding for suitable gender gap related ideas. This is one of the most endorsed ideas in the category. I was wondering whether you'd be interested in expanding it into a grant proposal and submitting it for consideration? There's a couple of days left until the deadline, and from what I hear the grants process is fairly lightweight and cooperative. I would definitely encourage you to consider submitting it as a grant! --Skud (WMF) (talk) 01:37, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Collaboration with Wikipedia Gender Concerns Reporting Tools

I think trained admins could also checkout the concerns put up in the tool, since they would be the most capable regarding these issues? @SlimVirgin and Xttina.Garnet: this shouldn't be a problem be it? And I was also thinking, if we could get a developer our way? Know anyone? Send them to Grants talk:IdeaLab/Wikipedia Gender Concerns Reporting Tools. --QEDK (talk) 07:58, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

QEDK I don't see any problem, but I'm pretty new to this project. Training a small group that can handle a issue reporting too sounds more feasible, based on what the Ada Initiative told me they could do. --Xttina.Garnet (talk) 22:31, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, Inspire Campaign

This Inspire Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for the Inspire Campaign review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period.

The committee's formal review begins on ’’6 April 2015’’, and grants will be announced at the end of April. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us at grants(at)wikimedia.org.’’

@Xttina.Garnet, SlimVirgin, ACrockford, Data crusader, Britneyfan07, and Shrutisaxena75: Hi5, guys! :) --QEDK (talk) 14:10, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

QEDK, I have only just seen this. This is very exciting, thank you. Sarah (SV) ^talk 01:38, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Gender gap admin training

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	7.8
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	7.7
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	6.9
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	6.0
Additional comments from the Committee: Definitely has the potential for online impact, and likely could be sustained/scale to other languages or other WMF projects, as well as other free software/free culture communities Attempts to address a major problem of encouraging more women to contribute to Wikipedia, and it could potentially be adapted to other projects as well. Unclear how that the trained administrators would be used in the community after the training. Having admins might help reduce this through their efforts to educate the community. Not convinced it will increase diversity directly, but the initiative will show that the community is working towards a resolution of the problem which could have indirect positive results. We support admin training, which has online impact, and can be measured. Specific details on how these admins will be recruited/engaged are still quite vague, and also unclear about what the expectations are of admins after they have completed training. Unclear if the bulk of the community is open to working with these admins. Some additional concern about buy-in from Wikipedia admins, but I think there will certainly be enough people willing to participate to fill an initial round of training. Fully endorse The Ada Initiatives training materials and facilitation skills. Might be better to leave the 'training the trainers' out of the initial ask, and instead recommend it as an extension or second phase of the grant (depending on the success of the first phase). Don't really think $10,000 will go a long way in helping approximately 50 individuals travel to international destinations. I'm tempted to suggest axing the travel amount entirely, at least for a first session. A training session could happen in Mexico at Wikimania but would need to move quickly to get a group organized to attend. I'm concerned about the emotional labor admins will be faced with on a regular basis. How will they be sustained and supported? Such a resource intensive project has to start smaller (than the original plan - adjusted is more in-line) Skills are highly required for this project, and I do think that participants have the necessary skills. The Ada Initiative has a proven track record of conducting Ally Skills workshops. This program would entail some work from them to adapt their content, but nothing insurmountable. There needs to be specific measures of success to see if the program is working after the training - will want to work with them on that. Ideally there would be some kind of check-in with trained admins and/or contributors who have interacted with them at some time frame out from the training sessions to measure long-term impact. Suggest scaling it back to a trial in Wikipedia English and leave off the international training for now. Perhaps in future WMF can provide this kind of training and ongoing support to willing volunteers rather than volunteers organizing this kind of initiative? Suggest reducing amount to provide initial testing for editors in 1-2 wikimedia related events (as suggested in the proposal) and if the training goes well and methodology is refined them move ahead with in-depth training for admin and funding of travels

Inspire funding decision

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for a Project and Event Grant through the Inspire Campaign.

WMF has approved partial funding for this project, in accordance with the committee's recommendation. This project is funded with $9000

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee has recommended starting with a pilot to learn more about the approach, and we’re glad to see that The Ada Initiative is able to take a first test on at Wikimania by offering ally skills training to admins who will already be traveling to attend. We look forward to learning along with you from this first experiment and discussing potential to scale with future funding based on successful outcomes and more detailed planning.

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement.
2. Review the grant implementation information.
3. Make any necessary scope adjustments to your proposal page, as discussed with grantmaking staff.
4. Start work on your project!

Questions? Contact us at grantswikimedia.org'

Outcome

Nearly 10 k$ for a workshop to 23 admins, some of which already belonging to the inner circle of the anti-gendergap activities, doesn't feel like a good use for money, especially as there is no way to verify that the workshop improved (or even changed at all) their activity as admins. I realise that such training activities are very hard to organise (perhaps only WMDE's OTRS workshops may have proven successful across the years?); but USA are full of women/gender studies university departments which run tons of workshops. It's probably more effective to offer all admins (and users above a certain number of edits?) to reimburse their attendance to an existing workshop of their choice. Having a local opportunity should reduce the inconvenience, but for those who have a job perhaps the unpaid holidays could be compensated as well, up to a limit. Nemo 13:48, 3 June 2016 (UTC)