Wikipedia asshattery

[Glinner]

Wikipedia are running ads that read "Hi, reader in the UK, it seems you use Wikipedia a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but this Wednesday we need your help..." and then they ask for donations.

But something that's also a little awkward is their entry on 'Transgender Rights and the feminist movement" which ends with the following lines.

"Sally Hines, University of Leeds professor of sociology and gender identities, wrote in The Economist in 2018 that feminism and trans rights have been falsely portrayed as being in conflict by a minority of anti-transgender feminists, who often "reinforce the extremely offensive trope of the trans woman as a man in drag who is a danger to women". Hines criticized these feminists for fueling "rhetoric of paranoia and hyperbole" against trans people, saying that while spreading anti-trans narratives, anti-trans feminists abandon principles of feminism, such as bodily autonomy and self-determination of gender, and employ "reductive models of biology and restrictive understandings of the distinction between sex and gender" in defense of such narratives. Hines concluded with a call for explicit recognition of anti-transgender feminism as a violation of equality and dignity, and "a doctrine that runs counter to the ability to fulfill a liveable life or, often, a life at all]

Feminist theorist, writer and Yale professor Roxane Gay has said that issues facing non-white and marginalized women such as sexual harassment and misconduct extend to trans women as well, and that TERFs have "woefully failed" to consider trans women's experience. Gay finds transphobia appalling, with the maltreatment and agony trans people suffer, such as the high suicide rates and murder rates of black trans women, not their fault. She has also said, "I think a lot of feminists are very comfortable being anti-trans. And that’s painful to see because we should know better, having been marginalized as women throughout history and today. How dare we marginalize others now?"

There's so much wrong with this it's hard to know where to start. It's a misrepresentation of the arguments, it's ideologically freighted and academics like Kathleen Stock and Jane Clare Jones are nowhere to be seen. Why aren't they on this page, presenting their own arguments? Why is Wikipedia allowing their positions to be framed by their ideological opponents?

They want paying for that? Eh, no, thanks.

Someone just sent this to me www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/bsrx98/the_transgender_activists_taking_over_wikipedia/

Wikipedia is a crowd sourced encyclopedia. It's article are often excellent and the error rate is as good as with commercial encyclopedia.

In niche subjects the "crowd" is sometimes only one or two. If you have knowledge you can contribute, do so. Get yourself an editor login and start writing.

I heard something on R4 recently about a woman who was trying to challenge wikipedia's sex bias. She had stats as to entries for men as compared to women. She kept adding entries for women and they kept being deleted as not significant enough. No chance of a donation from me.

The general public write these entries.

Not exactly general public. You need to be fairly committed and knowledgeable in terms of academic writing to keep contributing for more than just casual stuff. I did , at the start of Wikipedia but it ceased to be fun. In contentious subjects edit warring plays a role and activist editing. Which is no fun. There is a famous XKCD cartoon "someone is wrong on the internet!" Illustrating that kind of situation.

But it is an extremely valuable resource and run by volunteers largely.

A friend of my mum used to be an active editor. She first had to change her username on there to be gender neutral because of all the abuse she got from other editors, and finally had to leave entirely when people started following her around and deleting her edits for no reason and Wikipedia did nothing about it. She said it was a complete cesspool of toxic male aggression and the only silver lining was having other female editors DMing her in solidarity saying it was happening to them too.