On August 22, the soldier formerly known as Bradley Manning announced she wanted to be called Chelsea, and recognized as female. Within an hour, the English-language Wikipedia had renamed the article and changed its pronouns. That kicked off a week-long often-acrimonious debate among Wikipedia editors, which resulted, over the weekend, in the article title being reverted back to Bradley Manning. (For further context, here’s a news story and some detailed analysis.)
This disappointed me. I think Wikipedia did the right thing in promptly responding to Manning’s announcement, and I feel like reverting the change was, for many reasons, a bad call. And, I’m dismayed by subsequent on-wiki discussions that look like they may result in revisions to editorial policy that would support, in the future, similar bad decisions on trans issues.
The purpose of this blog post though, isn’t to argue why Wikipedia should respect that Chelsea Manning is a woman. (I’ve already done that extensively this past weekend on-wiki, as have others.) The purpose is to talk about the underlying factors that I think led Wikipedia to make a bad decision, and point to where I think solutions might lie.
First, I want to question some of the frames people are currently using to understand what happened here. Some editors have been characterizing the debate as political in a narrow sense — with left-leaning Wikipedians favouring use of Chelsea and right-wing Wikipedians favouring Bradley. Others are framing it as accuracy versus kindness — saying that editors who support using Chelsea are motivated by a desire to not hurt her feelings, and are prioritizing that goal over truth. I think both those frames are wrong. I think what the debate is actually revealing is a blind spot that Wikipedia has about gender.
Last summer I drafted a blog post about Wikipedia’s coverage of rape. I haven’t published it yet, and at this point I think I probably never will: its moment may have passed. But the similarities between what I observed in our discussions about rape, and what I’ve observed over the past few days as we talked about trans issues, are I think instructive. In both cases a non-negligible chunk of our editing community, all of whom ordinarily value accuracy and knowledge and expertise, seem instead to be going on gut feeling and knee-jerk assumptions. We aren’t applying our normal judgement and standards.
On rape and trans issues, the typical editor probably doesn’t have much expertise. That’s not at all unusual — people edit on topics they don’t know much about, all the time. We fix typos, we smooth out writing styles, we dig up and add citations. What’s unusual here is that rather than deferring to people who had read and thought a lot about the article topic, as we normally do, instead a substantial chunk of the community seemed to let itself be swayed by prejudice and unexamined assumptions. (To be clear: I do not mean that a large chunk of Wikipedians are themselves prejudiced. I mean that they let prejudiced ill-informed people establish a tone, an overton window if you will, of what was acceptable to think and say.)
Here’s what’s normal: When Pluto was declared to not be a planet, Wikipedia deferred to the experts, and reflected what they said in the article.
Here’s what’s not normal: When Dominique Strauss Kahn was accused of having raped a hotel cleaner, and when Todd Akin made pseudo-scientific claims about rape and pregnancy, many Wikipedians’ discussions were (I thought) remarkably ill-informed. Some editors seemed to believe that false accusations of rape were common. Some didn’t seem to realize that rape is seriously underreported. They didn’t recognize that there’s a body of knowledge on rape that’s well-sourced and reliable.
It took me a while to connect this to systemic bias — to realize that rather than Wikipedians being unusually lacking in knowledge about what rape is and how it works, I might better understand it as me being more-knowledgeable-than-the-average-Wikipedian on the topic. Because I’m a woman, and also a journalist, I’ve followed rape issues pretty closely in the media, I’ve talked about it a fair bit with my female friends, and I’ve read a couple of dozen books and studies on it and related topics. It took me a while to realize that that level of interest, and therefore expertise, is unusual on Wikipedia, presumably at least partly because our editor community skews so heavily male.
The same is true for transgender issues. A number of editors have made truly ignorant comments over the past week or so, comparing Chelsea Manning to someone who woke up one morning believing herself to be a dog, a cat, a Vulcan, Jesus Christ, a golden retriever, a genius, a black person, a Martian, a dolphin, Minnie Mouse, a broomstick or a banana. In saying those things, they revealed themselves to be people who’ve never thought seriously about trans issues — who have never read a single first-person account of growing up transgendered, or a scholarly study or medical text, or maybe even the Wikipedia article itself. That in itself is perfectly okay: different things are interesting to different people, and I for one know nothing about trigonometry or antisemitism in the 19th century or how a planet is determined to actually be a planet. But I don’t deny that there is stuff on those topics worth knowing, nor do I mock the knowledge of others, nor accuse them of bias and POV-pushing.
Wikipedians normally don’t either. Wikipedians won’t ordinarily defer to someone just because of their credentials, but we do normally attach extra credibility to people who’ve demonstrated they know more about a topic than we do. In this instance though, Wikipedians are considering sanctioning the two thoughtful and well-informed editors who originally made the change from Bradley to Chelsea. Which to me suggests systemic bias fuelled by groupthink.
So what needs to happen now?
The entire controversy has been referred to Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee, the body of experienced editors who’ve been elected by the community to adjudicate difficult issues.
My hope is that ArbCom will clarify Wikipedia policy, and affirm that we have a responsibility to respect the basic human dignity of article subjects, to not mock or disparage them, and to attempt to avoid doing them harm. That we must not participate in or prolong their victimization.
I also hope ArbCom will weigh in on how Wikipedia handles trans issues in general. I’d be particularly interested in an examination of the role that subject-matter expertise is playing in our current discussions, and an exploration of how editors might choose to conduct themselves in disputes in which they have little expertise, and in which systemic bias risks skewing outcomes. In the Manning situation, for a variety of reasons that almost certainly include systemic bias, discussion didn’t achieve a result consistent with our desire to protect the dignity of an article subject.
So. Here’s the question. Given that Wikipedia makes decisions by consensus, how can majority-culture (male, young, Western, heterosexual, cisgendered) editors best participate in discussions in ways that work towards good decision-making, rather than groupthink?
—
For anybody reading this who doesn’t know: I’m the ED of the Wikimedia Foundation, and I’m also a Wikipedia editor. It’s in my latter, volunteer capacity that I wrote this blog post. What I say here is mostly informed by my experiences editing, but of course my experiences as ED have also shaped my opinions. Also: everything I say here, I say with lots of respect for the Wikipedia community. This is a rare misstep: an unusual and unfortunate blind spot.
Thank you to the people who vetted and gave feedback me on the draft version of this post — I appreciate it :-)
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Edited to add, as per Aoife’s request in the comments. Here are some of my arguments in favour of titling the article Chelsea Manning. Here are some pages where you can read all the discussions we’ve been having.
On «majority-culture (male, young, Western, heterosexual, cisgendered)», for at least one of these adjectives we don’t have any stats (from out surveys or otherwise) confirming they are a majority, big or small.
Hi Federico. We’ve got stats that say Wikipedians are mostly male, and in their twenties/thirties, and disproportionately Western relative to the world population and the online population. I’m assuming the majority are heterosexual and cisgendered, just because most of the world is, and there’s no reason to think Wikipedians are otherwise. (I think what, roughly nine of ten people are heterosexual, and a tiny fraction of people are transgendered.)
(That said, I’ve heard plenty of Wikipedians speculate that transgender/non-normative-gendered people are disproportionately present on Wikipedia, which I’ve always anecdotally felt might have some truth to it. I’ve assumed that if true, it’s some combination of i) they are so stigmatized offline that online can be a bit of a refuge, ii) Wikipedians are relatively speaking rational, and so perhaps WP is less stigmatizing than other places, and/or iii) online/WP is a safe(r) space to express non-normative gender identity because nobody can actually beat you up.)
That may be true, but given our small numbers in the background population it’s overwhelmingly unlikely that a majority of Wikipedians are transgendered, so your original point stands..
A blogpost like this coming from someone in the upper echelons of Wikimedia keeps the spirit of Wiki alive :) Kudos to you!!!
What’s the normal Wikipedia policy on dealing with somebody who announces a personal name change, independently of whatever gender issues may be involved? If Wikipedia had existed at the time Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali, would it have made the name change immediately based on his own preference, or waited until the new name became the “commonly known” one, which took a while?
It’s worth noting that the article, while it does now come under the title “Bradley Manning”, uses female pronouns throughout. This was based on a commendable, and well-established, Wikipedia policy (I think it’s WP:MOSIDENTITY) on trans* persons. For most of the article, her first name isn’t used (as in most biographies, the subject is usually referred to by her surname only)
As for the article name, this seems to be an essentially unprecedented situation and, like you say, hit a blind spot in Wiki policy. Unfortunately, most of the guidelines regarding personal names (I think WP:COMMONNAME) are written for situations such as rappers re-inventing themselves, and not such serious and personal situations such as this.
I’m relatively optimistic that Arbcom will sort things, and new policy will be written. There’s a bit of a disconnect between the instant nature of how Wikipedia content changes, and the slow processes of the underlying beuracracy.
Wikipedia’s arbitration policy says that ArbCom may interpret existing policy, but must not rewrite it. Writing policy is the job of the community – which means it is subject to the same groupthink problem and bias Sue is pointing out.
I disagree, strongly, that this problem Sue is identifying is limited to trans issues. It is in fact endemic. One scholar, who has a teaching job at a US university, explained to me today why he gave up on Wikipedia years ago. He said,
“I simply stopped when I realized what was going on. Many of the people commenting had little to no “real expertise” […] but they had wiki-expertise and an interest in making sure their definition was the one that stuck. When I compared the time I was spending on wiki to the time I had to spend on other projects, I realized I had to give that fight up. If we were to look at the wiki entries that had this type of thing happen I’d be willing to bet there are more entries dealing with politically charged topics than not.”
Other scholars have expressed *exactly* the same sentiments to me.
One thing Wikipedia could do to make it a bit easier for such people to contribute meaningfully would be to support verified identities for real-world, university-affiliated scholars, marking their accounts in much the same way verified identities are marked in Twitter. This would not give these users any extra rights, but it might make it easier for them to be heard.
Thanks, Sue! What you have said is appreciated (by me, at least).
Sincerely,
Douglas Willis
Bradley manning is a topic, Chelsea Manning is a person. Perhaps they should treat both distinctly.
Mere dismay is convenient when you’re not one of the targets of the sort of attack that went on. I am. My respect for Wikipedia immediately went to zero when my right and the right of every trans person to be known by their true name reflecting their true gender was subjected to a vote (there’s a very large issue with right-wing meat and sock puppets if you care to delve into it) and furthermore lost it. I’m boycotting Wikipedia by refusing to look things up in it or cite it ever again, and will be getting on board any other efforts to do likewise or otherwise defund Wikipedia in a coordinated fashion.
I’m so sorry, Nadia: I totally hear you.
Anybody who can / wants to: I would encourage you to get involved at WP. I get that for many people, it’s just not worth it. But that’s how we, ultimately, reach good decisions — people making smart, thoughtful arguments. I wouldn’t say the playing field is level (it’s the old line about how, in order to achieve equivalent effect, [x minority group] needs to be 10x as brave and smart and determined), but it’s an important playing field.
Thanks for the insightful commentary, Sue. This very much reflects my own feelings towards the whole proceedings.
I wonder if it would be useful to try to incorporate explicit statements of background in a topic when involving oneself in a contentious debate – e.g. instead of just “we should do x and y” from every random editor, more of a “here’s where I’m coming from on this specific subject, and based on that, I believe we should do x and y.”
Favoring this kind of approach would have two major effects. First, it’d make it more visible to other editors that some voices are coming from positions of experience while others are not. Sure, some people will develop reputations in a given topic such that the regular editors of that topic “know” them already – but especially in flareups like this one, you can’t really rely on that with the influx of editors. Second, it would hopefully lead to more editors taking time to think about what exactly their own background in the topic actually is, which I think can only be beneficial.
Thanks so much for this. Could you link to where you argued positively for Chelsea Manning’s identity as female?
Sure — I’m at work now, but I can do it tonight :-)
Thanks! I’d like to read what the ‘counter-arguments’ were for the sake of conversation. But my mind and soul are with you. Brava!
Thank you for the article, Sue. I had seen some of the early discussion and been pleased by the swift and correct action, and learning of the reversion is deeply upsetting. I personally am going to have difficulty looking myself in the eyes after using Wikipedia, now. I second what Nadia said: To put people’s identities to a popular vote is deeply troubling. Surely we are each the sole arbiter of our own!
I’m not going to get into arguing against people who have rehashed in this comments section the same arguments that can be found on Wikipedia itself. I’ll just say that some people seem to think this is an unusual situation, or an academic exercise. It is neither. This is a woman’s life, here.
I doubt Manning herself has any access to read all this argument that’s happening about her on the outside. I would imagine her biggest concern right now is survival, since as I understand it she has been, in an act of pure barbarism, placed in a men’s prison. But if she does make it through the next few decades to release, I hope she’ll find a world that at least could be troubled to get her name right.
Sue, First off thank you for such an interesting and articulate blog post. I was actually looking up your information to get in touch with you re: the controversy in my role also as Executive Director for a Trans Justice organization based in Seattle called Gender Justice League. I think you highlight a number of the substantive challenges that all media seems to face in our culture with regards to coverage of Trans and women’s issues. In a culture that is dominated by men, a patriarchy for certain, there are no venues that are not deeply impacted by the implicit biases, ignorance, and privilege of men –to never have to know or understand issues that don’t directly impact them (male privilege). In particular as a Trans woman editor on Wikipedia what I have found is that privilege often finds a way of seeping into every venue of editing in which men feel most entitled to argue, often loudly or forcefully, on a subject that they are completely ignorant about –based solely on opinion and not fact. As a trans woman this has been the most frustrating experience of my transition –which happened 15 years ago in high school. I think that Wikipedia is an amazing resource! However, as you point out it is a deep disservice when pages are edited but most especially moderated by people who have an absolute ignorance and lack of knowledge on a subject. Part of what is challenging is the fact that men are told almost universally that their OPINIONS matter as much as a woman’s/queer/trans person’s facts. This is perhaps the oldest and longest running feminist critique of the media/literature/journalism is it not? Subjectivity vs. Objectivity. Women are seen as only subjects having no autonomy/authority or objectivity. While men are positioned as “Objective experts”. I have been in many a heated argument in which men felt that simply talking LOUDER or MORE FORCEFULLY (yes I love caps) with their opinions will somehow disprove what I know to be factual or truth based on science, research, or experience. Wikimedia has an obligation to as a community to both discover and recruit interested moderators to serve as a stop-gap measure on the widespread ignorance you point out. But most importantly — Wikimedia should DO THE RIGHT THING irregardless of “Community consensus”. You cannot simply have majority rule without minority rights –this has lead to the most horrific incidences in human history. Wikipedia should be no different. When white American’s are writing and discussing an issue like: “Cultural Traditions of Namibia” –I’m sorry but the opinion of someone who was born and raised in Namibia weighs 100 to 1 on the speculative opinions (even if ‘informed’ through study, research, or citation) of westerners who have never lived or experienced Namibian culture. The same is true for articles on issues related to race / religion / sex or gender identity / sexual orientation / geography or ethnicity / language etc.. I don’t have a solution –but what I do know is that when the 501 c 3 in charge of Wikipedia fails to act quickly and decisively to correct bigotry, ignorance, and hatred on its website –it is then itself responsible for the consequences of harm to the community. To do nothing creates the moral hazards of group-think as you point out. We all have a moral responsibility as people to uphold our greatest ideals and act in the greatest interest of those around us, particularly protecting those communities and people whom we know do not have access to power or authority to defend themselves or their positions. For those of us who have taken on the mantle of leadership –we especially have an obligation to act in the most moral ways we see possible and in accordance with the tenants of our fields and communities (for journalism –objectivity and unbiased). That is all to say, you all should correct the page now and seek discussion LATER rather than waiting for months while tens of thousands of Trans people continue to see Wikimedia as Transphobic by failing to act morally and decisively on an issue that does not have two sides. I think we can all agree now: 50 years ago when schools were segregated and the decision to desegregate was seen as “controversial” —there is now no controversy about it in hindsight –there was only bigotry. Similarly –if someone transitions their gender and changes their name IT DOES NO HARM to anyone to offer them respect and dignity as humans that we ourselves demand and refer to them as they wish to be referred to. Thanks for so articulately framing the problem –I hope you are able to affect change at Wikimedia — Elsewise Wikipedia will begin to look the same way other male-dominated institutions look: Bigoted, Unresponsive, and antiquated. There is no room in the 21st century.for the patriarchy that held us back for millenniums. Wikipedia would do well to be thoughtful about how it curbs “Community Edited” to be more accessible to communities that can most greatly contribute to the creation of knowledge –not just men. Standing up for Chelsea Manning and rape victims is a very small act that will signal to women and queer & trans people that Wikimedia is working for them as well.
“When Pluto was declared to not be a planet, Wikipedia deferred to the experts, and reflected what they said in the article.” – well, yes, but not immediately, and not without a long and painful discussion. Take a look at the state of the article talk page of August 31st, 2006 – one week after the IAU had issued a definition that excluded Pluto as a planet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pluto&oldid=73027618#Current_Event_Controversy:_Planet_or_Not.3F
Given that that comparatively harmless topic took weeks or months to resolve (with occasional flare-ups till today), it’s not surprising that a much more politically charged topic also takes a while to settle down. Wikipedia always wobbles this way, wobbles that way, and, in the end, surprisingly often wobbles the right way.
Sue, the point I think you’re missing here is that Wikipedia’s administration is incapable of handling disputes like this one. It has no effective decision-making process, has no content governing body (ArbCom handles editor behavioral issues, not content), and most of its active admins are male teen-agers, college students, or underemployed adults without much life experience.
Thus, it doesn’t matter what the participating editors know or don’t know, or if they’re “left-wing” or “right-wing” (and I think you are making a mistake by trying to put ideological labels on anonymous editors). Even if they all were objective and not following some personal agenda, there is no process in Wikipedia to help them come to a decision. Your WMF is to blame for this situation, because the WMF has refused, for whatever reason, to take any responsibility whatsoever for Wikipedia’s or Commons’ administration.
This issue is not the most serious issue facing Wikipedia. Editor retention and child protection are much more serious. Why haven’t you been as vocal and involved in those issues as you were with this one?
[…] people (such as Wikimedia Executive Director Sue Gardner, here) have written about Wikipedia’s well-known demographic bias toward straight, white, cisgender […]
I find your disapointment to be excellent news. You are the ED of Wikipeida, and yet the English edition of Wikipedia has taken a position against your prefered one. This is a great testament to the self-governance capacities of Wikipedia. This blows a hole in the perceptions of many who still think the ‘problem’ is with ‘managment’ not knowing how to deal with such big issues.
Nonetheles I still think the current state of affairs is a bit of a storm in a teacup. Both names will get a reader to the same content, which uses the correct (female) gender throughout. The issue solely concerns which name should be the title of the artice, and which should be a redirect. The Person we are talking about is obviously called Chealea, but the Persona that gained the notoriety to deserve several entries is the good old Bradley, regardles of the fact that that persona matches up to no real human, and is hurtful to our hero Chelsea.
I think, finally, Wikipedia has come to the right desicion, at least for now, mainly because the desicion was taken the “Wikipedia Way” rather than because there can ever be an ultimate truth and correct position on such an issue.
Of course this blog entry is also part of that “Wikipedia Way”, so please Sue, do keep harping on your messages on Gender Issues on Wikipedia. We (males) need that a lot more!
Hi Sue,
Excellent blog, and very revealing of the internal workings of Wikipedia. However it is not the entire story; please have a look at my blog about this
http://uncommon-scents.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/chelsea-manning-cisgenderism-at.html
The problem is by no means confined to Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is a good manifestation of it.
The problem is cisgenderism.
Sue, thanks for your take on this issue, and for posting all of those links. As a Wikipedian involved in various Outreach projects, I think it would be wonderful if the general public could get a better understanding of the differences between Wikileaks and Wikipedia, so I am all for hyping this media hype. I was particularly struck in Manning’s publicity statement by the sentence “I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility).” Immediately an image arose in my mind of some clerk in a prison mail office sorting mail for Chelsea Manning into the “unknown recipient” pile. Our job on Wikipedia is informing the whole world, including that clerk in the prison mail office, about recent events, transgender issues, Wikileaks, and anything else that is notable. In a world where information is increasingly used in chunks of text that fit into 160 bytes, I feel it is important to use the lead text in Wikipedia articles that most closely fits the *anticipated* text, in order to assure readers they have located the correct page. This is the text that is reused by search functions, and of course that is why page-renaming discussions on Wikipedia reach the boiling point so quickly. It’s a good thing that Bradley Manning did not declare himself a banana on 22 August, and I feel certain that her pronoun change mid-sentence is going to help Wiki(p/m)edia outreach activities in uncountably many ways.
[…] Foundation, zu dieser Diskussion und Entscheidung in einem lesenswerten Blogpost geäußert: “How Wikipedia got it wrong on Chelsea Manning, and why”. Darin analysiert sie die Gründe, die zu der in ihren Augen schlechten Entscheidung bezüglich des […]
[…] Wikipedias. For some background info, you should check this account of events, this one and this one. There are probably more available if you search for them, but those should give you a good […]
To Sue, and others commenting above – this quote struck me:
“we have a responsibility to respect the basic human dignity of article subjects, to not mock or disparage them, and to attempt to avoid doing them harm.”
I think this is quite fair, and I think almost all editors would be behind it. In fact, I think people could get behind something broader – because BLP/etc should apply whether or not we have an article about a subject. Thus:
“we have a responsibility to respect the basic human dignity of *people*, to not mock or disparage them, and to attempt to avoid doing them harm.”
But why is all of this energy directed against this *one* article? Everyone is harping on the cisgender blind spot, but perhaps you don’t realize that the rage machine against this one article, happening TODAY, is proof positive of a blind spot *you* have for other peoples, of other countries, who themselves are potentially “harmed” by article titles or categories or descriptions or narratives, and have been for years.
If we buy the (rather specious/unproven) premise that an article title that doesn’t change for a few weeks can harm someone, how much harm can a “wrong” article title for 8 years do, and when someone progressive finally shows up to rename it, nobody comes to the party, nobody tweets, nobody blogs?
Even the vaunted Encyclopedia Brittanica, oft compared to wikipedia, only renamed the Manning article yesterday. But nobody blogged about their “inexcusable” delay.
How do I know it’s a blind spot? Because many are only speaking up now; I haven’t seen tweets about how white editors are determining the title of articles about brown ethnic groups, nor blogs by WMF heads on why we should respect the right of Côte d’Ivoire to determine the name of their own country (officially, since 1986).
In fact, as an amusing aside, Jimmy Wales is a fan of stripping diacritics from people’s names — essentially misspelling them — because those pesky foreign accents are distracting for Amur-i-cans.
I also know it’s a blind spot because there are public calls, like by Sue above, to have wikipedia revise its rules on titling for trans* people, but nobody is calling publicly for wikipedia to reconsider its rules on self-determination of titles by people who *aren’t* trans* – That is *the very definition of POV.*
Manning is a media sensation, but heat is not the same as light, and this whole discussion is sadly lacking in the latter.
In addition, once the article is moved (because the sources are now trending strongly in that direction) where will the rage go, and what will all of you, who are so outraged about this violation of human rights proxied by the title of a wikipedia article, do about the tens of thousands of other bios, and the millions of other people potentially affected by our wikipedia articles (titles, and content)? Will you sign up to help?
We have past experience in these matters. A massive amount of media outrage and twitter-activism was caused by the revelation that some women novelists were categorized in “women” categories while being left out of the gender-neutral versions. It’s a good point, and while I don’t think it was driven by sexism, it needed to be fixed.
We tried. We fixed the (mostly white) American women authors, and indeed the principle protagonist and scapegoat, JPL, was also the guy who fixed the problem! He and a small group of intrepid souls categorized thousands upon thousands of novelists, leading to ~1800 american women novelists now listed, as opposed to 500 at the beginning, and not a single one ghettoized, but nobody gave him kudos, few came to his aid, and most commentators walked away satisfied and righteous.
But the job isn’t finished. What about the non-American authors? And the scientists? And the actresses? And princesses? And the tens of thousands of other women who are still ghettoized, today. Everyone was outraged and wikipedia was flooded with eager comments to “FIX THIS NOW” – but then, once victory for the (mostly white, mostly rich, mostly heterosexual, mostly cisgendered, mostly western) novelists was declared, everyone went back to writing their PhDs on gender theory and forgot completely about the rest of the women, and men, who are still ghettoized. If all those tweeting and blogging about this had simply fixed a few hundred bios each, we’d be done. But the didn’t.
I also don’t recall WMF taking any significant action on this, and the gender bias task force, where I proposed an algorithm for non-sexist, non-racist, non-heteronormist deghettoizing, is now a ghost town. I reached out for help in developing a category intersection tool, which could eliminate the problem, but WMF didn’t pick it up and run with it. Once the media spotlight was over, the “story” was over, there are other things to be outraged about, and people don’t seem to really give a fuck if some obscure Indian mathematician remains ghettoized.
Let’s go back to titles.
Is anyone trying to find *other* articles where people have changed their name, but Wikipedia is not respecting their “right to self-determination”? What about countries (Ivory Coast, Burma), or ethnic groups or tribes who are shackled via their titles with colonial names that they detest? Where is the outrage? What is WMF doing about them? As far as I can tell, nothing.
As I pointed out elsewhere, there was recently an editor familiar with indigenous people’s issues, going around trying to rename articles and categories to the ones preferred by the people who actually are of those groups – and others were reverting him, or shutting him down with COMMONNAME. Did WMF or Jimbo weigh in? Where was twitter? Crickets. It seems the attitude is, “They’re just random tribes, they’re not media darlings like Manning. Some bios are more equal than others.” (sorry if I’m blunt)
Do the outraged twitterites care enough to clean up the thousands of other BLP violations (such as those wrought by Qworty, still not all cleaned up), the tens of thousands of women “ghettoized” via their categories as identified by Filipacchi (massive media storm, still not cleaned up), the hundreds of tribes, not only misnamed but also whose stories are told through an exclusively western lens. If you care about human rights, and you care about the potential harm, and you are really serious about what you say, then you should commit to all of this, and take sustained action now to fix it.
But, allow me to make a cynical prediction. Manning’s article will be renamed in a few weeks. People will high-five each other, and move on to other things. And a year from now, thousands of bios will remain ghettoized, hundreds of tribes will be at names that piss them off, and poor old Yusuf Islam will still be titled “Cat Stevens”. Defenders of human-rights will have won the battle, but lost the war.
Two more bits:
1) I agree with your main thesis that some (many) comments were way out of line, and showed an obvious misunderstanding of what transgender means. But the way the pro-Chelsea faction attacked and derided editors who were simply less knowledgeable or who simply felt the move was premature, rather than gently explaining things, made things worse, instead of better. Both sides behaved rather abominably, You still catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
2) If you’re not yet convinced whether a non-trans subject can be hurt by an article title, even an article title about a CITY, allow me to share this outburst by a patriotic Ukrainian – who wasn’t mad about the title of his country, or of his bio, or that of his president, but about his city, Kyiv (aka Kiev):
” Everytime I see the Russian transliteration Kiev, I am hurt. I am hurt because I am reminded of the oppression and destruction our nation had to go through- claims that our nationality did not exist and that we were just “small Russians,” bans against our language and the development of our art, the murder of our people because others felt our culture did not have the right to thrive and grow. Please take the step to liberate Ukraine from the Russification we were forced to undergo; do not cling to the past because the past hurt for us. Though you might not agree because you simply cannot understand our hurt, please, please, let our language be used for the transliteration of our cities’ names. Let us not cling to the past, let us progress and make small steps- may it be the change of a wiki article name, but all these small steps will add up and Ukrainians will no longer have to feel like they are worth less than their neighbors, that their language and culture is worth something, that we have the choice to be free and that the rest of the world will help us develop as a free nation, a free culture, and a free language. Thank you.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kiev/naming#Requested_move_October_2009)
Can we expect a blog post about how Wikipedia has failed, for 10 years (and not 30 days) on Kiev anytime soon?
Replying to obi’s comment above: I don’t think the ‘women novelists’ kerfuffle is a suitable comparison here. I can’t be the only one who thinks Chelsea Manning should be under that title, but that the anger over subcategories for women was misguided. It’s not ‘ghettoization’ to have categories for women writers but not male writers – it’s sensibly recognising that ‘women’s literature’ is a field of serious academic interest while ‘men’s literature’ mostly isn’t, and that being part of a minority in a field is significant to members of that minority while being part of the majority usually isn’t. (That’s what ‘privilege’ basically means.) Returning to the topic at hand, it’s why we have categories for ‘Transgender military personnel’ but not ‘Cisgender military personnel’.
Ghettoization was not about the presence of women’s cats, it was not also placing those women’s bios in neutral parent cats that irked people. You can still have ghettoization even if you have two gendered cats.
Yes, its not apples to apples, but the lesson applies. Outraged bloggers identify some issue with wp that doesnt align with their worldview, broadly accuse wp editors of ‘something’-ism while studiously ignoring how wp actually works and why, and as soon as the (little) problem in their backyard is taken care off, they fuck off to other pastures and other righteous indignation (cuz someone is always wrong somewhere on the internet). But most of those same twits won’t even bother showing up at wikipedia to actually fix the bigger problem, of which their issue-du-jour is just the most recent manifestation, which often just requires elbow grease. Classic clicktivism.
It would sort of be like showing up in the West Bank, expressing indignation at that terrible wall and checkpoints, so we cut a hole in the wall and shut down a checkpoint and then all go back home victorious – completely missing the forest for the trees.
Mark my words. As soon as the Manning article is renamed, those crying in their tea about human rights violations and libel and hate speech and all the rest will not spent a single moment of their precious time trying to fix the biography or title of any other living human, or attempt to rename a tribal article away from a name they hate – especially one that is not white, american, and in the news – cuz they couldnt blog about it, so why bother? The issues of the (mostly brown) people of the rest of the world will remain mostly undiscovered. I do hope i’m wrong.
Sue, if you ever get around to writing about Wikipedia’s coverage of rape, be sure to read the “Edit-warring about the potency test” talk page section of the “Asaram Bapu” article. I suppose it’s not really funny, but it does give me a good chuckle.
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