Meaning a “top down” hierarchical design, synonymous with patriarchy. Also symbolic of a penis, and lastly, a reference to the missionary position in sex. It is a non-stop unspoken yet unmistakable tribute to male superiority.
Or so I have deduced by making it up out of thin air.
Less "i"s and “l”'s, more "o"s.
I don’t know if we’re to take the “aesthetically masculine in design” quote at face value and speaking for the women launching a “Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon”, as the Daily Dot presents it. But, it could be a reference to descriptions of supposedly different cognitive styles between the genders as described here:
If so, that’s a plausible goal.
The quoted material in the OP is obviously unfriendly to whatever they’re talking about and not likely to present it well.
Had this story had any validity, I would have assumed it was something along those lines - Wiki pages are generally organized in chronological order, and women don’t think that way or something.
But how do the facts make you feel?
Tampons and boobies… everywhere
If you ask me, that makes the whole thing look only a little bit less ridiculous. There are meaningless words and phrases (“the ‘brogrammer’ locker-room type of environment”), there’s childish language (“an epic feminist edit-a-thin”), vague claims of victimization (“a third of all female respondents have in some way been ‘assaulted, attacked, or treated poorly by colleagues on projects’”), and exaggerations of the importance of it all (“‘How the site is written has a political impact, I think,’ says multimedia artist and digital designer Krystal South, who is helping run an edit-a-thon on February 1st in Portland, Oregon. ‘Doing searches for contemporary female artists on Wikipedia, you find there are giant gaps.’”)
These folks are free to try upping the number of women involved in Wikipedia if they so choose, but the rest of us are free to laugh at them if we so choose.
They’re going to add pink hearts and opinion sections to every article.
That sounds like a noble goal, and I find myself wondering why “we” might choose to laugh at them.
A public campaign that relies on dry, muted language that downplays the issue isn’t likely to do very well, is it?
I can see it now: “We’d like to introduce our campaign for more female wikipedia editors. It’s not really a big deal or anything, though. Just something we thought might be kind of nice. Who wants to sign up? Anyone?”
Sure, you’re free to…but why? Wikipedia editors being 91% male won’t shake our civilization to its knees, but it’s hardly a good thing. What’s there to laugh at here?
I’m a man, so any facts make me violent and angry. The sky is blue at noon and reddish orange at sun rise and sun set? ARRRRRRGH HULK SMASH!
Can I suggest that they use their own client-side style sheet to make it look however they wish it to?
I propose a compromise: I think adding missing knowledge to Wikipedia is great. Some of their statements, however, *are * on the silly side.
I’m entirely indifferent to most questions of gender balance. 91% of Wikipedia editors are male? 80% of Congresscritters are male? 100% of the Seattle Seahawks are male? 100% of their cheerleaders are female? 90% of the Physics students at a major university are male? 90% of the English students are female? 100% of Catholic priests are male? 100% of nuns are female? I see no reason to view any of it as a good or a bad thing.
As for laughing, I laugh at shoddy writing and silly reasoning whenever I see, especially when it comes from self-important academics. And then I forget it and move on.
That’s hilarious! Because… something.
Most, eh? What makes the cut?
Shoddiness and silliness are questions of taste, so, fair enough.
I was just reading some complaints about how rape scenes in movies like Blade Runner get euphemized down to “had sex” on wikipedia. I’m not sure what masculine design means, but there is a sexism problem on wikipedia
I’m very protective of the “Lady Bug (video game)” entry. If somebody tries changing it to “Womyn Insect”, there will be consequences!
:dubious: This isn’t the 50s. The gender gap these days is in the other direction, with more women getting a higher education than men.
Wikipedia has too many well educated white men. The answer is well educated white women.
Might your indifference stem from your unexamined privilege as you benefit from gender imbalances?
Also, gender and sex are not the same thing, and those imbalances can also result in perspectives lost and ignored.