Hi all This is a nuanced issue and as ever, the press has failed to capture that nuance. I received a call from the Sunday Telegraph on Saturday evening and had less than an hour to draft, agree and send a quote on behalf of Wikimedia UK. However within a short statement it's impossible to convey the sort of detail that we're discussing here. As John says, he has been working on a video about the UK community's work to address the gender gap - which includes an interview with Jess among others - and we will be planning communications around the release of the video where we can hopefully paint a more subtle picture of the current situation. It seems highly unlikely that the Mail would cover that but at the very least I am now in contact with the Telegraph reporter who wrote yesterday's story, and will send it to her (amongst others).
All best Lucy On Mon, 9 Dec 2019 at 12:40, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com> wrote: > > > On 09 December 2019 at 11:47 Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote: > > <snip> > > > That the press has picked up on this story, could be seen as an > > opportunity to embrace the criticism and to do more to make the > > environment less hostile for committed contributors like Jess. > > From Jess: > > https://twitter.com/jesswade/status/1203583885369630721 > > Jess does not subscribe to the narrative found in the Telegraph and Mail, > for sure. > > That narrative has been around for ten years, during which time much > progress has been made on English Wikipedia. I think in fact around 2011 > the community realised there needed to be a more positive effort with > newbies; and as recently as 2016 some kinds of knee-jerk deletionism > started to receive serious deprecation. > > I don't doubt that more work needs to be done. As far as I know, the > editor retention issue is much less pressing than it used to be. In 2009 > the Murdoch press was pushing the line that the 2007 decline in editors, > which had just come to light in terms of stats rather than anecdote, was an > existential threat. No longer. > > > Regardless of the trivial of this incident, the underpinning issues > > are real and measurable and are the real reason for this long-running > > perception of Wikipedia culture. > > So, informed and accurate coverage of Wikipedia stories is also to be > wished for. If a single idiot adding templates can cause a media furore, it > is either trivial or non-trivial. If it isn't trivial ... well, the link to > ANI I gave has to be interpreted. In a past furore I helped a Guardian > journalist to understand exactly what had happened, via a page history. We > see shoddy journalism based on the vaguest ideas of fact-checking. We > should call that out. > > Charles > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > wikimediau...@wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk -- Lucy Crompton-Reid Chief Executive Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 203 372 0762 *Wikimedia UK* is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open knowledge movement, and a registered charity. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia? https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827 Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
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