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Gender ratio of Bureaucrats

I have been digging a little in the RFB archives, and I think we have a more extreme gender imbalance in RFB than in the general community. As far as I could find we have only ever had three female crats, Angela and SecretLondon who were among the initial batch of crats appointed by Jimbo, and Amanda who as far as I can see is the only lady elected in an RFB. By contrast Jimbo appointed five other Crats of whom I think at least three are male, and we have elected 52 crats in 53 successful RFBs. Of the 52 as far as I can see there are 39 blokes and a dozen undeclared. Perhaps I have missed someone, it would be interesting if someone could cross check using gender declarations in user preferences. But if I haven't missed a few ladies, I'm wondering whether there is something in the RFB process that is deterring women from running. ϢereSpielChequers 14:17, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

There's also the distribution of admins to consider. In a hypothetical example, if we have 5300 admins (100 female) and only 1% of admins run for RFB, then statistically it works out perfectly, and there's no "imbalance". On the other hand, if we have 10k admins (split evenly between genders) and only 1% of admins run for RFB, then yes, we've got a very large discrepancy. Primefac (talk) 14:30, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

It is possible that we simply reflect an imbalance among the admins, and it would be good to get stats there. My experience is that we do have quite a few female admins, and I'd be surprised if we had as extreme an imbalance among the admins as among the crats, though I accept that it is possible. ϢereSpielChequers 18:04, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

One of the aspects of the internet that I have favoured is that because people don't know our culture, colour, gender, age or social status we have the opportunity for parity. When someone creates an account on an internet site such as Wikipedia they select a name and sometimes an avatar. That's it. They are then respected in that community for what they say and do, not for their gender, age, colour, wealth, etc.

However, we are social creatures, and we are curious and like to communicate, so gradually we reveal information about ourselves on our user pages. And people become aware of things such as our gender, and then start asking questions such as why are there so few declared females who are Crats. I'm not convinced that gender, ethnicity, wealth, religion, food preferences, shoe size, hair style, etc, matters to the role of 'Crat or Admin as much as experience on Wikipedia and individual character. In my life I have worked with male and female bosses, male and female colleagues, male and female subordinates, and not found differences between the genders, same as I've not found differences between male and female drivers, or male and female doctors or male and female teachers. What I have noticed, though, is that we treat each other differently by gender. The person within the gender contains the same skills, flaws and strengths as the person within another gender - the only difference is the way they are treated. So, no, we don't need more female or male 'Crats or Admins, we just need everyone to treat everyone else the same, regardless of gender. That's true equality and parity. SilkTork (talk) 17:47, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Something I would support is the removal of the gender sign from user's names. We don't need to have that displayed. SilkTork (talk) 17:54, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

@SilkTork: Can you clarify what you mean by gender sign from user's names? --qedk (t 愛 c) 17:58, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

@QEDK: - if you pass your mouse over your user name you'll see your male gender sign. You can opt to alter this in Preferences/User Profile. The three other users in this discussion have opted out, so you won't see our gender signs when you hover over our names. SilkTork (talk) 18:05, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

The hover bit comes from the popups gadget, fwiw. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:12, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I thought. Thanks for clearing it up, both of you. --qedk (t 愛 c) 18:17, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

It also only happens if you have indicated a gender in your user preferences. It's not really a reliable way to tell if someone is male or female, since most editors don't set a gender preference. To be honest, when I first started editing, so many male admins had "feminine" sounding usernames that I was genuinely surprised to find out they were male. Meanwhile, I have no gender set in my preferences, my username "sounds" masculine (according to many people), and I'm definitely a woman. And no, I do not want to be a bureaucrat. Risker (talk) 20:04, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, i remember a good number of year ago now following a discussion and being astonished when it turned out (i no longer recall how) that Risker was a woman! I scrolled back through comments to see if i had misinterpreted or.... And how grateful i have been and am for that revelation, because it revealed in me an assumption i had thought i was free of: I, apparently, was assuming that the people behind the accounts here were defaulting to male; poor assumption. Since then i make a semi-conscious effort to remind myself that (a) i don't know and (b) it shouldn't matter. So, for triggering that response in me (and possibly others), Thank you, Risker; happy days, Lindsay^Hello 09:36, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

That is a fair point, SilkTork. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, and it probably doesn't matter whether we have a representational split of editors, admins, or crats. I mean, from a mathematical perspective I suppose I'd be interested in looking at the numbers, for I would suspect for the vast majority of us it doesn't matter "who" (from a "gender" perspective) we're working with. Primefac (talk) 18:15, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I would not be so sure. During the last year ArbCom elections, we had a shortage of female candidates, and we did have voters who said that they would vote for every female candidate just because they are female. I think if you start asking women the perception could be quite different (which is not seen in the general statistics because we have disproportionately few women editors).--Ymblanter (talk) 19:36, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Sometimes I think Wikipedia cares more about my gender than my contributions. Natureium (talk) 19:44, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised Natureium, if after reading your comment most readers would be more curious about your gender rather than your contributions! SilkTork (talk) 20:08, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I guess they're going to have to decide based on my contributions whether to consider my opinion. Natureium (talk) 20:11, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd like it not to matter Primefac. I'd like plurality. I'm aware of the counter-argument that some groups of people need more positive role models so we should have more people from [insert group] in positive roles, though once you get into that argument you're into the area of defining the group, and by so doing excluding people from that group. I'd like more willingness for multiplicity rather than boundaried groups with role models to define how such groups should behave. As society develops it would be more positive if there were more blurring of boundaries between male and female, black and white, able and disabled, because all of us either actually or potentially contain bits of all groups. I like your nobody knows you're a dog link! SilkTork (talk) 20:04, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Equality, equity, and parity is clearly ideal, but it's also clearly not the case. Of the things you list, the serious half are items easy to imagine influencing how certain arguments are weighed when assessing consensus in a discussion. It's not that these things matter in and of themselves, but rather that the different circumstances of one's experience can inform — or fail to inform — their understanding or appreciation. It doesn't have to, of course, and there are usually plenty of opportunities for review across the board, but it's not absurd to think a discussion could be interpreted differently by sysops/bureaucrats/arbs/whatever (although to stay on-topic, presumably less so for brats than for arbs). ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:03, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

SilkTork, you wrote: "we just need everyone to treat everyone else the same, regardless of gender. That's true equality and parity." No, it isn't. Diversity isn't only about having three of this, three of that. It's about creating an environment in which different groups feel they can flourish. If we want diversity and real equality, we need to put individuals from other groups in place, then let them change the environment. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:22, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

What SV said but again, "qualified" people. I would love to see more women in the crat corps and ArbCom but yeah, unfortunately it's not as simple as "putting" individuals in place. --qedk (t 愛 c) 21:37, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Well, I don't know about RFB, but with three days to go we have only one person running for seven positions on ArbCom, so this might be a good year to run. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:34, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Given how ArbCom gets treated lately why would someone want to run? PackMecEng (talk) 01:21, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I was previously on the committee in 2014. I can assure things have actually improved drastically since then, and we have a really great group right now as far as I'm concerned. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:31, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Well dang, 2014 sounds scary then! PackMecEng (talk) 02:39, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

They very likely have improved internally since 2014, but there are external issues (as in outside the committee's control) that have developed in those 6 years that would systemically cause more issues for minorities of all kinds. I would recommend crat to someone 100x over before I'd even list ArbCom. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 04:16, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Aw c'mon, I'm trying to recruit here. Go easy. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:18, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, Beeb, but the timing of the recent "Elements" case request has probably killed recruitment dead. "OMG, I'd have to read stuff like that?" The number of ANI threads referred to, and especially the size and Bleak House-ness of this ANI thread, would turn my hair grey. Bishonen | tålk 06:43, 15 November 2020 (UTC).

• IMHO gender imbalance is an issue right across the project, from content creators, gnomes and antivandal editors, right through to admins and crats. This means that, despite many noble and productive projects to address the imbalance amd prioritise coverage of "female" topics, our project has an inbuilt weighting towards topics of interest to male writers and readers. It also means that the culture is one geared towards the male perspective, which is what would be relevant when considering admins and crats. It may well be that it is harder to work and progress here as a female. With all due respect to those above saying it doesn't matter what gender an editor is, I see where you're coming from. That's obviously the ideal situation, but I think we still need to ask the question of how female editors, as well as those from ethnic minorities or LGBT etc, feel. And what is preventing them from becoming editors or seeking the adminny jobs. Then we should take steps to make it better if there are areas where we fall down. This is akin to the Black Lives Matter vs All Lives Matter debate going on in society generally. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:00, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

  My understanding was that across the project we have a gender imbalance with somewhere between 10%-15% of females. If the Crats had a similar ratio I wouldn't have started this thread, but 2.5% of RFBs where we know the gender is in my view a more extreme skew. It is possible that the RFB skew merely reflects a skew among the admins, as far as I know we don't have stats there. There is a possibility that the "need for the tools" argument has skewed the admin and crat cadres towards predominately male vandalfighters, and that if we were more open to content writers getting the tools on the assumption that we will find them useful things to do such as the DYK queues and appointing more autopatrollers, that would bring us in line with the community if not wider society. I haven't looked at ethnicity of crats, but I'm aware that we have a community skew there, and probably a greater skew than the ethnicity one. I thought that LGBT was one of the few minorities where we as a movement were being inclusive, so I didn't try to check that. There is an argument that our ethnicity, gender and so forth doesn't matter in that we would make the same decisions either way. I don't feel that that is for me to judge as part of what I suspect is a straight white male majority among the crats, though it would be reassuring if there were people who weren't straight white males saying that they didn't perceive prejudice from us. ϢereSpielChequers 12:45, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

  Well, I would think the argument for diversity of background would be as a stand-in for diversity of pov. But on the internet, many, perhaps most have no desire to affirmatively share their personal information with strangers, regardless of what form it takes, which would make an actual census rather impossible, similarly questions like: 'What do you as a _____ think?'. (Side issue: Do different demographics have a different tolerance for sharing their personal information?) For advanced permissions, it would perhaps be theoretically possible for there to be a requirement to honestly fill out an at least anonymous questionnaire to get actual data, but even that would seem controversial and forcing all users seems not only impossible but invasive, so that means anywhere from bad data to good-guess-but-still-imagined data. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:07, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

  It could also be that the set is too small, and the Gauss' theorem does not work, so that the fluctuations are significant.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:09, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Has anyone run the stats on crat nominations? If we have a representative proportion of female crat nominations but they aren't getting elected, that's a different issue solve than if only men are standing (if both are true then we have two different issues to resolve). From what I recall the reason we have a male bias in elected arbitrators is that far more male editors stand and there is no significant difference between the likelihood of a male and female candidate being elected when considering only those who stand. Thryduulf (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

If anything it probably goes the other way; I'm struggling to think of a female candidate (in the sense of publicly identifying on-wiki as female; I have no idea who most of these people are IRL) who didn't win. (Indeed, I'm having great difficulty thinking of a female candidate being unsuccessful in any Wikipedia election process.) I don't know if this is owing to women being less likely to be overconfident in their own abilities and thus put themselves forward despite being unqualified, an artefact of a women-are-wonderful effect among voters in which female candidates have their flaws overlooked, or just a statistical blip because there are so few female candidates. ‑ Iridescent 14:15, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, user:Isarra has been unsuccessful at ArbCom at least twice (probably more often than that), although the seriousness of their candidacies has been disputed. Thryduulf (talk) 14:23, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Well yes, but given that her candidate statement each time has been "I like pie", I think we can discount her. Discount the perennial candidacy from the "large natural breasts" guy as well so we don't skew the statistics. ‑ Iridescent 14:42, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

A while ago I remember Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship/Riana and, even further back but not completely unrelated, there was Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship/Kelly Martin (pre-blanking version), both of which were highly controversial for reasons unrelated to gender. Looking at Wikipedia:Unsuccessful bureaucratship candidacies, I found Phroziac/Lexi Marie's RFB which also counts (requires admin access). Kelly Martin failed a couple of arb elections and Rebecca failed once, but both were controversial candidates. Shell Kinney didn't get in the first time, and it's not worth counting jokes. As for women being unsuccessful in RFA's, the only relevant example I can think of is Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Montanabw, but Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Eequor 2 is a fun read. Surprisingly, a search like this actually comes up with interesting results ... it can also be narrowed down by year. Graham87 16:21, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Do we actually know the gender of all the crats? I suspect there may be more women here than you know. I know from personal experience that many women choose not to declare a gender, for fear of being treated differently or respected less if it is known they are female. Personally I have revealed my gender from day one and have never felt discriminated against, but many women report quite a different experience here, often very unpleasant. I recall a person I successfully nominated for adminship; she does not identify a gender and was quite concerned to make sure that the RfA process would not blow her cover. Of course she is commonly addressed as "he", since it is an unfortunate default assumption here that all users are male unless specified otherwise, and if people were to tally up administrators they would probably put her in the male column. (That is why I love that gadget that displays a person's gender if declared; it lets me know whether to refer to them as he, she, or they. She would be a "they".) Anyhow, I suspect that the dozen unidentified crats that User:WereSpielChequers refers to may well include some women. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:42, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Not only do I not know the gender of the dozen I said I didn't know the gender of, it is possible that one or two of the 39 males I found are female. I assume that a nominator agrees the nomination statement with their candidate in advance, and so if the nominator in an RFA or RFB refers to the candidate as he that has been agreed. So yes it is possible that we have an undisclosed female crat or former crat. But I started this thread 29 hours ago and I haven't yet noticed anyone on this thread saying I missed one or emailing me to say we have a female crat or former crat who is normally considered male. ϢereSpielChequers 19:07, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Bishonen: I can honestly say that had I any inclination to run for ArbCom, the Bleak Houseness of the CHEM case would have surely frightened it to death. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 05:28, 16 November 2020 (UTC)stupid typo --Deepfriedokra (talk) 05:29, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Like MelanieN, I declared my gender on day one. Like Risker, I do not want to be a bureaucrat. My reason for this is because of the time commitment. My plate is full with other wiki responsibilities, e.g. Chair, AffCom. --Rosiestep (talk) 00:02, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Int Admin for Izno

Izno (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)}

I would like to request the int admin hat. I have enabled 2FA. For the immediate future my intent is to work on more TemplateStyles transitioning. --Izno (talk) 22:29, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

And so we start the required 48 hour hold. Primefac (talk) 23:55, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

(not an objection) @Izno: by TStyle transitions, I'm assuming you mean moving definitions out of MediaWiki:Common.css and the like? Do you have an example of one of the classes you are going to start with? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:40, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I've recently gotten Module:Documentation to a transition point, and I had the briefest discussion with TheDJ at Help talk:Cite errors#TemplateStyles for brokenref (to which the interface admins were invited a week and a half ago and none showed). However, there have continued to be concerns voiced at WP:IANB and elsewhere that users should have a chance to migrate styles, and it's just easier for an int-admin to do it for them (c.f. a whole bunch of discussion on WP:IANB that from what I can conclude has resolved to laissez faire). For me, it's "no int-admin is working on the problem of deprecations and TStyles migration so I'll step up and do it". --Izno (talk) 15:35, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Izno: Adding templatestyles to templates doesn't require intadmin, closest case would deprecating something in common.css or a skin.css file that is no longer needed after the templatestyles were successfully implemented. Am I following you that you don't actually want this to update site scripts - but because you want to edit other user's personal scripts? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:40, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

It would be nice to remove site CSS myself after it's moved, but yes, the predominant use is to move users over without causing consternation and confusion when CSS is moved to TemplateStyles. --Izno (talk) 16:58, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Izno: OK, be careful! You shouldn't be too worried about what could be in some random user's personal script before improving a template or deprecating a style following such improvement - but if you break a user by editing their personal script pages, or even just annoy them: expect a lot of drama and a time-suck at WP:AN. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:10, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Oh, indeed. Half dozen on one and 6 on the other. :^) --Izno (talk) 17:12, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Izno, in order to demonstrate your abilities and worthiness of Interface Administrator, please interpret this LabVIEW code fragment. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 15:04, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Though I learned LabVIEW a bit in college... no-one deserves that. --Izno (talk) 15:35, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

At a brief glance though, I'd guess it's a test apparatus for fluid flow over a wing (apparently in a tunnel, going by the file name). --Izno (talk) 15:37, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Izno, That's more than what I can say as to what this contraption does. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 17:17, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

My college learning was mechanical engineering, and while I got an A- in fluid dynamics and a separate A- in introduction to aerospace, I still enjoyed the concepts presented in both. I mostly extracted what was going on there from the named inputs and knowledge that LabVIEW is most typically used by dumb engineers (me) in a lab environment. (Now, whether someone using LabVIEW is really dumb or just masochistic, I do not know. The alternative in those environments, from what I understand, is Fortran. Pick your poison.) --Izno (talk) 17:22, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Izno, my Bachelors is in Electrical Engineering so we were required to learn LabVIEW and our semester grade was dependent on the certification exam for LabVIEW. It’s a fun application to use IMO as long as you don’t let your code turn into that. —CYBERPOWER (Around) 23:06, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

 Done With no objections after the 48 hour waiting period has passed, I've flipped the intadmin bit. bibliomaniac15 00:58, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Advert / message to any potential new Crat

This is all my own POV.

1. Just above, there's a comment "I do not want to be a bureaucrat. My reason for this is because of the time commitment." There's no commitment. Do Crat work if and when it suits you.
2. In any case, the 'workload' is very light indeed
3. When we have a difficult RfX to discuss we need more opinions from Crats. We don't have that many Crats and many of our Crats aren't as active as they once were
4. Diversity is a good thing when looking for opinions. Gender is one really important aspect of this ... but not the only one. And reflecting back on point 3, just having more personalities examining difficult things is A Good Thing.

If you think you have a good few years of relatively undramatic editing, a calm nature, a sound approach to policies and guidelines, please consider running for RfB. And if you don't want to run but see a nomination, please don't oppose it for 'hat collecting' or 'no need for more Crats'. The former is impossible to defend against for all candidates, no matter how unjustified a charge, and the latter is just untrue.

Potential candidate. You might be expected to demonstrate something like an interest in admin or Crat policy. Edits here, at Bot-related pages or at the deep dark pools of WT:RFA etc. I'd argue that your demonstrated personality is far more important, but just be aware of this potential objection.

If you think you might fit the bill as I describe it and if you'd like a nomination, drop me a line. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:17, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

• I fully support this statement and would happily co-nom in such circumstances Worm^TT(talk) 10:29, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Dweller, If you guys need more crats, I mean I can step forward. Like you said, the workload is light, so it shouldn't be too much trouble. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 13:03, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Risker's statement is excellent, and I agree wholeheartedly with it. On my end, I chuckled when I saw people say that they'd never want to be a crat. After user renames were handed off to global renamers, crats actually do next to nothing. Combine that with the rarity of RFX and it's why we can get by today with only 19 of us. One of my wiki-hot-takes is that the crat usergroup should be ended, with all of its abilities folded into the sysop group, but I realize that such a venture would be culturally impossible because it would require a change in the way RFA is closed. bibliomaniac15 19:18, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

• You've convinced me. I'll start my RfB tomorrow. Natureium (talk) 19:54, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

• Honestly, what stopped me from starting a RfB was my RfA. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:37, 17 November 2020 (UTC)