Author: Mary

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On addressing bad contributions

This post is inspired by a couple of instances in the last month or so, but I see this happen at least once a week, so you can safely assume it’s directed widely.

I quite often read comment threads and similar that have in some way got out of hand, whether by going outside a comments/list policy or just annoying the owner of the space. And commonly, the owner or moderator says something like “some of the contributions to this thread have been unhelpful/rude, I’d like everyone to mind their manners/think things through/honour my intent/something.” Sometimes there’s a variant that applies to everyone in a cross-space Internet discussion: “I am finding that many people addressing point X are rude and I wish they’d mind their manners.” It’s usually an attempt to be fair, and not embarrass someone or start a fight.

And me? I wish you wouldn’t do that.

What’s this? Mary’s not in favour of moderation or of setting comment/list policies? Has she seen the free-speech-means-her-blog-too light? Why no, no I haven’t. What I’m objecting to is the vagueness of the call-out. “Some contributions”? “Unhelpful”? Basically this either has a chilling effect on the entire discussion, where everyone thinks that they’re violating the unspecified rules, or is entirely ineffective, because everyone thinks it applies to the annoying people, who by definition are not themselves.

Sometimes shutting down the entire discussion is what you want, in which case, just say so and close the thread. If it’s really specific things that you want to stop, there’s two ways to do this better, in my opinion. One is what I’m doing now, which is a more specific description of unwelcome behaviours. (“No calls for violence here please, no matter whether you mean it, or how common the turn of phrase.” “No profanity.” “No mention of your cats.”) That’s probably best done when it’s a common problem or something you anticipate will be a common problem. The other is calling out specific people with a description of their behaviour. (“Suzy’s swearing is really over the line here.” “Bobby’s constantly talking about his cat in technical threads.”)

Public telling off of a specific person does need to happen sometimes: it can seem disingenuous when Bobby’s the only one talking about his cats and you phrase it as if you aren’t targeting him. It can also make others assume the problem is bigger than it is. Saying it publicly is of course inevitably more of a signal to that person that they’re not welcome, you’re at least risking a fight or them leaving. You could do it privately in some circumstances but if their behaviour is sufficiently annoying or egregious, it has a positive effect on the community to say so publicly, otherwise it looks to everyone else like you’re just fine with it.

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Gain world-wide fame and adoration*

WordPress has an annoying feature of its spam handling, namely that it shows you the entire spam content in the spam comment interface (where one must venture in order to rescue legitimate comments). This is how it works:

  1. look at first line of spam, agree that it is for sure spam
  2. scroll down
  3. scroll down
  4. … scroll down
  5. oh good, here’s definitely-spam message #2
  6. scroll down…

Two things that would help:

  1. a WordPress plugin that reduced spam to short expandable excerpts
  2. an update to the Akismet Auntie Spam Greasemonkey script to make it work with current versions of WordPress

Consider your path to world-wide fame and adoration laid out before you. (I am technically capable of doing both those options, but I don’t have time for a new path to glory right now.)

* Offer may not be valid to residents of South Australia.

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Wednesday Geek Woman special edition: Sandra Magnus, STS-135, and the end of the shuttle program

This article originally appeared on Geek Feminism.

Back-to-back American astronauts, yes. Special occasion! This is by request, from deborah on July 7:

Sandra Magnus is flying on the last NASA space shuttle launch tomorrow– how about a quick hit about her? And about being sad about the space shuttle. 🙁

Space Shuttle Atlantis en route to launchpad
Space Shuttle Atlantis en route to launchpad. Image by NASA, public domain.

We’re a little late to the party, so I’m scheduling this entry for about twelve hours prior to the end of the mission: landing is scheduled at 21 July 2011 9:56 UTC.

Sandra Magnus has a PhD in materials science and engineering and has worked on stealth aircraft design. This is Magnus’s 4th Shuttle mission, but third trip into space: she spent 134 days in orbit between November 2008 and March 2009, travelling to the International Space Station on STS-126 and returning on STS-119.

Sandra Magnus exercises in the Destiny Module on the ISS, in zero gravity
Sandra Magnus exercises aboard the ISS, March 2009. Image by NASA, public domain.
STS-135 is the 33rd mission for Space Shuttle Atlantis, and the final mission of the Shuttle program. See NASA’s video of the launch. NASA TV will be showing coverage of STS-135 throughout the planned landing.

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Sexual harassment discussion in the atheist and skeptical communities

This article originally appeared on Geek Feminism.

Warning for quoted misogyny, Islamophobia and descriptions of violence against women and harassment, not to mention Oppression Olympics.

On June 20, Rebecca Watson of Skepchick posted a video discussing a panel she spoke on at the World Atheist Convention in early June. Here’s an excerpt of the relevant segment:

And I was on a panel with AronRa and Richard Dawkins [which] was on ‘communicating atheism.’ They sort of left it open for us to talk about whatever we wanted, really, within that realm. I was going to talk about blogging and podcasting, but, um, a few hours prior to that panel, there was another panel on women atheist activists… I don’t assume that every woman will have the same experience that I’ve had, but I think it’s worthwhile to publicize the fact that some women will go through this, and, um, that way we can warn women, ahead of time, as to what they might expect, give them the tools they need to fight back, and also give them the support structure they need to, uh, to keep going in the face of blatant misogyny…

So, thank you to everyone who was at that conference who, uh, engaged in those discussions outside of that panel, um, you were all fantastic; I loved talking to you guys—um, all of you except for the one man who, um, didn’t really grasp, I think, what I was saying on the panel…? Because, um, at the bar later that night—actually, at four in the morning—um, we were at the hotel bar, 4am, I said, you know, “I’ve had enough, guys, I’m exhausted, going to bed,” uh, so I walked to the elevator, and a man got on the elevator with me, and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more; would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?”…

I’ll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4am, in a hotel elevator with you, just you, and—don’t invite me back to your hotel room, right after I’ve finished talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner.

This excerpt is from Melissa McEwan’s full transcript of the relevant section of the audio, which is available at Shakesville. There’s more interesting stuff in the full transcript, including an example of the kind of dynamic where an individual woman who hasn’t experienced sexism denies it exists at all. But Watson’s criticism of the man who sexually approached her in the elevator has let to the Internet exploding, predictably enough. Especially when Richard Dawkins commented, most unsympathetically.

Here’s the setup:

  • PZ Myers, Always name names! [beware comments]: It’s not enough. Maybe we should also recognize that applying unwanted pressure, no matter how politely phrased, is inappropriate behavior.
  • Richard Dawkins, comment on “Always name names!”: Dear Muslima… Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with… Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee… And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
  • Richard Dawkins, comment on “Always name names!”: Rebecca’s feeling that the man’s proposition was ‘creepy’ was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.
  • PZ Myers, Twitter: For those curious, confirmed: those comments were from Richard.

Commentary (warning: some of these links contain extensive discussion of rape, including news coverage): Continue reading “Sexual harassment discussion in the atheist and skeptical communities”

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The status of pseudonymity and privacy on Google+

This article originally appeared on Geek Feminism.

Here’s a separate thread for people most interested in keeping track of official, semi- and unofficial pronouncements about pseudonymity and/or privacy on Google+ in particular, in addition to the more general discussions taking place at Anti-pseudonym bingo and Social networking requirements. You can also discuss your feelings and reaction to various announcements here. warped-ellipsis, you can re-post your existing links in this thread if you like.

If you’re linking to a blog or Google+ discussion, please also include a summary or excerpt that explains why you’re linking to it. Is it a user test showing such-and-such a property of Google+? Is it a statement by Google or an employee? Is it a change or a clarification? That sort of thing. (No linking/quoting anything from G+ that isn’t marked “Public” please.)

Note: yes, Google+ is in beta/early launch/testing/something, and they’re actively seeking feedback. Please no nagging to people to send in their comments here as feedback, since they now know this for sure and presumably they have or will send it in if they want to, and if they haven’t they presumably have their reasons.

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Social networking requirements

This article originally appeared on Geek Feminism.

I knew that someone posted on this blog discussing what requirements a feminist-informed social network would have. Turns out it was me. A year on, and due to discussions around Google+, I think I have some positive requirements. (I recommend reading the old comments thread too.)

Control over identifying information. Name, gender, age, who you are friends with, what you talk about, what events you are in, and what you look like: this is all varyingly sensitive information and should be able to be hidden.

As few restrictions as possible on identity. Allowing use of pseudonyms, not assuming that everyone has two, or two ‘important’, names, free specification of gender if specified at all. As little structured compulsory information as possible. Unstructured, free-form, and non-compulsory are key things here.

Accessibility. State of the art accessibility design including testing with screen readers, colour palettes suited to as many variants of vision as possible, collaborative transcripting and captioning of images, no flashing ads or autoplaying video.

You own your space and control entry. This means you should be able to moderate things. Being able to ignore people is good but is not enough: you likely don’t want to subject your friends to the conversation of a person who you dislike enough to ignore.

Rigorous site-level attention to spam and harassment. No one (much) wants spam, enough said. But harassment—continued interactions or attempts to interact after being told to stop, including ban evasion—should be a terms of service level violation, as should any threats (whether or not the person has been told to stop). Use of threats or hate speech in user names and default icons or other things that appear in directory listings or search results may also need to be considered. This all requires staffing and a complaints system.

Consistent access control. If you set something private, or it was private by default at the time, it should stay that way, probably to the extent where if it can’t remain private for technical reasons, it should be deleted/hidden by the site rather than made public.

Access to your work and ability to export it. The correct thing to do here is a little tricky (are other people’s comments in your space yours to export and republish, or not? what about co-owned spaces?) The autonomo.us community has had some inconclusive discussions.

Fine-grained access control. I don’t think something along the lines of that which Livejournal and its forks have had for years and which Facebook and Google+ have implemented to varying degrees, is required (public blogs have a strong presence in activist discussions) but it’s useful for more universal participation. Some people need it.

Clear limits on sharing. This is something that Google+ early testers are coming up against again and again: ‘Limited’ posts are or were shareable, a commenter using someone’s name with the + sign (eg ‘+Mary’) does or did actually invite them into private comment threads without the original poster’s input. If you offer access control, the software must make it clear what controls apply to any space, and if you have influence over that or not, so that you can control your own revelations in that space. Substantial user testing to make sure that people understand what your interface is trying to say is required.

No advertising. I guess it might be possible to show people ads in a way that has neither the problem of offensive or upsetting ads (“lose weight for your wedding today!”) nor the problem of the advertisers doing dodgy malware ads to harvest your info or worse. Maybe.

What else? How do your favourite sites do on these?

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Anti-pseudonym bingo

This article originally appeared on Geek Feminism.

People testing the Google+ social network are discussing increasing evidence that, terms of service requirement or not, Google+ wants people to use their legal names much as Facebook does. Skud shares a heads-up from a user banned for using his initials. Then, for example, see discussion around it on Mark Cuban’s stream, Skud’s stream and Sarah Stokely’s blog.

Let’s recap really quickly: wanting to and being able to use your legal name everywhere is associated with privilege. Non-exhaustive list of reasons you might not want to use it on social networks: everyone knows you by a nickname; you want everyone to know you by a nickname; you’re experimenting with changing some aspect of your identity online before you do it elsewhere; online circles are the only place it’s safe to express some aspect of your identity, ever; your legal name marks you as a member of a group disproportionately targeted for harassment; you want to say things or make connections that you don’t want to share with colleagues, family or bosses; you hate your legal name because it is shared with an abusive family member; your legal name doesn’t match your gender identity; you want to participate in a social network as a fictional character; the mere thought of your stalker seeing even your locked down profile makes you sick; you want to create a special-purpose account; you’re an activist wanting to share information but will be in danger if identified; your legal name is imposed by a legal system that doesn’t match your culture… you know, stuff that only affects a really teeny minority numerically, and only a little bit, you know? (For more on the issue in general, see On refusing to tell you my name and previous posts on this site.)

Anyway, in honour of round one million of forgetting about all of this totally, I bring you anti-pseudonymity bingo!
5x5 bingo card with anti-pseudonymity arguments
Text version at bottom of post.

What squares would you add? Continue reading “Anti-pseudonym bingo”

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US-based websites and COPPA

Alex Sutherland, who is not yet 13 years of age, told Google+ his date of birth and promptly lost access to his Gmail account.

I’m not posting this to join any obnoxious blamestorm aimed at Alex or his parents: it sucks he lost his email archives and I hope that his parents are able to get it back for him. It sucks he had his trust breached and there’s no getting that back for him.

But I’m mostly posting because people are seeing the provisons of the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) for the first time and saying “pfft, not that hard to comply, why ban under 13s at all?” There was an illuminating comment on Making Light that is helpful there:

COPPA has a lot of “common sense” provisions which no doubt sounded great from the point of view of legislators and parents, but which are pretty appalling from the point of view of the operator of a Web 2.0 service. They’re burdensome enough, that, to my knowledge, only sites intended specifically and exclusively for children trouble to implement them. That is, no Web2.0 websites operating in the US permit users under the age of 13, except for specialty children’s sites. Not Google, not Facebook, not MySpace, not Livejournal, not Twitter, not Flickr or Picassa or Photobucket, not any web service here in the US.

Why? Well, you know how when you have a problem with your Gmail, you can pick up your phone and call Google’s tech support line? Ah ha ha ha. Right: no such thing. Well, one of the provisions of COPPA is that there has to be a phone number through which parents can call the service, as well as an email address at which they can email the service. Google doesn’t particularly want to have to pay operators to be standing by. No Web2.0 startup wants to be staffing a phone number open to the general public.

Google also doesn’t particularly want to figure out how to fulfill the provision of writing a statement as to what “information it collects” from (minor) users, since it allows users to type absolutely anything they want into those email bodies. Among sites for children, the open-ended TEXTAREA form field, like the one I’m typing this comment into, are seen as threats; highly structured or brief forms of input — pulldown menus and short text fields — are seen as safer. That prohibits most interesting Web2.0 applications.

Now Google is pretty big, it could afford to solve this if it wanted to, but has decided not to. But I think this is an issue worth knowing about in general: this means that children under 13 can’t participate in the Web as we know it today, essentially, because COPPA means that it’s prohibitively expensive to allow them to use websites that allow free-form content. Opinions might vary on whether this is a good thing (I certainly don’t think so, although I’m also not planning to turn my son loose on Google on his sixth birthday either), but it’s a thing.

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Graeme Reeves received 2 to 3.5 year sentence

This article originally appeared on Hoyden About Town.

Trigger warning for medical and sexual violence.

The case of deregistered and abusive obstetrician and gynaecologist Graeme Reeves was covered here several times (see the graeme reeves tag). There’s been a name publication ban associated with his trials this year that’s been lifted: throughout this year there have been reports of the trial of “a former doctor” reported in the NSW press.

In March, a jury found Reeves guilty of maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm on [Carolyn] DeWaegeneire with intent to cause her grievous bodily harm in 2002.

In April, Judge Woods found him guilty of indecently assaulting two patients, while conducting internal pelvic examinations.

Reeves pleaded guilty in February to obtaining a financial advantage by deception, involving his breaching a ban by carrying out obstetric procedures.

Survivor Carolyn DeWaegeneire rejects the sentence:

Standing outside Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court where Reeves was sentenced by Justice Greg Woods this morning, Carolyn DeWaegeneire said she was “livid” that Reeves could be released as early as 2013.

“Until now I thought the law was to protect the public and the people. I have now learnt otherwise,” she said.

“I was hoping that a woman would be treated equal to a man.”

Asked what sentence Reeves should have been given, Ms DeWaegeneire said: “If your penis was cut off and your scrotum cut-off how long would you want the man to serve?”

She rejected Judge Woods’s decision to mitigate Reeves’s sentence on the grounds he is suffering from severe mental illness.

Quotes from Victim livid at Bega doctor’s sentence by Paul Bibby, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 Jul 2011.

Note on selection of front page image: the image is the photograph of Carolyn DeWaegeneire by Simon Alekna from the SMH article. I decided not to use Reeves as his face is rather stuck in my mind, and if anyone else is in the same boat I don’t want to trigger them on the Hoyden front page.

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A petty rant

See the title? Consider yourself warned.

OK, geek culture. I am ambivalent with claiming particular things as being geeky or not in the first place, because half the time I fall outside it. (I’m not a night person, I don’t especially identify with or even like cats, to give some trivial examples.) And if it excludes me, it must be wrong. Duh.

But perhaps we should claim being petty and pedantic. Here’s my line in the sand: you do not count discrete things starting at a zeroth thing. Well, if you do, I say it’s not geeky.

There’s a sort of a general understanding that “geeks count from zero”. Here’s where it comes from: in many programming languages, arrays begin at zero, so array[0] retrieves the first item in the array and array[1] the second and so on. This is actually somewhat confusing, and results in plenty of off-by-one errors (for example, if an array has length l, then one is tempted to ask for the last item as array[l] when it’s actually array[l-1], and forgetting that is not at all uncommon).

It has meaning: it’s fairly obvious why this is done in C, it’s because elements in a C array are stored in contiguous memory and the name “array” is already a pointer to the first memory address. Say the array starts at memory address 7, then to access the items of the array you would do:

  • array[0], which is an alias for *(array + 0) or *array, ie, find out what is at memory address 7 (the dereference operator * means “look up what is at this memory address”)
  • array[1] or *(array + 1), ie, find out what is at memory address 7 + 1 = 8
  • array[2] or *(array + 2), ie find out what is at memory address 7 + 2 = 9

And so on.

Dennis Ritchie’s The Development of the C Language shows that this notation is inherited from C’s precursor B.

And it’s not a silly way to count some things. It’s the same way we count age in the Western world: at the beginning of your first year, you are age 0 and at the beginning of your second year, age 1, and so on. The first year of someone’s life begins at birth[0] as it were.

But it’s a silly way to count objects. It is not more geeky to count, say, two apples as a zero/zeroth apple and a first apple. You could perhaps refer to the zeroth apple offset, ie, the point just before the beginning of the first apple, if you had reason to refer to that point (I never have).

Try as I might, this has always bugged me about the history of linux.conf.au: CALU was not the “zeroth because it’s geeky!” linux.conf.au. It’s like someone made that up specifically to annoy me personally. I will find you, whoever you are, and I will take your zeroth apple away from you and unlike you, I will have my first apple. And I will enjoy it.