Just left this on the The First Sex article at Wikipedia:
"I'd like to pass the following warning on to the owners of Wiki, and then I'm going to give up on this article and its virulent male 'contributors.'"
"Early Italian government experiments with electronic democracy demonstrated vividly the ability of bad contributors to drive non-strident non-mentally-ill contributors away—''only the loudest and least sensitive persons were left on the Italian system at its demise''." From the Chronicle of Higher Education."
Is it obvious I had nightmare experiences with trolls living 24/7 under the bridge at this article, just waiting to slash and burn any sane idea laid down on the pages there?
Oh, yeah! Tunsa fun!
On the other hand, maybe some masochistic reader of this blog would like to take a turn going over and duking it out with the darlings there. Morgaine Swann and I have already taken a turn, softened them up a bit.
Maybe if enough of us have a go at them, we can at least get Wiki to institute some kind of policy re: mental illness in contributors.
The worst over there is the dude SesquipedalianVerbiage (altho good old ses has a few aliases to protect the 'innocent').
I waltzed over to the site just now, and discovered that in the last five minutes, good old Ses had deleted a footnote that referenced my statement to Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade. No explanation given -- just Poof! Footnote gone.
That's kinda nice, ya know? Usually good ol' Ses, with one gigantic sweep of his Mighty Mouse, deletes whole passages (all of them scholarly, documented, and some even specifically called for by Wiki administrators).
Remember: ya don't have to (and actually should not) defend The First Sex. You just need to make accurate statements about what Davis wrote in it, and what others have written about book.
ADDENDUM: Just danced over to Wiki's The First Sex article again (five minutes after finishing this post), and-- poof! My quote from the Chronicle of Higher Ed is gone.
Jeezum! Can't believ it took 'em five whole minutes to slash and burn a simple four-paragraph entry!
Sigh. I'll just end with this:
Please, please don't ever trust anything Wikipedia does on women, women's issues, or anything Christians don't like (women, women's issues, homosexuality, Paganism, goddesses, Wicca, who burned down the Library at Alexandria [we all know it was Christians who probably did it, but try to get that one to stick on Wiki!]).
Thanks for the heads up. I had no idea there were things like that going on over there.
ReplyDeleteNice work Athana!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's pretty bad, livia -- at least at The First Sex article and at the other articles I've tried to work on.
ReplyDeletedebi, thanks. Here's the latest. I took great pains to find and post a pic of a goddess on The First Sex article. This of course was completely justified; the second sentence of the article shows how closely the book is tied to the Goddess (" In the book, Davis aimed to show that early human society consisted of matriarchal "queendoms" based around worship of the "Great Goddess", and characterised by pacifism and democracy").
Well, the goons weren't happy with this pic, no indeed. They took it off maybe 10-15 times (which meant, of course, that I put it on 10-15 times before giving up).
Two days ago I thought they were going to leave it posted, but then today it was gone.
Here was the discussion about "why" the photo had to go:
Jaysweet: "Hey, I noticed that the image of the bird goddess is still there. I didn't read the entire section on that [??]. It seems pretty irrelevant to me, though? Was there not consensus to remove? 19:09, 24 July
Verbal [aka SesquipedalianVerbiage]: "I like the picture, I just don't think it's relevant to the artcile. The length of the comments was part of the recent problem [???] The only person who supported its presence was Athena [sic] 19:15 24 July
Jaysweet: "Okie-dokie, I removed it. I could conceivably see it beging re-added if the article discussed Goddess worship in ancient Egypt, but that's not even remotely touched upon, at least not that I can see." 19:21, 24 July [NOTE; Jaysweet, like all the other male contributors to this article, has not admitted to ever having read the book The First Sex]
Looie: "Say what you will about Athana, we musn't forget she knows this book very well. I tend to think she is a better judge of what sort of image is representative of the message than somebody who hasn't even read it -- such as me; what about you? On principle I agree with the suggestion that a picture of the cover would be the best thing, but unless somebody has such a picture, I'm inclined to think it would be best to stick with Athana's image. It is, I think, an image that will make a lot of people uncomfortable, but, well, that makes it sort of representative of the book. 01:33, 25 July 2008
Verbal [aka SesquipedalianVerbiage]: The image is only loosely related to the article as it is now, so for that reason alone I'm against inclusion. However, I think it is a photo of a really cool piece. I don't understand why it would be uncomfortable for some [the photo is of a naked female body]. However, if we just used pictures to prettify articles, we might soon be overrun by the lolcats brigade (pictures of cats on vacuum pumps in the STM article!) :) 06:47, 25 July 2008
I wonder what would happen if a few people (or, better a few dozen) went over to The First Sex article at Wiki and demanded that the Bird Goddess be reinstated as the article photo? It's just a gorgeous photo of the Goddess.
ReplyDeleteDAvis talks about Goddess repeatedly in The First Sex:
Her Chapter 3, "The Golden Age and the Blessed Lady," is about the Great Goddess. Her chapter 15 is "Mary and the Great Goddess." Chapter 4 begins with the section "The Great Goddess." Ch. 13 ends with the Great Goddess: "Lugh and the Great Goddess." Gould Davis writes about the Great Goddess on the following pages (Penguin, 1971); 47 ff, 59-62, 63-72, 73-75, 105-09, 143, 145, 179, 222-25, and 243 ff.
Although she also writes about ancient Egypt (97-98, 102, 154-55, 109, 112, 124-25, 138-39), I'm not sure she ever mentions an Egyptian Goddess per se. But that SHOULD NOT MATTER. I'm sure that the articles men "like" are never made to jump through these hoops.
Besides, Wiki is a democratic entity. If enough of us go demand our just rights, we should prevail.
Again -- it doesn't matter what you think of The First Sex. The Wiki article is supposed to give the facts about the book. The facts are being stomped all over. The facts are, as Riane Eisler puts it, this book was a groundbreaking one in the history of women.*
Are we going to stand by and let a handful of misogynists rewrite women's history once again?!?
__________
*The goons at the article of course, erased this statement too, even though I gave direct quotes and put The Chalice and the Blade in the REference section.
They also, of course, erased The Chalice and the Blade from the REference section. Repeatedly. No explanation given. Ever.
I do not trust Wickedpedia as a reference source. It's more like a free-for-all, as you say, changing every five minutes.
ReplyDeleteYou did well, Athana. It is a long time - about 25 years at least- since i read The First Sex and it was a major milestone on my road to Goddess. That others find it so objectionable does not surprise me - nor that they have spent a lot of time and effort trying to deny its significance. The point is, however, that they are engaged in a futile endeavour - for whether they like it or not, Goddess is returning.
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ReplyDeleteI haven't had time to go back and continue the fight, but the whole thing is eating at me. I wonder what the sexist asses would do if a man who had read the book went over and made changes? Not that we'll ever find such a creature, but I'm sure the fact that our names are obviously feminine is part of why they won't allow any of our edits.
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ReplyDeleteI would love to test your theory, but although the book inspired me immensely it was so long ago that I can remember any detail. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteanne, I agree. I don't think any of Wiki is to be trusted totally. However, the problem is that many otherwise intelligent people do assume it's accurate.
ReplyDeletebrian, thanks for your support. Thank the Goddess for men like you!
ReplyDeleteMorgaine, I get the impression that these guys would remove anything positive or logical about the book, even if it came from a man.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how Brian's first comment got erased, but here it is:
ReplyDelete"Hi morgaine - i have read the book but so long ago that i cannot remember the details - only know it was a turning point in my path. You could be right about your names being a factor and would love to do what you suggest, but do not see how i can."
Athana - do you know I even included statements from male geneticists that supported Davis' position and they wouldn't allow those either?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the good thoughts, Brian. Maybe some day I'll make myself a male pseudonym and give it a shot. I'm so sick of people who don't know the material telling me they have a better idea of it than I do. It really burns me up that they just dismiss all my work and all my reasoning without consideration.