Wikimedia enacts new standards to address harassment and promote inclusivity

Hacker news is a really good site for tech discussion.

But when it comes to anything about diversity / harassment in the workplace, it seems like a group of people crop up needing to tell everyone that they're the real victims

There's a signicant subset of people that cry the loudest of censorship only when it comes to communities having a stance against racism, sexism and homophobia.

In any other discussion about Wikipedia, there would be a significant concensus that Wikipedia has a unwelcoming to new editors community.

The Wikipedia community is unwelcoming and initiatives like this are part of the reason. That's because these initiatives for "inclusion" are quite often used for something superficial or as a convenient cudgel to hit someone you disagree with.

The way "inclusion" in the US/UK is done is what I would consider racist and sexist. I don't want to see more of it in online services that I use. Giving someone an advantage because of their race or sex and thus discriminating against others for the same reasons is racism/sexism.

Edit: we know Wikipedia has been a battleground for US politics for a long time now. I think this is seen as a step towards one side.

As much as I agree with you, is "inclusivity" ever used maliciously?

I'm running some coding events and while I'm a firm believer in meritocracy often giving the space to outsiders or unusual folk end up in more interesting and new experiences for the event attendees. In my mind I see it as a meritocratic choice to diversify the floor and honestly I've never seen this "feature" being abused or cause any friction.

To me it seems like this attack vector is only when rewards are high (prize, job position) but for pay less and unappreciated work like wikipedia editing, or in my case coding presentations, I don't really see how this could be abused.

Maybe it's exclusively an American issue?

Take an example from the python founder. He directly said during a talk that he will not mentor any males, with the implied goal of furthering inclusivity.

In my views, refusing to help people because of their gender is maliciously. Making decision about the worthiness of helping a young individual should not be about their gender. Call it a principle.

From reading about the science of discrimination and In-group and out-group thinking, there exist some key finding of human behavior and rationalization. "Us" are individuals and "them" are a homogenic group, and if you treat people like individuals you are automatically treating them as a part of "us". When someone of "us" do something wrong, it is about individual faults and circumstances. When someone of "them" do something wrong, it is a inherent trait of the group and fundamental aspect their kind.

The attack vector can only exist when a set of people are treated as a homogenic group rather than individuals. Inclusivity initiatives should in theory never do this, but defining people as a homogenic group is sadly what most of them end up doing. Maybe it because it easy and quick, or because it makes for good signaling to the in-group. The result is usually the same with the out-group feeling abused and attacked, especially for individuals who been moved from being in-group to out-group and now instinctual feel more vulnerable to attacks.

Is Guido choosing to tip the scales really a malicious use of inclusivity? It's not like young men interested in Python have nowhere else to go.

I think how Guido wants to spend his time is up to Guido.

Yes, it's pretty malicious, both against the targets of his sexist policy and the broader movement towards inclusion. If young men come to understand that "inclusivity" means blocking them from certain opportunities, they're not going to be on board with proposals to make hiring or promotions more inclusive.

So is the argument that fewer men now have mentoring opportunities because Guido is choosing to exclusively mentor women?

I think that interpretation grossly over-values Guido's mentorship contributions.

The argument is that, when someone says "we're going to make this mentorship program more inclusive", people will have to wonder whether they mean normal inclusivity or Guido's sexist inclusivity. His actions alone won't radically shift the needle, but we'll eventually reach a point where inclusivity just means "there are a lot of women" and the original idea of fair opportunities for everyone is lost.

Note that this isn't a radical conspiracy - it's already happened in some areas. There are a lot of colleges with special inclusion resources for women, even though women are significantly overrepresented in the modern university system.