WEBVTT
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Hello. Just to check.
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Can everyone hear me?
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Grand.
I've never understood
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why that's such a phenomenon
when people give talks
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because if you can't,
what are you meant to say?
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(laughter)
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But yes, so as said, I'm Os.
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I'm a PhD student
at the University of Washington,
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where, according to the slide,
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I study "Gender, Infrastructure
and (Counter)Power."
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I'd ask you all to do me the indulgence
of pretending that
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that's some very explicit, nuanced,
thoughtful, academic description
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and not just what I write as a catch-all,
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because I kind of study
a thousand different things
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and fitting them all
into a few words is hard.
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But most of the things I study
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are around how systems
of knowledge enforce particular ideas
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of how the world works,
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and particular relationships of power
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with a specific focus on gender.
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I'm also an ex-Wikipedian.
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I spent 15 years as an editor
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which is maybe where my interest
in the nature of knowledge started,
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and I really can't express
how happy I was to be invited
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and how glad I am to be here
with all of you,
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but particularly James Forrester
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who is probably the only person qualified
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to countersign
my passport renewal application,
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cause it's running out soon
and I've been trying to work out...
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(laughter)
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You move to Seattle.
Everything is great.
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Then you're like,
"Oh, the UK government
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requires me to find an ex-priest,
civil servant, or member of parliament,
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who's known me for at least 2 years
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and who I can ship paperwork to."
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That sounds plausible.
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(laughter)
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Anyway, but...
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So I'm here as someone
who has spent a lot of time of...
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a number of years--
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which I don't like to think about
because it makes me feel incredibly old--
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wrestling with the nature of knowledge
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and the idea of knowledge--
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to talk to you about
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what Wikidata looks like
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to someone from my background
and with my research interests.
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And I'm not going to spend much time
on the story of Wikidata itself,
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because if you're here,
having spent 24 hours
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having it brain dumped into you,
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you're familiar with it.
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It's a big semantic data store
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that aims to provide
machine-readable knowledge
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in a centralized way.
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And what this looks like
is a series of items
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with associated properties or statements.
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So the item for "apple"
has the property "fruit."
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I mean, probably.
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It's a Wiki so there's probably
a long-running edit war
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of whether an apple is a fruit,
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and there's 50 people
running 300 accounts between them,
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and it's been going for years,
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and at this point,
if you mention the word apple on Wikidata,
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you're preemptively banned
as someone who, you know,
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is secretly a sock puppet
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and running an account on one
or another side of this.
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So as a consequence,
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it's also a classification system, right?
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A way of sorting and organizing the world.
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So, objects or people or concepts
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are classified as worth
having a Wikidata entry or not.
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A fruit or not.
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And in each case
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a series of criterion apply
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to determine the properties
that an object should have,
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and the values of these properties
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and how the objects
all relate to each other.
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So Wikidata is really an attempt to build
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a universal classification system.
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And classification systems
have been studied pretty extensively.
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One prominent work
which I'd really recommend people read
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if they're interested in this stuff
is Sorting Things Out,
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which is book by Geoff Bowker
and Susan Leigh Star.
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And they found that
in an ideal universe,
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a classification system,
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be it universal
or over a particular domain,
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has three attributes.
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The first is it operates on consistent
and unique principles.
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So, there's a consistent pattern
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of what should be in each category
and for what reasons.
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The second is all the categories
are mutually exclusive.
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And the third is
that the system is complete.
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It contains total coverage of
what it describes.
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And this doesn't mean
it has to have every single object
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that fits into the system.
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It just means that in the situation
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where it lacks an object
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and that object then shows up,
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there should be
a consistent mechanism
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to work out
whether it should be added or not,
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and how it should be described
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and so on, and so forth.
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There is one small problem
with this which is that:
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"No real-world
working classification system
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that we have looked at
meets these simple requirements
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and we doubt that any ever could."
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Or to put it another way,
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all classification systems fail.
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All classification systems
have gaps and exceptions.
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And obviously, the same is true
for all systems, full stop.
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Anyone who has ever coded
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or simply worked in an environment,
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or studied in an environment,
or lived in the world
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knows that we've yet
to design a single thing
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that we've thought all the way through.
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The problem is that when we take a system,
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classification, or otherwise,
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and put it out into the world
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and give it power and authority,
and integrate it into other systems,
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that already have power
and authority,
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there are consequences
for what happens
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when the system inevitably fails,
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for how it reinforces or undermines
existing relationships of power,
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for how it hurts people.
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A universal classification system is,
in another words,
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not merely doomed to failure,
it's also doomed to hurt people.
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And the way that it is structured
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is ultimately a series of ethical
and political choices as a result--
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Who do you want to hurt?
How much?
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What should be done
when people are injured?
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And those choices have real consequences.
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And so making these choices
often involves confronting the fact
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that there's very rarely a single
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simple machine-readable interpretation
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of something that's true
for all people throughout all history.
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Anything in the universe
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has multiple meanings,
and symbolisms, and nuances
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to different people in different contexts
at different times.
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But designing a classification system
and implementing it,
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designing a system that can make a claim
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to having consistent principles,
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and covering everything it discusses,
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inevitably involves
cutting down on this complexity
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and making decisions about what
"the" meaning of a thing is going to be,
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or what array of possible meaning
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should be presented
and in what sequence.
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And as a result,
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it involves silencing voices
or rendering voices louder.
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Again, this has consequences.
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And to see what I mean
about this complexity
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and context, and reduction,
and the consequences of it,
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I'd like to set through some examples
from Wikidata itself.
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The ones I've chosen
are all gender-related because again,
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gender is both professionally
and personally sort of a key interest.
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So, the first that I'll start with
is transexualism
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which is described as a "condition
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in which an individual
identifies with a gender
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inconsistent or not culturally associated
with their biological sex."
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Fairly unobjectionable and--
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wait, no, it's classified as a disease,
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and a psychiatric disease at that.
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Now, I know what you're thinking,
which is this is appalling
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but actually it's not as simple
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as either of these statements
being true or false, right?
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They're in a category of sort of,
"true, except."
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So, take transsexualism
is an instance of disease, right?
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Technically, this is true,
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in so far as transsexualism
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is the name of an entry
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under the International Classification
of Diseases, version 10.
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But we should add some complexity
and nuance to that.
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So, the ICD
is a classification of literally
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everything in the world
that you could have
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that was in any way involved at all
in someone's injury or death.
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It is in fact illegal to die of something
that is not listed in the ICD.
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(laughter)
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So it contains kind of a lot of things,
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and transexualism is listed in it
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so we classify it as a disease
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because it's in a classification
of diseases.
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So, here are some other things
that the ICD also lists as diseases
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that it has specific entries for.
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PA80: Shot by accident.
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PA40.0: Fell off a boat, drowned.
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(laughter)
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PA41.1: Fell off a boat,
damaged the boat, and drowned.
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(laughter)
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PA40.1: Fell off the boat,
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didn't damage the boat,
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didn't drown,
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still died of something.
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(laughter)
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And finally, QD50: Being poor.
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(laughter)
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So, if any of you
have ever fallen off a boat,
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I'm very sorry but you have a disease
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which you should really
talk to a doctor about.
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What class of doctor,
I'm not sure.
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It might be a psychiatrist.
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Who knows?
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So you know that's disease, right?
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What about health specialty: psychiatry?
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Well, that's also true, sort of.
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So, psychiatrists are the people
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who diagnose the presence
of gender dysphoria,
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a disconnect between one's sense of gender
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and one's sort of like,
embodied or perceived gender.
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But again, context.
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For example,
saying psychiatrists diagnose it
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ignores the fact
that none of the treatments
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are psychiatric.
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You might as well list the specialties
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as specialization in hormones
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or plastic surgery,
or being a personal shopper.
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All of these also have some role
in people's life trajectories.
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They are not listed.
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One other useful
potential factoid by the way,
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is that the ICD 10 is actually
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the old International Classification
of Diseases,
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and the ICD 11 no longer lists
transsexualism at all,
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much less as a disease.
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But my point here is not that Wikidata
sometimes contains outdated information
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or sometimes contains
false information,
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it's that the statements
that are constructed from that information
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as a consequence of what they leave out
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and what the results are,
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drop things and add risk.
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So, one way of structuring
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the information that
that entry contained is:
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"transsexualism is a psychiatric disease."
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And this leaves out
a lot of complexity,
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some of which we've discussed.
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But the greater issue is how it interlocks
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and resonates with existing narratives,
and existing information.
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For example, the idea
of transsexualism is a disease.
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Does anyone know why
the ICD stops listing it as a disease?
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Well, two reasons.
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First is because calling
being trans a disease is not accurate.
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It does not meet the definition
of being a disease.
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In fact, the only reason
that anything to do with being trans
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is still in the ICD is not
out of some objective
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like, you know, examination
of biology or psychiatry
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but instead purely pragmatism.
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That if you stop listing it,
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then insurance companies
in places like the U.S.
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would stop covering medical care
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that is associated with being trans.
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And the second is that
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the stigma associated
with having something classified
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as a disease is substantive,
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and when you list transsexualism
as a disease
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and a psychiatric one at that,
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you tap into really
long-standing assumptions
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and false beliefs about trans people.
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Assumptions and beliefs
that have a lot of power.
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Like, if it's a disease
there must be something wrong
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with trans people,
something that people should fix.
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And if it's a psychiatric condition
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then trans people should
be therapized out of being trans.
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In other words, whatever the raw truth
or falseness of the statement,
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stripping out its complexity
and contextuality,
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lets people fit it into their own notions
of what it means.
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And that doesn't end
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in a neutral objective
classification system,
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it ends in things like conversion therapy,
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and it being legal
to beat people to death for being trans
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when you find out that they're trans
after you slept with them,
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because, you know,
something's wrong with them.
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Like why would you
be considered reasonable
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to have done this?
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So a more accurate framing of this
might be this,
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which is hard to fit into Wikidata.
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And because we can't fit
that into Wikidata,
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and we strip it down,
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and we lose all that complexity,
00:12:43.077 --> 00:12:47.943
we open up the possibility to, again,
reinforce these really dangerous notions.
00:12:49.652 --> 00:12:52.082
So, let's look at another example,
also from gender,
00:12:52.082 --> 00:12:54.441
and that is the entry for non-binary.
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So, as Wikidata informs us,
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non-binary is a range of genders
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that are neither exclusively man
nor woman.
00:13:03.420 --> 00:13:07.062
And there are some critiques
I have of the "also known as" section,
00:13:07.062 --> 00:13:08.616
but that's not the biggest issue here.
00:13:08.616 --> 00:13:10.068
No, the biggest issue here
00:13:10.068 --> 00:13:14.800
is that at no point does this entire page
make any reference to trans people.
00:13:14.970 --> 00:13:18.972
So, if you go to the entry
for transgender woman,
00:13:18.972 --> 00:13:22.064
it says, "opposite to transgender man."
00:13:22.243 --> 00:13:24.093
And if you go to the entry
for transgender man
00:13:24.093 --> 00:13:26.542
it says, "opposite to transgender woman."
00:13:26.916 --> 00:13:28.640
If you go to this entry,
00:13:28.998 --> 00:13:32.982
it has absolutely no reference
to trans people whatsoever.
00:13:32.982 --> 00:13:36.106
There is this complete disconnect
and distinction
00:13:36.106 --> 00:13:39.331
between non-binary people
and trans people.
00:13:40.327 --> 00:13:42.324
And this might be, seems to be,
00:13:42.324 --> 00:13:44.432
a pedantic thing to be concerned about
00:13:44.432 --> 00:13:47.627
but it's actually a really useful example
for a couple of reasons.
00:13:48.285 --> 00:13:52.821
The first is that how non-binary people
relates to being trans
00:13:52.821 --> 00:13:54.768
is really hotly debated.
00:13:56.248 --> 00:14:00.478
Individual non-binary people
may or may not identify as trans.
00:14:02.170 --> 00:14:03.762
As a consequence, it's really difficult
00:14:03.762 --> 00:14:07.386
to make big categorical judgements
about a class of people.
00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:13.207
Other people would say that non-binary
people aren't trans,
00:14:13.207 --> 00:14:16.477
for whatever reason,
or that non-binary people are trans.
00:14:17.577 --> 00:14:20.093
You know, you have to
make a decision at some point.
00:14:20.093 --> 00:14:22.107
How are you going
to categorize this entry?
00:14:22.107 --> 00:14:24.288
What attributes are you going
to associate it with?
00:14:26.019 --> 00:14:28.047
But it's hard to do that in Wikidata
00:14:28.047 --> 00:14:30.841
when by necessity
the structure of the platform
00:14:30.841 --> 00:14:33.070
is so categorical and so fixed,
00:14:33.070 --> 00:14:36.647
that you can't really say like,
for some people these things are related
00:14:36.647 --> 00:14:39.592
and for others they aren't,
and it's actually very politically charged
00:14:39.592 --> 00:14:41.333
but you should think about it.
00:14:42.473 --> 00:14:44.779
There's no objective fact to fall back on.
00:14:44.779 --> 00:14:48.050
It's very contextual and complex,
and disputed.
00:14:50.193 --> 00:14:53.373
So, how do you fit this in?
00:14:53.637 --> 00:14:54.916
Anyone?
00:14:57.530 --> 00:15:00.154
But, this reductiveness
isn't just a question of,
00:15:00.154 --> 00:15:02.370
"Oh well, we haven't fit all
the information in
00:15:02.370 --> 00:15:04.300
so I guess it's not perfect."
00:15:04.300 --> 00:15:08.790
Again, it fits into preexisting discourses
and the preexisting world,
00:15:08.790 --> 00:15:11.436
and has the potential
to cause very real harms.
00:15:12.696 --> 00:15:14.180
There's this very long history
00:15:14.180 --> 00:15:17.290
of non-binary people
not being considered trans,
00:15:18.178 --> 00:15:20.974
going back to, in fact, the foundational,
00:15:20.974 --> 00:15:24.870
sort of medical and academic,
and authoritative works
00:15:24.870 --> 00:15:28.852
on what being trans is
and how trans people should be treated.
00:15:29.633 --> 00:15:30.930
And what this has resulted in
00:15:30.930 --> 00:15:35.556
is non-binary people being cut
out of access to resources--
00:15:37.094 --> 00:15:41.167
medical care, community membership,
any kind of support.
00:15:41.167 --> 00:15:43.861
In fact until 2013,
00:15:43.861 --> 00:15:47.083
being non-binary was not a thing
you could possibly be
00:15:47.083 --> 00:15:51.230
while still getting access,
to transition-related medical treatment.
00:15:51.230 --> 00:15:54.512
If you were, and you wanted access
you would have to go to your doctor
00:15:54.512 --> 00:15:58.203
and consistently lie,
and hopefully get away with it.
00:16:00.119 --> 00:16:03.324
So, if you want that diagnosis to happen
00:16:03.324 --> 00:16:05.644
so that your health insurance
will cover things
00:16:05.644 --> 00:16:08.738
or that your national health service
will cover things,
00:16:08.738 --> 00:16:10.840
you could either be a man
or a woman,
00:16:10.840 --> 00:16:12.503
and nothing else.
00:16:13.986 --> 00:16:16.185
And right now there's a ton of backlash
00:16:16.185 --> 00:16:17.730
to non-binary existences
00:16:17.730 --> 00:16:20.459
from people who are thinking
that we are a threat,
00:16:20.459 --> 00:16:23.092
or something new and novel
00:16:23.092 --> 00:16:26.758
when we've been around for just
as long as any other kind of trans person
00:16:26.758 --> 00:16:29.629
and just not discussed.
00:16:30.623 --> 00:16:32.285
And again, the consequence of this
00:16:32.285 --> 00:16:36.946
is that this silence is reinforcing
those preexisting ideas
00:16:36.946 --> 00:16:41.523
of being non-binary has nothing to do
with being trans whatsoever,
00:16:41.523 --> 00:16:47.245
and it creates and reinforces discourses
that cut people off from care,
00:16:47.245 --> 00:16:49.641
and cut people off from community.
00:16:51.273 --> 00:16:55.653
And finally, before I stop harping
on things about gender quite so much,
00:16:56.352 --> 00:16:57.463
the hijra.
00:16:57.463 --> 00:16:59.266
So, according to Wikidata
00:16:59.266 --> 00:17:02.239
the hijra are the third gender
of South Asian cultures
00:17:02.239 --> 00:17:04.869
and a sub class of non-binary.
00:17:05.526 --> 00:17:07.258
Now, here's the thing.
00:17:07.258 --> 00:17:11.256
Yes, hijra people fall
outside a simple man-woman binary,
00:17:12.430 --> 00:17:14.280
but pretty much zero hijra people
00:17:14.280 --> 00:17:16.236
would ever define themselves
as non-binary,
00:17:16.236 --> 00:17:18.790
because it just doesn't make any sense.
00:17:18.790 --> 00:17:22.705
In a western context,
non-binary people are, by definition,
00:17:22.705 --> 00:17:24.380
not man or woman
00:17:24.380 --> 00:17:27.844
but as a consequence
not trans man or trans woman.
00:17:28.706 --> 00:17:31.180
Hijra includes trans women,
00:17:31.180 --> 00:17:34.160
and also includes all intersex people,
00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:37.682
all sterile people,
and a large number of gay people
00:17:37.682 --> 00:17:40.755
while not including trans men
00:17:40.755 --> 00:17:45.422
or people who are non-binary,
and were assigned female at birth.
00:17:46.704 --> 00:17:48.042
All of this is really complex
00:17:48.042 --> 00:17:50.057
and there are literally books written
00:17:50.057 --> 00:17:54.578
on the framework of gender
and how that fits into it.
00:17:54.578 --> 00:17:56.825
But the point is
there's not a simple mapping
00:17:56.825 --> 00:17:58.803
of western gender notions
00:17:58.803 --> 00:18:01.173
to gender notions
in the rest of the world.
00:18:02.121 --> 00:18:04.876
Categorizing hijra people
00:18:04.876 --> 00:18:09.791
as a subset of non-binary people
00:18:09.791 --> 00:18:14.026
ignores the fact that most hijra people
do not see themselves that way,
00:18:14.026 --> 00:18:15.572
would not see themselves that way,
00:18:15.572 --> 00:18:18.891
and that the definitions of hijra
and non-binary
00:18:18.891 --> 00:18:21.047
are completely incompatible.
00:18:22.577 --> 00:18:24.383
But again this has the potential
00:18:24.383 --> 00:18:26.711
to cause harm.
00:18:26.711 --> 00:18:28.231
Because the fact of the matter
00:18:28.231 --> 00:18:31.840
is that western notions of gender
are pretty regularly
00:18:31.840 --> 00:18:35.116
and over a long period of time
exported to the rest of the world
00:18:35.116 --> 00:18:36.638
often by violence.
00:18:37.261 --> 00:18:39.933
We have these information systems.
00:18:39.933 --> 00:18:42.634
We have classification systems.
00:18:42.634 --> 00:18:43.638
We have standards.
00:18:43.638 --> 00:18:46.648
We have, historically and currently, wars,
00:18:46.648 --> 00:18:49.030
all of which are orientated
around this idea
00:18:49.030 --> 00:18:52.047
of the western way of doing things
is the only good way
00:18:52.047 --> 00:18:54.306
or is the best way
and the standard way,
00:18:54.306 --> 00:18:57.097
and everyone should conform.
00:18:57.097 --> 00:19:00.795
And so when we have these big projects
which are trying to fit the world
00:19:00.795 --> 00:19:04.334
in to a very westernized idea
of knowledge, because they have to,
00:19:04.334 --> 00:19:07.736
because that’s how classification systems
do universally work--
00:19:07.736 --> 00:19:10.533
everything has to fit
into one consistent scheme.
00:19:11.396 --> 00:19:13.988
It is perpetuating that kind of violence.
00:19:17.173 --> 00:19:20.510
So, you could respond
to my concerns and examples,
00:19:20.510 --> 00:19:22.535
and rambles with kind of a lot.
00:19:22.535 --> 00:19:25.480
One line to take would be,
"Why does this matter?"
00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:28.475
Why does Wikidata participating
and validating
00:19:28.475 --> 00:19:32.646
or invalidating particular discourses
have an impact on the world?
00:19:33.495 --> 00:19:37.126
And the first answer is
it actually doesn't matter if it matters.
00:19:37.126 --> 00:19:39.385
It matters that you acknowledge it,
00:19:39.385 --> 00:19:41.874
So, right now the default framing
of Wikidata is
00:19:41.874 --> 00:19:45.172
we're just collecting all of the knowledge
in a machine-readable form,
00:19:45.172 --> 00:19:46.398
but you're not.
00:19:46.398 --> 00:19:47.598
You're also making decisions
00:19:47.598 --> 00:19:50.124
about what should be included
and what shouldn't,
00:19:50.124 --> 00:19:52.973
and how knowledge should be represented.
00:19:52.973 --> 00:19:55.897
What complexity is worth representing
and what isn't.
00:19:56.667 --> 00:19:59.330
And those are ethical
and political choices,
00:19:59.330 --> 00:20:01.790
and framing the project
as simply the result
00:20:01.790 --> 00:20:04.741
of a million anonymous,
and interchangeable monkeys
00:20:04.741 --> 00:20:06.748
with an equivalent number of typewriters
00:20:06.748 --> 00:20:09.382
makes it impossible for us
to have conversations about it.
00:20:09.833 --> 00:20:13.450
Wikidata's organizers and users
and funders must understand
00:20:13.450 --> 00:20:16.877
that they're fundamentally
making charged decisions
00:20:16.877 --> 00:20:19.443
that are not neutral
or objective at all,
00:20:20.114 --> 00:20:23.972
and that is not bad but dangerous.
00:20:25.991 --> 00:20:28.113
And so, okay, having accepted
00:20:28.113 --> 00:20:30.491
that these are ethical
and political decisions,
00:20:30.491 --> 00:20:32.724
you could say,
"Well, if people want their takes
00:20:32.724 --> 00:20:35.030
on things included,
they should just contribute."
00:20:35.352 --> 00:20:38.900
And marginalized communities
do contribute a lot, right?
00:20:38.900 --> 00:20:41.139
There's a long history
of queer communities,
00:20:41.139 --> 00:20:44.358
particularly, being
very early adopters of technology.
00:20:44.358 --> 00:20:47.848
And so people could
just contribute to Wikidata.
00:20:47.848 --> 00:20:53.148
Like Hijra people could create accounts
and start arguing
00:20:53.148 --> 00:20:56.260
that actually the entry
shouldn't be a subset of non-binary
00:20:56.260 --> 00:20:58.124
and so, and so forth.
00:20:58.874 --> 00:21:01.848
The problem is that
this is unlikely to help
00:21:01.848 --> 00:21:03.698
because they're the minority,
00:21:03.698 --> 00:21:05.879
because many of the voices
and perspectives
00:21:05.879 --> 00:21:07.539
that are currently silenced,
00:21:07.539 --> 00:21:10.091
in the political and ethical decisions
being made,
00:21:10.091 --> 00:21:11.852
are those of minorities.
00:21:11.852 --> 00:21:14.180
So, I did some number crunching on this.
00:21:14.180 --> 00:21:17.163
Wikidata has 20,000 active editors
00:21:17.483 --> 00:21:21.432
from a human population
of seven billion give or take,
00:21:21.432 --> 00:21:23.919
unless you believe that maths is a lie
00:21:23.919 --> 00:21:28.436
and the world governments,
controlled by lizards under the Arctic,
00:21:28.436 --> 00:21:31.295
is making everything up.
00:21:31.295 --> 00:21:33.159
And there are approximately...
Um hmm?
00:21:33.159 --> 00:21:34.329
(person 1) You mean they're not?
00:21:34.329 --> 00:21:35.500
(laughter)
00:21:35.500 --> 00:21:37.413
Look, I'll be honest.
00:21:37.413 --> 00:21:39.177
If living in the U.S.
for the last five years
00:21:39.177 --> 00:21:40.236
has taught me anything,
00:21:40.236 --> 00:21:44.622
it's that any government assemblage
large enough to try and control
00:21:44.622 --> 00:21:46.414
a big chunk of the human population
00:21:46.414 --> 00:21:50.524
would in no way be consistently competent
enough to actually cover it up.
00:21:50.524 --> 00:21:51.553
(laughter)
00:21:51.553 --> 00:21:53.276
Like we would have found out
in three months--
00:21:53.276 --> 00:21:54.522
and it wouldn't even have been
00:21:54.522 --> 00:21:57.025
because of some
plucky investigative reporter--
00:21:57.025 --> 00:21:58.861
it would have been
because one of the lizards
00:21:58.861 --> 00:22:00.497
forgot to put on
their human suit one day
00:22:00.497 --> 00:22:02.806
and accidentally went out
to the shops for a pint of milk
00:22:02.806 --> 00:22:04.454
(laughter)
00:22:04.454 --> 00:22:07.723
and got caught in a TikTok video.
00:22:07.723 --> 00:22:09.856
(laughter)
00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:13.835
So Wikidata has 20,000 active editors--
00:22:14.497 --> 00:22:16.514
of whom we will assume none are lizards
00:22:16.514 --> 00:22:18.419
in human suits or otherwise--
00:22:18.624 --> 00:22:21.331
from a human population of seven billion,
00:22:21.770 --> 00:22:24.695
and there are approximately
one million Hijra people in the world.
00:22:24.695 --> 00:22:27.494
So if we assume a rate
of equal participation--
00:22:27.494 --> 00:22:30.892
setting aside the extreme poverty
a lot of Hijra people live in
00:22:30.892 --> 00:22:32.245
and the corresponding impact
00:22:32.245 --> 00:22:34.669
on access to things
like reliable internet coverage--
00:22:35.788 --> 00:22:40.545
then the combined efforts
of 20,000 Wikidata editors
00:22:40.545 --> 00:22:44.393
would have to be overwhelmed
by 2.85 people.
00:22:45.881 --> 00:22:48.545
That doesn't seem particularly plausible.
00:22:51.830 --> 00:22:53.425
Okay, so then you might say,
00:22:53.425 --> 00:22:57.109
"Well, what if we just have
other Wikibase instances
00:22:57.109 --> 00:22:59.692
isn't that the whole thing
we're building towards?
00:22:59.990 --> 00:23:03.234
You can set up your own Wikibase
with your own perspectives
00:23:03.234 --> 00:23:05.940
and your own decisions
about how to classify things,
00:23:05.940 --> 00:23:07.911
and what to prioritize,
and what not to.
00:23:08.207 --> 00:23:11.126
Make your own site with your own standard
for what constitutes knowledge
00:23:11.126 --> 00:23:13.352
and what information is important."
00:23:13.352 --> 00:23:15.920
And people could do precisely that.
00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:19.311
But the problem is
that Wikidata has a lot of heft behind it
00:23:19.311 --> 00:23:23.173
which is why the decisions
that Wikidata makes have so much import.
00:23:23.739 --> 00:23:26.058
There's the fact that it already exists.
00:23:26.058 --> 00:23:28.684
It has a first movers advantage.
00:23:29.358 --> 00:23:31.378
There's the Wikimedia brand.
00:23:31.378 --> 00:23:34.325
There's the funding
from places like Google.
00:23:34.325 --> 00:23:36.897
There's the relationships
with other institutions.
00:23:36.897 --> 00:23:39.018
When the strategic plan for Wikidata
00:23:39.018 --> 00:23:42.115
calls for engagement
and integration with museums,
00:23:42.115 --> 00:23:43.176
that doesn't just result
00:23:43.176 --> 00:23:45.390
in getting more data for Wikidata.
00:23:45.390 --> 00:23:48.611
That also results in Wikidata
00:23:48.611 --> 00:23:52.256
and the decisions its users make
permeating more of reality,
00:23:52.256 --> 00:23:57.607
becoming more of a standard
of how data systems work,
00:23:58.120 --> 00:24:01.914
and more of a place that is drawn from
to populate other spaces.
00:24:04.199 --> 00:24:07.111
So I keep using this line,
"Not bad, but dangerous"
00:24:07.111 --> 00:24:10.238
to describe classification systems
or to describe Wikidata,
00:24:10.959 --> 00:24:11.991
and I want to reinforce
00:24:11.991 --> 00:24:14.947
that I don't think that Wikidata
is inherently bad.
00:24:16.171 --> 00:24:19.141
But I do think that its dangers are vast
00:24:19.141 --> 00:24:21.134
and are not being properly attended to.
00:24:21.134 --> 00:24:23.262
Just by looking at gender,
00:24:23.262 --> 00:24:27.498
we saw three examples,
which I pulled very, very quickly,
00:24:27.498 --> 00:24:31.810
of situations where even setting aside
00:24:31.810 --> 00:24:34.950
the sort of objective "accuracy"
00:24:34.950 --> 00:24:38.830
of the information that
a Wikidata entry might contain,
00:24:38.830 --> 00:24:43.645
the information it chooses to contain
and chooses to prioritize perpetuates
00:24:43.645 --> 00:24:47.255
or silences particular discourses,
and particular ideas
00:24:47.255 --> 00:24:51.673
that have weight in the rest of the world,
that do harm in the rest of the world.
00:24:52.860 --> 00:24:54.230
And I picked those examples
00:24:54.230 --> 00:24:57.845
not because they're surprising
in any way,
00:24:57.946 --> 00:25:00.020
or not because they're unique,
00:25:00.020 --> 00:25:04.258
but simply to point out that
if I could find that many problems
00:25:04.258 --> 00:25:07.038
with resonances in wider violent systems
00:25:07.038 --> 00:25:08.987
in such a tiny sliver of content,
00:25:08.987 --> 00:25:11.644
imagine how many others
are lurking out there.
00:25:13.750 --> 00:25:17.507
And the goal of Wikidata,
00:25:17.507 --> 00:25:19.385
the goal of universal classification
00:25:19.385 --> 00:25:21.577
if these dangers are not attended to
00:25:21.577 --> 00:25:24.480
could ultimately result,
or will ultimately result,
00:25:24.480 --> 00:25:27.661
not in simple like neutral classification,
00:25:27.661 --> 00:25:29.134
but imposition.
00:25:29.134 --> 00:25:31.673
In saying this is the way
the world works
00:25:31.673 --> 00:25:33.366
and if you don't like it
00:25:33.366 --> 00:25:37.178
then congrats, you should try
and fit into it.
00:25:38.685 --> 00:25:41.856
And I really wish that I had
a sort of simple answer for this.
00:25:42.471 --> 00:25:43.526
I don't.
00:25:43.526 --> 00:25:44.613
It's one of the advantages
00:25:44.613 --> 00:25:45.984
of switching to academia
00:25:45.984 --> 00:25:48.116
instead of working
in an engineering department.
00:25:48.116 --> 00:25:49.378
You can just show up places
00:25:49.378 --> 00:25:52.311
and go, "Everything
is really complicated."
00:25:52.311 --> 00:25:54.089
Someone should do something about that.
00:25:54.875 --> 00:25:56.720
Could I have a grant please?
00:25:56.863 --> 00:25:58.283
(laughter)
00:25:58.466 --> 00:25:59.604
But all I can really do
00:25:59.604 --> 00:26:02.876
is point you back to
Bowker and Star's conclusion,
00:26:02.876 --> 00:26:06.604
which is that this isn't ultimately
about Wikidata,
00:26:06.604 --> 00:26:08.255
this isn't a problem with Wikidata
00:26:08.255 --> 00:26:10.855
this is that the class of systems
00:26:10.855 --> 00:26:14.244
that Wikidata is a part of
has never been done safely
00:26:14.244 --> 00:26:16.659
and there is no reason
to think it could be.
00:26:17.703 --> 00:26:19.585
And so my call is ultimately
00:26:19.585 --> 00:26:22.139
not for a particular change,
00:26:22.139 --> 00:26:24.482
or for all of you
to just go home and give up.
00:26:24.933 --> 00:26:27.180
It's for the project collectively
00:26:27.180 --> 00:26:29.208
and for you all individually
00:26:29.208 --> 00:26:32.435
to determine how comfortable you are
00:26:32.435 --> 00:26:35.729
with participating and building a system
00:26:35.729 --> 00:26:38.642
that makes a claim to universalism,
00:26:38.642 --> 00:26:42.396
that makes a claim to neutrality
and truth in data,
00:26:43.821 --> 00:26:47.170
when we know that that's neither possible
00:26:47.170 --> 00:26:49.661
nor harmless when it fails.
00:26:49.661 --> 00:26:53.145
and if you are not comfortable
with that, working to articulate
00:26:53.145 --> 00:26:55.459
what other ways of doing this
there might be.
00:26:56.012 --> 00:26:58.789
And these could look like, for example,
00:27:00.271 --> 00:27:03.778
giving primacy
to those local Wikibase installs.
00:27:03.778 --> 00:27:05.822
Saying that ultimately
00:27:05.822 --> 00:27:07.866
we need to give individual communities
00:27:07.866 --> 00:27:11.316
and individual contexts
and spaces primacy
00:27:11.316 --> 00:27:13.133
in defining what matters to them,
00:27:13.133 --> 00:27:14.842
and how they wish to be defined.
00:27:14.842 --> 00:27:19.327
And the conversation about
which perspective should be included
00:27:19.327 --> 00:27:22.235
in some central repository should wait
00:27:22.235 --> 00:27:25.111
until we have
the full range of perspectives.
00:27:26.755 --> 00:27:28.877
So, that's everything from me.
00:27:28.877 --> 00:27:31.397
Thank you, everyone,
for sitting through this.
00:27:31.713 --> 00:27:35.015
I think we have about 20 to 25 minutes--
00:27:35.015 --> 00:27:38.973
(moderator) 25 minutes for questions,
so, please, plentiful.
00:27:39.846 --> 00:27:41.280
Thank you very much.
00:27:41.893 --> 00:27:44.543
(applause)
00:27:46.806 --> 00:27:49.705
(person 2) Thank you so much
for this wonderful presentation
00:27:49.705 --> 00:27:52.335
about the problems inherent
in classification systems.
00:27:52.335 --> 00:27:54.772
One of the examples you had
is really cool
00:27:54.772 --> 00:27:56.415
from a mathematical point of view,
00:27:56.415 --> 00:27:58.469
when you were showing
that transgender male
00:27:58.469 --> 00:28:00.935
is the opposite of transgender female--
00:28:00.935 --> 00:28:03.991
or transgender female
is the opposite of transgender male
00:28:03.991 --> 00:28:07.386
and the opposite of cisgendered female.
00:28:07.386 --> 00:28:11.737
That makes cisgendered female
be the same as transgender male,
00:28:11.737 --> 00:28:13.390
because opposite of is the same--
00:28:13.390 --> 00:28:16.590
if A is opposite of B
and C is the opposite of B,
00:28:16.590 --> 00:28:18.178
A and C are the same.
00:28:18.178 --> 00:28:21.034
So actually that's a place
where it should be different from
00:28:21.034 --> 00:28:22.820
and not opposite of,
00:28:22.820 --> 00:28:26.191
and that involves
a lot of mathematical issues
00:28:26.191 --> 00:28:28.957
when we go to actually ask queries
of the database,
00:28:28.957 --> 00:28:31.708
so it's really important
that you've pointed out things like that.
00:28:31.708 --> 00:28:34.093
Yeah, another example
of that which I thought was fun
00:28:34.093 --> 00:28:38.648
was transsexualism was defined
in part further down--
00:28:38.648 --> 00:28:39.879
which I wanted to include,
00:28:39.879 --> 00:28:42.394
but couldn't find a way
of fitting it into the flow--
00:28:42.394 --> 00:28:45.704
as the same as sex-reassignment surgery.
00:28:46.579 --> 00:28:48.302
Which is unintentionally hilarious
00:28:48.302 --> 00:28:50.920
because a diagnosis of transsexualism
00:28:50.920 --> 00:28:54.951
was historically a prerequisite
for sex-reassignment surgery.
00:28:55.272 --> 00:28:57.702
So it's not so much a chicken
and an egg problem
00:28:57.702 --> 00:28:59.648
as the chicken is carrying the egg.
00:28:59.648 --> 00:29:01.068
(laughter)
00:29:02.159 --> 00:29:04.300
Yeah. So yeah, these--
00:29:04.300 --> 00:29:07.896
When we look at Wikidata
and how much it uses mathematical,
00:29:07.896 --> 00:29:11.511
or pseudo-mathematical language of, like,
00:29:11.511 --> 00:29:16.040
opposite of, distinct from,
in the set of...
00:29:17.080 --> 00:29:18.890
Yeah, reality is more complex
00:29:18.890 --> 00:29:21.826
than the mathematics
we have to represent it.
00:29:23.441 --> 00:29:25.323
I don't have a smart answer there
except to say
00:29:25.323 --> 00:29:27.160
that I used to be
a quantitative researcher
00:29:27.160 --> 00:29:30.417
and I left,
and there is a reason for this.
00:29:33.086 --> 00:29:34.403
(moderator) Next question.
00:29:34.403 --> 00:29:35.735
Who raised hands?
00:29:35.735 --> 00:29:37.165
I see a hand over there?
00:29:45.902 --> 00:29:47.279
(person 3) Hello.
00:29:47.739 --> 00:29:49.636
First of all.
Thank you for this presentation.
00:29:49.636 --> 00:29:51.452
It was very eye-opening.
00:29:53.417 --> 00:29:55.969
I want to tell you,
but first of all--
00:29:55.969 --> 00:29:58.523
there's a Wikimedia--
I don't know if you know
00:29:58.523 --> 00:30:00.826
about the community LGBT+ user group.
00:30:00.826 --> 00:30:02.006
So it's a user group,
00:30:02.006 --> 00:30:03.671
and they have this mailing list,
00:30:03.671 --> 00:30:07.589
and they discussing actually
the issue of sex and gender in Wikidata,
00:30:07.589 --> 00:30:09.069
and there is some proposals made
00:30:09.069 --> 00:30:11.651
by LGBT+ people to improve it.
00:30:11.651 --> 00:30:14.900
So, but it's not fully done yet.
00:30:14.900 --> 00:30:18.431
So, there are some plans,
people working on it.
00:30:18.431 --> 00:30:20.279
It would be great
if you want to chime in there
00:30:20.279 --> 00:30:21.578
and give your opinion
00:30:21.578 --> 00:30:24.389
because I'm pretty sure
you're more expert than most of us.
00:30:25.149 --> 00:30:28.001
But I want to give a critique
of this thing that you said
00:30:28.001 --> 00:30:29.938
about hijra people that said
00:30:29.938 --> 00:30:34.277
out of 20,000 editors of Wikidata,
00:30:34.277 --> 00:30:36.594
assuming 2.8 of them will be hijra
00:30:36.594 --> 00:30:39.747
and they need to overcome
all of these 20,000 people
00:30:39.747 --> 00:30:41.147
but this is not true.
00:30:41.147 --> 00:30:45.379
Lots of people, I say assume 20,000 people
00:30:45.379 --> 00:30:47.920
are just unaware of an issue.
00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:49.587
They are not bigots
00:30:49.587 --> 00:30:51.926
or they are not going to actively
00:30:51.926 --> 00:30:54.070
not let people do this.
00:30:54.070 --> 00:30:56.530
And lots of them would help
if you tell them.
00:30:56.530 --> 00:30:59.558
Like, as you [inaudible]
that edits Wikidata,
00:30:59.558 --> 00:31:01.785
I have no idea about this issue
00:31:01.785 --> 00:31:04.162
and if I knew it
I would have fixed it.
00:31:04.660 --> 00:31:05.960
So, yeah.
00:31:05.960 --> 00:31:08.300
Yeah. I totally get what you mean.
00:31:08.878 --> 00:31:11.024
And I want to be clear that I'm not saying
00:31:11.334 --> 00:31:12.985
there are 20,000 people,
00:31:12.985 --> 00:31:14.278
many of whom are in this room,
00:31:14.278 --> 00:31:16.487
although only a tiny percentage
00:31:16.487 --> 00:31:19.672
who are vehement bigots
and cultural imperialists.
00:31:20.341 --> 00:31:22.180
Instead what I'm getting at
is the fact
00:31:22.180 --> 00:31:26.941
that the consensus model,
and discussion-based model
00:31:26.941 --> 00:31:31.015
that the WikiProjects are based on
00:31:31.015 --> 00:31:33.085
has a couple of flaws,
00:31:33.085 --> 00:31:34.304
and one of the big flaws
00:31:34.304 --> 00:31:39.238
is that it assumes that all of the voices
worth representing are there
00:31:39.238 --> 00:31:42.310
and are represented
somewhat proportionately.
00:31:42.310 --> 00:31:46.192
Consensus started off
as a model in Quaker communities
00:31:46.192 --> 00:31:49.100
where literally everyone impacted
by a decision was in the room,
00:31:49.100 --> 00:31:52.690
because everyone impacted
by a decision could fit in the room.
00:31:53.810 --> 00:31:58.700
And so my point
with this 2.85 number is not to say
00:31:58.700 --> 00:32:01.421
you have to argue
with the entire population of Wikidata
00:32:01.421 --> 00:32:03.497
every time you want to make any decision,
00:32:03.497 --> 00:32:07.518
but instead to say
that the consensus model
00:32:07.518 --> 00:32:11.476
and the majoritarian model
of what knowledge should be represented
00:32:11.476 --> 00:32:13.846
runs fundamentally into a problem
00:32:13.846 --> 00:32:20.693
when the people
who are being underrepresented
00:32:20.693 --> 00:32:22.680
are underrepresented.
00:32:23.634 --> 00:32:26.330
For another example, and a real one,
00:32:27.514 --> 00:32:29.633
Myanmar as a country.
00:32:30.294 --> 00:32:34.524
The English Wikipedia claims
that it was called Burma
00:32:34.524 --> 00:32:37.057
until a couple of years ago.
00:32:39.028 --> 00:32:41.258
And the reasoning for this
was very simple.
00:32:42.557 --> 00:32:45.368
The BBC didn't like calling it Myanmar
00:32:45.368 --> 00:32:47.568
and a load of editors--
00:32:47.568 --> 00:32:49.376
(person 4) [inaudible] completely wrong.
00:32:49.376 --> 00:32:50.485
Sorry.
00:32:50.485 --> 00:32:51.917
(laughter)
00:32:53.481 --> 00:32:56.057
You run into this issue of like...
00:32:56.057 --> 00:32:58.261
I know it's not the precise thing,
but it's just...
00:32:58.261 --> 00:33:01.553
- (person 4) : [inaudible] it's actually--
- (moderator) I give you the mic, sir.
00:33:02.184 --> 00:33:03.290
- Yes?
- (person 4) I'm sorry,
00:33:03.290 --> 00:33:05.453
that's just incredibly playing
being ignorant and that...
00:33:05.453 --> 00:33:07.759
- Okay. Go for it.
- (person 4) That's an absolute terrible,
00:33:07.759 --> 00:33:10.460
terrible mischaracterization
of the political situation in Myanmar.
00:33:10.460 --> 00:33:11.482
Okay. Go for it.
00:33:11.857 --> 00:33:14.821
(person 4) Anyways, so basically
what it is is that the country--
00:33:15.733 --> 00:33:17.339
in the Burmese language
00:33:17.339 --> 00:33:20.111
the country can be referred to as
Myanma or Bama.
00:33:20.111 --> 00:33:21.121
Yep.
00:33:21.121 --> 00:33:22.831
Myanma tends to be a more
formal register
00:33:22.831 --> 00:33:25.074
and Bama tends to be
a little bit more informal register
00:33:25.074 --> 00:33:28.045
but both are acceptable terms
for the country.
00:33:30.561 --> 00:33:34.759
The term Burma came obviously
from the term Bama,
00:33:36.205 --> 00:33:38.281
but what happened was
00:33:38.281 --> 00:33:40.392
there is no official...
00:33:41.922 --> 00:33:47.512
The country was officially referred
to, in English, as Burma
00:33:47.512 --> 00:33:50.186
up until 1988-- 1989, excuse me,
00:33:50.977 --> 00:33:53.361
when the military government
of the country
00:33:53.924 --> 00:33:56.419
basically decided,
the military junta of the country decided
00:33:56.419 --> 00:33:59.199
that the country should be
referred to as Myanma.
00:33:59.454 --> 00:34:04.526
Ostensibly, this was as an attempt
to make the country name
00:34:04.526 --> 00:34:07.545
more acceptable to minorities
within the country.
00:34:08.022 --> 00:34:10.160
However, this is a bit
of historical revisionism
00:34:10.160 --> 00:34:12.864
because Myanma and Bama
specifically refer
00:34:12.864 --> 00:34:15.384
to the majority ethnicity in the country.
00:34:15.384 --> 00:34:20.040
So, it was basically the government
of Burma at the time--
00:34:20.040 --> 00:34:22.524
trying to make the people
equivalent to the country,
00:34:22.524 --> 00:34:23.833
therefore implicitly saying--
00:34:23.833 --> 00:34:25.755
(person 4) Almost the opposite,
00:34:25.755 --> 00:34:27.494
but in a really weird way.
00:34:27.494 --> 00:34:30.500
They basically declared that
Bama was in reference to the ethnicity
00:34:30.500 --> 00:34:32.625
and Myanma was in reference
to the country,
00:34:32.625 --> 00:34:34.645
when historically they both
represent ethnicity
00:34:34.645 --> 00:34:35.798
and the country.
00:34:35.798 --> 00:34:36.879
That makes sense.
00:34:37.060 --> 00:34:42.006
(person 4) But what happen was
because Democrat advocates
00:34:42.006 --> 00:34:45.032
within the country
believed that the military junta
00:34:45.032 --> 00:34:46.820
did not have the power
00:34:46.820 --> 00:34:48.585
to be able to change
the name of the country
00:34:48.585 --> 00:34:49.763
in any language,
00:34:49.763 --> 00:34:52.183
because they were not
empowered by the people of the country.
00:34:52.183 --> 00:34:57.655
and were explicitly
a military junta that they...
00:34:57.655 --> 00:34:59.371
therefore the country should continue
00:34:59.371 --> 00:35:02.481
to be referred to Burma in English.
00:35:02.481 --> 00:35:05.570
Because of the fact that essentially
to call it Myanmar is essentially to say
00:35:05.570 --> 00:35:09.692
the government of Burma and Myanmar
at the time was legitimate.
00:35:10.451 --> 00:35:12.629
After the fall of the-- well not fall,
00:35:12.629 --> 00:35:16.776
but after like the semi return
of civilian government in 2014,
00:35:18.231 --> 00:35:19.732
this question came up,
00:35:19.732 --> 00:35:22.262
"Okay, should we call this country
Burma or Myanmar in English?"
00:35:22.262 --> 00:35:24.705
and essentially,
the facto leader of the country,
00:35:24.705 --> 00:35:26.324
Aung San Suu Kyi,
00:35:26.324 --> 00:35:29.281
said that there's nothing
in the Burmese constitution
00:35:29.281 --> 00:35:31.426
that says you know,
what you should call it in English
00:35:31.426 --> 00:35:32.932
so call it whatever you want.
00:35:33.124 --> 00:35:34.493
I mean the name of the country
00:35:34.493 --> 00:35:38.557
is officially the Union of Myanma
in Burmese,
00:35:38.557 --> 00:35:41.025
but as far as in English
you can call it whatever you want.
00:35:41.025 --> 00:35:44.916
But generally before the return
of the civilian government in Burma,
00:35:45.927 --> 00:35:47.807
to refer to it is as Myanmar
was essentially
00:35:47.807 --> 00:35:52.190
to legitimize the military government.
00:35:52.466 --> 00:35:53.611
And so therefore,
00:35:53.611 --> 00:35:57.340
to call it Burma was generally considered
to be a specific political act
00:35:57.340 --> 00:35:58.948
to not give that government legitimacy.
00:35:58.948 --> 00:36:02.758
Yeah. So, I'm not saying that
that isn't a rationale for it.
00:36:02.758 --> 00:36:06.113
I'm saying that
on the English Wikipedia specifically,
00:36:06.113 --> 00:36:10.521
the page went through seven requested
move discussions
00:36:10.521 --> 00:36:14.660
over four years
and a mediation cabal decision,
00:36:14.660 --> 00:36:17.092
and an attempted structured mediation,
00:36:17.092 --> 00:36:21.179
and a review of one the closures
of the move discussion,
00:36:21.179 --> 00:36:23.878
and that when you look
at the discussions,
00:36:23.878 --> 00:36:26.511
most of the sort of argument
back and forth
00:36:26.511 --> 00:36:29.074
is not about
the nuanced political situation
00:36:29.074 --> 00:36:30.205
of the country
00:36:30.205 --> 00:36:33.776
but it's instead about
what is the common name in media sources
00:36:33.776 --> 00:36:36.372
and what do
different institutions call it.
00:36:36.372 --> 00:36:38.287
And that when you look at the discussion,
00:36:38.287 --> 00:36:42.775
you can see a clear point
where pretty much every news organization
00:36:42.775 --> 00:36:45.225
that isn't the BBC
in the English Language,
00:36:45.225 --> 00:36:47.941
that's considered like a major
western news source
00:36:47.941 --> 00:36:49.849
has switched their language sources,
00:36:49.849 --> 00:36:53.547
and the debate
essentially becomes a debate
00:36:53.547 --> 00:36:56.831
of whether we should listen
to the Wall Street Journal
00:36:56.831 --> 00:36:58.372
or the BBC.
00:36:58.531 --> 00:37:02.925
So the point I'm making
is not about the specific politics
00:37:02.925 --> 00:37:04.685
of the situation, but instead the fact
00:37:04.685 --> 00:37:07.588
that it's really easy for those decisions
00:37:07.588 --> 00:37:12.877
to actually become almost a proxy dispute
of how much do we love the BBC,
00:37:14.469 --> 00:37:16.139
and that when you look at the discussions
00:37:16.139 --> 00:37:18.169
you see this really nice case study
00:37:18.169 --> 00:37:21.834
in the issues of having
those conversations
00:37:21.834 --> 00:37:25.619
and having those nuanced,
and often insider perspectives
00:37:25.619 --> 00:37:28.919
when most of the discussions
are centered around
00:37:28.919 --> 00:37:30.421
how much we love the BBC
00:37:30.421 --> 00:37:33.742
and are coming from people
who are outside the context.
00:37:34.221 --> 00:37:35.734
So, it's not--
00:37:35.734 --> 00:37:37.323
My point in all of this is basically
00:37:37.323 --> 00:37:41.219
that even if you're not fighting
20,000 people,
00:37:42.009 --> 00:37:44.797
even if you're only arguing
with 20 people,
00:37:44.797 --> 00:37:47.063
probabilistically, 19 of them
00:37:47.063 --> 00:37:50.732
are going to be people
who have very strong opinions,
00:37:50.732 --> 00:37:53.400
who don't necessarily bear
any negative consequences
00:37:53.400 --> 00:37:56.095
of whichever change happens,
00:37:56.095 --> 00:37:59.542
but have a particular world view
and have decided to stick in it,
00:37:59.542 --> 00:38:03.526
and so the proposals
by the LGBTQ+ group
00:38:03.526 --> 00:38:06.320
to change the Wikidata criteria
00:38:06.320 --> 00:38:09.327
might be amazing, I might love them,
I might not love them,
00:38:09.327 --> 00:38:11.251
I haven't read them.
00:38:11.688 --> 00:38:14.575
But the base premise of this is...
00:38:15.168 --> 00:38:18.395
We got the people who show up
on Wikidata right now,
00:38:18.395 --> 00:38:22.053
and those are the representatives
of all queer people
00:38:22.053 --> 00:38:25.912
and this is the universal rule
of what should be done
00:38:25.912 --> 00:38:27.840
with the content of all queer people
00:38:27.840 --> 00:38:31.342
is almost a microcosm
of the same problem.
00:38:31.512 --> 00:38:34.083
- (moderator) We have another question.
- Yep.
00:38:34.437 --> 00:38:35.910
(person 5) Hi.
00:38:36.141 --> 00:38:38.249
I think there's another problem
00:38:38.249 --> 00:38:43.117
with the consensus-based approach we have,
00:38:43.117 --> 00:38:45.754
is that sometimes we have consensus
00:38:45.754 --> 00:38:48.507
on really difficult issues
on how to deal with that
00:38:48.507 --> 00:38:52.998
and [inaudible] that on Wikidata,
and nobody is reading the discussion.
00:38:53.855 --> 00:38:55.979
Typically, the project Names,
00:38:55.979 --> 00:39:00.560
which is a really, really old
WikiProject on Wikidata--
00:39:00.560 --> 00:39:05.020
and names are a really,
really complicated issue in the world.
00:39:05.020 --> 00:39:07.952
Not every people of the world
have a given name,
00:39:07.952 --> 00:39:12.187
not every people have a family name,
not, well, you have an idea.
00:39:12.187 --> 00:39:15.259
And there are so many
writing systems out there,
00:39:15.259 --> 00:39:18.103
and we have, actually, a system
00:39:18.103 --> 00:39:22.181
which was working
for many cases in the world
00:39:22.181 --> 00:39:23.900
on how to use properties,
00:39:23.900 --> 00:39:25.904
what items should look like,
00:39:25.904 --> 00:39:28.326
how to link these together
and everything--
00:39:28.326 --> 00:39:30.024
We have eight pages--
00:39:30.024 --> 00:39:34.303
nobody is reading that,
and someone just added
00:39:34.303 --> 00:39:39.045
Latin script family names
to a Chinese researcher.
00:39:39.880 --> 00:39:44.493
So, we don't have the names
of these researchers
00:39:44.493 --> 00:39:48.790
but we know for sure
that the value added was wrong.
00:39:48.790 --> 00:39:50.185
I don't have the correct value,
00:39:50.185 --> 00:39:52.195
but I know this one
is not the correct value.
00:39:52.740 --> 00:39:57.241
And it's not just discussing the issue
00:39:57.241 --> 00:39:59.363
because we have big discussions
00:39:59.363 --> 00:40:01.082
and we have actually modeling
00:40:01.082 --> 00:40:07.570
which is mostly working on
and even qualifier on things to deal
00:40:07.570 --> 00:40:09.548
with more complicated cases
00:40:09.548 --> 00:40:13.574
but people are just,
"Oh, given names suggest a property,
00:40:13.574 --> 00:40:15.321
I will just add that."
00:40:16.049 --> 00:40:17.713
- No.
- Yeah.
00:40:18.220 --> 00:40:21.354
I think it's not just
how to model thing,
00:40:21.354 --> 00:40:25.302
it's really how to explain
to people the model,
00:40:25.302 --> 00:40:30.595
and that's a technical part--
we could have tools with suggestions
00:40:30.595 --> 00:40:34.515
and I think the constraint thing
which went live last year
00:40:34.515 --> 00:40:36.227
is a great thing for that.
00:40:36.446 --> 00:40:39.754
But even when we know to model thing,
00:40:39.910 --> 00:40:44.569
it's how to make
this model known to people.
00:40:44.569 --> 00:40:49.029
That's a bit technical issue
on how to do that better.
00:40:53.566 --> 00:40:55.090
(moderator) So, there was just remark.
00:40:55.090 --> 00:40:57.881
There's no real question for you?
00:40:58.315 --> 00:40:59.738
Or that's a question to you?
00:40:59.738 --> 00:41:02.061
- How to do that.
- (person 5) Yeah, it's a question.
00:41:02.679 --> 00:41:05.971
(person 5): Sorry,
even if we have the discussion,
00:41:05.971 --> 00:41:07.486
(moderator) Yeah, sure.
00:41:08.346 --> 00:41:10.826
(person 5) My question,
if I was not clear, is that
00:41:10.826 --> 00:41:12.947
even when everyone is in agreement
00:41:12.947 --> 00:41:15.210
on how to model complicated cases,
00:41:15.210 --> 00:41:20.375
how do we make technically
the model known for project
00:41:20.375 --> 00:41:22.385
with the scope of Wikidata,
00:41:22.385 --> 00:41:26.690
so people are not adding
the wrong value in good faith?
00:41:26.690 --> 00:41:30.216
Because our problem is both.
00:41:30.216 --> 00:41:33.516
We have trouble
modeling complicated realities,
00:41:33.516 --> 00:41:39.132
and we have trouble explaining
to users, how to follow the model
00:41:39.132 --> 00:41:40.530
we actually have.
00:41:40.530 --> 00:41:42.157
Yep.
00:41:43.436 --> 00:41:45.675
I will say that
if I could solve that problem
00:41:45.675 --> 00:41:48.232
which is to reframe it,
00:41:48.232 --> 00:41:52.601
how to reliably and consistently
enculture new users
00:41:52.601 --> 00:41:57.142
into having the same view
and understanding
00:41:57.142 --> 00:41:59.520
of the project space,
00:41:59.520 --> 00:42:01.548
then they would let me graduate
00:42:01.548 --> 00:42:03.110
and also give me a job.
00:42:03.110 --> 00:42:09.235
It's the second oldest problem
in internet spaces is how to do that.
00:42:09.235 --> 00:42:12.144
The oldest problem is writing a system
00:42:12.144 --> 00:42:14.494
that will automatically detect insults.
00:42:16.121 --> 00:42:18.591
I will say that...
00:42:18.591 --> 00:42:21.020
You can look back at Wikipedia,
00:42:21.020 --> 00:42:22.680
or before that,
there was the phenomenon
00:42:22.680 --> 00:42:26.897
of eternal September on Usenet
00:42:26.897 --> 00:42:30.295
which was, "Oh these people keep--
AOL disks have gone everywhere
00:42:30.295 --> 00:42:31.487
and now there's newcomers
00:42:31.487 --> 00:42:34.033
all the time who don't know
how things work around here,
00:42:34.033 --> 00:42:37.861
and everything is drowning
in people hitting "Reply All."
00:42:39.804 --> 00:42:42.340
Generally speaking,
the place that I would look for that
00:42:42.340 --> 00:42:47.691
is there is a discipline called,
"Computer-supported collaborative work,"
00:42:47.944 --> 00:42:49.750
and one of their big questions
00:42:49.750 --> 00:42:54.465
is this question of onboarding,
and of like...
00:42:54.979 --> 00:42:57.907
making the culture known to people.
00:42:57.907 --> 00:43:01.203
But it may not be something
that is directly solvable,
00:43:01.203 --> 00:43:03.301
or that we want to directly solve, right?
00:43:03.301 --> 00:43:06.751
So, Susan Leigh Star
who wrote Sorting Things Out,
00:43:06.751 --> 00:43:08.144
one of her other contributions
00:43:08.144 --> 00:43:12.586
was generally the study of infrastructures
00:43:12.586 --> 00:43:15.339
of which I would argue Wikidata
is definitely one,
00:43:15.844 --> 00:43:18.757
and of the things that she argued
00:43:18.757 --> 00:43:21.706
was that infrastructures
make themselves known
00:43:21.706 --> 00:43:23.012
through using them.
00:43:23.012 --> 00:43:27.564
So like, basically the only way
to work out how a system works
00:43:27.564 --> 00:43:31.730
is to engage with it,
and trip over, and fall flat on your face,
00:43:31.730 --> 00:43:34.761
and learn not to fall over that way again.
00:43:35.156 --> 00:43:39.903
And I think everyone everywhere,
including new users,
00:43:40.718 --> 00:43:42.906
including people
coming from other projects,
00:43:42.906 --> 00:43:48.620
wants a way of approaching this
where they don't have to fall over.
00:43:49.291 --> 00:43:51.411
But I'm not sure if that exists,
00:43:51.411 --> 00:43:55.521
and I think that a better place
we might look is maybe to ask
00:43:56.321 --> 00:43:58.934
what are the consequences
of people screwing up
00:43:58.934 --> 00:44:02.512
and how do we make screwing up
an understandable
00:44:02.512 --> 00:44:07.152
and a more expected component
of the user experience.
00:44:07.517 --> 00:44:09.696
(moderator) Okay thanks.
Next question.
00:44:10.750 --> 00:44:11.990
(person 6) Thank you.
00:44:13.118 --> 00:44:15.478
So, first, thank you very much
for your presentation to us.
00:44:15.478 --> 00:44:17.486
Again, someone said, eye-opening.
00:44:18.172 --> 00:44:23.195
I was looking at the specific item
on transsexualism,
00:44:23.836 --> 00:44:27.231
and it's actually even more interesting
00:44:27.231 --> 00:44:29.467
because I was looking
at different Wikipedias,
00:44:29.467 --> 00:44:32.244
how they dealt with the issue.
00:44:32.441 --> 00:44:34.512
And I just look at three.
00:44:34.682 --> 00:44:38.193
So, apparently, what
we are seeing on Wikidata
00:44:38.193 --> 00:44:44.390
actually reflects pretty much
what happened to some extent
00:44:44.830 --> 00:44:47.253
at some level on English Wikipedia,
00:44:47.253 --> 00:44:50.818
whereas if you look
at Portuguese Wikipedia,
00:44:51.384 --> 00:44:55.477
the actual item connects to transgender,
00:44:56.429 --> 00:45:02.271
and on French Wikipedia
it connects to trans identity
00:45:02.835 --> 00:45:07.930
whereas transsexualism is a redirect
in both Portuguese and French.
00:45:08.569 --> 00:45:14.511
And I was looking at the history
of editing on the Wikidata item,
00:45:15.185 --> 00:45:18.899
and if you look at--
there were several sort of wars
00:45:18.899 --> 00:45:22.424
but the discussion page
is actually only one line,
00:45:22.719 --> 00:45:26.015
but there were several conflicts
between editors,
00:45:26.015 --> 00:45:28.369
particularly with the French
00:45:28.369 --> 00:45:32.143
that were opposing
the use of transsexualism.
00:45:32.143 --> 00:45:35.947
If you look at the names of the items
on each language,
00:45:35.947 --> 00:45:38.924
the only one on which
you don't have transsexualism
00:45:38.924 --> 00:45:41.182
is French for trans identity,
00:45:41.182 --> 00:45:45.100
and then someone came,
and did what you said about
00:45:45.100 --> 00:45:47.478
it's the opposite [inaudible],
trans identity,
00:45:47.478 --> 00:45:50.734
and then there is a different item that--
00:45:50.734 --> 00:45:51.940
Oh yeah.
00:45:51.940 --> 00:45:56.356
(person 6) So, it's a complete
global fight over...
00:45:56.356 --> 00:45:59.498
basically it's reverberating conflicts
00:45:59.498 --> 00:46:03.221
that are apparently also
00:46:03.221 --> 00:46:08.462
the manifestations of conflicts
that happen on each Wikipedia.
00:46:08.462 --> 00:46:12.224
Yes, that also reflect conflicts
in local cultures,
00:46:12.224 --> 00:46:14.462
and in different parts
of the world, yeah...
00:46:14.757 --> 00:46:16.718
And I'd argue that, I mean,
00:46:16.718 --> 00:46:20.524
I'm British so I have a tendency
to say, "Wait, fighting with the French?"
00:46:20.524 --> 00:46:21.652
"Yes, Please!"
00:46:21.652 --> 00:46:22.873
(laughter)
00:46:22.873 --> 00:46:27.094
But I'd say there's almost something
more fundamental than that,
00:46:27.094 --> 00:46:29.478
and you can make an argument
in the other direction.
00:46:29.478 --> 00:46:32.651
I can, as a trans person, make an argument
in the other direction and say,
00:46:32.651 --> 00:46:36.070
"Actually, it's the French
and Portuguese who have it wrong."
00:46:36.070 --> 00:46:38.274
Because the actual question is
00:46:38.274 --> 00:46:40.456
is the entry transsexualism about
00:46:40.456 --> 00:46:44.947
the medical classification,
or the state of being,
00:46:45.166 --> 00:46:48.343
or the historic medical classification,
00:46:48.343 --> 00:46:50.938
or the historic term
for the state of being,
00:46:50.938 --> 00:46:53.517
or are these different entries,
or the same entries?
00:46:53.517 --> 00:46:56.418
When are things distinct enough
to be different objects,
00:46:56.418 --> 00:46:58.646
and how do we negotiate that fight
00:46:58.646 --> 00:47:00.780
between people who think
that the medical status
00:47:00.780 --> 00:47:04.268
and the identity are the same thing,
or different things.
00:47:05.273 --> 00:47:08.032
But yeah, there is no easy answer
00:47:08.032 --> 00:47:10.496
but yeah, I suspect
if you look at a lot of these examples,
00:47:10.496 --> 00:47:12.588
and if you look
at a lot of controversies,
00:47:12.588 --> 00:47:13.829
generally on Wikidata
00:47:13.829 --> 00:47:17.548
what you're going to see is
these fights over...
00:47:17.548 --> 00:47:19.225
These almost negotiations
00:47:19.225 --> 00:47:20.861
are the local community norms,
00:47:20.861 --> 00:47:23.692
and beyond that are the cultural norms.
00:47:23.949 --> 00:47:25.597
Which is a problem because again,
00:47:25.597 --> 00:47:28.804
when we're talking about marginalized
or minority groups,
00:47:29.314 --> 00:47:33.582
we would expect them to also
be marginalized within Wiki communities,
00:47:33.582 --> 00:47:36.594
and also within Wikidata,
00:47:36.594 --> 00:47:38.440
and so Wikidata is sort of...
00:47:39.701 --> 00:47:42.901
building on these
preexisting prioritizations
00:47:42.901 --> 00:47:45.343
of whose knowledge matters,
and under what circumstances
00:47:45.343 --> 00:47:47.059
and in what form.
00:47:48.129 --> 00:47:51.485
(person 7): I wanted to touch
on something you mentioned.
00:47:52.415 --> 00:47:57.790
Everything is complex
and I think modeling it right,
00:47:57.790 --> 00:48:00.322
getting it right on Wikidata
00:48:00.322 --> 00:48:02.661
is not the sum of the issue.
00:48:02.661 --> 00:48:05.263
As you said, Wikidata is infrastructure,
00:48:05.263 --> 00:48:08.621
and as [Hermione] said,
00:48:08.621 --> 00:48:12.917
we have gotten it right perhaps
in some things, in some other topics,
00:48:12.917 --> 00:48:15.375
and still can't
actually practice it right.
00:48:15.375 --> 00:48:16.500
Yep.
00:48:16.500 --> 00:48:18.098
(person 7): So I want to suggest that
00:48:18.098 --> 00:48:21.618
this is a prevalent condition
of the human race.
00:48:22.880 --> 00:48:28.480
And however well we model something,
even if we model gender
00:48:29.187 --> 00:48:32.900
ten times more complexly
than we do today,
00:48:33.316 --> 00:48:36.492
most SPARQL queries involving gender
would not bother
00:48:36.492 --> 00:48:38.159
- with the qualifiers right?
- Yeah.
00:48:38.159 --> 00:48:42.333
And would still generate very,
very flattened, very simplified results.
00:48:42.333 --> 00:48:46.862
Google's use of our data
in the infamous Google infoboxes
00:48:46.862 --> 00:48:49.689
will also flatten the data
and ignore qualifiers.
00:48:49.929 --> 00:48:51.766
That is not going to change.
00:48:51.766 --> 00:48:54.646
Wikidata will continue to be used
in simplistic ways.
00:48:55.654 --> 00:48:57.179
Indeed, the majority of use,
00:48:57.179 --> 00:48:59.397
probably, will be that simplistic thing.
00:49:00.020 --> 00:49:03.583
My point is, it's probably not fixable
00:49:03.583 --> 00:49:05.441
and we shouldn't stop trying.
00:49:06.804 --> 00:49:08.816
I mean we should try to get it right
00:49:08.816 --> 00:49:12.753
and understand that a lot of the use is,
despite our best efforts,
00:49:12.753 --> 00:49:14.643
going to be simplistic and wrong.
00:49:14.643 --> 00:49:16.439
Yep. I would agree with that.
00:49:16.951 --> 00:49:18.629
I guess I would say that
00:49:18.629 --> 00:49:20.469
you know,
it's not about like,
00:49:20.469 --> 00:49:23.691
my issue here is not about
it being you know,
00:49:23.691 --> 00:49:26.259
there is one true
incredibly complex answer.
00:49:28.099 --> 00:49:30.432
At some point I just gave up
00:49:30.432 --> 00:49:36.138
even in my thesis which is about
transness and technology
00:49:36.138 --> 00:49:37.900
of defining transness.
00:49:37.900 --> 00:49:39.473
I just gave up.
00:49:39.673 --> 00:49:44.727
And I instead took what is referred to
as a pragmatist view,
00:49:44.727 --> 00:49:47.077
which is basically that
it is whatever the people
00:49:47.077 --> 00:49:49.278
in the situation that you're studying
believe it to be,
00:49:49.278 --> 00:49:53.447
and however they construct
the world as if it were,
00:49:54.983 --> 00:49:56.559
and what I'm getting at this
00:49:56.559 --> 00:49:59.377
is not that there is
some universal definition
00:49:59.377 --> 00:50:01.696
of anything which,
if sufficiently complicated,
00:50:01.696 --> 00:50:04.760
would be enough,
00:50:04.760 --> 00:50:08.775
but instead that I think
that the scale is the problem,
00:50:08.775 --> 00:50:10.898
and the universalism is the problem.
00:50:12.650 --> 00:50:14.560
Maybe we should keep trying,
00:50:14.560 --> 00:50:16.065
or maybe we should stop.
00:50:16.065 --> 00:50:18.846
Maybe we should instead say
that, again,
00:50:18.846 --> 00:50:23.442
there should be a Wikibase install
in every self-defined community
00:50:23.442 --> 00:50:27.893
that wants it and they can define things,
and articulate things
00:50:27.893 --> 00:50:30.220
to their own satisfaction.
00:50:30.800 --> 00:50:32.995
But then we end up in more political
00:50:32.995 --> 00:50:37.023
and fraught debates of a reformist
versus radical actions,
00:50:37.023 --> 00:50:40.186
and how you open a box
with a crowbar that's already inside it,
00:50:40.186 --> 00:50:42.241
and I end up quoting Foucault for an hour,
00:50:42.241 --> 00:50:44.185
and everyone gets sad.
00:50:44.535 --> 00:50:46.929
Including me because I hate Foucault.
00:50:47.495 --> 00:50:49.249
So this might be a discussion
for elsewhere.
00:50:49.249 --> 00:50:51.687
But generally agreed, I just--
00:50:51.977 --> 00:50:54.236
I would raise questions about
00:50:54.236 --> 00:50:55.691
whether we should keep trying
00:50:55.691 --> 00:50:57.699
for a better form of universalism,
00:50:57.699 --> 00:51:00.145
or whether the problem
is that universalism.
00:51:00.704 --> 00:51:03.495
I'm guessing we have
a time for one more? Yeah.
00:51:04.040 --> 00:51:07.516
(person 8): This is a short question,
possibly complex answer.
00:51:07.776 --> 00:51:10.131
One of the most popular
00:51:10.131 --> 00:51:15.352
and used properties is sex
or gender on Wikidata.
00:51:16.329 --> 00:51:18.135
Could you speak to whether you find
00:51:18.135 --> 00:51:24.640
that merging useful,
productive, problematic?
00:51:26.264 --> 00:51:28.276
Sure, I mean I think it's always
00:51:28.276 --> 00:51:30.209
going to be reductive
cause it's a merging.
00:51:31.137 --> 00:51:35.700
But I also think
that it is deeply tiresome
00:51:36.790 --> 00:51:38.602
in a way that's kind of interesting
00:51:38.602 --> 00:51:42.423
insofar as it reveals
the limitations of Wikidata,
00:51:42.423 --> 00:51:44.035
though Wikidata claims to be building
00:51:44.035 --> 00:51:47.298
towards this like big objective
set of knowledge,
00:51:47.298 --> 00:51:49.454
but ultimately kind of
smushed these things together
00:51:49.454 --> 00:51:52.648
because I mean they haven't asked
00:51:52.648 --> 00:51:55.862
most people who have entries
what their gender is,
00:51:55.862 --> 00:51:57.287
and/or what their sex is,
00:51:57.287 --> 00:51:59.266
and so they just merge them
00:51:59.266 --> 00:52:01.812
so that inference is easier.
00:52:02.037 --> 00:52:04.811
But generally speaking, yeah,
I say that the merging
00:52:04.811 --> 00:52:08.833
of the two together
is reductive and dangerous
00:52:08.833 --> 00:52:10.229
but...
00:52:11.517 --> 00:52:13.217
Again it's not...
00:52:13.645 --> 00:52:15.027
There is no good way of doing it.
00:52:15.027 --> 00:52:17.682
I think this is a particularly bad way
00:52:18.400 --> 00:52:22.263
of treating them
as interchangeable things,
00:52:22.993 --> 00:52:26.371
and treating them
as forever-linked things,
00:52:27.985 --> 00:52:31.728
but I can't suggest a better way
that remains--
00:52:32.147 --> 00:52:33.866
that continues to have Wikidata
00:52:33.866 --> 00:52:36.484
even tracking this information
or the information contained
00:52:36.484 --> 00:52:38.134
in that at all.
00:52:38.592 --> 00:52:40.671
(moderator): Okay.
I think we have to conclude here.
00:52:40.671 --> 00:52:42.335
I still saw some raised hands
00:52:42.335 --> 00:52:43.565
so hopefully you'll be around.
00:52:43.565 --> 00:52:45.529
Yeah. I am a grad student.
00:52:45.529 --> 00:52:47.316
I have functionally no life, so...
00:52:47.316 --> 00:52:48.359
(laughter)
00:52:48.359 --> 00:52:51.632
(moderator): Perfect. Okay.
So please come and talk.
00:52:52.311 --> 00:52:53.801
Thank you very much.
00:52:54.035 --> 00:52:56.181
(applause)