Once I saw that only 600 odd editors elected Arbcom I saw how easy it
was for cliques and POV pushers supporting specific Arbs to take it over
and use it for their own purposes, including continuing male supremacy
on Wikipedia... They should have at least a floor of 1000 editors before
the election is finalized. That might help a little.
On 5/27/2015 12:43 AM, Risker wrote:
There is a tendency to ascribe a great deal of power
to the
Arbitration Committee of English Wikipedia - and of the various
arbitration committees, it is the one with the greatest scope and
perceived power. In fact, Arbcom has almost no ability to manage the
world outside of the pages of the Wikipedia project, and even within
the project it can only handle minuscule portions of the activities.
It has no power at all to control other websites, can only take action
against Wikipedians acting outside of the project if there is an
extremely clear and direct link between the Wikipedia persona and the
persona outside of WP, and is very wary of taking action in the
absence of direct links because many if not most arbitrators and
functionaries over the last 8-10 years have been the subject of
joe-jobs themselves. I've had to have three separate LinkedIn
accounts purporting to be me taken down over the last 8 years, for
example; others have had their personal images and names attached to
accounts on porn sites, paid editing sites, and a fair number of other
unsavory sites - so as a group we can honestly say "there's plenty of
reason to doubt" in a lot of cases.
Arbcom is not all-powerful. Even the full force of the WMF can only
be turned on to the most extreme cases of harassment; there simply
aren't the human resources to address comparatively run-of-the-mill
harassment, especially when it's occurring outside the walls of their
projects. Not even huge internet-based companies like Facebook,
Twitter, or Yahoo have the personnel or the ability to prevent or
address harassment on unrelated sites, and they have hundreds of times
more "community managers" than the WMF has.
To compare to a non-internet situation: How many police officers
would be needed to effectively stop catcalls being directed to women
walking down the street? Or preventing bullies from picking on the
skinny kid?
We know the answer - there aren't enough cops in the world to stop
these things even in one medium-sized city. What needs to change is
society's attitude toward these activities - and because the internet
isn't a single society, the task is extremely difficult. The WMF
isn't going to be able to solve it, Arbcom doesn't have a hope of
solving it, and as long as the same privacy laws that prevent people
from digging into deeply private information about us also protect
people whose behaviour is very much unappreciated, I'm not sure the
legal systems of most democratic countries will be able to solve it.
Risker/Anne
On 27 May 2015 at 00:21, Neotarf <neotarf(a)gmail.com
<mailto:neotarf@gmail.com>> wrote:
This might also be a good time to mention the conversation about
harassment on the recent Inspire grant project. Fourteen of the
proposals were concerned with managing harassment. I don't
believe I ever saw anyone from the Foundation comment on this.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Community_discussion_on_hara…
Instead we now have the English Wikipedia's Arbcom taking on their
third or fourth sexual harassment within the year, without having
even established a working definition of what it is.
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:06 AM, Neotarf <neotarf(a)gmail.com
<mailto:neotarf@gmail.com>> wrote:
Totally understandable. I too have also been sexually
harassed and doxxed, on at least two other sites besides WP.
The ArbCom and the WMF are well aware of it, and have been
unwilling to lift a finger against it.
There is a book about cyber harassment making the rounds:
"Hate Crimes in Cyberspace" by Danielle Keats Citron ISBN
978-0-674-36829-3 describing both the horrible price that
individuals pay and the legal underpinnings of the problem.
It's a pity WP is not in the vanguard of this movement in the
same way it has pioneered in other areas. Instead, those who
report harassment will find themselves treated worse than the
harassers.
On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 9:49 PM, Carol Moore dc
<carolmooredc(a)verizon.net <mailto:carolmooredc@verizon.net>>
wrote:
On 5/26/2015 8:35 PM, LB wrote:
Due to off-wiki harassment, I have retired. Thank you
to those of you who have been friendly with me over
the past year.
Lightbreather
Plus all that on-wiki harassment!
I did notice something interesting and actually positive
in Lightbreather's arbitration, compared to GGTF and
others I've seen.
Which is that now editors only can comment on Arbitration
talk pages in their own sections. This lessens
opportunities for drive-by harassing taunts against, and
replies against, various editors who harassers are trying
to get kicked off Wikipedia. They have to take
responsibility in their own sections. Perhaps my screaming
about "institutionalized harassment at Arbcom" had at
least this minor effect... I hope they keep it for all
future arbitrations...
Announcement on this page, after which went into effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Ligh…
Also in effect here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Ligh…