[Foundation-l] Stalking Article

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 11:54 PM, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd at yahoo.com> wrote:
[snip]
> RickK left because his family was threatened.

Not to belittle your concern about Cyberstalking... but ... RickK
'left' after being blocked for 3RR in a dispute with SPUI of all
people.  (A tangent, I know but I've found that uncorrected statements
have a terrible tendency of becoming 'the truth'. ... )

At the end of the day no one on Wikipedia or at Wikimedia is empowered
to stop real staking (can we drop the 'cyber'? It makes it sound like
a video game.  If you're being stalked does it matter how it got
started?)... Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a vigilante posse, not
law enforcement.

Stalking which is serious and real..  rather than an extended online
pissing match... stuff that endangers people can't be improved by
anointing a few more users as holy emperors of the Wiki.  Take a look
at DavidShankbone's comments on Digg:  David's a nice guy and I have a
lot of sympathy for what he's gone through...   But he writes:  "The
Wikimedia Foundation needs to publicly support the creation of a group
of Wikipedia volunteers who have the authority to define harassment
and stalking and take action against it. They will advise the Stewards
of cases that require a full block across all projects of an IP
range."  ... Now seriously,  if your problems can be actually resolved
by smacking the enemy with a ZOMG WMF WIDE BAN, thats not stalking...
it's an internet pissing match between people who are taking Wikipedia
far too seriously.

Is it a problem that so many good contributors have a problem avoiding
Internet Drama?  Sure...   But to call random internet drama stalking
is akin to yelling "rape" every time you get some unwanted flirtation.
  Overuse of the a serious word diminishes its importance and makes it
insufficiently expressive when we really need it.

In fairness, there are a lot of people on English Wikipedia who have
been stalked, attacked, and otherwise mistreated in serious ways. Yet,
many of those people have also been among those calling for more
impressive ban hammers.  I don't think that just because someone is
asking for an internet-drama solution doesn't mean they don't haven't
been harmed in a serious way.

But the ZOMG WMF WIDE BAN can't actually solve their real problems...
but the real stalking is always intermixed with regular Internet
drama, so I guess that internet drama solutions are what get called
for because actually addressing the stalking is much harder, if not
sometimes impossible, and perhaps when you're looking for revenge
you'll take what you can get... ::shrugs:: I can only guess.