[Foundation-l] Stalking, an attempt to clarify.

[Chad]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:54 AM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:41 AM, John Barberio <barberio at lineone.net> wrote:
> [snip]
>> It's hugely important to understand that the Wikimedia foundation has
>> no ability to take matters into it's own hands to deal with real life
>> threats. They have no policing powers. At best, they could back people
>> up when reporting things to the police or making a case for a
>> restraining order. Wikimedia can neither force the police to take
>> something seriously, or act as vigilantes and go after the stalkers
>> themselves.
> [snip]
>
> Thank you.
>
> [snip]
>> Setting up "Anti-
>> Stalking Task Forces" and private mailing lists is not only useless,
>> it's counter productive.
>
> Again, Thank you.
>
>> Effort should be directed at helping people
>> with support in contacting the police or getting a court order.
>
> ...and perhaps advising users how to avoid becoming a target:  There
> are plenty of active and involved users busily doing both content and
> administrative work who manage to touch controversy without becoming
> embroiled in it.
>
> An admission that we can each do things to avoid these problems *DOES
> NOT* mean that the victim is at fault any more than advice against
> walking through the bad part of town at night is a claim that mugging
> victims are at fault.  .... but at least I feel that if I point out
> ways users can avoid these problems the current culture here would
> torch me as a victim blamer.  We need to get over that.  It's time for
> Wikipedians to get street smart.
>
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[snip]
> It's time for
> Wikipedians to get street smart.
[/snip]

That's the single best suggestion I've read on this list in ages.

-Chad