On 21/12/2007, Nathan Awrich <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I noticed that thread on AN/I and thought perhaps
people were being
too dismissive. We should follow the lead of the folks who are
professional in these areas and not take the decision upon ourselves,
i.e. report what we can and allow police/school administrators to
decide whether a particular threat is credible. A quick e-mail to
school administration that a threat was posted using a school
IP/against a particular school takes little time and prevents a news
article saying "Wikipedia ignored threat, 27 died."
A random Wikipedian will likely be reasonably smart and capable of
contacting people, even if they can't reasonably be expected to be
skilled in what to do in such an issue.
But - contacting the police and/or school authorities is a good idea,
because they're highly skilled in dealing with such things (one would
hope).
(Also, it helps the Foundation if you let them know too - who you are,
who you contacted - in case of the precise "who could have helped with
this?" scenario you outline.)
- d.