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@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_harassment_reporting

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@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@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/Lightbreather/Evidence#Sectioned_discussion_is_now_in_effect_on_this_page

Also in effect here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Lightbreather/Workshop