I'll be happy to see a lot of the information and reasoning explained in the harassment document, including first encouraging people to contact an administrator. (Identifying administrators who are experienced in the topic would help too.)
Reasons one might not immediately contact police - unless the guy is basically outside your door- have been explained above. Like not having enough details to satisfy them or their not taking it very seriously anyway, unless they are outside the door. And then some will always be fearful that such a complaint will lead to a search of their own computers for the evidence there was a crime and they don't want the govt snooping around in there (any more than it may already be without their knowing about it).
My main goal is better guidance on Wikipedia.
On 9/26/2015 4:38 PM, Risker wrote:
I have a simple question to ask: How many people in this thread have publicly or privately requested to the Wikimedia Foundation ED that additional resources be assigned to trust and safety issues such as death threats?
There was an annual plan posted for about three days of community comment back in May/June. Did anyone in this thread say "wait a minute, we think you have your priorities wrong here"?
I'm a little stunned that several people including those with years of activism under their belts would think that complaining on a mailing list that is at most hosted by the WMF (and certainly not controlled by it or monitored by it) would result in changes. The English Wikipedia community can't tell WMF staffers what to do: we're not their employers, we don't set their objectives or their job descriptions, and so on. The lack of additional resources comes right from the top here. If you want it, you need to be telling the Board, you need to be telling the ED, and you need to be telling the Senior Director of Community Engagement, Luis Villa. This list isn't gonna do it. Posting on Wikipediocracy is the equivalent of throwing coins in a well. Focus your attention on the people who have control of the money and persuade them this is something more important than...I don't know, whether notifications are flagged using one tag or two...
Risker/Anne