FWIW: speaking as a non-functionary who is not aware of what information our functionaries had at the time but used to handle abuse cases like this for a major website (and also briefly worked as an actual skiptracer, using purely legal means) the evidence I dug up on my own I would consider absolutely sufficient to tie the two together conclusively. More significantly, as Sarah pointed out, this is happening time after time after time. It becomes much harder to argue that something is incidental, a one-off, or a result of an inability to gather sufficient evidence when a larger pattern presents itself.
Not to keep harping on how important it is to vote for arbcom, but I'm still just flummoxed by the fact that arbcom is elected by about half a percent of very active editors, and a smaller portion still of editors who meet the requirements and have edited in say, the last year. That's not even a gender thing for me at this point - it's just broken (although it certainly has implications w/r/t gender.)
(As a tangent, it amuses me that most people in my experience who ever use the expression 'one bad apple' forget that the full idiom is "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch.")
Best, Kevin Gorman
On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 10:34 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Jonathan, I think there's a bit of talking past each other going on. Rehashing details of one of the many dramafest Arbcom cases is not worthwhile.
From my viewpoint Sarah hit the nail on the head with "Something systemic is happening here. As a result of those cases and many other examples Wikipedia now has a terrible reputation for being sexist."
Improving reputation and recognizing that there is a systemic problem is a far more useful direction to take. Think about a bit of "reframing".
P.S. I was approached by the Atlantic due to my work in the area of revert-wars and the potential relationship to bias. I did a little digging around it, but my thoughts are too slow to satisfy journalists' deadlines. ;-)
Fae
On 22 October 2015 at 18:12, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Sarah,
I'm not a "functionary" so I haven't seen the evidence - clearly it convinces you, but it did not quite convince the functionaries. Reading the result and for example Yunshui's comment I would simply prefer that the record shows we were not fully convinced by the evidence, rather than that we were convinced, but chose not to act. I think what we have here is more than a detail difference. If the decision had been, as reported in the Atlantic, that Arbcom had decided this "on the grounds that it may “out” the editor that had posted the pictures, or link his username to his real name." Then I would have supported a change in policy, or Arbcom membership, so that future Arbcoms in similar situations would be willing to risk outing someone, or just ban them without public reason, rather than leave a harasser unpunished. But if the issue is not that, but instead that the evidence was inconclusive, then I think we have a very different problem to work on. As for the broader picture I don't dispute that Wikipedia has several problems around gender, and some terrible publicity, but if one took that article at face value the obvious next step would be to get a change in policy so that if Arbcom were convinced of the evidence they could and would have acted.
Jonathan
On 22 October 2015 at 17:37, Sarah (SV) slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
WSC, the evidence as to who posted the porn images was, I would say, conclusive. We nevertheless ended up with a situation in which a man who had been engaged in harassment (much of which was onwiki and had been going on for about a year) was let off the hook, and the harassed woman was banned.
There was a similar situation in the GGTF case, so the Lightbreather case was not an unfortunate one-off. For example, the man who was blocked for harassment during the Lightbreather case should have been blocked for it during the GGTF case, but wasn't. He only ended up being blocked during the Lightbreather case because he admitted that he had done it. Otherwise he might still be editing.
Something systemic is happening here. As a result of those cases and many other examples Wikipedia now has a terrible reputation for being sexist. (See this selection of stories.) Rather than arguing about which details various journalists got wrong, we should focus on what they got right and how we can fix it.
Sarah
On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 8:45 AM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Francesca,
It seems a shame that an Arbcom case in which one person was blocked for offwiki harassment and another would have been if the evidence had been conclusive has been reported as if they'd decided instead to spare the harasser for privacy reasons.
As Thryduulf put it "there is no doubt that had we been able to conclusively connect the perpetrator to a Wikipedia account that action would have been taken (almost certainly a site ban)."
You could point her to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Lightbreat...
A story warning mysogynists that Arbcom will and has acted against those it catches would have made it easier to attract women to wikipedia and deter misogynists.
WSC
-- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
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