Hi Neotarf,
(0) There is a policy that compromised accounts may be blocked; I was
referring to the self-motivation of the people involved in trying to
address, investigate, and mitigate the security problems which includes,
but extends well beyond, temporary blocks of affected accounts. Please keep
in mind that Wikimedia community members have no "affirmative duties" to
involve themselves in most situations; the administrators and other
community members who took action had no one telling them "do this or
else". People were self-motivated to help. Also, I generally believe that
the WMF staff who were involved took action because they wanted to do so,
not merely because it was part of their jobs.
(1) I'm aware of that dialogue. I will be interested to see what emerges.
There are some other training initiatives that have been developed, such as
The Wikipedia Adventure and Wiki Ed's training for students and
instructors; also, WMF Support and Safety is developing a few training
modules about harassment and the handling of private information.
(2) I think we may be talking about different things. I was referring to
technical administrative tools; I think you are referring to community
processes like arbitration. I follow the news about ENWP Arbcom, but try to
stay away from it most of the time. I feel that Arbcom work involves a lot
of drama, and I have a lot of appreciation for the people who volunteer to
serve on Arbcom and try to do a good job.
(3) As I understand the situation with regard to laws about harassment,
outing, and related issues, the problem has as much to do with a lack of
law-enforcement resources as it does with antiquated laws and practices.
Katherine and WMF Legal may be able to comment in more depth. I would like
to see more intervention in the limited circumstances where it might be
helpful, and I hope that there are practical ways to make progress in that
area.
I'm hoping that Katherine will also have some comments.
Pine
On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 8:01 AM, Neotarf <neotarf(a)gmail.com> wrote:
@Pine, there are indeed rules for addressing security
breeches, "A block
for protection may be necessary in response to:...an account appearing to
have been compromised (as an emergency measure), i.e. there is some reason
to believe the account is being used by someone other than the person who
registered the account." This is a policy, not a guideline. (1)
To address your other points:
1. There was just a discussion of this concluded on meta. (2) If there is
something else you feel should be covered, it may be worthwhile to start a
new discussion on the talk page.
2. This is already being done. For reference see Kevin Gorman's comments
here: (3) And I would urge anyone who is thinking of responding to this
line of discussion to read Kevin's comments carefully first. "For
reference, I moderate our Gender Gap mailing list, I seriously regularly
receive twenty to thirty emails a week related to Wikipedia-related
problems from women who do not want to participate in any of our official
processes because of what happens to them when they do."
3. If there are any laws that are not being enforced, I would be
interested to know what they are--failing that, what laws should be in
place.
(1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Protection
(2)
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement/
Leadership_Development_Dialogue
(3)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Danielle_Citron_speaks_
at_WikiConference_USA_2015#Question_.231:_Official_Wiki_
process_and_banning_all_the_women
On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 1:36 AM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for those notes. I'm boldly pinging
Katherine here in case she'll
want to respond to these comments.
On the subject of harassment, I was one of the many people today, mainly
administrators and WMF staff, trying to address incidents of compromised
Wikimedia accounts that have happened in the recent past. One of the things
I noticed was how cooperative the (mostly male) loose cohort of people was
in our response to these incidents. It crossed my mind to wonder how we
could take this same civil approach that many of us responding to this
incident seem to share, and propagate that same civility through the
Wikimedia community. I'm not sure that more rules (as Katherine seems to be
implying; correct me if I'm wrong) is the way to make that happen. I don't
think any of us addressing these security incidents acted as we did because
someone told us we were required to do so; we were self-motivated to act as
we did. Rather than setting a floor for behavior with rules and
expectations (which are difficult to define; how does one define
"civility", for example, especially in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual
environment?), I'm wondering if we should instead set aspirational goals,
and emphasize norms rather than rules.
Administrators and other folks in the Wikimedia law-enforcement
establishment can, and do, block people on a regular basis for problematic
behavior. The behavior that Katherine described in her speech is already
against countless Wikimedia rules (and probably some real-life laws), but
unfortunately all of these rules and all of the enforcement from
administrators (who do a lot of enforcement already) is not stopping the
kind of situation that Katherine described in her speech.
Instead of writing yet more expectations and rules, I'd rather see us
look at:
1. Goals and norms. I think that a way to make progress in that regard is
by better training and acculturation.
2. Better administrative tools, to help keep out the people that
administrators and other people with enforcement authority have already
decided should be excluded from Wikimedia sites.
3. Additional real-life legal enforcement in the limited circumstances
where that seems likely to help a situation.
Pine
On Sat, Nov 12, 2016 at 5:02 PM, Neotarf <neotarf(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Transcript and video of Katherine Maher speaking
on "Privacy and
Harassment on the Internet" at MozFest 2016 is now up on Wikisource.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Katherine_Maher_at_MozFest_2016
Slides from Maher's Oct 9 keynote at Wikiconference North America 2016
"Building an Inclusive Movement" are posted on Commons, but I don't
believe
a video is available.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik
i/File:WikiConference_North_America_2016_-_Katherine_Maher_
keynote_presentation.pdf
_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please
visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please
visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please
visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap