Anne, you're absolutely right on the 'high profile'. The broader the reach,
impact, exposure, the more likely you are to become the target of good and
bad 'attention'. The question is, much like in real-life, the higher up you
are in an organization the more 'support' and/or protection you will likely
need/get, as a community should we be able to insure a similar mechanism.
This community resilience won't be built on a MadMax
fighting-your-way-through model (I know it's rather dramatic :)
My interest is around capacity building, right now I'm trying to understand
why we're having such a hard time engaging and on-boarding half of the
world's population (women).
Sylvia
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 9 May 2013 16:34:35 -0400
From: Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com>
To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects
<gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Accidental Troll Policy - beyond gender gap
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CAPXs8yQyxUwuWPhHakXBDK6Npzyn+AWZWxjHEicd6ooXUido8A(a)mail.gmail.com>
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What a lovely and thoughtful essay, Sylvia.
For my part, I see a significant difference between sharing information
with people I choose to share information with, and posting my personal
details on a publicly accessible, top-10 website, where the people most
likely to abuse that information don't even need to log in to see it, and
where there are no privacy control options.
I have always gone to significant trouble to keep my personal information
to myself. I don't "do" facebook, or twitter, or google+. Several of my
family members (who share my rather obscure surname) have been subjected to
telephone calls, facebook and twitter messages intended to harass *me*. I
do not participate in media interviews or any surveys where my personal
information would be included. I don't participate on websites where I know
personal information of wikipedians is exchanged, and in fact rarely access
them and then only with an anonymizing proxy. For all intents and
purposes, I only participate regularly on one non-WMF website/forum....and
sure enough, at one point someone tracked down my account there and
manipulated other forum members to provide information about me, which was
later used to try to blackmail me in my role as an English Wikipedia
arbitrator.
Those worries are real, and these events do happen; however, much of it
relates to how "high profile" someone is. One of the biggest downsides in
being amongst the small number of self-identifying women on WMF sites is
the fact that we become higher profile simply because of our rarity. The
overwhelming majority of Wikimedians are never bothered in these ways; I'd
suggest that it's probably less than 1% of us who have been so aggressively
dealt with. But when it happens, and especially if it's out of the blue,
it is an horrendous experience.
Risker/Anne
On 9 May 2013 14:58, Sylvia Ventura <sylvia.ventura(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I command Sarah, Sarah, Anne and few other women
and men commenting on
this list for their tireless work trying to move the needle. I wish I had
seen more movement/women coming forward and stepping up – but I would not
be surprised if many of us were…. uncomfortable. I know I am.
or simply burned out … which seems to be the case.
I had to think long and hard about writing this. Sarah, once again is
trying to be constructive by creating momentum and a page
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_gap/Policy_revolution to capture
and focus conversations. I think it's a great initiative but I also think
the problem we're dealing with is more systemic and might need
a tougher conversation.
How can we 'speak openly' in a forum like "Policy Revolution" when a
few
of us are playing a different game – most folks here use their real
identities, take their contribution work at heart, we know who we are.
But
then we have the Ghosts, those hiding behind the
cloak of “Privacy”
(perverse effect of a well-meant policy I am sure) while
trolling, harassing, messing with images/content with impunity. If we are
serious about creating a broader more sustainable more representative
participation to the projects the WMF folks (those with some level of
mandate) need to seriously revise the community’s rules of engagement and
stand behind it.
A have been sitting on this note (below) for a while, I understand the
need for privacy in the context of political/individual/speech freedom
and
to insure personal safety in some cases. This
group is composed of some
of
the smartest people on the planet, we surely can
come up with some
mechanism to protect those who need protection (anonymity) while
creating a
healthy, open, constructive, environment.
== NB: this was written shortly after Hersfold resignation, focuses on
harassment but its relevant to all questionable behavior.==
Accidental troll policy
My ID was recently deleted on Meta-Wiki, the reason given was: wait for
it… Vandalism. Little than I knew I had breached protocol – as a newbie I
had created a page on Meta and had clearly broken the rules. Or was it,
since then, I learned that your individual history (been
banned/suspended,
etc…) determines your capacity of progressing in
the ranks of WP – so
this
might have been purely accidental or not.
But back to my point, after being notified of my ban, as a good citizen
and a steward of open-culture I felt it was my duty to get educated. I
checked the Wikipedia’s user policy. What I found was lengthy, detailed
but
overall clear. Except for a portion that was
particularly unsettling.
The
one about “Use of Real Name and Harassment”.
[[excerpt: use of real name
may make a contributor more vulnerable to issues such as harassment<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Harassment>gt;,
both on and off Wikipedia]]
After reading the posting about the Resignation of arbitrator Hersfold<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hersfold>in yesterday’s Signpost I
can’t let go of the idea that the policy might
actually enable the very problem it is trying to
avoid <harassment> by
perpetuating the culture of obscurity and by allowing trolls to hide
behind
anonymity.
In an era where information is a commodity, where online traceability is
child’s play for anyone with rudimentary tech skills I can’t imagine that
concealing one’s real-life identity on Wikipedia will minimize the
incidence of harassment. The reasons for Hersfold<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hersfold>resignation againshed a
gloomy light on this. Granted, arbitration is a “hot seat” to hold
but unless we are willing to put in place a
“witness protection program”
style for wikipedians involved in conflict resolution, it will be
impossible to prevent this from happening again.
So the question I’m thorn with is who’s really benefiting from the
“Privacy - no Real name Policy”? The folks trying to do their job
sensibly
and seeking some distance between their work on
Wikipedia and their
personal lives/families/jobs or the trolls that haven’t yet found that
clear boundary and are, by design, allowed to create a toxic and
unwelcoming environment.
Looking at it from the other end. What if the system promoted total
transparency? Where everyone in it is really who they say they are. A
system where real-life ID is tied to the online work, no place to hide,
where the very act of signing up and becoming a wikipedian is a pledge
for
civility, respect and trust. Where personal
status is a currency based on
both hard and soft skills, (number/quality of contributions and the
manner
in which we interact with each other). Maybe you
get to play anonymously
for a while but if you want to get serious and become a ‘ranked’
wikipedian
tell us who you are.
I honestly don’t know how much implementation of a formal vetting system
would violate the foundation’s DNA – and it might - but knowing what
mechanisms/policies facilitate harassment will help us find solutions to
prevent it from perpetuating. In this case ‘anonymity’ could be a weak
link.
How about associating a Wikipedia ID to a mobile phone number at sign up,
send the access code and instructions to new users before they get
started
– à la craigslist. If this is not acceptable
let’s find another way to
tie in real-life ID with Wikipedia’s ID and keep the community healthy,
truly open and safe. Who do we risk losing by getting to know who we are?
The trolls – yes. because there will be no place to hide and play big
bad
wolf. Who do we attract? Potentially everyone
that has once considered
contributing to Wikipedia but found it to be unsafe and off-putting.
Some might argue: “look, this is not a social club, this is how we’ve
always done it, grow a skin or move along”. I’d say: totally agree,
institutional knowledge is important, let’s keep the good - and there is
plenty - and shed the bad. Wikipedia has evolved greatly in the past 10
years and so has the world, and general expectations for social
interactions have changed. We are steadily losing some and still missing
many voices on Wikipedia. Clearly harassment is not the chief cause, but
since *people* are the most important part (asset) of Wikipedia, we need
to
start developing a much-needed social protocol
and insure the free flow
of
knowledge over ethos.
Sylvia
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