I'm not aware of anyone who admits to being a peace officer who contributes, though I'm sure some are out there. Assuming that they're near email when we need them is unwise. In terms of contacts... how big a rolodex did you have in mind? There are tens of thousands of police agencies in the US alone. Nobody actually maintains such a list. Law enforcement agencies can send each other electronic alerts these days, and are perfectly happy for you to report something happening in a remote location to your own local agency and have them forward the report over. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Responding_to_threats_of_harm We already encourage anyone who thinks there's a credible threat of violence or suicide to report it to authorities (either local to the threat, or to them), and also ANI so that others can take a look an help if justified. -george On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 9:28 PM, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd(a)yahoo.com> wrote: -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On 13/03/2008, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote: This is pretty much what the Met Police officer I dealt with told me when I reported another suicide threat back in October. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

I don't actually believe any of this should be codified. It is *not* a volunteers job to assess /OR/ report. They do so of their own accord, but we should not encourage it.

May even cause us problems if it is. If there's some policy somewhere that says editors should report threats of violence to the police, but for whatever reason nobody does and the violence gets carried out, would there be the possibility of lawsuits against editors for "failing their duty"?

On 13/03/2008, private musings <thepmaccount(a)gmail.com> wrote: Umm, yes. I find that the language of this proposed policy is too strong, and creates a moral imperative that is improper on Wikipedia. As editors, none of us are obligated to do *anything* on Wikipedia, and our responsibility ends with things we actually do (edit articles, block users, comment on a policy, etc.). It is unacceptable to create the sense that anyone would have a real-world obligation to report something to authorities simply because they are Wikipedia readers/editors. At best, this should be a guideline, and only when the language is watered down so that it says things like "encouraged but not obligated" and recognises that editors are not *required* to carry out any specific actions. I've posted comments to the proposal as well. Risker _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

At best, this should be a guideline, and only when the language is watered down so that it says things like "encouraged but not obligated" and recognises that editors are not *required* to carry out any specific actions.

Bryan Derksen wrote: | In hindsight it was | obviously an attention-getting mechanism, if you seriously intend to | kill yourself you don't bring it up with friends before doing it, but of | course one should never treat it as such.) No, per <http://www.suicide.org/suicide-myths.html>, "People who commit suicide usually talk about it first. They are in pain and oftentimes reach out for help because they do not know what to do and have lost hope.", and "There are almost always warning signs."

Please disregard that MFD I posted here, it was premature and in appropriate. I apologize. ./scream