One reliable way to silence people when they experience harassment as well as keeping others from speaking out, is to have them experience how other, non-involved people, would immediately have an opinion on what happened and judge the case or the person in question. This is what has happened here. It is furthermore, absolutely out of proportion to weigh ones personal irritation about some members being potentially more aware and sensitive of this topic, against a context in which harassment and violence is not the exception, but everyday reality.
 


Transparency is the only way forward, a process where a known, trusted, and respected community member is sanction behind closed doors by a group of faceless, nameless individuals is never going to produce a trusted outcome.    One immediate re action would be to publish for every event, a list of the people who are responsible for the decisions.   When they make a decision they must be able to immediately defend that decision and the actions taken, all parties must be clear on the reasons otherwise we do end with what took place. Its this lack of transparency, understanding, and silence that has brought us to this point.


  In the world most of us live in, offensive or invasive behavior has no tangible consequences for those who commit it, but severe effects on those who experience it

Even in this community  it takes place,  its seams to me we spend a lot of time learning but very little time understanding because we keep finding transparency is a common issue when things go astray.


On 30 July 2018 at 06:15, Pine W <wiki.pine@gmail.com> wrote:

I have no personal knowledge of the recent events at Wikimania, and I will speak about only the general principles involved.


True.  But for privacy and other reasons, it is impractical to make friendly-space violations a matter of public debate,

Please provide evidence that backs up that point. I have repeatedly seen similar assertions made by WMF staff with no data or analysis to support it.
 
so we cannot resolve this the wiki way.  Instead, we *have* to trust the people entrusted with enforcing the policy that they are careful, sensible, and competent.

I wholeheartedly disagree. I don't trust judges to put people in jail simply because they happen to be judges. I trust judges to put people in jail after the publication of convincing evidence and reasoning to support their intended course of action.

The standard of evidence required to remove someone from office, or remove them from an event, can be lower than the standard required to put someone in jail, but I still want mostly transparent due process to happen so that:

1. people who allege that misconduct has taken place have significant visibility into how their complaints are handled and thus, hopefully, can have confidence that the accusations are investigated in a responsible manner instead of being carelessly dismissed, and
2. people are not victimized with clearly false or poorly supported accusations that the authorities recklessly use as a basis for issuing sanctions instead of conducting a responsible investigation.

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )

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Out now: A.Gaynor, P. Newman and P. Jennings (eds.), Never Again: Reflections on Environmental Responsibility after Roe 8, UWAP, 2017.  Order here.