On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 3:26 AM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
When we talk about real out-of-wiki harassment, we should also keep in mind that the experts here are really the police. We should be encouraging victims to reach out to the authorities for help, and not pretend that a community of volunteer editors can really solve these problems.
The police will only deal with the most serious of cases. They're not going to get involved in a case where people are speculating on websites as to whether a woman wants to be raped, what kind of underwear she wears, and how many people she had to sleep with to get a job. This kind of talk has led to me receiving threats of violence, and even death, by e-mail, but they're from throwaway accounts, and there's no telling whether there's serious intent; in fact, there almost certainly isn't, but who knows whether there will be one day. The police need to see something solid before they can act.
In the meantime, it would help enormously if the Foundation would prevent wikiprojects from actually *helping* the people who are targeting volunteers -- for example, by promoting them to bureaucrat on other projects, or to admin on Wikipedia; by making sure their websites aren't on the spam list; by allowing their harassment to be discussed and linked to on Wikipedia -- which is what's currently happening.
Sarah